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Tactical Wealth is the podcast built to empower the military and veteran community to take control of their financial future.
From navigating the military to civilian life transition, to launching businesses, growing your income, and building long-term wealth, each episode brings you real stories and actionable insights from those whoβve gone from boots on the ground to building lasting wealth.
Hosted by Kaj Larsen, former Navy SEAL, award-winning journalist, and mission-driven entrepreneur. Kaj successfully co-founded a financial technology company and sold the company in 2024. The podcast features hard truth conversations with successful veteran entrepreneurs, CEOs, and top financial experts.
Whether you're still in uniform or already charting your next chapter, this podcast gives you the tactical tools to lead with impact in your finances and beyond. Letβs get tactical.
Tactical Wealth is a Gebbia Media production, brought to you by Siebert.Valor, a military-focused initiative from Siebert Financial. The Tactical Wealth podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Siebert Financial. This podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy any securities. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
For more information and disclosures, please visit siebert.com/disclosures.
00:00:04:08 - 00:00:31:09
Unknown
You're honing in on one of the themes of the podcast here. If you're successful in a special operations career field, you are extraordinarily self-confident, but also extraordinarily curious and humble. I have the right skill set of being able to help them solve the problem at the company. One. Be humble to be curious. Three find a mentor. It is so fulfilling to see people who have had a shared experience in a fair amount of trauma, and to be able to help them solve a problem and ideally, mitigate psychological distress.
00:00:31:10 - 00:00:49:09
Unknown
Get them to where they feel like they're a valued asset to their community.
00:00:49:11 - 00:01:11:13
Unknown
Some people wait for others. Fight for it. Welcome to tactical wealth. The show. We're disciplined. Service and real world experience become pathways to financial power. I'm your host. Kaj Larsen. On each episode, we bring you the stories and the wisdom of those who have gone from boots on the ground to successful careers, from military to wealth and how they've done it.
00:01:11:13 - 00:01:22:07
Unknown
So you can apply those insights to your own mission and your own life. This is tactical wealth, from military to money.
00:01:22:09 - 00:01:54:13
Unknown
Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Wealth. We're coming to you from Brooklyn, New York. And, you know, despite the fact that we're surrounded by a vast sea of hipsters, I have an extraordinarily awesome and lethal guest with me today. Patrick Flood did over 20 years in the Army. He is what we call our SF brethren, or Green Beret, and he has joined us all the way from Houston to talk about military and post service transition.
00:01:54:13 - 00:02:14:21
Unknown
And Patrick, welcome show. Brother, good to have you again, man. Good. So tell me, are you an Army brat? Like, how did you enter the big green machine? So for me, like, my dad served in the army. My grandfather served in the Army Air Corps. My other grandfather served in the Navy for as Mark. You had the smart grandfather.
00:02:14:22 - 00:02:32:14
Unknown
Well, that's the whole thing we did. So as a younger brother actually wanted to go to the Naval Academy because my older brother went to West Point and and then I couldn't because of the vision waiver. And so I got admitted to the prep school, and my brother told me that, asked me why I would want to go to a military academy for five years.
00:02:32:16 - 00:02:47:06
Unknown
At the time, he didn't enjoy West Point, and so I was like, all right. Point taken. So I did ROTC. I think it's good, by the way. I think, you know, we say that the Naval Academy, what's a great place to be from? It's a long five years. It's where it's where people go when they can't get in the West Point.
00:02:47:06 - 00:03:05:01
Unknown
Is remember brother says, yeah, that's. I don't want to be. I don't want to take sides any of that other than the fact that I served. Well, you did go to GW, right? Is that under George Washington ROTC in D.C., the services are at different schools. So I went to Georgetown for ROTC, but then got commissioned. The Army got real small.
00:03:05:01 - 00:03:28:15
Unknown
That didn't really answer your question. So the real thing is, is that I'm a third generation American. My family came over here in during the Irish Civil War. It was a big story growing up as our family history of the fact that the country, the United States gave us sort of a second chance as a family. And so everyone in my dad's and my dad's one nine, you know, typical Irish family all did some sort of service or some type.
00:03:28:16 - 00:03:47:13
Unknown
They're either teachers or in the medical field or the military. My dad was of the boys that was in his family. He's the only one who served in the military, was a corpsman in the Navy, and then got direct commission into the Army as a PA. And then for me, it's funny, though, because he spent much of his time in the reserves.
00:03:47:14 - 00:04:07:02
Unknown
I didn't really I couldn't I didn't identify with that. That's not the reason I went in. I think I was familiar enough with it. You know, I was in Army recruiting. Most people joined the military because they're familiar with someone having served, and it wasn't like a scary thing. But at the same time, I think it was just a sense of duty.
00:04:07:03 - 00:04:27:01
Unknown
Like I felt like it was either this or some sort of public service. Right, right, right. And then tell me about the trajectory of your service. So you graduate from GDA, you get commission. Yeah, I was going to go. I would say that I had a very unconventional career that ended up in unconventional warfare. So I got commissioned as an armor officer.
00:04:27:02 - 00:04:45:18
Unknown
The Army got real small, so I ended up in the reserves. The Army reorganized the reserves of the National Guard, saw the combat arms units with the National Guard. I did not have a state commission, so I did without a job as an English major after college. So I ended up working at a think tank in D.C., which was just kind of hanging out, wondering if the Army would ever call.
00:04:45:19 - 00:05:03:17
Unknown
They didn't. And so I ended up moving to LA, worked in entertainment for a while, got a telegram from the United States Army saying that I needed to either pay back my scholarship money or find a reserve center. Showed up to the reserve center that had space in it. It was a quarterback unit, so we had never ended being in the reserves.
