The Act Now Education Military Resource Guru with Navy Veteran Tyrone Hewitt

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You know, when you asked about my transition, one thing I didn't mention is, I think one thing I started saying or one thing I often hear is, I wish I would have heard about this sooner. Right? So there's nothing worse than hearing about a resource that you could have taken advantage of at year two, and you're not hearing about it until you're essentially leaving, right? So, you know, I would say, maybe humble yourself, go to that course, ask the questions, and then engage with those instructors and people in that process.

Warriors fall in, it's time for formation. Today, we're joined with one of Act Now Education's Board Members. And he's also described as the "encyclopedia of all military transitioning resources." He's a retired 20 year Navy veteran. Today he's going to talk to us about his own transition experiences, his role with Act Now Education, and give us some strategies and tips for career transition. Because at the end of the day, this gentleman is always posting great content onto Act Now Education's Facebook, as well as providing mentorship and advice for many folks within our military community. Today, I'm honored to have the man himself. Mr. Tyrone Hewitt. How are you doing today, sir?

Awesome, man. Thanks for having me.

It's an honor to have you and I appreciate you giving us your time. I know you're extremely busy being a family man. And you're extremely busy working full time, and then also devoting so much time and effort towards the nonprofit that we're all part of. And so thank you for joining us here on The Morning Formation and allowing our listeners to hear some insight into what you know and what you do every single day, because I understand that you currently are working as the education administrator for Act Now Education as well. But I want to kick things off with this episode. Just like I've been asking a lot of my recent guests, I want to hear what's your most memorable experience, Tyrone, when you were wearing the uniform?

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that's a pretty good question. I would say I think my most memorable experience while I was in the Navy would probably be my last deployment. I remember, I deployed on a carrier with a fighter squadron. And I was in a hangar bay. And I remember thinking, "Oh wow, this is this is probably the last time I'm going to deploy overseas." And for anybody who's ever deployed overseas, whether or not your boots on ground or you're on a vessel, you're doing some pretty awesome stuff. So I just kind of thought to myself, "Man, this is probably my last time where I'm going to be part of something greater than myself." So both happy, but honestly, kind of sad at the same time.

Yeah, it is a little bit. It is a little strange. It's a weird place to be when you're deployed. I think. And a lot of folks out there listening, who have been deployed, can identify with what you're saying. I feel the same way about my deployment to Iraq, which happened in 2004 and 2005, where it was an honor to definitely go over there and do something greater than yourself. But at the same time, you literally had to leave everything behind...sacrifice time with family, time with loved ones, time with just simply being here for all the holidays, all the birthdays, and everything that so many other folks get to enjoy. So I think your most memorable moment is something that many people are sort of conflicted on when it comes to talking about. Also trying to understand, you know, "was it a good time" or "was it a bad time?" I think it was just a memorable time. So very well said there, Tyrone. And I want to kick things off and talk about your own military career transition, because you help so many folks in our military community transition and prepare. Would you mind describing what your own transition was like?

Yeah, absolutely. So one thing I often tell people is, I got kind of lucky on the transition portion, because a lot of the things that we we kind of tell people to do and look towards, I was already doing. For a while, I wasn't aware that I was actually preparing to transition. You know, one of the examples I would use is because of tuition assistance, I was a huge advocate of using free education, right? So I'm like, "Man, they're gonna send me to school for free." So I went to school, got my Bachelor's degree in sociology, spoke to some classmates and like, "Man, you're probably gonna want to get a master's degree." So I did that also. But I wasn't quite aware and I'm not saying you have to have a degree to get a job or getting a job or whatever. But it definitely made my transition easier because I went into human services, and that's what my degree was in. And I also volunteered a lot, which gave me some, you know, non-paid experience. It helped my network. So those two things helped out. I was always frugal, you know, kind of, you know, aware of how I was going to spend my money. So that made the financial aspect easier. But after I went to TAP, and that next, I would say, 15 months, and I got closer, particularly those 6-7-8 months out from actually retiring, I realized "Holy smokes, there's a lot more to this." You know, "Did I get the right degree? Did I network enough? Did I network with the right people? Is my medical stuff adequately documented for my VA benefits, my VA claim? Did I financially prepare like I thought I should have." So as I got closer, you know, what I often tell people is, "I don't think it matters how much you think you prepared." It is extremely stressful. You know, because you're asking yourself, "am I making the right decision?" You know, I retired at 20 years, 20 years and eight days. I could have done 26 based on how your tenure, my paygrade. So I'm like, "Man, am I doing the right thing? Should I stay in?" Because that's constant. I knew I was gonna get a check every two weeks. Right? So you're almost questioning yourself. Right? So I took it pretty seriously, trying to network, asking a lot of questions, making sure that once I drove off the gate with that golden ticket, that I was as best prepared as possible.

