Military Adaptability: Interview with Mike Lopez from Coursera

KP: 0:29

This episode is brought to you by Act Now Education, go to www.actnoweducation.com for free comprehensive, educational resources and opportunities for active duty, veterans, military spouses and children.

Mike Lopez: 0:45

At the time, and so I think what it really came down to was like I was just frustrated by the very end. I was just, you know, I was growing frustrated. And so I was, I was ready to get out. But I didn't recognize that, you know, I had some PTSD, right. Like you don't go to Afghanistan or Iraq or anything like that, and probably not come out with it. And I always felt sort of weird, right, because everybody's experiences were different.

KP: 1:05

Thank you for tuning in today, folks. I'm your host, KP. Today's guest is not only a military veteran, but is also a professional who is part of one of the largest growing industries of online learning platforms, Coursera. They offer an incredible online educational learning experience that offers courses from schools such as Yale, and companies like Google, to ambitious professionals all around the world. What's even more special, Coursera has free educational opportunities for our military community. And that is all in part to Coursera members, such as Mike and that is why we have him on the show today. Mike decided that his time serving wasn't over when he left the military. He still continues serving today, by providing our military community support within his current employer. So Mike, I want to say thank you for joining us today.

Mike Lopez: 1:50

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

KP: 1:51

Mike served in the United States Army in 2009 to 2016. And he was enlisted for four years active duty, and an additional three years as a commissioned officer. He's a proud graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio. On top of that, Mike has a number of additional IT credentials in software management certifications in which he earned throughout his career. So before we jump into Coursera, Mike, I'd like to learn a little bit about you as a person and as a military veteran. Where are you originally from and what was your upbringing like?

Mike Lopez: 2:22

Yeah, so I'm originally from San Antonio, Texas, from the south side of the city. It's, you know, it's a great area, but you know, like, a lot of other areas, you know, it has some challenges. You know, growing up, you know, it has its difficulties, but, you know, my parents always really, you know, tried to keep me on the right path. Those around me sometimes weren't always able to make, you know, just weren't always able to make the same decisions or just couldn't, based on the circumstance. But, you know, like, most of the areas out here on the south side, you know, a majority of the population, at least from, from what I could see,...typically free and reduced lunch, you know, so that's, you know, typically we considered as a low income area. And growing up, like, that's a little bit different, right. So when you have your experiences, and when you connect with people, whether it was in the military or post military, you know, you talk about your experiences and how you grew up. It sounds very different than, you know, mine sounded very different from the way everybody else did. So, you know, like I said, my neighborhood wasn't the worst, but it probably was the best either. And so, you know, being one of the few in the neighborhood to really go to college, you know, I had a lot of folks rallying around me and supporting me to go to college. But I was really like, the only grandkid that up to that point that had gone to college, so you know, really one of the first in the family. And so sort of chartering that path, and going forward was, um, you know, was different, right, because normally, you look to others, especially as a younger person to sort of guide you. And so, you know, so that experience growing up, you know, really the only people ever knowing who had a degree of any sort were those, you know, counselors and teachers and things like that, that you had, you know, in the school. And so that sort of set me on that path of, you know, what do I, you know, what do I do? And, you know, first sergeant always just say, you know, he'd always refer and say, you know, "They don't know what they don't know." Right, and so that was me as well. You know, what was I going to do? I don't know, but I knew a bunch of people that were teachers, and so I thought that that's what I should do. And so that's sort of what that, you know, that journey took me through, you know, through UTSA. And to eventually get to, you know, to earn my, to earn my degree. But, you know, growing up, it's, I'm not gonna say it was like, the toughest thing in the world, but it wasn't easy, either. You, you really, your eyes really open up, especially when you get outside of the scope of, you know, your localized area, and you really get to meet people from other places, and you hear about their experiences. But you also realize, like, there are different opportunities and lots of different places. And even from just one side of the city of San Antonio to the other, I volunteered in college going to, you know, the schools on the north side, and recognize right away that that level of education that they're getting seem to be quite different than what I got, you know, when I was in school. And maybe it was just a couple years difference, or maybe there's something to that, you know, so it was just different like that. And so, you know, we think about, you know, what is it like to grow up in one of these areas, you know, like I said, it has its challenges. And so, one of the things I really learned was, was really persistence and persistence pays off. And I think that's, you know, for most of us that grew up in an area, like I said, you know, it wasn't the best it wasn't, wasn't the worst, but you learn persistence, if you're going to, you know if you're going to achieve anything and there's going to be a lot of people to help you, help you along the way. But persistence is key there.

KP: 5:38

Yeah, it's really interesting. I come from a similar background. And I agree 100% with the persistence thing, because I definitely was not the smartest guy. But I knew what goals I wanted. And similar to you, I got my dad, my mom didn't graduate from college. You know, there wasn't a whole lot of emphasis on education. I mean, my dad wanted me to go to college, but he didn't know much about it. So you think there's something to be said about someone like yourself, who can kind of see and create their own goals that are outside of their surroundings in their environment. It takes a special person to do that. So it's really, really humbling experience. It sounds like a solid background, where you come from. I'm sure a lot of military veterans can identify with, with everything that you're saying. Can you share with us why you decided to join the military? And and what did you do, you know, when you were enlisted as a commissioned officer?

Mike Lopez: 6:31

Yeah. So I wish I could say that I had the most patriotic reason for joining. I know some of, you know, some of my comrades and some of my battle buddies, they did. It's one of those things where I was towards the end of my time in college, and I was coming up on my final year. And you know, I worked two jobs while I was in college. I stocked shelves

KP: 6:45

Yes! overnight at Home Depot, and I was a substitute teacher during the day. Like I said, I thought I was going to be a teacher. Realized really quickly that teaching wasn't going to be for me. And so I had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of concerns as to like what I would eventually do, but I knew that I needed to finish college. So here I am, my junior year of college, just finishing up. And, you know, all of the money that I had made, I continue to put it into college, right. I paid for summer classes, everything like that. So it came back, you know, no financial aid, things like that. And so it was like one of those

Mike Lopez: 7:15

Back in 2008, right. things like, "Well, what do I do now?" Right. And so remember asking my mom, like, "Hey, do you think you co-sign a loan for me because I need to pay for this final year college?" You know, I love my mom, my mom's helped me so much and, you know, both my parents have. I remember she said, "You know what..." you know it was, you know, this is 2007, 2008-ish. So if you remember what, you know, what the economy was, like, back then it was it was pretty rough. And there was a lot of, you know, really bleak job outlooks. Right. And so, you know, as you said, like, sometimes...neither one of my parents went to college, and so they only knew about the concept of college, right. You know, my mom worked in a school as a secretary, so she understood like college can get you places. But, you know,

KP: 7:53

Yes, I remember. it's one of those things where she also saw a lot of those kids go to college, and sometimes never be able to earn a job. You know what I mean? And so, I remember she said, "You know, I, I want to help you, but I don't, you know, I don't know that I can co-sign a loan. How do I know you're gonna get a job?" You know, that's tough to hear. But, you know, from her perspective, she worked, you know, they worked their whole lives to, to continue to be able to provide and things like that. So, you know, who am I to go wreck that. You know, she was supportive in every way. I remember thinking "All right, well, it's that persistence thing again," right. So I remember thinking, "Okay, well, what do I do now?" And I

