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For Veterans by Veterans. Discover and execute on the most important mission of your life. Join host, Mike Bledsoe, as he delves into transformative journeys, exploring the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from military to civilian life. Through compelling stories and expert insights, we uncover the keys to personal growth, resilience, and purposeful living.
Mike Bledsoe (00:02)
Welcome to the Mission After podcast, where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe. Our guest today is Michael Anders, a US Marine Corps veteran who served from 2008 to 2012. Michael is the founder of Next Level Performance Consulting and has coached 4 ,000 men and women since 2011.
With nearly 25 years of strategic leadership experience and multiple graduate degrees from Arizona State and Thunderbird School of Global Management, Michael understands the challenges leaders face in balancing achievement with personal wellbeing. He found a next level performance consulting to empower leaders to prioritize their health, eliminate stress, and create alignment between their habits and behaviors, allowing them to be present for what truly matters, health, wealth,
relationships and time. Michael's vision is a world in which leadership as their best version of themselves, living in abundance and fulfillment as a coach and motivational speaker. He has numerous, he has been featured on numerous platforms, including radio business X podcast, barbell shrug, barbell business, Jim Lords, Theta wave paradise Valley lifestyle magazine, team red, team red, white and blues, the Eagle podcast, and is a regular.
regularly featured speaker for Charles Schwab and Amazon. By the end of this episode, you'll discover three major takeaways. One, the importance of mentorship for veterans transitioning to civilian life and investing in personal growth for business. Two, how continuous learning and the speed of implementation are key factors in achieving high performance and resilience. And three, the value of transferring military skills to civilian contexts, building relationships,
and adapting to new ways of thinking for success in business and life. But before we dive in, I'm gonna tell you about our new resource available at themissionafter .org. It's called the 10 Surprising Military Habits That Are Sabotaging Your Career and Your Life. This guide will help you identify and overcome those habits, so be sure to download it at themissionafter .org. Now let's get into the conversation with Michael
Mike Bledsoe (02:14)
So we've podcasted before but on your show you know my show
Mycal Aners (02:18)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (02:23)
And now we're talking about veterans and actually interviewed your brother as well. I'm pretty sure that'll post before this one comes out.
Mycal Aners (02:33)
I can't wait. I just mentioned it briefly. He said that it went really, really well. He was really happy with your interviewing style and the conversation you guys had. So, but that's as deep as we got.
Mike Bledsoe (02:48)
Okay, well, you'll get to hear it. He did excellent. Yeah, we were warming up for the show and you were mentioning how you... I'll let you share, but it's interesting like where you came from. I think a lot of times people get out of the military that may have like your background and then jump into... They want to get into some type of leadership development for other people.
Mycal Aners (02:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (03:17)
And you've been out for how long?
Mycal Aners (03:21)
I left active duty in 2012, so 12 years.
Mike Bledsoe (03:24)
It's been 12 years and so, yeah, I'm curious about yourself, like the types of opportunities you're experiencing now and the types of opportunities you were pursuing previously and how all that went.
Mycal Aners (03:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, so, man, it's been an interesting journey the last 12 years. I knew for sure that I was gonna get out and open a gym. And my original intention was to go to grad school. So I got into ASU for grad school so I could get my masters in exercise and wellness and walk across the stage and go open a gym. So a two year timeline, give or take.
And eight months, I left the Marines in February, got a job as a trainer at a high end country club out here in Scottsdale. And eight months later, my investor showed up and just basically asked me, hey, you ever thought about opening your own place? And I was like, yeah, let me tell you about my dream. And she was like, I want to help you make that happen. And.
I waffled because now I'm two months in to the first semester of grad school and I feel like.
Happy Gilmore, you know, I'm the old dude with these young kids who went straight from bachelor's to grad school. And in the six years between my undergrad and this master's program, everything had evolved from pencil and paper to laptops and digital. So I show up to my first class. I'll never forget this. So it's my first class.
pencil and paper, like a good Marine. I'm 15 minutes early on gunny time. And all these kids show up and the laptops are hitting the table. And instead of pull out your textbooks and turn to page, blah, blah, blah. She was like, log into da da da da asu .edu. And I was like, I am so screwed right now. So I sat through that class looking like a caveman trying to wreck.
You know, I'm like, you know, hammer in the chisel. And my next stop was Best Buy to go get myself a laptop. I had no idea what I was doing. And that's that's really how my there's a through line in my my journey and entrepreneurship as well. I came out of the Marines. I knew everything there is to know about helping people sweat and smile. I knew nothing about business. Right. And there's the school of hard knocks that is just
building the airplane off the cliff. And then, you know, it's very much like when I was a football player and I became a coach, all of a sudden the stuff that I did as a player started to make sense. Even the shit that I hated or didn't understand from, you know, why is coach making us do this? And I was like, yeah, that's why we do it. Okay, that makes sense. You know, kind of walk in a mile in someone else's shoes kind of thing. And the...
Mike Bledsoe (06:34)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (06:43)
how things have evolved in next level, I got really curious about, you know, we would lose, we'd help clients lose 40 pounds. They'd get off their blood pressure medication. They'd, you know, go tackle something that was physically impossible prior to, and they would do all these things. It had these tangible results and still be miserable. Their relationships would suck.
They don't, their self -talk was still awful. I was like, what? That doesn't make any sense to me. And in reflecting on my own personal growth and development journey, I realized that I had also in a self -motivated way, put myself through a lot of the...
tactics and strategies of resilience and curating my circle in my environment so that I could show up at my highest expression.
But I had been doing it for me. I hadn't become a student of the game in the same way that I was an athlete turned coach, Marine turned leader, trainer turned business owner. So I got even more curious and I got into these rooms and not as a participant, but as a student. And what do I need to learn?
How does Michael need to evolve to be able to facilitate this result in others? And that became what we do now with next level for our clients. And what that's manifested, what's that turning into now? I had a lunch with my professor who recruited me into business school just to catch up. And it turned into a preliminary interview because I'm sharing with him this evolution of...
No, it's not just your physical fitness that like that that that is a symptom of something else and good or bad, by the way. And.
Mike Bledsoe (08:54)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (08:58)
what we do now in leadership and character development, he was like, hmm, can you teach that? That is something that is missing in the business curriculum that in the way that we do it, you know, from your physical preparedness, which clears your emotional being, which gives you the mental clarity to show up as your highest expression, your spiritual self, if you will.
Mike Bledsoe (09:15)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (09:28)
And he was like, nobody's, nobody's teaching it that way. And how that applies to being an effective leader. I think you'd bring a lot of value to the table. So right now I'm in the middle of course, constructing a curriculum around that.
Mike Bledsoe (09:44)
Yeah, I remember this makes me think about, that's awesome by the way. That's like, that's, you've come so far in that, you know, getting out of the Marines in 2012 and then you're like, well, I'm just going to be a personal trainer. I don't know what to do next. I might as well go to school.
Mycal Aners (09:49)
Thank you.
Mike Bledsoe (10:13)
Gotta learn something there. And for anyone who's been out and gone to school, you quickly realize that whatever you went to school for may give you like 5 % of a head start ahead of someone who didn't go to school. Because like most of what it is is learn through experience. And it reminds me of, I think it was around 2009.
Mycal Aners (10:30)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (10:42)
been in business. I had my CrossFit gym. I had opened it in 2007. And I remember looking at my business partner, Doug, at the time. And I was like, dude, business would be so cool if it weren't for the people. And...
Mycal Aners (10:54)
For those of you who haven't done this dance yet, that's an extremely profound statement.
Mike Bledsoe (11:04)
I was just so frustrated by like, because people are the variable, right? And so like, business is actually like really simple. If that one variable were taken out, it's like, yeah, this leads to this and this leads to this. And it becomes like a math equation. But you enter in people and then, you know, and that was 2009 and I was starting to learn about business and.
