Veterans In Humvees Spilling Coffee Ep. 2 - Jeff Negus

Where did it go? Where did it go? Oh, come on. No. Hey, welcome to this installment of Veterans and Humvees Spilling Coffee. As soon as I find that box of grid squares, we'll be on our way. All right, so I'm on my way to pick up Jeff Migas. He's one of the veterans around the community that provides a lot of answers for people. Anybody who needs something, he's always willing to have a conversation and help anybody out. Really looking forward to this conversation with him. You see that? The bag of the truck just opened. Some things never change. Hold up. All right, so back on the road. Slight mishap, no big deal. There he is, waiting where I told him to. Good job. Jeff! What's up? Get in here, buddy. Hey, I got you some Black Rifle Espresso 300. OK, now we're talking. That's going to wake you up. How's it been? It's been good, man. When's the last time you've been in one of these Humvees? It was at least like 2011, 2012. It's been a long time. Have you ever been in one like this? So yeah, briefly. I think my last tour, Afghanistan. It's bringing back memories. No gun up top, though. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Cool, man, let's get going. You had told me before that you retired, you did 20 years. 20 years and how many days? Everybody knows. 20 years and 21 days, because I thought I was, I thought the Army wouldn't get a day over 20. And then I found out that you can't retire until the end of the month. And so they got an extra 21 days. My last day of the Army was Halloween 2018. Just how it worked out. So what'd you do in the Army? Where were you stationed? Tell me a little bit about your experience. Yeah, I came in in the 90s when there wasn't much to do but train and have fun. I joined from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Hung out there for a while. Did a stint up in Alaska. Lived up there for three years. That was super cool. From there, it was bouncing around between Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Fort Benning, Georgia. Kind of being in an operational unit. And then coming back to the schoolhouse, I was a drill sergeant the first time. Went back to 101st and deployed again. Came back to the schoolhouse and I was a senior leader instructor. I forgot that you were a drill sergeant. How was that? Best time of my life. So we got them on day one as civilians, as kids. And it's 17 weeks later, they're marching, they're shooting, moving, communicating. I got to watch that happen. I got to be a part of it. You did 20 years, you retired. What ultimately led you to decide to retire? Yeah, I was having a lot of fun, but the short answer is my knees hurt and my kids didn't know who I was. And so it was time for us to go. I didn't do a ton of the things that I help veterans out with now. I didn't have a network. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a job. I believed kind of the rumor, the lie, the myth that- That you'd be all right? That I'd be all right, right? 20 years of military experience. Who wouldn't love to have me at their company? And that just wasn't the case. I found a school in Tennessee, Lipscomb University. It's got a great veterans program. They helped me out. They said, you've got this GI Bill, we're gonna help you maximize it. And I got a couple of degrees and finally figured out that I wanted to get into training and development. Knowing what you know now, if I were reaching out to you and saying, hey Jeff, I'm about to transition from the military. I have maybe a year left. What does somebody need to do to kick things off and make sure they're headed in the right direction right away? Step one is self-exploration. Really understanding what do I wanna do? If you enjoy your job in the military and you wanna continue doing that, that's a path that you can go down. You can start talking to civilians that have the job that you see and start talking to them. If you know that you're kind of done with government service and you wanna get into the civilian corporate sector, then get on LinkedIn, get into some professional groups that aren't military and find out what civilians talk about. The tough thing about veterans is we hate asking for help. It's a sign of weakness to ask for help. Nothing can be further from the truth. The more help you have, the better off you're gonna be. So self-exploration, ask for help. Anything else? Get a mentor. Get several mentors. I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for somebody. So what do you say to somebody who says, starting a new industry is tough and how do I even approach that subject? How do I begin? You've gotta manage your expectations. It's extremely helpful for veterans to start at a manageable level, maybe even at an entry level and then work their way up. The great thing about being a veteran, we have a great work ethic, we have great focus and we will proceed faster than our civilian peers. And so you've just gotta trust the system. Start from the bottom, learn