Mike Lopez: 8:25

Yeah, they offered all sorts of stuff, right. So I remember seeing a commercial for the army, and back then they remember they were offering enlistment bonuses, pay off your were trying to get anybody that they could, right. student loans, all that kind of stuff. And so I was like, "Alright, let's do this." So I walked over to a recruiters office, I said, "Hey, and you know, like, what can I do? They we're getting ready to drop me from all the classes that I signed up for. I need to pay for this. I need proof that I can pay for it." He's like, "Let me take you to the back and take this like quick little test, real quick." And so he gave me like that practice ASVAB. And he's like, "Alright, let's go over to the, let's go over to the real one." He took me over to the real one. And he's like, "You can get whatever job you want." I was like "Cool!" I was like, "Let's do it. Let's figure out which one has the, which one is the best sign on bonus." So I ended up enlisting as a tank mechanic. But it was the coolest thing in the world. They let me, they let me finish out my degree. They let me finish and graduate from college and then go off to basic training. But, you know, I'd signed the contract, it had my sign on, you know, my enlistment bonus, all that kind of stuff in there. And so I remember after that day, I came home and I was like, "Hey, Ma, I was like, check it out. I got proof that pays loan back." And I don't know why I thought that was gonna be a good idea. But she started freaking out. Right. She was like "What did you do? What did you do?" She started crying. I felt so bad. "Go tell your father what you did." You know, and my dad's like, "Oh mijo that's cool. That's cool mijo. That's awesome." You know. And my mom's like "Stop telling him." You know, you know how moms get, moms get worried. And so that was sort of my experience, right. So I didn't join necessarily, like I said, for the most patriotic reasons. But once when I was in, like, that all changed, right. Like that, that whole breakdown when you're, when you're in basic training, that whole just reverence and, you know, an all. And it's just a spectacular feeling, right, to be part of the military and to be able to serve with a, with an organization that has a purpose, like what ours is, around the world, right. So you know, although I didn't join for those reasons, by the time I was in, you know, I was fully into this mindset that like, you know, we're, we have purpose and you know, I have purpose in life, right. I went through basic training all that stuff, AIT. And so I learned to work on tanks. And then when I got stationed at Fort Bliss was my first duty assignment, second brigade first Armored Division, right. And so I get stuck at Fort Bliss. They tell us, "Hey, we don't really have tanks, we have these things called MATVs." And I was like, "Oh, cool, what's that?" Right. So now it's like, you know, you're learning something different. Right. Now I have to learn MATV's, and how, and M wraps and things like that, and how to work on those vehicles. So it's like, it's one of those things where the, you know, the folks in the military don't realize it, at least I didn't at the time, that you're very agile, right, you're very adaptable. And so you find patterns, and you find commonalities in everything that you do. And that's going to be very, very important for some of the stuff that we talk about later on probably right, like finding commonalities, and how to think about, you know, your experience and translating it to the corporate world. But you know, you have to find the thing that that resonates with you. So for me, it was okay, well, in tanks, it's electricity. In diesel vehicles, it's not much different, but it's also gas, right. Like, something connects something somewhere. And so you have to just figure out the commonalities. So you can have it in your mind, right, sort of makes the, the adaptability a little bit easier. And then the, and the learning, you know, not as deep of a learning curve. So, you know, had my time at Fort Bliss, it was a rough time at Fort Bliss, not gonna lie you know, it was it was a challenge to be there. But, you know, like I said, I learned a lot. My, you know, my battle buddies, my comrades, all of them, you know, a lot of us, we still talk to this day, it's a great experience. And like I said, I joined the military having a degree. And, and so that has its...people are going to assume things based on the fact that you came in as a specialist, right. Like, it's a mark right on your chest. And people know automatically who you are, and you know, this, you know, that you have this degree, right. And once once when you're in you're all essentially, you know, even rank until, you know, of course, you start progressing. But, you know, once I was in, I remember, you know, thinking, "Okay, well, my recruiter said, like once I got to the regular military, maybe I could just go on and become an officer." And it didn't seem that difficult. But it turns out, it's actually quite difficult. I spent the entire time that I was there at Fort Bliss, attempting to get some, to convince somebody that I was good enough to actually be a commissioned officer. I had a team chief named Staff Sergeant Mostachi. And Staff Sergeant Mostachi, Mostachi, he took care of me. I mean, he, he for years, like he was my, he was my team chief for like three years, two and a half, three years. And for all those years, he continued to fight for me, and put in that good word with every new commander that came in. "Hey Lopez is good. Lopez wants to do this, can you do it?" And they would give some requirements, right. Like, "I need to see him do this or do that" or whatever. So it took a couple of years, but I'll never, I'll never forget, right...his name was Captain Riley, Captain Riley was getting ready to change command. And Staff Sergeant Mostachi he went back over and said "Hey sir, can we get this...this kid's been doing...", you know, whatever, right. He interviewed me on the spot. And he said, you know, he talked to me, he tried to understand my goals and things like that. And then he said, "Yeah, you know, I'll push this forward." And so in that moment, they pushed everything forward. They sent out my, you know, my recommendation. Everything got signed, you know, went through the board, eventually, all that kind of stuff. But it's, it's one of those things, like, I feel like I was really lucky that I had a team Chief, that really took care of me. And so those are the things that I'll remember for the rest of my life. You know, I mean, like, I'll always remember Serg Mostachi, and anything that I can do for him, to help him, that's gonna be one of those things, whether you know, whether he gets out of the military one day, or whether he stays in whatever it is like I can do to help, right. Like, he's the reason that it set me on this this next path. So I earned my commission as a, you know, I went to OCS, to earn my commission. Got selected to be a Signal Corps officer. So I did a lot of Routing and Switching and stuff like that. assignment was, after the Basic Leaders Course was to, 25th Signal Battalion headquartered in, basically they're headquartered,...but with, with detachments in like, Qatar and Afghanistan itself. And so I get to, you know, I get to Qatar or whatever, and, I'm like, "it's gonna be awesome, right. I'm in Qatar for a year." And as soon as I get there, like, the next day, like, "Here's your, here's your TDY orders to Afghanistan. You're going as soon as you get all your, all your gear. And I was like, "Oh!" I was like, I didn't expect that. Right. It's like, it's Afghanistan. Right. And, and that's where I met another really, really great, you know, leader, I met two of them, actually. Captain Gilmore, who was my Company Commander and First Sergeant, who was the First Sergeant, they taught me a lot. You know, I get there. And so we're running networks, I mean, we're basically like, the operations and maintenance for Afghanistan. So you know, we have like, different lieutenants out in different places. So I was actually stationed probably in the north, in the northern region, in Mazar-i-Sharif or Camp Marmal. And so I had to learn a lot, right. Because I'd never been, I'd never done anything in routing right or anything like that. And they're like, "Here you go. Here's this help desk. Here's like, all of this, you know, and by the way, like, everything has to be, you know, everything has to be on and people have to be able to communicate." But then it goes back to that adaptability, right, and sensory and that agility and think about, "Okay, well, how can I understand these concepts a little bit better.?" So in tanks there's electricity. In diesel vehicles, electricity and fuel right. But in Routing and Switching it's light. How does light transfer from one place to the other to transmit data? And so I was able to wrap my brain around the concepts of networking and switching, you know, you know, by using analogies to sort of realize it back, and then talking to people, right. Like, they tell you all the time when you when you're networking, you're like, "Oh, you got to network, you got to talk to people." You know, that don't just happen once, when you get out of the military, right. Like that happens inside of it. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by brilliant contractors, like brilliant contractors. I mean, these these folks were amazing. And they were really there to impart their wisdom. Sure, they were there to do a job. But I mean, what else are they going to do if they didn't, if they just did that. And so you could ask them questions, and you could talk to them. And you could ask them, "But I don't understand this." And they go there, and they draw it on the board for you, right, and they diagram it all out for you. And so I was very lucky in that regard, that I had some folks there that were that were not only, you know, leaders that were going to help me, but also, you know, contractors, it sort of helped me learn that. And so that was my time in the military. You know, it's a story of persistence, and a story of, you know, agility and adaptability. Once I left there, I went to, you know, I got stationed in Hawaii as part of the 25th Infantry Division, and I became the Battalion S-6 And I had to learn a new technology, because when I was in Afghanistan, we were running, you know, fiber optic networks, and you know, data centers, basically the network Enterprise Center, right. And then you get to Hawaii. And it's like, "Oh, by the way, here's this portable satellite terminal. And here's a group of folks that run, you know, radios and things like that. And we expect everything to work." Right. Like, that's just the expectation of a Battalion S-6. And it's like, oh, well, I don't know this stuff. So then you have to go back, you have to ask a bunch of other people. You have to learn a new technology all over again, and stuff like that. So yeah, that's so, that was sort of my experience in the military throughout, was just constantly, you know, seeing a challenge, finding a way to analyze it and find an analogy for how I can understand the technology, whatever it is, I need to do, have the persistence and talk to others that could sort of help me want to make that path a little bit easier.