Mycal Aners (11:14)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (11:34)
And now I'm like, business is people. Like, the...
Mycal Aners (11:39)
man, say it louder for the people in the back. It is, it is everything. It, I've had this conversation now that we're in this, this AI revolution and you know, the, one of the things they talked about in business schools, this fourth industrial revolution and how all the hands on stuff, the, the, the, the monotonous assembly line type stuff is going to be automated.
to a great extent, da da da da da, this doomsday, the Terminator is coming type stuff. And to a degree, for sure that's true, and still, you gotta navigate people. People are the consumers, AI's not the consumer. The infrastructure is still gonna be driven by people.
Mike Bledsoe (12:11)
Mm -hmm.
No.
Mycal Aners (12:34)
you know, as much as point and click as, you know, they're making it out to become, we're still here. So what happens to us? You know, the deliverable still comes to us. The driver of said deliverable is still us.
Mike Bledsoe (12:55)
Yeah, we create the demand. We create the demand and it gets to be met. And yeah, AI is still just a tool. It's just really advanced computing at this point is the way I look at it. There's not a, yes, it's gonna replace some jobs and it just requires that people be adaptable. Yeah.
Mycal Aners (13:01)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Well, they have to be and it's been proven over and over and over. Now we're just looking at it from a digital technology perspective. But when the refrigerator came along, ice houses died and those people had to evolve. Cars replaced horse and buggy. Those people had to evolve. And it's actually a very...
Mike Bledsoe (13:33)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, people didn't have to shovel so much shit off the roads anymore. Now, yeah, when there was a horse and buggy, there were people having to shovel shit off the road, you know? Where'd that job go?
Mycal Aners (13:45)
Also that, right? Yeah, but you know, and when you look at it, like, my God, what happened to the people, what happened to the economy? Nothing. They evolved. They went and did something different. You know, so the, where I guess my faith and you know, maybe it is naive optimism lies is that the, we will adapt and continue to move things forward.
Mike Bledsoe (14:15)
Yeah, as a human race we will. But the individual, that's a different story. I was watching a documentary.
I didn't watch the whole thing. I watched a piece of it, which was basically they were talking about how the trucking industry, a very large percentage of people who are employed in America are truckers. I mean, all you gotta do is drive cross country one time and you're like, holy shit, these trucks are everywhere. And...
Mycal Aners (14:32)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (14:50)
They were interviewing these truckers and they go well, you know self -driving trucks are coming and they go well we know It's it's become obvious We know that they're coming like what are you gonna do? And they go? Well, I don't know and they go is there another skill that you're gonna prepare to learn or whatever and a lot of them were just like no
Mycal Aners (14:57)
Mm -hmm.
Did you just hang it?
Mike Bledsoe (15:09)
They just weren't, they're just not interested in learning something new. And so it was just a very interesting mentality to witness and go, you just want to drive trucks. You actually don't want to learn anything new. So yes, humanity will be good. And I think we each got to check on ourselves and go, am I willing to learn new skills and adapt?
Mycal Aners (15:14)
Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (15:38)
as this world is changing so quickly.
Mycal Aners (15:40)
I think that's so interesting because you and I are and the circles that we run in, we're surrounded by forever learners. The idea of learning something new to move an idea forward or progress in business or move the mission, right? Is...
Mike Bledsoe (15:51)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (16:08)
Not a wild idea. It's necessary. You know?
Mike Bledsoe (16:15)
Yeah, I've been through some lulls where I go, man, I really would prefer just not learn anything new right now and I want a break. But then I get bored and I go, OK, time to learn something new or necessity occurs and the business demands it goes, wow, the revenue keeps going down month over month. OK, you should probably do something about that. The old old tricks aren't working anymore. Yeah.
Mycal Aners (16:31)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm hmm. I have, I have certain triggers that can help me manage that flow. When I find myself in this chronic state of learning, but, and I catch myself not doing anything with the information. It's like, okay, time to put the books down and just go do for a while. And then,
Mike Bledsoe (16:58)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (17:11)
in the application of that knowledge, when I hit my next wall, where I'm limited by that knowledge or those skills, well, then it's like, okay, time to get back in the books.
Mike Bledsoe (17:25)
Yeah, there's a concept I took on a while back that helps me with that, which is learning is behavior change. And so there's another concept we teach inside of the mission after early on in the curriculum, which is speed of implementation. And so those two concepts, speed of implementation was a term that was coined during...
Mycal Aners (17:31)
Mmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (17:52)
some research, they were looking at Fortune 500 companies and they were trying to figure out what separated out the high performers from the low performers in business. And through a lot of surveys, and they basically found that the people who were willing to fail fast were the ones that were high performers. It's called fail fast, fail forward. And it's because they were implementing what they were learning immediately.
Mycal Aners (18:17)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (18:18)
So one of the things I've taken on is, OK, if I read a chapter out of a book and I go, OK, instead of sitting with it going, OK, well, how does this apply to this? Let's see if I can just try it out real quick. And so, yeah, that speed of implementation is something that's what that makes me think about. It's like, OK. and then learning equals behavior change is.
That's just like, I noticed that there's so many people are like, I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm learning. I'm going to school, I'm doing this or I'm doing that. And I go, that's, you're taking in information, but I wouldn't classify it as learning. And the reason I make that distinction is because people do put the idea of learning on this pedestal as if it's a good thing. And so if you want to believe that learning is a good thing, we might as well make it a good thing.
Mycal Aners (19:03)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (19:18)
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (19:21)
You know, but going back to your original question, like, how do we get here? I did a lot of work on me to afford me the credibility and the visibility to be at that table with this professor.
and this opportunity to, at the very least, create a curriculum, which I think is super dope. It's a great exercise of, if nothing else, it's a worthwhile thought exercise that's in alignment with everything that we do. You know, all of that is, that encounter is the result of the last 12 years. That might inherit the,
Mike Bledsoe (19:57)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (20:14)
credibility as a Marine does not get me by default does not get me a seat at that table. And I think that I have friends who have gotten out and thought that based on their resume and their chest candy that they're entitled to be at tables like that.
and they immediately have the credibility to move an initiative like that forward. And in theory, yes, in reality, no, because to your, you know, something you said earlier, you know, business is people and you're dealing with different people. It's, it's, it's way it to rely on your, your rank to move a mission forward and
Like nobody, nobody questioned you. That's totally different when you get out here and people all of a sudden have questions when you give a directive. Like, Hey, yeah. Hey, hey, hey, sir. Why, why are we doing that? And I remember, I remember this in my journal. I was like, what do you mean? Why? You know, I, my, my ego said, because I said so. And.
Mike Bledsoe (21:19)
Yeah, he's basically not even allowed to ask questions.
Right.
Mycal Aners (21:37)
You know, you can only stumble through that so many times before you realize, it's not them. It's me. Whoops.
Mike Bledsoe (21:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was first working with fitness clients, I was like, yeah, only a small percentage of people are getting results. The ones that just do what I tell them to do. And then it took me, it took me like another five years to realize like, a good coach is the one that helps the people who don't do what you tell them to do to do it. Like the coach who's good is actually a great communicator.
Mycal Aners (22:13)
man.
Mike Bledsoe (22:14)
to all styles. It's not one of those things where I like, I only, I only work for 10 % of the people. It's like, no, no, no, you're not willing to, you're not willing to improve your communication if you're only working for a small percentage of people.
Mycal Aners (22:15)
Yes.
Yeah, it's not that you only work for 10 % of the people, you are limited to that 10%. That's the truth. Yeah. And that is one of the things I spend a lot of time in the leadership and character development end of what we do with our clients is challenging communication, challenging perspective.
Mike Bledsoe (22:32)
Mm -hmm.
What are you teaching 12 years later about leadership that you did not learn in the Marines?
Mycal Aners (22:56)
that I didn't, man, wow, that's a big question.