00:05:03:17 - 00:05:28:09
Unknown
In the Quartermaster Corps, there were a lot of challenges because it was in the late 90s, not a lot of funding for those units. And so but I think that it was more approximate to actual wartime experience because I had then later on had the experience of both being an F1 and off one of making do. And so we had to work with the LA Air Force Base.
00:05:28:09 - 00:05:46:08
Unknown
We had to work with Camp Pendleton, the Marines, because we just didn't have equipment. And so when that happened, you start losing a lot of, I think, the inner service rivalry nonsense. You also get correct to the lot when you call a marine staff sergeant sergeant, but you learn all that stuff in a way that's very graceful because of course, joint operations.
00:05:46:08 - 00:06:08:08
Unknown
Yeah, of course, joint operation, because we just don't have anything. So it's like the Marine Corps. We're just trying to make do with what we have. And so it was great to go through that experience. And then unfortunately, I had a death in the family. My younger brother committed suicide. And then when that happened, I was a working actor and I felt that what I was doing, although I was working a fair amount, I just didn't feel fulfilled doing what I was doing.
00:06:08:09 - 00:06:25:21
Unknown
Like, I wasn't serving anyone. And I knew that eventually, to get to the point in entertainment as an actor, to be able to feel like you're of service to other people, I really would have been a long road. So as a means of sort of relieving that tension that I was feeling, I came back into the Army and active duty.
00:06:25:23 - 00:06:50:04
Unknown
The way that I came in was as a signal officer, and then got assigned to third Special Forces Group and as a signal officer. And nine months later, September 11th happened. And so, like I did not project that. And then when as a signal officer to one off one in special operations units, and then after that I had a great boss peek out or who said, hey, I think you're a great officer, but you don't.
00:06:50:05 - 00:07:06:20
Unknown
You're not like putting up a land in your in your hooch. So I don't think that eventually you're going to cap out based on the fact that you're not interested in the technology portion of this. So why don't you go to selection, like why don't you go to special for selection? So I was like, all right. See introduced me to a guy that was Green Beret that was there.
00:07:06:21 - 00:07:33:21
Unknown
We trained, you know, because I was on a different cycle than my boss was. So I ended up training with this other ops. Oh, and then came back with the selection. Yeah. I think this is probably like a little tangential to like the purpose of our podcast, but I think people don't understand that. Like in the old days, Special Forces officers, even after they'd gone through the queue, they would actually have to rotate back into their other fields.
00:07:33:22 - 00:07:54:05
Unknown
Yeah, it wasn't a career path. Yeah. For office there is interesting. Used to be the same way. Right, right. And so and and it meant that as officers in the community, you were more like tourists. And it was a very like, enlisted driven organization. Yeah. Or if you if you did choose that career, you were going to cap out at some point because you just weren't doing the jobs that would get you promoted.
00:07:54:05 - 00:08:18:16
Unknown
But paradoxically, that means that the people who went into SF as officers would be there that wanted to be there, they lived and breathed. They weren't doing it to to be generals. Yeah. And to what was interesting about it is that I don't think based on. So when you're in entertainment like production and you're working in it now, you have small staffs, you can everything is very cost effective and you make things work.
00:08:18:16 - 00:08:40:07
Unknown
And so if you're the production coordinator and you need to pick up stuff for craft service, whatever, everyone, it's all hands on deck. You have people from all different backgrounds, you know, because it's art. So you have people that are grips that are blue collar and, you know, they're in a union and they drive trucks. And then and then you have other people that are, you know, painting sets and they're a different group of people, but no one cares.
00:08:40:08 - 00:09:00:05
Unknown
It was all about doing the work. And so what was interesting about it is that taking that, I would say if anything in the United States military is like that, Army Special Forces is like that, where like almost all the guys that I served with have some weird story. You know, I was a college football player, I was a professional skier.
00:09:00:05 - 00:09:22:13
Unknown
I was something else. And we all kind of ended up there because we were like, I want to do something where there isn't a really defined boundary of what it is that I do, and I want to be given be able to be in a position to be able to both get the responsibility, but also the latitude to be able to try to execute and accomplish hard things, which is great.
00:09:22:14 - 00:09:41:17
Unknown
And I think there's some in the larger military, they just can't do that because there needs to be more order because there's more people. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, you're hitting on you're honing in on one of the themes of the podcast here. And if I was going to be self-critical, I'd say our guest list has veered towards special operations personnel.
00:09:41:17 - 00:10:12:22
Unknown
But we want to seals lot of green, but largely for the reasons that you're describing something about the nature of those organizations being able to operate in the gray, being able to operate with imperfect information and imperfect partners lends itself to the kind of entrepreneurship that we like are talking about. Yeah, I think there's if you're successful in a special operations career field, you are extraordinarily self-confident, but also extraordinarily curious and humble.
00:10:12:22 - 00:10:34:10
Unknown
So knowing that, I think I can surmount a challenge, sometimes to our detriment. And then and especially if it bleeds into your personal life. But then but at the same time, we are also very curious about other people, how they solve problems, because we're always trying to figure out a better way to build a mousetrap. Always. Yeah, yeah.
00:10:34:12 - 00:10:53:06
Unknown
And that is sort of the the genesis of entrepreneurship. So for you personally, how did that work? You, you had this career like all of us, you have your own unique half to the community. And what was your path out of the community? Yeah. So I saw my, my I was fortunate enough to be a younger brother. So my brother transitioned three years before I did.
00:10:53:07 - 00:11:14:12
Unknown
And really, I think because he was sort of that he was he had it was mostly army, mostly tier one unit. So, so very linear. He lived in his skiff before he got out. And I would say there was a challenge for him doing a lot of and even though he has a great network, doing the networking to get the right job, to feel impassioned, to be able to find this path to purpose.