KP: 17:17

Yeah, I can, I can understand where you're coming from when you talk about some of the things you just mentioned. So you never forget the folks who go to bat for you. I think everyone who's had a military career, of some sort, can go back and say, "Well, you know, this person in that person, then this person really stuck their neck out for me and went to bat for me and believed in me." And I'm the same as you. And there's people that I can name off that, throughout my career, my journey that have, didn't have to, but they saw something in me, went to vouch for me, and you never forget those folks. And then secondly, what you're talking about your last minute orders, I had the same thing happen to me, where are certain brigades are getting deployed. And I just wanted to heads up. And I literally get to Hawaii. And they're like, "You got 30 days, you're gonna go to Iraq." And I'm like, "Woah, I just gotout OBC. I'm still a second lieutenant." Like, I was like, not even, like, no time on the ground for garrison training, or nothing, man, or getting acclimated to the unit. It was like, alright, get downrange. And but that was in 2004, or so, that was kind of at the height of everything. So everybody was going. Everybody was wearing combat patches back then. So I sound like an old man just talking about it right now. But it didn't seem that long ago. Really, you know,

Mike Lopez: 18:36

It's crazy once you get there, too, right. Because you're like, what, what do you expect? Like you don't, you know, again, you don't know what you don't know, right. Like, you don't know what to expect. They can give you a briefing, and you can talk to other people, but one of those experiences is going to be like, you know, you sort of have to learn it. When I got boots on ground into, you know, into Afghanistan, and I sort of, you know, I was I was hanging around Bagrum for like, for like a month before they sent me to, to take on my assignment in the north. You know, I never forget getting to that assignment in the north. And, you know, going out to talk to, you know, the generals base basically, right, because I'm the communications guy. And him telling me, you know, like, Hey, this is, you know, "I get it you're a Second Lieutenant, but you're the expert here. So I don't you know, I don't want to hear Second Lieutenant answers. I want to know, you know, what you're talking about." Right. And so, that's a lot of pressure to put on somebody that that, you know, hasn't, hasn't done it. So he sort of like, again, like, it goes back to all of the things you've learned, right. Like, all of the intangibles you learn in the military are really those things. It's like, how do you deal under pressure? Well, I would say they were like, you know, we're ice cold under pressure, right. Like we don't we don't budge under pressure. And when it comes to, you know, the ability to learn something new, you know, we sort of have to because like, how are you going to go tell somebody you don't know how to do it. Like you go find somebody that knows how to do it, you go read a you know, you go read a technical manual, whatever it is. If you don't know a regulation, you go read the you know, the Army regulations, and you go find it. Like this is just the way that we operate. And so we take these experiences into the corporate world as well, it's just sometimes we don't we don't always articulate them in that way. But, you know, we learned a lot and I'm sure you did choose to as you hit the ground in Iraq.

KP: 20:08

Oh, yeah, man. And you know what, I'm glad that you said that about you know, adaptability. Because a lot of, a lot of servicemembers and veterans don't identify that adaptability skill set that they, that they hone and they sharpen while they're in the military. And like you said, it's important to highlight that when you're talking to civilian recruiters and when you're trying to describe yourself and sell yourself to a potential employer. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. You have to adapt, you have to learn, right. Was so I was just curious, like, what, after six years of being in the military, what made you decide to transition out of the military?

Mike Lopez: 20:43

Yeah, so that's, um, it's one of those that, time to get out at the time. And, and so I think what it really came down to was, like, I was just frustrated by the very end. I was just, I was growing frustrated. And so I was, I was ready to get out. But I didn't recognize that, you know, I had some PTSD, right. Like, you don't go to Afghanistan, or Iraq or anything like that, and probably not come out with it. And I always felt sort of weird, right. Because everybody's experiences were different. And so, you know, mine wasn't, you know, mine was, was not as probably as bad as other people's right. And so I kept hearing this thing in my mind that "Yours can't be that bad" because, you know, this or that, right. Like, "All you heard, were explosions, that the explosions never hit you. They just came, you know, nearby or close by to where you were. Maybe they shook the building you were in. Maybe they rattled you awake. Maybe you saw, you know, C-RAM take out something above you, but it wasn't you, right, like you weren't the one." Like, I'm pretty sure you know, you, you've probably had your experiences going out the wire and things like that. Likey experiences weren't like that. So I always felt like, you know, how could, how could mine really be that bad? This isn't PTSD, this is just something else. And and that starts to weigh on you. So like I said, I went to Qatar, or pretty much Afghanistan, and we PCS by ourselves, you know, it's a it's an assignment, like a rotation. So you get there, you do your year, and then you get assigned to a new duty station. So it's not like you go there with a group of people, when you leave with a group of people and you have the support when you get back. I'll give them their credit, they actually tried to do a really good job of making us see a chaplain and go through like, you know, like a reorientation back to like what is it like to interact in the regular world again. But you know, as soon as you come back from you know, as soon as you left Afghanistan, you're still on this adrenaline rush right. Or Iraq, right, you're still on this adrenaline rush. And, and no matter what people tell you, it's just not, it's just not going to happen, You're just not ready to hear anything that anybody has to say. So you go to this orientation, whatever, they sent me back. And it wasn't until I got to Hawaii and I started to spend a lot of time by myself, you know, away from other people that I started to, you know, I started to...I didn't like the sound of fireworks, I didn't like the smell of fireworks. Like that smell of sulfur. I don't like these things, right. And I was growing frustrated with that. I was isolated. I was by myself. Sure. I had other people in my, you know, in the in the team that I worked on, and I saw people every day. But what I really meant was, I didn't like to be by myself. So I was working, you know. I'd get up at

4: 22:56

30 in the morning. You probably remember what Hawaii was like, right. You have to get up like 4:30 in the morning to make it on the Schofield, because of that left turn into that left turn into the base coming from the west side of the island. So it's like, you know, so you get up early, you get there, whatever. And you're there for the whole day. And your entire day as a commissioned officer is typically, you know, putting out fires, you know, on command staff, going to these different meetings, you know, stuff like that. And so like all the work, you need to get done, you get it done in the evening. So I stay at work late at night, you know,