Mike Bledsoe (22:58)
Because I think there's this idea that leadership is a thing in the military, right? Which it is. There's some things, there are some leadership qualities that you have the opportunity to adopt into your world that's going to set you aside to be effective in ways that someone who's never been in the military is going to set you up in some ways. It's also going to help hold you back in a lot of ways.
Mycal Aners (23:07)
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Mike Bledsoe (23:29)
There are things that you learn that you need to unlearn. And I'm curious, now that you're teaching it, like you didn't start teaching leadership as soon as you got out of the Marines, right? So you had to learn some more things about leadership before you could teach it. Yeah, what I, there's probably, the look on your face tells me there was a lot, but yeah.
Mycal Aners (23:31)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's a lot. I mean, but there was a lot from just my own personal unlearning and relearning. But from a global perspective, in terms of what I'm teaching is meeting people where they're at. That has been the and communicating from a place of desired understanding. Because until until you bridge that gap, it doesn't matter what I say, you're not going to.
the message communicated is not the message received, which makes me a bad communicator. And from where I sit what's helped the most is asking more questions. And that can potentially create a lot of friction because in the asking of questions, you're also requesting of someone else to go internal a little bit so that...
Mike Bledsoe (24:25)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (24:50)
we understand why we're not hearing each other. So there's this give and take of introspection that's happening in real time that if you've done your job in the creation of rapport, the person you're speaking with will, uncomfortable as it may be, be willing to engage in that dialogue to create that understanding and then you can move something forward. But one of the...
Mike Bledsoe (24:53)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (25:19)
the leadership traits I walked out of the Marine Corps with is just do what I tell you and have faith that it's in service of the mission and the vision. And that is not the case out here.
Mike Bledsoe (25:31)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, I remember when the companies I was running, I experienced a lot of internal distress. Very successful company. I was experiencing a lot of internal distress because we were doing some new things and it was so clear to me that we should be doing these things.
And as I was explaining to everyone what we're going to be doing, they started asking me questions and I felt myself become furious. I experienced a lot of anger and the story that I was telling myself is they don't trust me because they don't just do whatever I tell them to do. I was like, look, I got us to where we are. Everyone's making a lot of money. We're having a great time.
Mycal Aners (26:26)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (26:34)
because you did what I said to do. That was part of my story. And so we got here because you followed me, which is accurate. There were some other factors too, but it was accurate. And I started presenting some new things that were challenging.
Mycal Aners (26:49)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (27:00)
And then people started asking a lot of questions. I found myself getting angry because I didn't feel like they trusted me. And I went to my leadership coach at the time and he's like, he's like, yeah, you, there's an opportunity for you to explain it better. You haven't explained it well enough. And I go, and then I, and then I go, okay, this is on me. I'm now it's on me to I'm responsible for communicating more effectively. And.
It was painful. It was a really painful process because I realized that I actually hadn't thought it all the way through. And the fact they were questioning was actually there. They were. It was like the organization is an organism and there is a large part of the organism that was going, I don't feel safe here. watch out danger. And.
Mycal Aners (27:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, yep.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (28:00)
it caused me to go into deeper reflection. So I finally, you know, I got to a point where I realized, I need to explain the vision, why we're doing the thing. I explained it over and over again. I need to work with the team to create a really solid strategy. The commune, tons of communication, tons and tons of communication.
Mycal Aners (28:18)
Yeah. How long did it take you to adopt the cause as I've experienced you in our God, almost a decade knowing each other now, you know, you've at least in my interaction with you, you've always had this.
Aura about you, this acceptance that the best idea wins. I've always experienced you to be humble that way. And that is something that...
I've known for quite some time, but also putting into that practice requires a shit ton of humility because what I mean, what I'm hearing in that interaction where you're initially experiencing anger and, and that requires you to take ownership and communicate better is where you succeeded is creating a culture of honest conflict.
as opposed to dishonest harmony. I've also heard it called presenteeism. I'm just here, I don't care about rocking the boat. Whatever you say, Mike, that's great. We'll just, sounds good, tell me what to do, as opposed to, help me understand why we're doing it this way so that, and if you trust your people, coming back to people again, you can bypass your ego.
Mike Bledsoe (29:34)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (29:51)
faster, not that it doesn't still exist, and trust that they're not challenging you. The intent is I want to do the most effective job possible, but these are the gaps in information that I need filled to do that.
Mike Bledsoe (29:54)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been, that's an interesting thing. You got me thinking about it is this journey because when I first got out, my way was the best way and I wasn't gonna do anything else.
Mycal Aners (30:19)
hahahahah
Mike Bledsoe (30:22)
And then I actually saw how much that hurt me. And I actually flip flop from being a, like a control freak of my way or no way to being like witnessing myself be wrong. And then, and then crossing to the other side of the spectrum of, you know what? I don't, I don't know of my way. Like I have an idea.
What do you guys think? And I actually went too far to the other side of the spectrum and that there was a... I became kind of too soft with it. And there was also a sense of entitlement from the people on my team that didn't have as much skin in the game as I had. And I felt this obligation that, you know, this was as much of theirs as it is mine, even though my...
my liability was higher. And I think this is kind of some of probably that doesn't get picked up in the military either is just like that you have to learn if you're a business owner, like how much, what do you, what's your liability and are you being rewarded for that liability?
Mycal Aners (31:41)
Well, that's so interesting that you say. I've actually never thought about it from this perspective in terms of the challenge of going from the military to into the civilian world, let alone business for yourself. In the military, we have the same skin in the game from the standpoint that whether you're washing toilets or you're coordinating fires in country, every decision is predicated on life or death.
Mike Bledsoe (31:58)
Mm -hmm. Mm.
Mycal Aners (32:08)
That dynamic, there's a hierarchy of liability now out here where it's whether it's who wrote the biggest check, who's got the biggest job, whatever there, there's layers to that statement, but that dynamic doesn't exist in the military. And we much to our own chagrin and guilty as charged, try to carry that forward out into the civilian sector.
Mike Bledsoe (32:38)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (32:39)
I've never thought about it that way. And wow, what a...
We can bring that to each other's consciousness. Holy shit. That's such a game changer. Cause now, cause then we can just accept the fact that it's not, it's not the people. It doesn't make them bad or any less effective or any whatever. Any, any, any less committed. The con the context has shifted. So yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (33:05)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, so I was treating it that way. I'm like, yeah, we're all equals on this team. So I went to the other side of the spectrum of like control freak my way or no way to we're all equals. You know, I implement like a meeting system where everyone gets to be heard. And I became very soft. I tend to go to the extreme on things, which I think is a gift for people who are teachers or who are coaches.
Because if you go to the extreme then you can work with people people who are anywhere in between So I mean really self and and the people I was working with became entitled and then when then Sometimes when it came to a decision, I made a game time decision They would get upset with it because we didn't do what they wanted to do even though it sounded like I was really Going along with what they wanted to do And then also there were times where I let you know staff who had?
very little skin in the game make decisions that weren't actually the best decisions, but I wanted them to feel like they were contributing. And that was also, that also, yeah, that ended up biting me in the ass. And so there was this pendulum that's swinging.
Mycal Aners (34:26)
Yeah, well, it's funny that you say that. I'm curious. I'm going to ask this question and then I'm going to say something. How long did it take you to stop swinging to the extremes before you kind of got more to the middle?
Mike Bledsoe (34:43)
I have no idea. It's like you don't know that you're in an extreme until you've left the extreme. And so I definitely feel way more centered now. I can hold both. I'm holding both. But you're not aware of what you're not aware of.
Mycal Aners (34:44)
Okay.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, because you're going back to what we're teaching in leadership that was not taught in the Marines until the until our clients, you know, your job is to lead, not to save. Your job is to empower, not to enable. And there's one of the traits that is just born of mission accomplishment by any means necessary is this mentality of fuck it. I'll do it myself. And we don't.
allow because we don't have the grace in ourselves, our people to go out and innovate by virtue of running out of ways to mess things up. And that can be costly done willy nilly, but at the same time, if you have people that are capable and competent in the right seats doing the right stuff, odds are it's gonna be a successful outcome. But as soon as that...