00:11:14:12 - 00:11:28:04
Unknown
And so when he was out, like just talking to him when he was, you know, really humble or it showed a lot of humility towards stuff, he was like, yeah, I wish I had done this a little bit different. And as a younger brother, I had the fortune of being able to say, I'm going to try to do a different thing.
00:11:28:04 - 00:11:48:17
Unknown
So I ended up going to while I was a sitting battalion commander in recruiting, because I was the first job that I was not in a long time. I had a mentor, say a former battalion commander in recruiting. Say, hey, while you're doing this, this is probably most close to being in the business world of any job in the United States Army.
00:11:48:17 - 00:12:05:11
Unknown
So that you're going to have because I'm never going to be in acquisitions, whatever. So from that he goes, go to business school, you know, look at the executive MBA programs and give you the same degree that provide the same amount of training. And so I ended up applying to Duke. I got into Duke and I went there at the same time I was a battalion commander.
00:12:05:12 - 00:12:21:18
Unknown
It was great for my unit because I could plan out when I was going to be gone. It was a weekend in VA program, and I would take everything I was learning at Duke and apply it directly to recruiting. So we ended up going from, you know, there's 42 Army recruiting battalions. We were somewhere around 30. We ended up getting up to number one for 16 months.
00:12:21:18 - 00:12:41:04
Unknown
And I would submit that a lot of it has to do with going to business school, but not because I. I solved the answers to the to the test. It was that going to business school made me ask, I think, the right questions to the people that were the subject matter experts to engage them, because there were two things that were at any operations.
00:12:41:04 - 00:13:01:14
Unknown
There are two things that you really can affect. Either you can be more effective or more efficient. And so we had two ways of being able to increase our recruiting numbers. We could either be more effective and go out and find more people and bring more people into the file, or we had to be more efficient and not have as many errors with the people that we were finding.
00:13:01:14 - 00:13:27:18
Unknown
And so we ended up doing the error problem first, which was not sexy. It was very administrative selecting better, selecting better, and making PECS better. Like you have to write a whole packet. It's like you have to write someone else's 32 page resume. And so if you're not doing that to the utmost professionalism as a recruiter and then as the station chief and then as the, you know, the folks over at MEPs, then you're getting a lot of packets kicked back and all that stuff gets backlogged.
00:13:27:18 - 00:13:45:19
Unknown
And then you have in recruiting, you have all these people that are not making it through the pipeline because they time out. And so from that, then we started making that more efficient. When that became more efficient, and then people were rewarded with getting their time back. Then we said, okay, now what we're going to do is be able to try to figure out how to be more effective.
00:13:45:19 - 00:14:03:21
Unknown
Now, I'm going to help you because I, you know, I'd come into the Army from Los Angeles because I'd gotten a Purple Heart and a valor award, and organizations wanted me to, like, be the hero of the game of, like, the LA Clippers or whatever. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. But because it's a great thing, your kid from LA, Green Beret, all this stuff.
00:14:03:21 - 00:14:27:03
Unknown
But I was like, I'm only going to do it if we're going to list people at the gate, I'm only going to do it if we can get something out of it as a unit. Otherwise I have no interest. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's fascinating to me about this is that I think there's this misconception about entrepreneurship that you have to be like Steve Jobs, that you got to go, like, solder a computer in your garage and then sell that product, and then you become a gazillion air.
00:14:27:04 - 00:14:51:22
Unknown
Right? And there's all different types of entrepreneurship. And like, what I'm hearing from your story is that your first sort of beta test of entrepreneurship was really more like being an entrepreneur within an organization, within a silo. An entrepreneur. Yeah, within the military. And so it was testing the boundaries of what being an entrepreneur looked like. And I think being a true, you had your own little startup per say or you had your own company within.
00:14:51:23 - 00:15:10:09
Unknown
Yeah. We were I essentially it was like I came into an organization and did change management as like, you know, CEO 2.0 where I would come in and be like, okay, what did I do before me? You got new thinking. You apply new tools. How did that work in real time? Yeah. How can we integrate whether it's different technology?
00:15:10:10 - 00:15:38:07
Unknown
We were one of the first battalions to do virtual recruiting. So like, how do we do that? How do we manage social media. How does how does that public how do we not end up in jail. And so and how do I give, you know, the folks that needed to be out there enough latitude and also support and top cover that if they made a mistake that it would, that I would take the heat for it, that I wasn't just throwing these kids under the bus if they made a mistake because they were like, some of these dudes were 22 to 26 years old.
00:15:38:07 - 00:15:59:03
Unknown
And that's who recruits people that are 19 and 20 years old. So I wanted them to be able to make some mistakes. It's hard because it's such, such a public platform, but at the end of the day, that's what you get paid the medium bucks for. Yeah, it's cool too, because as as a learning environment for your own entrepreneurship, you had like a very like specific metric.
00:15:59:03 - 00:16:29:16
Unknown
Like how many bodies are we getting in the door? Yeah, I mean most yeah. Most companies, you know, they have a bottom line, which is the metric. Are we increasing revenue? Sometimes the metrics get lost. But it's it's cool that you like refurbished an organization. Yeah. Based on this metric. But a lot of it was stuff that to your point that I learned in special operations, like when I was operating in Afghanistan or Peru or whatever, is that I was given that I was very I was very grateful for a lot of the commanders and a lot of the bosses I had is that they were very they gave me a lot of latitude.
00:16:29:16 - 00:16:42:00
Unknown
And so they would be like, this is the end state, which is what you're supposed to do as commander. Right? And then you allow me to figure out with my team and talking to my team sergeant and the senior and CEOs, how do you want to accomplish this with the least amount of risk and the highest amount of payout?