20:00, 21: 23:26

00 and then go home, eat and you know, maybe watch over the TV, because I didn't really want to be one of myself. But what they really did was just overwork me. So all of these things sort of compounded together. And I was like, all I could think about was like, "Man, I really want to go back to Afghanistan." I had this idea in my mind that Afghanistan was so much better than what I was going through at the moment. Because when you're there, everything sort of goes away, right. Like you're living off of adrenaline and in, in these combat zones. My soldiers used to ask me "Hey, Sir, why would you want to go back?" And I would say things like, you know I'd ask them if they ever, like, do they cook, right? And they say, "Well, of course." I'm like, "Do you seasonings?"And they say "yes." I said, "Okay, now imagine cooking food without seasonings." When you go there, you have this different experience, right. And you sort of come back and you don't have that adrenaline anymore. So how do you get it back? Well, there's really only a couple of ways, you know, either you do like, you know, really extreme things, or you go back or you don't get it. And so it's sort of a difficult thing to sort of be by yourself, and having all of these feelings that you've never had before. And you know, the pressures of work, and all of these different things sort of all combining on you and then just going back to your place by yourself, and not really feeling like you can talk to anybody. Because who's going to understand? Again, that sort of self doubt that I had, that my experience wasn't that bad. Because granted, it probably wasn't. But I still had these emotions. And I didn't talk to anybody. Because my fear was, if I go to behavioral health, what if somebody sees me? And then what if they question the decisions I make? We're leaders we make decisions and in you know, we make decisions with lots of different things. And so what happens if people start to question that decision based on the fact that they saw you go there? Again, all these thoughts are sort of, they're not realistic, really, right. Like they're, they're sort of unrealistic. It's just something that you create in your mind, and it stops you from going and seeing things. So all of these things combined. Like I said, by the end, I was I was truly frustrated. I had all these emotions. I didn't know what to do. And so I was just like, you know what, I can't go back to Afghanistan. I can't deal with this anymore. It's time for me to get out. And I'll never forget, I had a leader tell me one day you know, "The moment that this is no longer fun for you, the moment, this is not anything everything you expected anymore, and you're a leader, it's time for you to leave. Because everybody picks up on those emotions. And your soldiers see it the people around you see it." And so that was sort of one of those moments where I had to think, "Okay, what is best for the people that, that you know, that are reporting to me?" You know, is it good that I'm constantly frustrated all the time? I had a Sergeant First Class tell me, "Hey sir, when you come in, you're at nine, and the littlest thing puts you at 10 with everybody." She's like, "The soldiers see that. And you need to figure out how to, you know how to, how to manage that, because they see you, they work in the same office as you." And she, you know, she, she would keep me grounded too. And so, you know, I could appreciate that. Those noncommissioned officers, all of that experience they have. And so she sort of kept me kind of grounded, and really thinking about the vibe that I was giving off in the office and things like that. But ultimately, what it came down to was, like, I was just frustrated and wanted to get out. And so I made that decision to get out. I remember, we had a change of command, the new commander came over and said, "Hey, LT, you know, I had all these ideas for what was going to happen with the Battalion S-6 and, and he asked me my goals and things like that. And I said, "Sir, in about three days, my REFRAD packet is going to be submitted to the S-1." I don't think that's what he was expecting to hear, you know, it's just third day in command. But, you know, he asked me some questions about why and so I sort of explained, you know, it's just time for me to move on. And, you know, "I appreciate everything that I did in the military, I'll never forget it, but it's time for me to go." Because I had this idea that if I got out, that would be better for me in the long run, or that something would change. But ultimately, it doesn't. You know, you get out and, and those feelings are still there until you actually deal with them. And so, you know, that's what I'll say is, that was my decision, my reason for leaving and things like that was to sort of get my life back. But ultimately, what it came down to is, I really just, you know, you have to understand the real reason why you're getting out, otherwise, you're not going to make, and you're not going to plan correctly. You're not going to make the right decisions.

KP: 27:20

Yeah. Man, a lot of what you just said, I can relate to. Just it's too bad that, that is the way that it is because even when I came back from my deployment, like I wasn't myself for years. And it's almost like you're running from yourself, in a certain sense. Until you face those issues that you have, you know, things for you are not going to ever feel whole, or 100%. I know where you're coming from, when you say that, actually, it's, I can go into more into that, but I want to try to stay on, stay on topic with, you know, leading into Coursera. And, you know, your, your whole journey with that. But thank you for sharing that. That really does mean a lot to me. I wasn't expecting that kind of answer. So what initially started your path into IT and in online education?