Mike Bledsoe (35:48)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (36:05)
needle isn't moving as fast as you want it to want it to or they're coming to you with too many questions that spike your anger like a previous version of Mike, then it's like, you know what? I'm just going to remove that responsibility from you completely and I'm going to add more to my plate of stuff that doesn't move us forward at all. And I can pound my chest because I did it. We got it and say we got it done.
Mike Bledsoe (36:26)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (36:34)
when all I did was rob you of an opportunity to grow. And now I've actually in leaning into that behavior over time, if not immediately, you're compromising the integrity of the organization.
Mike Bledsoe (36:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Can you walk us through, so 2012 you get out, personal trainer, open a gym. Yeah, walk us through some of that. Because I think it's good for people to know because a lot of people, this happens with people who get out of college too. Like you get out of college, I got a degree, and they're like supposed to start at six figures. It's like, yeah, that's probably ain't gonna happen.
Mycal Aners (37:00)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Well, if that's what you want to do, don't start a business.
Mike Bledsoe (37:25)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, even even that's not realistic. People get these marketing. Yeah, there's this woman on TikTok that went viral that was talking about like, you know, I was supposed to I went into, you know, $150 ,000 in debt to get this marketing degree. I got my whatever in marketing. And, you know, I applied to this job and they said I didn't have enough experience. And she goes, well, what was the school for? I thought that was my experience, you know, and.
Yeah, and for those of us who've long, who are older and more experienced, like, what are you talking about? But the same thing happens with the military is it's like, and part of it is that they tell you this in the military. They tell you before you get in, you're going to get, and it's not inaccurate, but also it can be overstated. And it's usually being told to you by people who have never been civilians.
Mycal Aners (38:02)
Show me the proof.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (38:23)
So like a recruiter, they're not gonna be able to tell you how this is gonna benefit you when you get out. They've never been out. They probably joined when they were 18, 19 years old. And...
Mycal Aners (38:29)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, I mean, you use the trucking example, right? The military equivalent is a heavy equipment operator, right? None of those certificates transfer to the civilian world. Did you know that? You gotta go get all those certificates all over again? Same with, there's a combat medic doesn't transfer over. You still gotta go get your EMT. What else?
Mike Bledsoe (38:38)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
No. no. no. That's crazy.
Mmm.
wow.
Mycal Aners (39:02)
parachute rigging, like folks that want to get into skydiving professionally, they have to reacquire all of those hours, even though they may have hundreds, if not thousands of jumps in uniform. You know, so you, do you have the skillset? Yes. But do you have, does it create a lat move opportunity? They're not, not, not 100 % of the time.
Mike Bledsoe (39:13)
Mm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, I find most of the time no. Most of the time is what I'm hearing.
Mycal Aners (39:34)
Yeah. Yeah. The one, the only one that I know of like immediately is air traffic control. You take those credentials with you. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (39:44)
Yeah, yeah, I think there's some other ones. IT is probably, I don't know. I didn't I didn't make that lateral move, but.
Mycal Aners (39:48)
Okay, sure. Yeah. But you know, it's funny because you talk to my brother, you know, and I remember having this conversation with him. I got to meritoriously, when I was a second lieutenant, I got to meritoriously promote him to staff sergeant. And he was, he came in in 2003. Yeah, 2003. 2002, December 22, or 2002.
And so he was at seven, eight, he was coming up on eight years, which is kind of the point of no return. You know, if you stay past, especially if you get to 12 for sure, you might as well just stay in. My opinion. Get to 20, man, get to 20.
Mike Bledsoe (40:29)
Yeah.
That's the mentality anyway.
When you're in it makes all the sense.
Mycal Aners (40:41)
But you know, I remember having conversations with him and I don't know if you got into this with him or not, but I remember him and a lot of my Marines felt this way. You know, like I do this thing, I kick indoors, I pull triggers, you know, what do I have to offer the civilian world? And much in the same context, but in the other direction, it's, you know, the things that you take with you that have served him well in his civilian work now is,
Mike Bledsoe (40:43)
for sure.
Mycal Aners (41:12)
taking a directive and seeing it to completion, the ability to not have all the information and go find the answers and to lean into mission accomplishment with a bias for action. Like that whole fail fast, fail forward thing. Like I'm going to be moving at such a pace that...
Mike Bledsoe (41:15)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (41:40)
I'm constantly making new decisions. So whatever I mess up along the way is resolved with the next decision.
Mike Bledsoe (41:44)
Mm -hmm.
Right. Right. I think overall what your brother did really well that is uncommon is he was able to see the skills that were applicable, a lot of the invisible skills. Most people are looking at the tangible, right? He was looking at the intangible skills and he was saying, how does this cross over? What what do these things have in common instead of looking?
Mycal Aners (42:06)
The intangibles, yep.
Mm -hmm.
You
Mike Bledsoe (42:20)
focusing on what they don't have in common.
Mycal Aners (42:23)
Mm hmm. It's so funny because in my journey to this point, there was a period of about five years there where I had a podcast and you and I collaborated on that for for about a year. I wrote a best -selling book. I had launched our leaders forum and I had the gym and from the outside looking in it's like none of that shit has anything to do with each other.
Mike Bledsoe (42:53)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (42:54)
And if I, if I'm being completely honest in that moment, as far as my energy was concerned, they were all competing with each other. They were not working together at all. But in my mind, I knew that somehow some way, even though going back to, Hey, here's my plan. it would make Michael make that make sense. And the inability to articulate it extremely frustrating, especially when.
Mike Bledsoe (43:02)
Mm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (43:23)
the inability to articulate it resides within you. Like I can't even explain this shit to myself. And when the pandemic hit and the operation of the brick and mortar gym was at risk, and at the same time, the stress I didn't have was all those people that we had to serve.
Mike Bledsoe (43:28)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (43:50)
It allowed me to get far enough away from the day to day to figure out how these things all serve each other. And that allowed, gave me an opportunity to restructure a lot of things and vertically integrate this process so that it doesn't matter whether or not you're looking for a life coach, a strength coach, or you need to just sit still and heal.
Mike Bledsoe (43:58)
Mm.
Mycal Aners (44:22)
All of these things work together and there's a very natural ascension to it. Because now we're going to solve your priority pain point and in doing so we're gonna leverage all these other tools in a really, really unique service offering that allows us to play the long game with our clients. We're not just serving something acute over and over and over again.
Mike Bledsoe (44:28)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, there was Every Red Mastery by Robert Greene.
Mycal Aners (44:55)
No.
Mike Bledsoe (44:56)
Yeah, it's one of my, it's a book that I always recommend people who are young or they're at a point where they, they're like, wow, I've, I've, I've accumulated some skills, but I don't, they either are like, they feel like they should stick with the skills they already have and they're afraid to go accumulate some new skills and start over, or they have this desire to start over, but they feel like they're being silly by starting over and this and that.
Mycal Aners (45:19)
Hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (45:27)
And in that book, Mastery, he talks about, you know, it takes seven to 10 years to obtain mastery over something, right? And that's about 10 ,000 hours. 10 ,000 hours we've heard about. By the way, you and I both know there's ways to accelerate that. It doesn't have to take that long. It really depends.
Mycal Aners (45:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (45:56)
There's some variables that can be tweaked. And he talks about the people who have become really successful and made a difference in the world and all that. They did it in their late 40s and 50s and sometimes 60s. And the reason is because he has story after story after story of people who accumulated skill, who had mastered three different skill sets. There's something about three.