00:16:42:00 - 00:17:01:11
Unknown
And so with that, then we were given a fair amount of latitude. Did we make mistakes? Yes. I was also given the grace to be able to make mistakes. I was a young officer. We had casualties. Sometimes that causes people to say and do things in that moment that thankfully people are graceful for later on. And so the interesting thing.
00:17:01:11 - 00:17:21:08
Unknown
So any rate, so do all that stuff and then realize that, hey, LA is a pretty great place to potentially move after you get out, because it's the second largest metro complex in the United States, and a lot of corporate headquarters are there. So I was like, okay, so I'll, I went to the Honor Foundation, which is a Navy transition organization that was founded by the Navy Seal Foundation.
00:17:21:08 - 00:17:47:15
Unknown
I think I was one of the first couple Green Berets. I didn't even know I was able to go to it. And then from that did the 50 cups of coffee, which at first I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever done. I don't know these people, but that's what got me. The interview with the right company is that I kept asking the questions, and as time went on, I became more and more humble and more and more focused on what it is that I was trying to do, and eventually found somebody that needed somebody to be able to help them solve a problem.
00:17:47:15 - 00:18:18:11
Unknown
And I had the right skill set of being able to help them solve a problem at their company. Yeah. So that I worked in finance. So it Anderson, which is a tax and consulting firm, had an ability to, you know, see them relaunch Andersen Consulting which is great was you know member of an organization that went through a really tough time in, you know, after Enron, there was a lot of scar tissue from that, but also a very hopeful organization that's focused on, you know, high client touch and making sure to do that.
00:18:18:11 - 00:18:34:19
Unknown
And my job was to make sure that all the different business lines. So I was essentially the chief of staff, all the different business lines, whether they were administrative or the ones that were revenue created, had the tools. They had to be able to be successful. And so it reminds me of like the eventual job that I had in the military.
00:18:34:19 - 00:18:53:13
Unknown
So as a Green Beret, you're an operator, right? And you're out there kicking in doors and doing all this stuff, and eventually you're not the guy kicking in, especially as an officer. You're not going to guy kick in the doors not doing all this stuff. And some people have a really hard transition to that of not being super cool anymore and be like, man, they got those guys, got the new boots.
00:18:53:14 - 00:19:21:12
Unknown
Yeah, I'm in the talk like, I don't need the new boots, but but then being able to say, wow, if, if I had a guy like me that was in Ops back in the day, I would have been able to do so much more. And so you start taking it as and this is a lesson that I got right when I came back in the military, is that before the war again, even in special forces, it was a hard time like getting employed doing stuff, and I was running a signal detachment that had essentially not been really integrated into the battalion.
00:19:21:13 - 00:19:36:01
Unknown
So I had a great boss, Fred Dummer, who said, hey, you could feel sorry for yourself and it's going to affect every other guy in your unit, or you can go sell what you do. And I was like, what do you mean? You guys go talk to the company commanders and tell them what you do. And I was like, all right.
00:19:36:02 - 00:19:53:23
Unknown
So I did exactly that. And then our guys started getting integrated with the deployments. They started feeling more. They were part of a team. They no longer just felt entitled to be in a special forces unit. And then when the war happened, we ended up I had 22 guys underneath me, and we had seven of them that were in Kandahar.
00:19:54:00 - 00:20:16:01
Unknown
The other 15 were out at fire bases with teams helping them do their job. And it was like a the it was the shortest, best piece of advice that I had gotten as a leader and also as a commander. And there's kind of two parts to it. One is stop making how you feel and making other people suffer from how you feel personally.
00:20:16:01 - 00:20:39:04
Unknown
And then secondly, because there's a bigger job to do. And secondly, go sell what you do because a lot of people don't understand what you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the communications piece is essential these days. If anybody pitches me a startup and I don't care what it is like B2C, you know, B2B, I don't care what your widget, your product is, and you don't have a communications plan in a place like you don't have a startup game plan.
00:20:39:05 - 00:20:56:00
Unknown
Yeah, right. And also know what you're doing, what you don't do understand your core skill set. So is a nonprofit leader. You know, when people want to give us money, sometimes there's drift because it's like, hey, I'll give you money, but I want you to do this or you do this program. And it's probably the hardest conversations that I've had.
00:20:56:01 - 00:21:13:08
Unknown
Is that the beginning of a nonprofit or startup saying, I don't feel comfortable taking that money either, because it's an exclusive relationship that I don't want to have, because I want to have more people to be able to that we could work with, or I don't want to do that thing because it's not our core strength, and I don't want to be.
00:21:13:09 - 00:21:36:02
Unknown
I don't want to be a Swiss Army knife. I want to be a bar. Yeah, yeah. So tell me about the nonprofit. You had this incredibly dynamic career. Like you were able to, like, build these kind of, like, warning models throughout your career. How did you land up in the nonprofit space? Yeah. Again, mentorship. So this is probably the theme of the whole my whole talk is one, be humble to be curious.
00:21:36:02 - 00:21:57:06
Unknown
Three find a mentor. And there are a lot of guys like me. I think I'm unofficially mentoring all sorts of people because I think, quite frankly, it's the thing I missed most after transitioning is sitting and trying to help solve someone else's problem. Like just giving them feedback and listening to them and being, in part, some of the wisdom that you've earned through blood, sweat and treasure and say, hey, you can.
00:21:57:07 - 00:22:14:15
Unknown
You're probably going to still expend some blood, sweat and pressure because you're you have a lot of self-confidence. But at the same time, I think you could spend less and then maybe more efficiently. And so in that I had a mentor. So I was working at Anderson. My wife and I at the time got separated. She moved to Texas.