Mike Lopez: 28:05

So I got this idea that because I was a commissioned officer as an IT, you know, as a Signal Corps officer, you hear all of these things like these rumblings in the military, especially as you're getting out. "Oh, IT officer or Signal Corps officers could be really in demand in the corporate world." And, and you know, it's not the same as it is in the, you know, in the military, and you hear all these things, right. Like, everybody's chirping in your ear that these are the best things. You go to these, you go to the Transition Assistance Program, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, this is like this, is it." Right. So I thought, "Okay, IT is the place to go. I do nerd stuff, like, I do nerd stuff in the Army. So maybe I'll just do nerd stuff in real life." Right. And so that was sort of what got me on that pathway. Really, ultimately, what, what set me in on that path was the fact that I was, I was commissioned as a Signal Corps officer. Because when I went to OCS, they were doing this thing where you stack ranked all of the, all of the branches that you wanted. And depending on your rank in the class, they sorted it like a draft board, and they figured out where you were going to go. I guess they got tired of, you know, maybe they get tired of only certain branches being left and people not wanting to be in them, whatever. So they tried to give everybody something, like something within their top three. And I was lucky enough that my score was high enough. And I was selected to be, you know, commissioned officer in Signal Corps after OCS. And so, you know, I went through that leaders course, like I said, I enjoyed this stuff. You know, it was, it was kind of cool. Went to Afghanistan had the coolest experience, like I said, I've ever had. Nothing in my life will ever compare to that experience. The people, the place, the you know, everything about it was just like, just an interesting time in my life and something that will stay with me forever. That set me on that pathway. I learned a lot from those contractors. I learned a lot from those soldiers that were there. You know, I had fiber guys, I had everything. And they taught me how to do all of that stuff. So I thought it was the coolest stuff in the world. So when I got out, I was like, "Well, where should I go?" And I had this idea that California is where all the technology is, again, right. Like I didn't realize technology is all over the country and all over the world. But I thought, "You know what, this is where the technology is at because this is the only place I've ever heard about it." So I got out and I had this intention of, you know, being in being in IT. But then I started to find out really quickly that it's, it's not necessarily as easy as they make it seem. You put together your resume and you try and explain what it was that you've done. But how do you explain to somebody that you were a commissioned officer that ran networks, architected network designs, ran help desk functions and also did like, secured porta Johns because, you know, conflict of interest sometimes for the S-4 to do it. Right. Like how do you explain all of these different things that you've done. It's really hard to like narrow it down. And you think that by telling people all of these experiences that you have, that it's gonna make sense. So what I started getting callbacks for was like, "Do you want to be a help desk administrator?" I'm like, "Not really." I mean, I had people that used to do that. And I could probably learn it. But I used to manage the whole thing. Like, why would I want to go be that person? You know. So another one, like, "Do you want to be a software engineer?" I'm like, "I'm not a software engineer." I know how to manage things, right. Like, this is my bread and butter is management of technology stuff. And so I started to find it a bit challenging. And I went through recruiting agencies and things like that, and I'll never forget that I went through, I went through one of them. And they put me up for, you know, this, this interview for a position, somewhere here in California. And you know, the interview went nice, but it was something related to like manufacturing. And I remember, I kept thinking like, "Well, I want to do technology." But at the same time, you sort of got to go with what you have, right. Because every time somebody asks you what you want to do, you probably did the same thing. "I'll do whatever," right. Because we do whatever in the military. I was a tank mechanic, I worked on MATVs. I was a MATV mechanic, I worked on, you know, networks. So you just do whatever it is, that's asked of you. And so those are sort of my responses all the time, right. So I go to these interviews. And what it really cemented for me was that I didn't want to do anything but technology. And so I remember at the end of the interview, it was an onsite interview. And they asked me like, "What do you think about third shift?" And I basically said, "No, you know, I don't want to do third shift." And I'll never forget the recruiting agency, called me back and said "Why would you tell them that?" I'm like, "Well, I kind of got out of the military to get my life back. Like, why would I go to third shift?" And so I was like, and I remember saying, I was like, "I kind of really wanted to do something in technology." And I remember they told me, well, "You won't get a job in technology unless you have a CISSP. So you might as well just take this one." And that hit a chord with me, because I was like, "Well, I know, you don't need a CISSP." Like, I guess, if I was going to be like something in security, maybe. But maybe they're also right, I should just take what is available to me. And so I mulled it over for a little bit and I talked to my roommate, my roommate was like, "No, like, go to a different one." So I went to a different one and the guy that ended up being a recruiter for me, I happen to have a connection through the Air Force Academy to the guy that would end up being my boss. And I was able to be brought on as a contractor to, at a consulting firm, I was brought in as a consultant to a consulting firm, we contracted for Cisco Systems. And the way that this company worked was they hired pretty much ex-military officers, it's a company called SolutionsATI Consulting. You know, the guy that runs it, Eddie, Eddie Porta, you know, he's a phenomenal dude. He's a, I think he was an Air Force pilot. The guy that was my, that ended up being my manager was, was an Air Force, Intel guy. And so we had this community of ex-military people that when I got there, I was able to lean on them to understand how to interact in the corporate world. You know, I remember the idea basically being you know, like, I can teach you the, I can teach you the ins and outs of business, but I can't teach you the intangibles. And so when I got there, they started teaching me the ins and outs of business, right. Like how to interact in the corporate environment and things like that. And that's gonna be really important for the listeners, right. Because when you come out of the military, the things that you do in the military do not always translate in this way. That 'bottom line up front thing' does not really work all that well in the corporate world. You need to give context. You need to sort of be a little bit more approachable and things like that. You don't want to be considered that person that's just like very robotic and dogmatic and you know, unapproachable. And so they taught me all of these things. And so I was, I was forever lucky that even though I didn't plan anything the way I was supposed to, I didn't plan at all, I didn't know what I wanted to do, I sort of fell in the lap of this of this consulting firm that took me in. And I was able to resonate with people that were like me. And the reason why that's important is because when you go to a job, whether you go to a consulting firm or not, they're going to have these ERG's, right. You know, Employee Resource support groups and things like that, where you may find other veterans, and people to connect with to help you understand how to come into that culture. And so they were able to help me into that culture and succeed there as a consultant for Cisco Systems. And that started me on my pathway. From there, again, just like I did when I was in Afghanistan, and I talked to contractors, and I understood what they were doing, I was talking everybody. I was talking to the solutions architects. I was talking to the, to the software engineers. I was talking to the business people. I was talking to the change management folks. I was talking to everybody just trying to understand "What is it that y'all do? And how do you do it?" Right. And looking at their approaches to different things. Look at their approaches to problem solving. Look at the way they build their project plans. Look at how they talk with others. Like all these different things, like I was just soaking it up. And that is actually what gave me the experience and the confidence in order to move on and eventually get to where, where I got to with with Coursera I went to another company, another Online Learning Company first. And I took all of the experiences I learned in the two and a half years as a consultant there. I think I did pretty well there and then Coursera approached me, if, you know if I wanted to come in and do a role. I'd never done that role before the one I do now at Coursera. During the interview process, I felt a little weird because I'd never done it. But I kept thinking, "Okay, Mike, you've done this. You've changed everything, every single time. Like there's no point in time. You started off with history, anthropology, you went to mechanics, you went from mechanics to so on and so forth." Right. So I had to sort of get over this idea that you know, "You're not good enough to do this position because you've never done it." It's really bringing parallels of what I've done in the past, and explaining those and articulating those in a way that would make sense to these people that I was talking to. And you know, it was good enough, right. They ended up hiring me. I came on as an implementation manager. And that's sort of how I got into what I do now is, you know. I had project management experience, I had a PMP, I had a, I was a certified Scrum Master. And so when you come into an organization, you're doing project management, doesn't matter whether you're doing software applications or anything else, if you know how to do project management, you know how to do it. And that sort of, for the listeners, one of those things like, you've done projects in the military, whether you recognize it or not. You've done them all the time. You've done them as a junior, as a junior noncommissioned officer all the way up through the ranks. You've probably even been an assistant project manager as a specialist, right. So you've done these things, you just need to know how to articulate them. And that's going to help, you know, and that helped me thinking back to all of my experiences, okay. And giving me the confidence to say, "You know what, I've changed jobs so many times, if I can convince these people, I know, I'll be able to succeed." And you just go in, and you're persistent about everything you learn. So that's sort of how I got on the path where, where I eventually ended up and where I am currently.

KP: 36:31

That's really interesting. I just had an interview with Josh Cunio, from DOL coach. And he described the same thing where he said, "I can remember doing project management all the way back in high school." And a lot of people don't realize that. And it's extremely important, especially when you're trying to market yourself to a potential, you know, employer. Alright, so now I'd like to talk about the position that you have right now. I'd like to shift the conversation to talk about Coursera, and the educational organization that you work for. And so can you explain the significance, of Coursera? And what is your position with them?

Mike Lopez: 37:04

Yeah, so what I do now is I'm a enterprise implementation manager. So I work on the enterprise side working with, you know, our corporate clients. When they, when they make purchases of the Coursera learning solution, I'm the one that goes through and implements it for them. So I do all of the configurations. I talk to them, understand their objectives, things like that. You know, make sure that I'm setting up things in the way that, that's going to best meet their needs. And like I said, how did that get started there? Sort of by, sort of by dumb luck. I was working at different company, at a competitor, actually, and I had enterprise in my name. I worked with engineers at that other one. And so they reached out and they said, "Hey, we have this position. It looks like you may be a good fit. Would you be open to talking?" And so I wasn't really looking at the moment, but I heard them out. And that's an important thing, for your listeners. Like, I mean, listen to people, you never know whether it's going to pique your interest or not. You never know whether it's going to be the company, whether it's going to be something they say, whether it's going to the hiring process, whatever it is, just hear them out sometimes. If it remotely aligns to what you're thinking about, I get it, don't just listen to random pitches all the time, but if it remotely aligns to what you're what you're interested in, then go for it. And so I heard them out. And the things that they talked about, you know, really resonated with me. And so, you know, I continued to go on through the interview process. And there's a great interview process, I had a phenomenal interviewers, and they were really curious about my background, and were really willing to hear the things that I had to say, and my approaches to things. So I felt like this was gonna be a good company where I could grow and succeed at. And like I said, I'd never done the job before, I'd never been an implementation manager before, necessarily, but I'd implemented projects. So I took this idea that, well, I've done something similar, I probably just have to learn what it is that they're doing, and then I'll be able to figure it out. And so that's sort of how I ended up there and doing, you know, doing enterprise, you know, project, you know, enterprise implementation, project management, basically. And, you know, doing my part to, you know, help companies succeed, if they can, through, you know, through online learning.

KP: 39:05

I've always seen things is kind of a journey, an azimuth. And as you're walking in a certain direction, things will present themselves to you. And you can either accept them, or you can turn them down. And that's kind of sounds like what happened when it came to deciding whether or not to join the Coursera team. So absolutely amazing. Can you tell us some of the certifications that are currently being offered and maybe talk about what type of institutions you know, they're being offered from?