Mycal Aners (46:24)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (46:25)
three different skill sets that seem like they wouldn't contribute to each other at all. And then they overlap and then they create a new invention for humanity or create a new industry. It's not like it's something small in what he's talking about, but not that we're all supposed to be new inventors or anything like that, but it gives people, it gave me,
Mycal Aners (46:37)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (46:55)
a lot of grace with myself and I go, I read that book when I had mastered two things and I was gaining interest into something new. And it really took the pressure off of me that I was putting on myself of going, wow, you know, when you mastered this thing, you were at the top, you know, like you were crushing it. And then you left it and you started over all over again. And then you were mastering that and you were at the top and then you walked away.
Again, I remember I had walked away from two things where I was like one of the best. And then I and I go, I'm going to start over again. And and there was a point where I was like, is this a self sabotaging pattern? Is this, you know, is this like? What is this that is causing this? And and so there's a lot of reflection on it and this and that. And and now I know that.
Mycal Aners (47:38)
oooo
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (47:54)
I can see, I go, this is where this skill set and this skill set and this skill set, they all go together. I go, holy shit, okay, there it is. I'm 42 and then I probably have another seven to 10 years to master the integration of these three things. And so, yeah. So it sounds like you had the same experience of, yeah, I was out here grinding on this.
Mycal Aners (48:01)
Mm -hmm.
Yep.
Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
Mike Bledsoe (48:24)
thing and in my heart I knew that I wanted to pursue it but I couldn't even make sense with my mind.
Mycal Aners (48:31)
Right, well it's interesting because like, I knew very soon after...
opening the gym that that was.
the, that wasn't the end. And I got, I got asked a very important question that it took me a long time to answer. Cause I wasn't sure by, by one of my mentors. And he asked me, is the gym the end all be all, or is it the platform for the great, great thing that you haven't yet brought to fruition?
And the podcast, the book, the leaders forum, none of that stuff existed yet.
That's a scary question to answer.
It was for me at the time, because...
If I say it's the platform, well then it's like, damn, I got a long way to go.
And if I say it's the end, I'll be all, it's like, damn, I peeked too early. Cause I was really, I'm really good at that thing, you know? And you know, when I sat and got honest with myself, I'm like, you know what? It's, it's the platform because I had to come back to one of my original intentions and that was, that was, you know, this flaw that I saw in the fitness industry.
Mike Bledsoe (49:49)
Mmm.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (50:14)
that was the one of the premises of going brick and mortar in the first place was the average career in fitness of any sort is seven months to make money in the gym. The average career is seven months and I've been doing it, taking money for my services for almost 25 years.
And I'm like, what is the difference? Why are there not more of us? Right? And I realized that in any of my fitness experiences in a professional capacity, the thing that was lacking was mentorship. And somebody to show me how to not only do the job, but also all the things around it.
make myself marketable, become more personable, ask for money, problem solve and value stack, all of those things. Nobody teaches you that. In any trade school, fitness, plumbing, doctors and lawyers, you become a technician of that thing and nobody tells you how to, for real, make money at it. And it's all, it's in...
Mike Bledsoe (51:40)
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (51:42)
You know, as you know, the ones that step outside that box or out from under that label and really start to explore those things, that's when the game changes. And that's when it became not scary to honestly answer that it's just it's the platform.
Mike Bledsoe (52:01)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, there's, like, the skill of selling yourself has to always be present, even if you're getting a job. And the...
Yeah, people, the certification isn't good enough anymore. I think that...
You know, we've graduated as a society into like everything's decentralizing and people hear that and they may think Bitcoin or something like that. But what's happening is all these companies are decentralizing. Like you're not going to go, it's not as likely that you're going to go work for a mega corporation in the future. They're all breaking up into smaller companies and contracting with each other. And there's way more self -employed
now than there ever has been and everything's turning into contract labor and this and that. So it's becoming more necessary that you learn all these other skills, these interpersonal skills of business, even if you don't want to be an entrepreneur. We live in a world where even if you're working for somebody else, it is required that you be entrepreneurial.
Mycal Aners (53:23)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (53:23)
And that means that you have to be actively helping, actively being aware of what's going on and doing something about it and solving problems and this and that. Like you can't just go get your like plumbing certification or, you know, go get that trade school and do this and that, and just expect that you're going to walk in and get a six figure paying job and all the things that come with it. That's.
Mycal Aners (53:41)
Hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (53:53)
That's also something that happens in the military, right? It's like, look, I went to basic and then I went to a school and then they put me somewhere and I worked for two years and then they said, hey, do you want to go to this other school? Yeah, I'll go to this other school. I'll keep going to schools. cool. That looks good on my resume. Dude, I've been out for so long. I don't even remember what that is called. Every six months.
Mycal Aners (53:55)
Mm -hmm.
Yep.
Dude, time, yeah, time, time and grade, you know, the, the X, the, the expectation that I've been here so long, therefore my paycheck should increase. But you know, you go back to the intangibles, right? And where the, what, what's true about that process that is also true out here is it's, it's not, it's not the rank part that affords you.
Mike Bledsoe (54:22)
your performance.
All that stuff.
Mycal Aners (54:50)
a bigger paycheck. It's. You now have a more valuable skill set. We are expecting more of you. Therefore, we're going to compensate you. I wouldn't necessarily say the word appropriately, but we're going to give you more money, right? And the question that we really need to ask ourselves is not the question of, you know, how much time do I have to put in before more as opposed to.
Mike Bledsoe (54:52)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (55:19)
How do I make myself more valuable?
Mike Bledsoe (55:22)
or what results do I need to produce? Like the result, these business, yeah, time and rank don't mean anything in the civilian world. Unless you go work for, you know, someone who's contracted with the government, there might be a semblance of that there, but you can climb that ladder as fast as you want.
Mycal Aners (55:25)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -mm.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (55:52)
And I think that if you can really understand that and then you take all your skills and you go, I just create results. Because in the military, if you create too much, if you do too good, too fast, you're just going to burn out and not be rewarded for it.
Mycal Aners (56:09)
Yeah, and there's nowhere to put you. You know. Hey, slow down. You're making us look bad. You know, that exists too.
Mike Bledsoe (56:11)
Nowhere to put you, yeah.
Well, I was screwing around on, which I screw around on Reddit, as you know.
Mycal Aners (56:25)
You introduced me to that like literally this week and I was like, my god, this is like a whole nother rabbit hole.
Mike Bledsoe (56:31)
Yeah, I'm in the, there's 130 ,000 people in the veteran subreddit. And I like to go in there and post questions and comment and help some people out. And, there's a lot of people. So I posted a question, you know, I pull it up. The question is military habits that don't work in the civilian world. I basically said, curious what military habits have you held have held you back in a civilian world? Cause I was just seeing how, by the way, that.
Mycal Aners (56:36)
Okay.
Mike Bledsoe (57:01)
That post performed really well, like for Reddit. For that subreddit, like it crushed.
Mycal Aners (57:07)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (57:11)
And I noticed a lot of people were like, in the civilian world, if you work hard and you put in and whatever, you don't get rewarded. You know, by the way, there's a ton of complaints in that subreddit for about 300 something complaints. But,
Mycal Aners (57:26)
No way.
Mike Bledsoe (57:29)
Yeah, it's just a very interesting, like what we're, it's opposite of what we're saying, right? We're saying that you can climb the ladder as fast as you want. And then there's people in there like what I'm hearing based on all the results that I saw was like, I did an awesome job and I'm being punished for it basically. And the reason is because they're missing that, the interpersonal skills. They're treating everyone like they're, it's like, I'm doing a better job than everybody else and I'm treating them like idiots. Like that's not going to work.
Mycal Aners (58:01)
That was a big one, going back to communication. You can't knife hand and mother fuck your way to the top out here. It was like, that's a...
Mike Bledsoe (58:10)
Yeah, there's so many knife hands in the comments.
Mycal Aners (58:15)
There's a, that's not acceptable professional behavior out here. Okay. You know, I gave, dude, I gave a brief. I gave a presentation in grad school, crushed it. And when we opened it up for Q and A.