00:22:14:15 - 00:22:38:02
Unknown
I was in California. We had a young son that was a little bit difficult. And then I was considering a career change going into consulting, because I wasn't as static. I wasn't as concerned about where I had to live anymore or where I hung my hat, realized that in consulting, it was the opposite of the thing that I wanted to do with getting out of the military, to be able to spend more time with my family and travel quite as much.
00:22:38:03 - 00:23:05:19
Unknown
And so I was like, this isn't probably it, but maybe I'll have to do it because that's where it probably my skill set lines up best. And then had a mentor who's great runs sports academy used to be Kobe Bryant or yeah, the Mamba Sports Academy, Chad Faulkner. And he was like, hey, you've been talking about this thing with veterans for a long time and how it seems like everyone's leaning into the startup for veterans, and people have been doing it for almost 20 years now.
00:23:05:20 - 00:23:25:20
Unknown
Who's helping them go buy stuff, who's helping them understand the M&A process? Who's helping them understand how to successfully operate, grow and exit a company because that's the most expensive portion of this. It's not finding it. So it's once you actually have it underneath you being able to make sure that you're maintaining it well enough, that you treat it like an asset and you can exit.
00:23:25:20 - 00:23:44:18
Unknown
Well, I was like, that's interesting, but I don't know if, like, I don't want to just start up. That seems like a terrible idea. And and so what ended up happening is that he said, who else would? And I was like, that's a good question. He's like, if you could think of somebody, do you think they would be better than you?
00:23:44:20 - 00:23:57:23
Unknown
And I was like, no, I think through the grace of God, I think I've been given a lot of people in my network that suddenly a lot of things made sense, that a lot of light bulbs went off, like I worked at a tax consulting firm. Yeah, like all this stuff and suddenly running around profit me a lot of sense.
00:23:57:23 - 00:24:18:01
Unknown
I got a lot of great advice. And it was, you know, it's still hard running a nonprofit. I don't really you know, I'm the last one to get paid. So it's it's tough, you know, in a startup and a nonprofit especially. But the once we started actually helping veterans again now, I bet I talked to 40 veterans a week at least.
00:24:18:01 - 00:24:38:09
Unknown
And just like when I was reconnecting with you before this, it is so fulfilling to see people who have had a shared experience and a fair amount of trauma, and to be able to help them solve a problem and ideally mitigate psychological distress and help them be get them to where they feel like they're a valued asset to their community.
00:24:38:10 - 00:24:56:12
Unknown
Yeah. And how do you define the purpose of of owners in R. Yes. The main thing is so buying existing businesses, growing them and then exiting them. What really what that is though is risk mitigation and advisory services. So it's very similar to being in the military I would say not that dissimilar from what you did at the Recruiting command.
00:24:56:12 - 00:25:16:17
Unknown
Right. Like or is the Green Beret right. It's like, where do I assume risk? Am I aware of the risk that I'm assuming? And then based on that, can I still make a good a good choice? And then of that, who am I good at? Who are my vetted advisors from the community for whatever so that I can get from A to Z faster, and I could do it with less friction?
00:25:16:18 - 00:25:39:03
Unknown
Yeah. And one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you is that I think, again, the sort of like ratio Alger mythology of entrepreneurship is that like, you have to start from zero with your own idea and then like build it in your backyard and bootstrap it and then go raise institutional capital and then eventually there's like, you know, some like pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
00:25:39:09 - 00:25:58:01
Unknown
But there's other models out there. AII what what you're focused on, which is by an existing business, optimize it and prove it, increase the revenue and then sell it. So instead of A to Z, maybe it's C to Z or D to Z. And it's interesting too because so what I'm a patriot. So I love the United States.
00:25:58:01 - 00:26:17:15
Unknown
I love everything we stand for, I love capitalism, I think capitalism is the engine of democracy. I think democracy is great. I've worked in a lot of countries that have a tenuous grasp on democracy. And I could you could see it, especially when you work in Latin America, and you could see the sea change when you work in a country, and suddenly the the temperature changes of how they're going to run the country.
00:26:17:15 - 00:26:34:23
Unknown
And then you're like, oh my goodness. Now everything's super hard for everyone and it is what it is. But mostly it's because there's not a healthy middle class, there's not enough people that quite frankly, don't care about the two fringes, but they just want to be able to take care of their kids, make sure that they're putting food on the table and making a life a little bit better than they had.
00:26:35:00 - 00:26:51:20
Unknown
And capitalism is a great way to do this. Small business owner ship is a great way to do it. So as we've been going through this, there's some other problems that we're sort of discovered. So initially was, hey, there's an option of starting business or not starting a business. There's less risk in not starting a business. Buying something makes more sense.
00:26:51:20 - 00:27:18:05
Unknown
That's kind of the initial thesis. And maybe special operators are well suited to this because I was in the outer foundation and it really starts expanding and you realize, oh, there's actually a economic crisis that's about to approach the United States because the silver Nami, the great wave. Yeah. Where? Right. There's a lot of excuse me, media that's focused on the economic opportunity, the greatest wealth transfer in the history of of man.
00:27:18:05 - 00:27:42:12
Unknown
Really. And that's great if you're, you know, purely capitalist and you have deep pockets and flexibility and a good network and possibly you have, you know, a lineage of people being able to help you if you're a veteran and you have all of the attributes to be able to help solve this crisis or address it. But you've never been trained.
00:27:42:12 - 00:28:04:14
Unknown
You've never been. You were throwing people, you're throwing extra wood on the fire, and they're just going to get burned up in the process of it, because the more that it's happening, the more it becomes predatory, because the more people know that there's an opportunity to jump in, and there's a lot of people that are jumping in without training now, and there's a lot of predatory practices that are happening and their legal, but I would still consider them predatory.