Mike Lopez: 39:30

So Coursera hosts a lot of content created by our partner, industry partner and university partner institutions. Some of the things that I find sort of that really resonate with me, and some of the things that I've been looking into are like the new Google, Google IT certs. So Google IT, Google project management, Google data analytics, and Google UX. I thought those were, you know, from a personal perspective, I thought, you know, I thought that they're, they're quite nice and can resonate with with learners at times. I'm currently taking the Facebook social media marketing, because I work cross functionally with a lot of marketers. And so I thought that it would be good to know sort of what it was that they did, so that as I'm talking to them, and I need help, I can at least explain things in their language, right. And it can help me get to my outcomes a lot faster if I know what it is they do. I don't need to be an expert marketer, but I need to know a little bit about what it is that they're doing. So those are some of the things that are on the platform. You know, we have things like Python For Everybody from you know, the University of Michigan. I've taken that one as well. I've enrolled into the some of the courses in there and I quite like them. The cool thing about a lot of our courses is that they do have in browser coding experiences. And so you can practice inside of it. I'm also enrolled in the Google IT automation with Python. And you know, I'm in there and I'm doing, I'm writing my scripts and everything like that, and they're auto, you know, they're, they're auto graded. They give me the feedback immediately. So I learn by doing, I learn by practicing. And that's really important, because not only by practicing, do I gain the confidence to know that this is something that I can do. But it also helps me if I ever need to explain to somebody. You know, there's theoretical concepts. I earned a CompTIA Security Plus and Network Plus certification. And a lot of the concepts are really theoretical to me, because I'd never practically applied them, I just managed teams that did it. And so this is very different. I could talk at high level themes about network IT in security and things like that. But I would never be able to go into the weeds and tell you like, this is the subnet you need to use, or this is how you're going to do this. When I'm doing these courses, you know, in the ones that I'm enrolled in, at least, you know, I gain that confidence that you know, what, "I know how to write a script, I actually write them." And so it's very powerful. Because, you know, when you get asked a question, especially in an interview, sometimes, you know, you kind of need to know how to do what it is that you say, you know, how to do you know what I mean. So, you know, you get to practice and for me, I, you know, I gained confidence. And so Google IT, like I said, I think that from a personal perspective, I like the, you know, I like the topic areas. Salesforce in the SV Academy, have this one called Salesforce Sales Development Representative. And, you know, I like that one a lot too, just in terms of like, you know, exposure to what is an SDR? You know, that's one of those really entry-level roles within a company. Every company has them, you know, for the most part, you know, inside sales, SDR, whatever you want to call them. But that's a great 'in' to a company, and then, you know, who knows where you end up from there. You know, maybe you go into product marketing, maybe you want to product management, maybe you go into sales, you know, who knows, very entry level, you know, into that, into that world. And really allows you to get your feet wet, you know. Do you actually like this? And so I think that that's pretty cool.

KP: 42:24

You know what, that's 100% true, because a lot of people want to get into a certain industry, and they don't realize what comes along with that. And like in sales, for example, what you were just talking about. I mean, or any type of industry, there's a lot of things that, that you have to learn that learning them may not be as desirable, as you realize. So getting that education, you know, you actually can get a better understanding if this is something you really want to get into and spend, you know, a career doing. So I understand we're saying with that. And as a former commissioned officer, I know that mentoring can be rather frustrating and difficult because it takes a certain explanation of long range clarity with personal goals. So did you ever master or how do you convince a young service member or a military spouse that investing in yourself today, educationally, is absolutely critical?

Mike Lopez: 43:11

Yeah, that's a good question. So when I was a commissioned officer, and I remember, as I was getting out, I remember one of my soldiers was thinking about getting out as well, a couple of them were actually. And I remember they said, "Well, sir..." I kept trying to convince him that it wasn't, you know, not that it wasn't a good idea. But I was trying to get them to think through their decision. Probably something I should have been doing. But anyway, I was trying to get them to think through their decision, because ultimately, their their success was the most important thing to me. One of the things I didn't mention earlier, but the other thing that you learn, as a commissioned officer, as a leader, in general, is just emotional intelligence. Especially downrange in Afghanistan or Iraq, you have to be able to interpret people's feelings, you have to be able to see them. And all of that is sort of like really, really powerful in sort of this mentorship category as well. Because, you know, and just, you know, reading other people. I left that out, but a lot of folks that are that are probably going to be listening, they may have those as well. And so that's a really key feature of the things that you learn in the military that you may not be aware of, is sort of that, that ability to pick up on things. But, you know, back to the question, how do we, you know, how do you get them to think about, you know, investing in themselves. It's kind of hard. And I say this, because when you're getting out of the military or thinking about getting out of the military, I can't speak for everybody. But I will say from anecdotally, most of the people I've talked to, it's, unless you're retiring, a lot of times, it's coming from some reason. Like there's, there's a reason. There's frustration. There is this idea that life is better on the other side. There's this, you know, you want, you know, regular life back, or whatever it is, right. Like, you have these ideas in your head. And so you need to get through them. And so sometimes it's hard to convince somebody that they should listen to you. And that's one of the things that, you know, I found going through TAP was that, I was so frustrated at that point that I just wanted everybody to leave me alone. And I just wanted to get out...the consequences, whatever. And so as I go back to this conversation of trying to convince my, you know, my my soldiers to think through their decision, you know, it is kind of hard, but investing in yourself is a powerful tool. And the reason why I say that is because most people that, at least most of the people that I've been around that are successful, are continuously curious, and they're continuously persistent. And so whether you think that continuing to learn is something that's going to get you to an outcome that you're looking for later on in life, that's to be seen. But the idea is, that you're going to continue learning and you're going to create this habit of learning. And so when new things come up, or new challenges come up you're gonna be persistent and you're going to be curious. And you're gonna be curious enough to find out, you're going to be persistent enough to figure it out. And so when we think about how do you convince somebody? Difficult, right, but you know, framing it in a way that they understand that they have to understand the consequences of not investing in yourself. And a lot of times, it's a little, you know, too little too late at the very end. You don't want to get to the very end, or you don't want to be getting ready to make that move, you know, moving from base to base and think about, "Well, what am I going to do next?" Planning out that that long term strategy, you know, "What do I want to do? Where do I want to be? What technologies do I want to explore" is going to be very, very helpful. Because while you're in the military, you can help craft those scenarios. Every single interview I've ever been in, has asked me a scenario-based question, every single one of them. I mean, I even interviewed like at an Adidas Outlet Store one time, and they asked me scenario-based questions. And so you're never going to get away from those. The things that you learn in these, you know, as you continue to invest in yourself, you're going to learn the way that the corporate world talks about these things. And you're going to be able to more easily relate the experiences that you had, and be able to come up with these, like these top scenarios that you can always talk about. And you can always sort of do that star method also right. So investing in yourself is hugely important, continuing to learn and continuing to be, you know, curious is the best way to do it. I don't know that you can ever convince somebody to invest in themselves if they don't want to, but really helping them to understand that you know, the consequences of what happens if you don't, are kind of important.

KP: 46:52

You're so insightful. That whole star method you just mentioned, you'd be surprised how many people don't know how to use that properly. And how much that is such a game changer. That is something that I have taught people to use, and they're like, "Wow!" Like their their heads explode, like, "Where is this been my whole life?" So what do you say to that veteran out there who's thinking to themselves "Well, my position doesn't require any additional certifications, I got the job. So why would I obtain any potentially relevant online certs?"