This kid asked me a question. I was like, I don't remember the question, but I remember my answer. I was like, don't worry about that shit. That's not how it goes out in the real world.
and
My professor pulls me aside afterwards after he dismisses the class and he's like, you know.
you had 100 % until you got to the question and answer. You cannot say shit in a professional setting. Completely discounting the fact that I am like not even a year removed from the Marine Corps. But I was like, I have heard colonels drop F bombs in mission briefs. Like, yes, yes, you, I don't.
Mike Bledsoe (58:59)
shit.
man.
yeah.
Mycal Aners (59:20)
I didn't have the stones in the moment, but in the back of my mind, I was like, I would like to challenge that with this particular example. So I went from an A plus to a B plus on the four letter word. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (59:28)
Right. Right.
shit. shit. Yeah, I've definitely dialed my F -bombs back. Although I went and I did speak at a yoga retreat a few weeks ago. And I F -bombed the hell out of them. But
Mycal Aners (59:52)
F -bombs at the yoga retreat. That's outstanding. That's an attention grabber. Because you would not expect that.
Mike Bledsoe (59:56)
Yeah, yeah, I didn't have to bomb the hell out of them. I used them selectively to, you know, it was a Sunday morning. They needed to be jerked around a little bit.
Mycal Aners (1:00:07)
And a strategically placed F -bomb is a very powerful and useful tool.
Mike Bledsoe (1:00:12)
yeah, yeah. I think Tony Robbins is probably the best at that.
Mycal Aners (1:00:19)
I've seen him live once and it's impressive.
Mike Bledsoe (1:00:22)
Yeah, he'll he does have like shock you in there. He's a master. He's a master. Whatever you think about whatever he's teaching. He's a master of stage presence and.
Mycal Aners (1:00:32)
Well, you know, going back to that learning that needed to occur when we were going to, when I decided we were gonna make the Leaders Forum part of Next Level. And I remember sitting in that audience with Tony Robbins specifically, not really listening to anything he was saying particularly, but just watching the way he moved the crowd. Like,
Mike Bledsoe (1:01:00)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:01:00)
How are you saying these things? When you say a thing, how is the room responding? And that is one thing that I notice we don't do as veterans very well, is just put ourselves in that position of student. We come out with this arrogance as if our work ethic and...
get the job done -ness is gonna save the day and pull us through. And the submission to not knowing everything and being willing to just sit in that room humble has been really, really powerful in moving things along for me.
Mike Bledsoe (1:01:56)
No. Can you share your dark moment? Like that? Like where you go, I got out of the military. Maybe I shouldn't have got out of the military.
Mycal Aners (1:02:08)
I totally had that moment. I know exactly. I know exactly how to answer that question. I'll never do. I was out not even four months and I was seeing this girl, you know, in the military, you can move mountains for pizza and beer. Right. And I was seeing this girl, nothing serious, completely casual, but still, I mean, that, that is almost the definition of almost of 90 % of your relationships in the Marine Corps.
Like I barely know this person, right? And I had to take a, I had to take a flight and Uber wasn't Uber quite yet. And you know, you said to like call taxi service and like do that whole thing, whatever. And all I know is I didn't want to drive my car to the airport. So I hit her up and I was like, Hey, I need a ride to the airport. And her response was, why don't you just get a cab and bro?
I was furious. Like I didn't cuss her out or go left on her or anything like that, but I was like, this relationship is dead to me. And in that moment, I called the prior service recruiter. I'm on the way to the airport. Like I've got the cab and I'm on the way to the airport. I called the prior service recruiter and I was like, Hey, what jobs do you have available for a unit here in Arizona?
Yeah, dude, that was it. I was like, fuck these people. I don't, civilian life is obviously not for me. I should have stayed in. If this is the way it's gonna go, if this is what relationships look like, I'm not interested.
Mike Bledsoe (1:03:49)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:03:50)
And dude, I took that trip. I don't even remember where the hell I was going, but I came back and I was like, I'm obviously not ready for this. And it took me, I did three years in the reserves before I was finally like over it. You know, I realized, you know, it had done the work on me to realize that that that that's not her issue. That's my, that's my issue. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:04:09)
Mmm.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:04:20)
I remember that like it was yesterday. I've, you know, I've done a lot of things. I've been screwed over for a lot of money. I've been sued, all of that, and nothing made me more pissed than that moment. It makes no sense whatsoever, but I remember just being like, irate about it, yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:04:42)
Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious. So why didn't you just join back in?
Mycal Aners (1:04:52)
Because I already had things in motion. I was already on this path. And I knew that getting back in the uniform in any kind of full -time capacity was gonna compromise that.
Mike Bledsoe (1:04:58)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:05:06)
I just needed something. But I came to Scottsdale, I knew one person and...
You know, I didn't have a network. You know, why I just put my toe back in, I needed something familiar, because I was so far in over my head, knowing that this gym thing that I was doing was a very short stop on the way to finishing this masters and opening something brick and mortar. I knew that wasn't gonna be permanent, but if I go all the way back in active duty, like, well,
We're not having this conversation today. I at least had that much foresight.
Mike Bledsoe (1:05:49)
Right, right, right. What was your toughest moment in entrepreneurship?
Mycal Aners (1:05:57)
I had that gym open for less than 90 days and I got sued for 25 or almost 30 grand. Yeah, I came in, I had my investor, I was the talent if you will. And then there were three other guys that were responsible for sales and marketing, filling the gym, doing that whole thing. And we get 90 days in and I had this meeting with my investor and I'm like, you obviously wrote the check.
Mike Bledsoe (1:06:03)
Really?
Mycal Aners (1:06:27)
You know, and that's about all that you said you were interested in doing. I appreciate that. But you know, so I'm really coming to you for an understanding, you know, to make sure that I'm not seeing this sideways. And I don't feel like they're holding up their end. And we're not deep enough into this thing that it can't be unwound.
Mike Bledsoe (1:06:51)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:06:53)
She's like, that's, that's fair. So, you know, again, the naivete of the military, you know, I'm just like, I don't want to do this dance anymore. So let's, let's just part ways amicably. And that's, that's the way it sounded. And then I got served. And I was like,
Mike Bledsoe (1:07:06)
Mm -hmm.
no.
Mycal Aners (1:07:15)
So you've done nothing and you are 30 grand of.
I just got to make that appear. And talking to my attorney, he's like, dude, big lesson in business for me. It's like, it's going to cost you more to fight this than to settle. And I was like, okay. So that's what we did. And that was, that was a really rude awakening as to, expectation management went into your new agreement. Yeah. Nobody told me about that part.
Mike Bledsoe (1:07:38)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:07:55)
Hahahaha
Mike Bledsoe (1:07:57)
How did you recover from that? What was the self -dialogue? What was going on in self -talk? What got you through that?
Mycal Aners (1:08:07)
At that point, I didn't have any other choice. Like there was, you know, the money had been vested, the lease had been signed. So I was like, man, I can only handle so much of this. And it was such a, you know, I look back on it now and it wasn't, it wouldn't have crippled me for the rest of my life to just fold it all up and let it die.
I didn't, but I didn't know that at the time. So with the knowledge, the knowledge that I had and the, the circumstances I was in, I was like, well, I've got four years and nine months left on this lease and the equipment's already here. So I just went to work. You said, I, I, I, you know, settled, it all went away and then just head down, figured it out. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:09:02)
Yeah. How long did it take before you got to a point where you go, wow, this was like, I'm catching my breath and I'm glad that I left the military and this seems like it's working out.
Mycal Aners (1:09:19)
man, have I had that moment? You know, I would say a huge victory for me in terms of that mentality and at the very least being proud of myself for what I've done was in 2019, I took two weeks with some buddies that I deployed with.
and we did the Salcantay track through Peru. And I came back and the gym was still wrote. You know, the, I could go, I could go do this podcast thing. I could go write that book. I could go build the leaders forum and.
the gym was still making money. Far from efficient, but at the very least I had proven to myself that I had done at least enough that I could not be there and it would still be there. And that was...