the business and you'll be just fine. But if you're starting out looking for those DPU jobs and those senior director jobs, it's gonna be a long time looking. Everybody in the army, in the military has that signature cup of coffee that they had where it's like, oh my God, like seeing new colors or a hot beverage when you needed one. What's yours? Yeah, so I was never really a coffee drinker before the military. Who is? I mean, really kind of nobody. I'd been in basic training for about 15 weeks. We were on the mortar square, which is a training environment where you learn how to shoot the mortar weapon system. And the drill sergeants at that point, they start to let up towards the end of training and we had never been allowed to drink coffee. And it was November and we'd been out there for probably four days and it was 40 and rainy the whole time. Finally, they pulled out the coffee and they said, who wants coffee? And we all thought it was a trap. It's a trap. Nobody wanted to be the first one. Our platoon guide, he finally went up and he got a cup of coffee and then everybody else followed suit. It was the best sensation of my life. Did you see new colors? Having the warmth sucked from your body for four days and having it replenished with, I mean, let's face it, it was horrible coffee. Yeah. I mean, the way that the army boils their coffee, it's not good. But in that minute, it was the best. It was the best. And since then, I mean, you know, some of the best conversations I've had, some of the deepest conversations, the best mentoring, you know, the best leadership lessons I've given have been around a cup of coffee. Nice. Yeah. And it's a great way to have a conversation. Hey, let's meet up for a cup of coffee. Absolutely. Nobody says, hey, let's meet up and have a cold glass of water. What are some of the organizations or projects that you've been working with? And more importantly, how do we get ahold of them? How do we find them on social media or whatnot? Before you get out, it is hard to find a mentor, to get started with a network. If you're in Joint Base, whatever they call that. JBLM. JBLM. And you know you want to come back to San Diego or New York or whatever. Veterati is a great way to get started. I have probably three or four conversations a week through Veterati. And it's a great place to kind of match what you think you want to do with somebody who's already doing that. Connect with whatever's local. So in Middle Tennessee, Operation Stand Down is really plugged into veteran community. A great organization. They're fabulous. They've been going for years and years. They mainly help homeless veterans and veterans in need. But if you get plugged in with them and start volunteering, you will start connecting with the companies that help Operation Stand Down do what they need to do. Other places, you just kind of connect. We always tell businesses, a veteran can really be a force multiplier for your teams. Yeah. I love that word, force multiplier. Absolutely. It doesn't stop when you get out of the military. I always thought that it was really cool to do like combined arms live fires. Yeah. Where you got people, you know, you got the Air Force in there dropping bombs. You got artillery behind you launching stuff. You got the infantry ahead of you breaching the wire. Yep. It was always super cool. Corporations are just like that, right? So they've got finance giving them the money to do what they want to do. They've got training and development, helping them out. They've got operations. They've got logistics. It's all combined arms. And so those veterans can kind of talk to each other and bring those teams together so that it's really one fight. There's still times in my life where I still say, well, you know what? I have not got this figured out yet. Yeah. You never stop transitioning. Never. It's always going to be a journey. It's never going to be a finish line. Woo. You know, the only finish line is getting that DD 214, but that's just the second phase of the race. Yeah. That's the second starting line, right? It's like, get off your bike and jump in the water. Is that how triathlons go? You want to do something dangerous? I always want to do something dangerous. Are you sure? Absolutely. All right. All right. Yeah. Good times, man. That was awesome. It's been about 10 years, man. 10 years? 10 years since I've been in that TCC. Right on. Well, before you go, we have a gift from Black Rifle Coffee. Right on. And Veteran Life right here. But you know what? Nobody rents for free, Airborne. Got a quiz for you. Okay. M4 or M16? M4. ACU or BDU? BDU. Drop your ruck or ride it in? Ride it in. Blues or pinks and greens? I'm a fan of the pinks and greens. All right. Seals or Green Berets? Seals. All right. You passed. Nice. Let's see what you got in here. All right. Oh yeah. Some Black Rifle merch. Merch. Coffee there. T-shirt. Canned caffeine. Love it. I don't think you're going to be falling asleep on the way home. No, I'm good. Appreciate it. Nice lift.