Mike Lopez: 47:20

Yeah, so that's a, it's again, a question of preference. When you're in this mindset of continuously learning and being continuously curious, and continuously persistent, you sort of, it sort of naturally follows that you're, you're gonna go attempt to attain these, you know, these certifications and qualifications. Now having a job today doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have a job tomorrow. And I think the last year was, was really, kind of highlighted that for a lot of people that it's, it's not always going to be there. And you're not always going to know what it is that you're going to be doing in you know, one month from now, two months from now, because you don't know what's going to happen. Investing in yourself is very, very important. And one of the quickest ways to demonstrate that you know, something is to have some sort of a certification or qualification that speaks to it. So I have a PMP, that tells somebody that looks at me at my, you know, just glossing over me, this person has at least three years as a project manager, and this person has done all, met all the requirements and understands project management enough, right. So that tells them without me ever telling them a single word, that I have this understanding. When you start getting into things like a CCNA, or CCNT, or something like that, you know, some of these networking qualifications, you really start thinking about, "Okay, what level is this person at that they can pass these tests and qualifications?" And so that's sort of your way, you know, when you talk about getting in the door, that's a way to talk about your experience with never actually having spoken and seen a word to a person. When they're searching for you on LinkedIn and they're searching for specific people, or they're searching for specific qualifications, these are the types of things that become important. Now, your question was really around that person that has the job today and why do they need to continue to feel that way? And, and I'll reiterate it, because you don't know what is going to happen today or tomorrow. So my niece, you know, my niece is like, I think she's like 13 now, and, I try to explain to her all the time. And this is just, you know, me being the uncle that I am right. She wants to do all of these great things in life. She wants to be an animator. I'm like, that's, that's fantastic, you know, start thinking about what you're going to do. Start looking at people want and like I said, she's 13, right, she doesn't know what LinkedIn is. But start looking to see what path people took in order to get to the company that they're at, I was like you'll find a pattern of people after you research enough of them. For animators, it looks like a lot of them start off as contractors. Knowing you know, what it is that you're going to be getting into is going to be very, very important. And so having a portfolio of work, having a certification or qualification of some sort that says that, it's going to make it easier for people to find you. And ultimately, that's what you want, you want to be found. We talked about earlier that I wasn't looking for a new role. But I found the role that is my passion, just based off the fact that I had a CSM - Certified Scrum Master cert and a project management cert. And I had enterprise in my title. Like that is, you know, that is one of those things you don't know what the future can be, you know, what in the future can be unlocked for you by having these types of things. So finding something where you know, that are industry aligned to what you continue to think about doing. You know, if you're a project manager PMP you know, Certified Scrum Master, whatever type of project management role you want to get into, but continue to do that, because you also get better at your job. To be fair, you know, I learned a lot of things going to study for these certifications that I didn't know because I just hadn't experienced them yet. So you're going to be able to take these things back and be a little bit better at your job. So sort of my piece on that.

KP: 50:31

It's incredibly right. Because in the last year or so, a lot of people weren't expecting a complete shutdown. So people were left with "Now what?" People had to pivot or shift or they just went unemployed. And there's so many courses available, where should someone start? And is there a strategy?

Mike Lopez: 50:48

Every person is different, of course, one of the things about us as service members and military spouses and just the military community in general is that, you know, sometimes it's hard to pick a starting point. So finding a mentor, somebody that can help you decide what it is that you want to do. They talk about, you know, I go to these events, like, you know, I go to these like LinkedIn, Mil-City, that they host, and you know, Rey and Samantha and the K.E.Y. and things like that. And you hear these people talking, and they're telling these folks, you know, "Make sure you do these informational interviews with people find out what it is that that they do, because you may find something that you want to do." Now, if you just go into a catalog, like, let's say, you go to YouTube, and try and figure out what it is that you want to do in life, that's going to be a little bit difficult for you to figure out. So no matter where you go, whether they have a lot of content or not, it's gonna be quite difficult. Identifying, you know, what it is that you're passionate about, is going to be important. And then finding people to help guide you along the way. I sort of, like I said, in my way of ending up where I did, I didn't realize that I had mentors that were actually sort of eventually my, they were actually my bosses, and they sort of helped coach me into the way that I ended up becoming, or sort of the pathway that I took. You know, what is the strategy? The strategy is to figure out, you know, what it is that you want to do, and if you don't know what it is that you want to do, then explore. And explore, you know, explore. We have, you know, on the platform, we host content from all different sorts of things. We have everything from like, you know, wine tasting to machine learning, and deep neural networks, pretty much anything that you want to think of is quite possibly something that you could find. And so if you want to explore and go ahead and explore. If you've heard that cybersecurity is the way that you're going to go and check out some cybersecurity. You know, we partner with different nonprofits. And I know we'll get into this in a little bit, but we partner with different nonprofits that provide various levels, wraparound services, and they have access to our catalog that they can grant, assuming that you meet the requirements for that nonprofit to support you. But that's one of those ways that you can sort of explore. Find out whether you really like cybersecurity. I found out cybersecurity ain't my thing. I found out that I like a different type of internet and a different type of IT stuff. And so don't go out there wasting your money on every single thing that pops up or because you heard it in, you know, because you heard it in a webinar, this is going to be the thing that's going to going to change your life, right. Figure out if this is what you want to do. Talk to people about that, are in that role and find out if that's what you really want to do. And then continue to explore and network with those people and really see if, if you have and you're learning the things that you need to learn in order to be successful.

KP: 53:10

A lot of what you're saying is really relatable. And I think a lot of people are gonna find the information. And heed his, heed his advice. Mike is someone that's been there and done that before. He was enlisted, became a commissioned officer, you know, had to adapt, had to change, frustration, overcoming frustration, getting in the way of yourself, and then learning how not to get in the way of yourself. All these things you're talking about, Mike, is a lot of what veterans go through and what a lot of veterans experience. So a lot of the responses that you're saying are things that I exactly, things that I had a hard time myself, kind of putting into translation or words. Like the whole adapting thing for me. I never even thought about it like that before. It sounds really simple, but very enlightening. So I understand that, you know, as far as Act Now Education and your relation with them, or Coursera's relationship with them. So how is that relationship between Act Now Education and Coursera going thus far? In addition, what's the excitement of benefit for the military community to participate?