00:28:04:14 - 00:28:21:11
Unknown
And so for us, it was that we want veterans to one, understand that it's a great way for you to exit the military. Go home. So it's a great story. As a former recruiter, it was the best story that I ever wanted to tell is that, hey, this person served in the United States military. They got out, they came back to their community.
00:28:21:12 - 00:28:35:12
Unknown
It was the number one objection I had with parents when we were recruiting is my son or daughter is going to leave LA, and I'm never going to see my going to move Florida or Texas. And so for us it was like, well, how do we fix that? I can't fix the fact that there's a cost of living problem here in California.
00:28:35:12 - 00:28:56:14
Unknown
What I can do, though, is say, we're going to connect you to corporations and companies here in California, Los Angeles to get them job reviews. And the jobs that they're going to be able to approach are ones that are going to be able to mitigate the cost of living issue, because those kids want to come home to they they don't want necessarily to be that far away, especially once you start in kids of their grandparents or of their kids.
00:28:56:14 - 00:29:21:11
Unknown
And so you look at the psychological stressors that happen during transition, and it mitigates a lot of them. And then what's interesting about it is that then you have communities with San Francisco, which is not, you know, everyone's like San Francisco. It's one way. San Francisco's a bunch of small businesses. There's very there's some corporate headquarters there, but principally it's a big city that's quite wealthy, that has a whole mess of small businesses.
00:29:21:17 - 00:29:47:04
Unknown
If the alternative happens and all you have are large companies with deep pockets, come and roll all that stuff up. San Francisco is going to start feeling like Burbank. And San Franciscans don't want that. They want the independent business. They want the. And so they're very energized of being able to talk to the chambers of commerce and whatever to be able to say, oh, I didn't realize that veterans wanted to go home because they want them to go home because they vote.
00:29:47:04 - 00:30:09:22
Unknown
They do public service. More often than not, they volunteer. More often than not, they are less volatile as citizens in their communities. And those communities, even the ones that I think people would sometimes write off because they consider them left, want veterans to come back 100%. And so being able to find a pathway that isn't one where it's a handout, but it's a hand up to be able to then help them solve a problem that's happening in the city.
00:30:09:22 - 00:30:28:16
Unknown
I think it's a great opportunity. I mean, I used to say this all the time when I helped start the Mission Continues. It was the same principle, right, that if you can lead a village shura in Iraq, you can come home and lead in your own community as well. And that's the biggest effect that we've been like, we are.
00:30:28:17 - 00:30:52:18
Unknown
We've been in the biggest leadership incubator and the most expensive in the history of man. Yeah. And to think that all of that leadership that every taxpayer is paid for goes for you to work for a fortune 500 company where you're a grain of sand on the beach versus you go back to a smaller community, a city of 15,000, 25,000 people, that suddenly that's an exponential impact that you're having in that community.
00:30:52:18 - 00:31:10:16
Unknown
And then instead of them being and I don't want to say that all private equity is evil, because that's hyperbolic and ridiculous. But at the end of the day, unless there's an alternative, people are going to have to sell their businesses. And so now you're looking at the no. Of these companies. And you're like, why would they tithe to the community right now?
00:31:10:16 - 00:31:29:12
Unknown
There's a big tax advantage to do that. If you're a small business owner, private equity firm, there's not the same advantage. So like now you're looking at who sponsors the church, who sponsors the baseball team, who sponsors the like. It's not happening. What's a good example of a veteran who you helped coach to buy an existing business and improve?
00:31:29:13 - 00:31:51:20
Unknown
Yeah. Great example. So I had spent over 20 years in the Army, had done some interesting special mission stuff, but ended up he was from Virginia, wanted to move back to Virginia, had been kind of looking on his own for a little bit, going through beers, buy, sell, whatever. But he didn't. He didn't know how to look. And so he initially came to us saying, hey, I think you're doing this thing.
00:31:51:20 - 00:32:06:07
Unknown
And is there any way you could just help me look? And we were like, oh, we'll help you do that. But then what we want you to be able to do is come into the education program, get mentorship. It's because there's things that you don't know. You don't know right now that you're going to need to know to be a more effective business owner.
00:32:06:07 - 00:32:30:02
Unknown
And so some of it is when you go to buy a business from a seller, what's your story? So how do you differentiate from everyone else who's coming in with sometimes deeper pockets than you? And really it's a it's just like buying a house in a housing market is that he had the story of when we come back to the community he was a student of through coaching and some other things through himself that he asked the right questions of.
00:32:30:02 - 00:32:57:08
Unknown
The business owner had addressed the actual business owner, who is the wife and not the husband of this company. Most of the folks that had come straight out of business school Patagonia Vest were like, hey, they're talking to quality earnings and PNL to the husband who is the general manager. And the owner was actually the wife. Yeah. And so it was like that was something that I think we do better than most because we actually look for where's the center of gravity and the power broker in the room who's quiet but actually in control.
00:32:57:08 - 00:33:19:06
Unknown
And so like, that's something that we taught to do. And he ended up asking her the right questions. Found out she was a three year retired special agent from the terrain mapping all the old schools because you're trying to build rapport to figure out a connection, right? Right. And it turns out they're running a, you know, they're giving money to local school.
00:33:19:06 - 00:33:36:05
Unknown
And he lined up with all their values. And so once he lined up with other values, then it was about how do we get them in the capital to be able to to do this. And we use SBA lending as the primary vehicle for a couple different reasons. One, there's a lot of rules. So that means there's a lot of oversights that keeps us out of trouble.
00:33:36:05 - 00:33:53:01
Unknown
So we follow the rules. We make sure we're following the rules. We make sure our lenders that we're working with the following the rules so that there isn't the sense of drift, or someone taking a handout or getting some sort of unfair treatment. The other thing it does, though, with SBA is it gives a very accurate, sometimes conservative valuation of a company.
