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what your vision is for this company and where you plan on going?

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Yeah, so the long term vision for the strategic veteran is to become a SkillBridge program.

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SkillBridge is a six month kind of career path right now that they offer to military,

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transitioning military people.

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There's like 12 different tracks.

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Some examples are UI, UX design, Salesforce, sales, all kinds of human resources,

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project management.

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They've got all kinds of tracks for that, but there's not one for entrepreneurship

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and really kind of building your own thing that aligns with your core beliefs and values.

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So the long term vision is to become a SkillBridge program that veterans can take the

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opportunity their last six months in the military to go through a program and have a

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really good idea and a really good start on a business of their own or achieve a bunch of

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different skills to be better intrapreneurs as well.

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Do you get an opportunity to go back to, you know, where your last, the people that you

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were with, you know, in the military and talk to them?

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Have you gotten an opportunity to tell them what you're doing?

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I mean, I know a close knit people.

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It's a funny story.

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To answer your question, I have a pretty unique journey and I don't know how much time we

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have.

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I read the emails and know we're supposed to keep things short, but in the interest of

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explaining the whole thing, I was challenged to start something on LinkedIn in November,

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late October, early November of last year.

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And I was just to post every day and engage with five people.

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And through that process, I developed everything that I have now.

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The strategic veteran was born through that.

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So what really gave me my break was I got a chance through Thomas McKenzie, who is

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Allegiant Vets.

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He's one of the C-suite guys at Allegiant Vets and they have a SkillBridge program.

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And he asked me to come present as a presenter on one of their Tuesdays because he liked

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what I was doing.

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From that, I had in a breakout room, I had like 400 people come.

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I ended up with like 300 followers, booked several meetings and that really drove home

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that I had a good idea and that this was needed and solving an actual problem.

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And so everything has just evolved from that.

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So yes, kind of, I've had a chance to get in front of veterans, but most of this has

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been bootstrapped by me building my following.

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You might find this interesting.

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I started with 93 followers in LinkedIn in November.

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I'm over 2,600 now.

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So I know that's not like super impressive growth, but it's still just a testament that

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if you put your head down, take massive action and follow your intuition, that you will actually

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build something meaningful.

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How do leaders lean into funding their vision?

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So what's your idea and your thought process in being able to fund this vision?

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And I learned yesterday from another podcastor, funding doesn't often just mean monetarily,

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right?

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It also means time and everything else.

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So please share with me your answer to that question.

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Yes.

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So I'll just use my business as an example.

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Everything is self-funded right now.

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So that either includes money or time.

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A lot of it is time.

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I have structured my finances in such a way that allows me to do this as many hours a

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day as I possibly can, seven days a week.

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So that looks like not spending excessive money on stuff anymore.

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It really means paying attention to your budget, really looking at the tools that you're going

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to use to build your business.

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I took it as far as we're a one vehicle household.

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I don't need a car.

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It's a liability.

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It's a distraction.

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I like to drive, so I'll find any excuse I can to go get in that car.

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So my wife and I are kind of the outliers in this situation and getting out, we don't have

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kids.

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We just have two dogs.

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So for those people who do have kids and do need to support their family, I tell them

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it's okay to get a job, but understand that that job is going to fund building your business.

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And you have to keep that in mind.

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So it's really up to you.

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And that's why I like entrepreneurs so much, because it just allows you to control every

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aspect of your life.

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Then you have nobody to blame for failure or success, but you have to be careful.

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But yourself.

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That is awesome.

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So when you say for, I guess that would be a great connection and probably connections

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you've already made, which is to, for those that you say, if you can get a job, because

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that will fuel the funding for your vision and your entrepreneurship, have you linked

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with some job searching companies or individuals that could help in that area, that could gather

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that piece so you can take care of the other piece?

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So I actually, I have, I've built a pretty solid network.

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There is a veteran that I have in my network who has created a resume tool that takes your

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military experience and uses the links from job postings to tailor a resume that will

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make you more competitive in the job market.

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So there's people out there that are building tools for military people.

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There are plenty of people on LinkedIn where you can find a job as a military person.

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So I don't, I'm very anti getting a job.

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So for me, it's not something that I ever want to, I guess, encourage.

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I'm not against it in the sense that if that's what you have to do to provide for your family,

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then I understand that you need to do that.

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But you also need to understand that a job will make you comfortable and it's really

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easy to stay comfortable.

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And in order to build a business and something that is yours, you have to be okay getting

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uncomfortable.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time

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and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.