Mike Bledsoe (1:10:33)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:10:39)
The first time I really felt that was 2018, so five years in.
Mike Bledsoe (1:10:43)
Five years in, nice. Yeah, huh.
Mycal Aners (1:10:44)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
I had to walk that back, yeah, five years in.
Mike Bledsoe (1:10:52)
Yeah, I had been out for, let's see, I got an 05. I don't think I really experienced. Yeah, it was about five years. I was like about 2010, 2011, about five years. And things still weren't easy. You know, I still wasn't, I still wasn't making the money I wanted.
Mycal Aners (1:11:03)
Okay.
No, no, no, no, no, no, do not. Right.
Mike Bledsoe (1:11:14)
I think it took me, I'd say like from the time I got out of the military to where I was like, I had made enough money in a year to where I was like, I feel good about the amount of work I'm putting in and what I'm being paid for that. I think that took about, that was 2015 when that occurred. No, sorry, 2014, 2014 when that occurred. And,
Mycal Aners (1:11:36)
Okay.
Mike Bledsoe (1:11:42)
So that was nine years. Nine years after I got out, I felt stable in income. I had a stable income prior to that, but I knew that if I stayed in the military, I would have been taking more home. Yeah, I was like, man, if I'd been in the military, I would have been like an E8 by then, and I would have been like...
Mycal Aners (1:11:51)
Mm -hmm.
Right. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:12:10)
You know, shit, you know, all right, how long is it gonna take? But I've, I've since surpassed all that. So, but it took me about nine years together. How long did it take for your, you think you have like kind of hit that thing, that threshold? I guess there's a point where you go, okay, I'm now further along professionally than if I had stayed in.
Mycal Aners (1:12:16)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
man, that was...
Damn dude, about nine years. I got out in 2012 and 2021 was when...
We had made this monumental shift and started putting everything together and started to dabble into, not just in person, but remote work as well.
that, yeah, so 2021.
And you know what it was? I went back to business school during the pandemic, because I didn't know if I was going to have a gym to come back to. I didn't know how long all that, too many question marks, right? And I remember sitting in this room full of mid -level to C -suite executives. I'm in this executive program. And you don't know what you don't know. And you're...
Mike Bledsoe (1:13:28)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:13:43)
It's very easy to be in your own echo chamber with your own thoughts. And I'm sitting there and I'm having these conversations with these people, you know, who are some of which are on their, you know, they, they shouldn't be moving to PhDs, but you know, they're, they're in this program instead. And.
I'm engaging fully with them the we're not out of the woods by any means on the gym thing, but it's it's viable again. And that that was a very validating moment for me in terms of my ability to stand in a room of not necessarily entrepreneurs, but.
people that walk into that room, you know, as six figure earners with status somewhere else in the world and were, you know, in their own path to ascension of some sort and being able to provide value in that room alongside all the things that we were building for next level. I was like, okay, we can play this game. And so that was nine years.
Mike Bledsoe (1:14:48)
Mm -hmm.
Damn, nine years and nine years. It's almost like this stuff is predictable.
Mycal Aners (1:15:02)
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, but if you knew that, here's a question for you. If you knew it was gonna take nine years.
Mike Bledsoe (1:15:12)
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:15:20)
Would you got out?
Mike Bledsoe (1:15:24)
Yeah, it's hard to know. Yeah, I would have. I would have because I got out because I had this this there's something inside of me that was just screaming get out. And I would say by by 2013, yeah, it was like 2013. I could be glad I got out. But here's the thing is like. It's eight years. I know it was eight years where I where I.
Mycal Aners (1:15:36)
Mm -hmm.
Okay.
Mike Bledsoe (1:15:52)
realized where I go, I'm glad I got out. Before that, I wasn't glad I got out. I was still, should I have gotten out? What else could I have done? Should I have gotten my degree and then gone back in? All these things. But that's one of the reasons that I started the mission after. It's because I don't think it needs to take eight years. I didn't have mentorship.
Mycal Aners (1:15:55)
Mmm.
No.
Mike Bledsoe (1:16:21)
that had been on this path before. Like there were people that had gotten out, but everyone I was talking to that had been in the military when I got out were still unhappy and hadn't figured anything out. I wasn't running anyone. I was like, yeah, I got out of the military 15 years ago and I felt similar to you and this was my experience and I want to help you out. That didn't exist. I didn't come across it.
Mycal Aners (1:16:34)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:16:47)
And it weren't podcasts, it was 05. It weren't podcasts, it wasn't social media. There wasn't anywhere to find this kind of thing. Yeah, every better than I ran into seemed to be just some old codger, you know, want to tell war stories or something, you know?
Mycal Aners (1:16:54)
Yeah.
Yeah. So let me ask you this, and I'm curious on your perspective. You know, Steven Pressfield is a Marine, very accomplished author, wrote The War of Art. The founder of GoDaddy is a Marine. Robert Kiyosaki is a Marine. This list is not exclusive to Marines, but that's just who's showing up in my mind right now. But like, veterans that are successful at that level.
Mike Bledsoe (1:17:10)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:17:32)
Are they hard to access?
Mike Bledsoe (1:17:39)
no. I, this is what I've learned. And this, this is actually something that, I've seen in veterans that hold them back is when you're in the military, there's this idea because you're mentored in the military, right? Like it's, it's built in. Like the leadership is looking to mentor you and you don't know what the hell you're doing. And so.
you're there to be mentored. And then when you get out, you gotta pay for it,
Mike Bledsoe (1:18:17)
technical difficulty but we're back. Yeah, I was saying mentorship is basically baked into the military and one thing I noticed because with the mission after I started when we got that going and I was reaching out to guys there were some guys that were not a lot but there were some guys are like the mentorship you know should be free and
Mycal Aners (1:18:24)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:18:46)
I go, well, in the military, yeah, that's baked in. Well, that's what I'm used to. And I go, okay, this is a civilian world. There's gonna be a lot of things that you're not used to out here. And so, you know, I think there's that entitlement piece, right? Where it's like, someone should just take me out of the wing. It's like, look, that's nice. Sometimes that happens.
Mycal Aners (1:18:58)
Hehehehehe
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:19:17)
Like that happened with Robert Kiyosaki, like the guy you were talking about, right? Rich dad, poor dad. He had his biological father was basically a socialist and his other dad was a capitalist real estate guy and he got to make a choice of who he was going to learn from. And he was, that was a gift. And...
Mycal Aners (1:19:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:19:44)
I think a lot of times people probably do come across people that could be helpful, but they're not paying attention for whatever reason. And I definitely had some people mentor me, but it was not structured. It was just kind of here and there. And it wasn't until it took me, I had been out, when I was talking about like, it took me like eight years before I had that.
Mycal Aners (1:19:50)
Right.
Mike Bledsoe (1:20:14)
moment where I go, I'm glad I was out. That was the same year where I started investing in mentorship.
Mycal Aners (1:20:16)
Yeah.
wow, like, okay. So it took you eight years to start.
Mike Bledsoe (1:20:23)
W R O W
Mycal Aners (1:20:27)
putting money towards mentorship. You were just taking it as it came.
Mike Bledsoe (1:20:30)
That's right.
Yeah, just like whatever came across my way, I would ask questions. I would be curious. I was trying to learn. I was listening to podcasts. I was running a podcast and being curious and I was learning, but it wasn't until I really got into a serious mentorship relationship where there was an exchange that things really turned around.
Mycal Aners (1:20:41)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:21:01)
But you were talking about, you know, Bob Parsons from Go Daddy. You got all these guys. You just listed up all these guys. You're like, can you really get access to those people? And in 2013, I realized, you can totally access those people. You just got to pay your way in.