00:33:53:01 - 00:34:18:19
Unknown
So that was helpful. The lenders that we use are fantastic. So we have partnerships with these lenders and not every lender is built the same. They are all different credit theses. Most people don't know that. So getting him connected to the right bank that would fit the exact business thesis, he had to be able to fit their credit thesis to be able to then work with them, and it took a while for them to close like six months, but was persisting, making sure it was happening.
00:34:18:19 - 00:34:37:08
Unknown
And then after he, you know, got under helm as he was asking questions, you know, during the run up to actually owning it, he realized that there was all these opportunities that could have been created based on including additional technology. The only reason the company hadn't done it is because they were in their 60s, and it was just extra work.
00:34:37:10 - 00:35:00:15
Unknown
I think they were making a ton of money. I think this is the part of the silver wave that maybe people are missing. Like, look, this intergenerational wealth transfer, a lot of it's coming in real estate, but there are also a lot of people who built these businesses. They ran these businesses for 50 years. And they're like counter to probably what people think they might not being trying to extract maximum value out of the business.
00:35:00:16 - 00:35:27:01
Unknown
These are also their legacy. Like this is the company they ran for 3 or 4 years. So like this narrative of a veteran coming in and saying like, hey, I care about this company actually matters more than a PE guy coming in and saying. And so there's opportunity there. I think the other part that's cool about like veterans buying businesses as part of this as, as part of this transformative moment that we're having.
00:35:27:01 - 00:35:51:00
Unknown
Is it, you know, there's this like, trend line on Wall Street right now, like by boring businesses, right? Like I have a cousin who is at Goldman Sachs, right. He left Goldman Sachs to go buy a line paint striping business. Right. And that's great. Like that is on trend right now. I think we're suggesting that, you know, veterans are sort of well with guidance and with mentorship are well positioned to do that.
00:35:51:01 - 00:36:10:12
Unknown
Yeah. These existing businesses take over sometimes these legacy businesses at a dose of like new thinking, new ideas, new technology and continue them as like great economic engine. So I think what's interesting about veterans, what are the attributes that they bring to the table is very few of us, if we've spent more than three years in the military, have been in the same organization.
00:36:10:12 - 00:36:28:20
Unknown
So you've typically been rotating through different jobs in different units. You've had to relearn something you've taken over something that someone else's legacy had. And any good leader after a while doesn't, you know, you don't talk badly about the person you're taking over from, because if you're really honest about it, they probably had a lot of priorities. Intervening variables happen.
00:36:28:20 - 00:36:46:03
Unknown
They couldn't get to everything they were trying to. Everyone's really everyone's resource constrained. And so it's a matter like when you're young, you know, realize that and you're like, everyone's screwing me. But then you're like, no, we just don't have enough resources. So we have to take risk in places that we don't have enough resources to be able to make sure that we're able to do things.
00:36:46:04 - 00:37:06:07
Unknown
And ideally, we're being ethical and moral in the process of doing that. And so the interesting thing of veterans is that a lot of times, like the boring business would be like, like the typical question veteran has is, hey, I'm looking at plumbing companies, in fact companies and fencing companies, because that's the hotness right now, right? So it's like looking at that.
00:37:06:07 - 00:37:24:16
Unknown
Great. If you're looking at that, that means and you find out about it on the internet, on TikTok or, or or Instagram, that means everybody's looking at it, which means that suddenly you have an artificial valuation, inflation of those businesses, because now the business owner thinks that the business is worth more. So now you have to determine if that's the thing you want to do.
00:37:24:16 - 00:37:50:11
Unknown
Now you have to figure out your differentiation strategy as a buyer to compare you to someone who maybe has more money. And then the main thing that we do in going back to the human terrain stuff is we're great at leading human beings. So one of the things going back to that veteran is that there were people that were in billing or in the administration straight, a portion of the company like HR or whatever, they hadn't really been using CRM, they hadn't been using an army.
00:37:50:12 - 00:38:02:15
Unknown
They hadn't been doing all of this because they didn't need to because they made it. They were making a lot of money. Everyone was getting paid. There's no reason to do that stuff sometimes. And so he was like, I want to include all this stuff because I want to be able to scale, I want to be able to.
00:38:02:16 - 00:38:36:20
Unknown
And he understood the tension that it would be with including something without enabling or empowering the people there and saying, I'm doing this to make your job better, not because I'm trying to replace you. And what ended up happening is that relationship wise, is that those small business communities are tight. If you're running, moving company, if you've been running it for 10 or 15 years, all the competitors know you are, everyone's going to the same trade shows, etc., etc. so we ended up happening is that two other moving companies that were close by that were competitors approached this buyer and were like, hey, would you consider buying my company?
00:38:37:01 - 00:38:55:05
Unknown
Mainly because I think you're going to treat my employee as fair, and I think that the legacy of my business will be something that I if I'm still in the community, I can I can show my face. The opposite of that is my personal story of my dad is that which is the other thing that we're really sort of excited about.
00:38:55:05 - 00:39:16:07
Unknown
Launching into more in this year is exit in succession planning. So my dad, you know, Army corpsman, then a PA ran a clinic for a long time. My younger brother dies in 2007. Then both my brother and I got Purple Hearts within three days of each other. Him and Iraq and Afghanistan. Pretty tough time for my parents. Obviously, I didn't have any sympathy at the time or empathy.
00:39:16:09 - 00:39:32:21
Unknown
I was just like, yeah, we're both in the Army. This is what happens. But for them, it ended up creating sort of this family crisis, which is why most businesses exit that. They really started considering the fact that they really want that many glass balls in the air anymore. And so and they couldn't control what we were doing.