Mike Lopez: 54:12

So if you've never met Jai, Jai is a, for those of the listeners that are out there. But I think you had him on the podcast like last week, or maybe the week before. So if you haven't listened to Jai, Jai is a wealth of knowledge and Jai is an amazing individual. His whole story is,...I remember when Jai and I first talked. You know, we were saying the same things, you know, he was like, "You know, I was getting ready to get out. And I didn't know what I wanted to do." And I was like, "Man, me, the same thing." Right. And so we both sort of found our way. Now he found his passion while still being still being in the military. I found mine definitely after being being out of the military, of course. But yeah, so organizations like Act Now, you know, they're granted access to our Coursera catalog, the enterprise catalog, I should say, which has a host of courses that they can offer. A lot of the nonprofits that we partner with do provide some various levels of wraparound services. So whether that's mentors, transition specialists, people to sort of help you get to where you need to go. You know, it's one thing to be educated and to understand something to know how to do something, but it's another thing for you to be able to connect all the dots. And so I think organizations like Jai's and Act Now Education, they do that. And the other thing that they do is they really have reach. Like they can, you know,...I talked about earlier that when I was getting ready to get out that I didn't want to hear anything any person had to say to me. I was ready to get out. But I was willing to listen every single other person that had never been through this before, because they were something different. And so when you think about organizations like Jai's and the reach that he has, and sort of the things that he's put together, and the way that he can help people, you know, I've looked at those documents that he puts together, he puts them on a path. And to me, that's amazing. And so so, you know, I feel honored that, you know, we can sort of plug into, you know, plug into that and offer some, you know, some of our, some some of the catalog that we host in our platform for his learners and his clients to be able to go through and get that help. Because, in the end, you know, they talk about all these wide ranging various statistics, right. Servicemembers, the x percentage, I think it's like 45%, or something like that, don't quote me, leave the, leave their job within the first year of service, and then, or within the first year of getting out. And then the like another, like, it goes up to like, 65% of people, like within two years, right. There's a lot of different reasons why that could be. Here in the Bay Area, we job hop a lot, right. You know, if I think back to the experience, I had, you know, if I would have just taken that job, you know, working in manufacturing, not that there's anything wrong with manufacturing, it's just wasn't my wasn't gonna be my passion,...I can only imagine what my life would have been like, and how, how I would never been on this pathway, and how I would have probably been looking for another job. And what that does is you have the security once when you're getting out of the military, right? Like you have everything. You maybe take your terminal leave, you have this job, you get your new benefits, all of these different things. But once you quit a job, that all goes away, and so what do you do next? And so if you have a family, and you have kids and things like that, like that's a very, very important decision to make. Do you stay there? Or do you stay miserable, or maybe not miserable, but do stay unhappy? And so it's very important that, you know, like I said, so I think that organizations like Jai's can help service members that may be, you know, frustrated or maybe not know where to go, can sort of help guide that learner to find that thing that they want to do and put them on the pathway that's going to make them successful in the future. So truly, truly, you know, happy to be, happy to be partnered with with Act Now and Jai becasue like I said, he's amazing, an amazing individual.

KP: 57:24

You know I think the number one thing with Jai and the whole Act Now Education team is they challenge you. They'll ask you questions that you didn't think to ask yourself or you're afraid to answer yourself. Everything that you've man, this, I tell you what, this interview Mike has been extremely, as I said before, enlightening to me. A lot of the things that you said, I found myself grinning and shaking my head. Because I know where you're coming from and I know what you're saying. And even for myself, I learned something in this last hour that we spoke, about some of the things that I did when I was in the military that I didn't know how to put into words or put into a skill set. So a lot of listeners out there are gonna, they're gonna identify with your upbringing, the frustration that you described, adapting and overcoming and, you know, getting in front of yourself getting in the way of yourself and trying to overcome those things. You know, you going to your mom and saying, "Look, I found a way to pay for college," and she's crying while your dad is like cheering you on. All these things is what a lot of people, you know, experience. And you just mentioned right now about, you know, leaving your first job, the first job that you get after leaving the military. Like I did that. Like I worked, I worked for a company, an aeronautics company for just one year. And I just could not, could not identify with this place, and they couldn't identify with me. And I think they really tried. It was just, there was nothing there to kind of bridge that gap. There's a lot of great people that work there that really wanted to hire military veterans. I think they just didn't understand how to handle military veterans. And so you know, this has been an amazing conversation, Mike. I just want to throw it out there for any listeners, if anyone's looking to connect with you, what is the best social media platform for them to get in touch with you?

Mike Lopez: 59:00

So I'm trying to use LinkedIn more. I get on there, sometimes takes me a while to answer questions or messages. Like I said, I've done PMP, I've done agile, I've done Scrum. I've done all those things. So if you have questions about that type of stuff, feel free to reach out and let me know. I've been in, like I said different parts of organizations as a consultant. I worked in sales enablement, operations enablement, change management, you know, brand new projects. I have a scope of knowledge that is pretty varied as a consultant. So I may not have every answer, but I can give you some. The other thing that I'll say is that we do have a military community group on the Coursera platform. If you go to my LinkedIn page, it's the very first post. It's a little confusing sometimes to figure out how to log in and get access. But really what I'm trying to create there is a repository of information for learners that are looking to go through through online learning, right. So sometimes it can be difficult to go through online learning, you know, maybe you don't have the time, maybe you get confused, maybe you get stuck. So finding a place where learners can self organize for those of you out there that are that are in the Agile or Scrum world, you know, that self organizing thing is gonna really resonate with you, right. Like, you self organize a lot of the times, and you'll find that self organizing helps, you know, at least in a lot of cases, you know, solving problems, right. You self organize this to help me to need and you find people to do that. So we have a military community on there, and you can go get access to the military community. I encourage everybody to just post things, you know, whether it's the course that you're taking, are you having trouble, "I can't log in," like, whatever it is, right. Like I go in and I look at it. I try to answer questions. The other thing you'll find on there is a link to how to gain access to the different nonprofits that we partner with to include you know, Act Now Education, every nonprofit provides a different level of wraparound services. So finding the one that's right for you is going to be important. Not all of them are going to do what you want, some of them are going to be more hands on, some of them are going to be more hands off. If you don't want somebody you know, hands on, then go for one of those, that's little bit more hands off, if you want somebody that's going to help you and guide you then go to one of those. And that's the beauty of that post is that you can find that. And then if you are having trouble, like maybe some of your listeners have thought that they got access, and they don't know how to get their access, if they've been invited by one of these nonprofits, we have some help articles on there, with screenshots that can help walk them through. So the community is great. It's it's very limited right now. But you know, with everybody's help, the more posts, the more things, we can create a repository of knowledge and really help others, not just in the online learning space, but but just in general.

KP: 1:01:21

Yeah, I want to just simply say thank you for doing what you do, and being representative with your current employer Coursera, and continuing to help our military community and not just getting out and then going on with your life. You're actually turning back around and you're helping other people level up. So thank you on behalf of our military community, man, for doing that. It's kind of one of the reasons why I also started this podcast is because, you know, back when I got out, I understood the frustrations and having to try things and fail and you know, have some success. And it was really frustrating. And I don't want the folks coming behind us, you know, getting out of the military, transitioning out, to feel those same, those same types of frustrations. And just to summarize everything up. Is there anything that, anything else that you'd like to mention before we finish off the show

Mike Lopez: 1:02:03

Yeah, so one, I wanted to thank you for having today? me on. You know, I'm an advocate, you know, within my own company, and things like that, for our veteran community, and for our military spouses as well. You know, I want to make sure our military spouses are never forgotten. You know, they deal with a lot of challenges. They move around. They go base to base, you know, with their spouse. And so, you know, it's really important, though, that we keep them connected. So I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, for the opportunity to share my share my experiences. The last thing I'll say is that, you know, when it comes to thinking through that job, and things like that, find out, find out what you're passionate about. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to figure that out. When I was working as a consultant, although I enjoyed the work, you know, maybe I didn't find as much...I didn't align as much. Making my contributions, were making them successful, of course, right. Like all of us, we still had jobs. So by default, we were helping making them, you know, make them successful. But, you know, it really took me to, to think about "Okay, well, you know, am I really passionate about the problem that they're solving? And if I'm not as passionate about the problem that they're solving, is there something else about this company that makes me want to stay?" Not the consulting firm, but the company that we consulted for, right. Like, "Is there something about it?" And so eventually, that's how I made my way to online education and online learning. But really figuring out what you're passionate about, and finding out that your passion may lie in other things, even you know, maybe inside of that company, maybe inside of another one. But if you're not passionate about what you do, and you don't believe in what you do, it's gonna be really hard to continue to put forth that effort. I mean, when we think about what we did in the military, it was frustrating sometimes, but we believed in what we did, and and that's, you know, a lot of times that can help continue to drive you.

KP: 1:03:28

With that being said, we're gonna wrap up the show. Mike, I really appreciate your time today, everyone. Thank you for listening to the