Mycal Aners (1:21:03)
Yeah. Yup.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:21:18)
They're all accessible. You might have to buy a ticket to an event. That's usually the way. Buy a ticket to an event or if you're paying attention to what they're putting out on social media, maybe they're hosting something or who knows? I wasn't mentored in business by other veterans. I was mentored by people who did not serve in the military. And I don't think...
It's absolutely necessary for that to be the case. But yeah, but I wanted to tell that story because yes, those people are accessible, but sometimes it requires you to do something different, like pay your way in.
Mycal Aners (1:21:59)
Yeah. Well, I think you bring up a good point because there is that expectation that by virtue of our shared service, I'm entitled to front of the line access that I would otherwise have to pay for. And the truth is, and it's really funny because I've heard my brother who I've...
Mike Bledsoe (1:22:20)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:22:27)
I've told to get into some kind of consulting, you know, for how he's navigated his transition. There's so much value in that. And I can't wait for that story to come out. But he's like,
I could charge for it, but people don't want to do that work. You know, I've get, you know, something that he shared with me is like, Michael, I have shared the process with them. Go get this cert, go do this pro you leverage this program. I've given them the keys to the city and they don't want to do it. And I found that really.
Mike Bledsoe (1:22:56)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:23:08)
really interesting. And I know I totally naively in the beginning had that expectation myself. I'm like, we're you're you're ahead of me in the game. We both put on the uniform. We both, you know, swore to God and country and did all those things like share with me your secrets. It's like, well, those secrets cost X amount of dollars. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Mike Bledsoe (1:23:35)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:23:37)
I thought we had common ground. He's like, yeah, we do. And still my shit costs money. Right. 100%.
Mike Bledsoe (1:23:43)
Yeah. Yeah. Especially if it's taking time, you know, it's like, like, well, here's the thing is sometimes people ask me, they go, and, you know, I've been podcasting since 2012 and, I've advised a lot of coaches and they're like, you know, I want to make it accessible for everyone. I go, I make it accessible for everyone. Like the podcast is free. Tons of value, tons of value for free. Now, if you want my time.
Mycal Aners (1:24:08)
Right. Mm -hmm. Good.
Mike Bledsoe (1:24:14)
as a different story. So, yeah, it's just something that another thing that look at this habitual thought pattern that happens in the military that and I think most civilians don't even, you know, the idea of paying for mentorship is also like a, as a big mystery. Like, no, no, no. But once you like, like for me, like once I started investing in it, it just seems silly not to. It's like,
Mycal Aners (1:24:28)
no.
No, that's not exclusive to us by any means.
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:24:44)
the ROI is incredibly clear once you do it. Before you do it, it can seem really, you go, I don't understand the ROI or I feel like that someone's trying to convince me of something. If, you know, I was like, are they for real? I'm missing that. And it's like, well, you really just got to try it out for yourself and see. That's, that's really the only way to really know is to put yourself out there and try it out. But.
Mycal Aners (1:24:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. The yeah, it's so it's so interesting because the the the other the other way in is to.
Mike Bledsoe (1:25:12)
Yeah, that's a big one.
Mycal Aners (1:25:26)
get yourself by virtue of your inherent value proposition, make yourself valuable enough that you are supposed to be in that room with these people. Long before I came and spoke at the Strong Coach, I paid to go to the...
The shrug summit, the barbell summit, you know, the...
Mike Bledsoe (1:26:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:26:06)
you know, by virtue of investing in those experiences, it's not so much the trade of dollars in time, but it also establishes a track record of commitment to growth. Like after a certain point that is not determined by me, right, you said, hey, this guy,
Mike Bledsoe (1:26:24)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:26:36)
is worth having on the team because of all this other stuff he was willing to do prior to this moment. You know, and.
Mike Bledsoe (1:26:42)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:26:49)
All of a sudden, not only am I at the Barbell Summit.
We're bumping into each other at Wada Palooza. I bumped into you at Rush Club. You know, there are all these instances where we were in each other's orbit, right? And there's, that was 2000. I met you for the first time in person in 2014.
Mike Bledsoe (1:27:06)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:27:25)
And.
people don't have the patience for relationship building. They think that it's supposed to happen. You have this thing, knowledge or whatever that I know that I need, how do I get it right now? It's like, no, no, no, no. Even if you could write a check big enough to transfer that gift to you.
Mike Bledsoe (1:27:36)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:27:56)
You wouldn't use it wisely. You're not ready for it.
Mike Bledsoe (1:27:58)
Yeah, there's, I've had this conversation so many times. It's like, I will coach and mentor somebody. I would much rather coach and mentor somebody for free than for $10 ,000. If they're really demonstrating that they want to grow and that they're really laying it on the line. If you pay me 10 grand for a day of coaching, which I have charged that before.
and you show up and you don't want to do anything, I don't even want that money. Like, just like, get it away from, like, get the whole situation away from me.
which can sound crazy to people, but yeah, it's, there's a lot more to it. And so, yeah, I think, I think a lot of times it requires both, like, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to give up? Cause you got to give something up to grow, right? And sometimes, sometimes paying to be in a room is the way it is. I don't want to make it all about that, but there's a certain level of person. That's just the way it is.
Mycal Aners (1:28:45)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. Well, no, I'll, yeah. I mean, talking about giving things up, you know, you have to give up your station to move to the next one. You know, we don't get to do what we're doing at next level at the level that we're doing it. If I'm still on the floor coaching all those classes.
Mike Bledsoe (1:29:11)
Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:29:23)
if I'm hoarding all these clients.
and not helping feed and empower my team.
then it doesn't grow. And that was really painful for me in coming to grips with that realization. If I keep doing, if I keep demonstrating mastery in this lane, I am now inhibiting the vision of where we actually want to go.
And that stings really bad.
Mike Bledsoe (1:30:13)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:30:14)
It's like, I'm in the way.
Mike Bledsoe (1:30:16)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mycal Aners (1:30:18)
Ugh, you know, I can't, I can't, I can't, and in my case, nor do I want to, do it all by myself.
Mike Bledsoe (1:30:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mycal Aners (1:30:28)
It's going to take a team, you know? And here's what's really interesting. When you start attracting people who are better than you at that thing that you had mastery in.
That's scary.
It's 100 % the move.
and still the ego death that needs to take place to embrace it.
is daunting.
Mike Bledsoe (1:31:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think we'll leave it with that. Is there anything else you want to leave the crowd before we go?
Mycal Aners (1:31:14)
man, you know, I am really honored and grateful for this experience of the mission after I am I cannot overstate the the importance of of what we're doing and the the charge that you're leading brother and I want to I want to take a moment for everybody listening to celebrate you and taking this on and realizing the.
the gap that exists in that transition and to your point, it doesn't have to take eight years, it doesn't have to take nine years. And really going through the investigative process of putting something together that really shortens that timeline and creates the awareness that we all needed at one point and those that are in that transition need right here, right now to show up in the world.
without all that attachment and able to move forward both positively and productively. So dude, I'm honored to join you in the mission after. I truly believe in what we're building. I'm excited to do it. And if Next Level is an extension of that, you can find me on all things Instagram at coachdursnextlevel underscore PHX.
And we can start the conversation there. But yeah, man, I'm proud to do it. I'm grateful for you, the mission after and everything that's going to be born of it.
Mike Bledsoe (1:32:50)
Yeah, appreciate that. You guys have anything else you want to let the audience know about what you're doing? What's currently on your plate? You've mentioned some things, I don't think they know exactly what it is.
Mycal Aners (1:32:57)
Yeah. So I tell people, you know, when you're building your empire, I'm the one that you call to make sure that you don't leave yourself behind in the process. So if you know, when you're ready to entertain that dialogue, you now have two resources. So reach out, let's figure it out.
Mike Bledsoe (1:33:16)
Thanks Michael. Love you brother.
Mycal Aners (1:33:18)
Cool. Love you too, man. Appreciate you.
Mike Bledsoe (1:33:24)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.
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