00:39:32:22 - 00:39:55:23
Unknown
So the only thing control was the volatility of running a business. So they ended up, you know, looking around to see what kind of other people were selling businesses, found a family attorney that would help them prepare the sale, ended up getting approached by a hospital corporation backed by a private equity firm, and sold what turns out, now that I've done the numbers, a $3.8 million business for $600,000, my dad was told that he was getting a deal.
00:39:55:23 - 00:40:18:16
Unknown
And what's interesting is that veterans business owners are more apt to fall prey to that than sometimes others, because most veteran business owners started it later in life. So if you're a veteran business owner, you're starting to own a business 35 or 45. You don't have that deep network of people who have bought and sold businesses. Most people in the United States by a business once and sell a business once.
00:40:18:16 - 00:40:46:02
Unknown
So it's the most important thing you could possibly ever be doing. And veterans aren't connected to a network of advisors that help them do it. And so for us, we are now partnering with the Exit Planning Institute, a great valued, value based organization that provides certified exit planning advisors. And they have 9000 certified advisors. They represent about 90,000 businesses, and their goal is to try to get the highest value for legacy businesses.
00:40:46:02 - 00:41:06:17
Unknown
So then we then partner with the implementers that they have. But we do. They have white label, all their education training for us, that any veteran business owner can get the education through us to understand what they need to prepare for, to get an exit, whether or not, you know, perfect virtuous circles. We have one of our veterans, searchers be able to identify one of these veteran businesses and be able to turn it over.
00:41:06:17 - 00:41:24:07
Unknown
There's a lot of advantages to that right now, especially if you have contracts that are tied to your service rating. And so there's advantage to that. But ultimately it's the it's just like any other business. It's matching the two pipelines at the right time to be able to then maximize effectiveness to both parties. It's a very cool concept.
00:41:24:07 - 00:41:50:00
Unknown
Awesome. Well, we like to end with a little section that we call rapid fire. All right. This is streaming. I say it's like shooting steel, right? Not everybody gets that reference. You'll get it. You know instant feedback right? So here we go. Rapid fire. Best investment you ever made I would say in my NCO, honestly, I'm probably the most proud of anything is when I was a team leader that almost all the senior and CIO or on my team, all the seniors, became sergeant majors.
00:41:50:01 - 00:42:13:03
Unknown
Probably the biggest thing I'm proud of. Yeah, yeah, I say similar thing not to slow down the, the the steel shooting but I offices this is only getting we're not out there. Turn it around and I'll tell you that. Yeah. Is that of my detachment. Six of the eight guys went on to get college degrees and one ended up going and getting a PhD.
00:42:13:03 - 00:42:28:04
Unknown
So my investment in them is like had incredible ROI for me, but personally and, you know, for them. Yeah, I'll be honest, it wasn't completely altruistic. It was partially because I needed them to help me. Yeah, exactly. And I wanted to be able to figure out ways to be able to find pathways to do that. Yeah. Thomas financial mistake.
00:42:28:06 - 00:42:53:15
Unknown
Me and two partners bought a rental property in Pigeon Forge two years before the housing crisis. Okay. And then I was deployed to combat for about three years straight, and I it it was less. It was less optimistic than I hoped. Yeah. Got it. Hey, listen, like nobody bats a thousand. Yeah, yeah, that's why we have a portfolio.
00:42:53:19 - 00:43:15:02
Unknown
But I'm also glad that I went through it because I was like, hey, we did all the math, all the right stuff, and still failed. So you could be right and still fail because of something you can't predict. Best business book you've read. Best business book or leadership book something that informed your your entrepreneurial journey. Yeah, I would say American icon.
00:43:15:03 - 00:43:52:01
Unknown
I enjoy that, I think quite a bit. I read it a lot. I enjoy Elon Musk's book. I thought that was fantastic. What about him? I thought that was great. And then team of teams. But yeah, honestly, one of the books that's sort of my touchstone of books is still like this. I was an American literature guide, so I read a lot of Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens, because just the belief in us as a country being sort of befuddled toddlers, but having really good spirit.
00:43:52:01 - 00:44:10:13
Unknown
And it helps me, you know, be very graceful to the American way of life. I think I read that quite a bit. Yeah. And how do people connect with you in your organization? Yeah. So the best way to probably do it is to go to our website. So it's owners in honor. You can find how to tone of stuff about that.
00:44:10:13 - 00:44:30:15
Unknown
If that doesn't work for you because you don't like going online to do that. You can also find me on LinkedIn. It's Patrick Michael Flood. I get field of I feel a lot of questions on LinkedIn, which is fine. I'll try to get you to the right person. But yeah, we just I want to be able to reach out to as many veteran business owners and surgery or aspiring searchers as possible.
00:44:30:16 - 00:44:53:17
Unknown
Yeah, brass tacks, boots on the ground. Some of these transitioning out of service and they're interested in business ownership. They want someone who's transitioned. They realize that the thing that they're doing maybe isn't the they're there forever job, but they want to find something that's a little bit more fulfilling to the purpose. It's amazing. I'm sitting up here on a podcast talking about a veteran entrepreneurship, and you're building it so awesome.
00:44:53:18 - 00:45:12:11
Unknown
Yeah. Well, well, Mr. Clemens, thank you for sailing down this river of entrepreneurship with us. Oh, and all of its different little adventures along the way. That's exactly it. I appreciate you being here. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thanks, Kaj. All right. Thanks for locking in with us today. Shout out to Siebert Valor and Siebert Financial for supporting our journey.
00:45:12:12 - 00:45:30:17
Unknown
We'll be back next week with another powerhouse conversation. More founders, more builders and leaders who are playing offense in life and in business. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel for exclusive content and extended cuts of your favorite episodes. Until next week. Stay tactical. Stay driven.