Yeah. You know, you had a 20 year military career. And so did you actually mature and come to the point in your military career where you started valuing and started recognizing the importance of education? Did you get your bachelor's degree? Did you get that later on during your career?

Yeah, you know, so yeah, so that's a good question. So I went from a sea duty command out of California, went to shore duty in Virginia Beach. And for those of you who aren't aware, the way that kind of works is here, the deployable and non deployable. So deployable, three deployments, really wasn't focused on education. When I got to Virginia Beach, I'd been at my command for maybe two weeks. And there was a guy, if I remember correctly, if I'm remembering correctly, so this is like, December 2003. He's like, "So what are your plans?" I'm like "You know, maybe I'm gonna go to college." And I think if it wasn't for him, I may have never gone. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, so this is December, classes are starting first week of January. And I'm like, "Yeah, I think I'm probably going to start classes in March, or during the summer, spring or summer." He was like, "Absolutely not." He's like, "You need to go to the Navy college office, talk to them, and sign up now and start in January. Because if you say you're going to start March, you're gonna start in June. If you're gonna start in June, you're gonna start in the fall. And you're going to do that for three years." And I think, I'll be honest with you, I think if he didn't have that conversation with me, I may have spent three years kind of putting it on a back burner. And once I started, I found it to be actually pretty cool. And I got lucky because you know, when you're going to school, and the way I went, I went with a lot of...there were a lot of senior enlisted individuals in my classes. So they were having conversations with me about, really the importance of going to school for advancement purposes in the Navy. But also, a lot of these people were on their way out the door. So I got a lot of mentoring for those, I don't know, three or four years in school, and that's the sort of people I've worked with. So I started, I guess maybe a little bit later in age, but in a career aspect, I was often one of the younger people in my classes.

Yeah. That probably felt kind of odd. And so in 2003, when you had that conversation, how many years you've been in? And how old were you at that time?

I was, so 2003 I had been in...Holy smokes, I guess coming up on...Holy smokes. So 2003. So I had been in over five years. So I was actually coming up on six years.

So you're right at that mark that most people enlist. They usually enlist for four years, and then they get out. So there's a really good potential that you could have just done your first enlistment of four years and gotten out and walked away with no additional education. But luckily you re-enlisted and then you had that conversation with someone that made you do it now. And I think that's really important man, because is it's kind of like going to the gym, right? "I'm gonna start Saturday. I'm going to start next week" and said "No, go now."

So you know, that's a good point. So I remember when it came up for me to re-enlist, I asked myself, I was like "Man, what do I want to do if I were to go back to Texas?" And I didn't really have a plan. I was like, "I don't really know what I'm gonna do. I don't know where I'm gonna live." And quite honestly, I had loved what I was doing at the time. You know, I got off my third Westpac...or I was on my third Westpac when I re-enlisted. So you know, for those who don't know, you deploy from typically a West Coast squadron or, you know, boat vessel, and you hit up places like Hong Kong, Singapore. I mean, I've been all over Asia. Some pretty cool deployments. Young, married, you know, so I wasn't away from my family. And I really enjoyed it. So staying in, it wasn't like, "Oh, this sucks. I'm getting out." I was like, "Man, I could probably do this some more." Right? So yeah, I could have gone out, really no plan, no degree. And then when I got to Oceania, that's when, I believe if I remember correctly, his name's Castro. He's like, "Man, you need to go to school." And he kind of explained it to me. He was currently a student. And I think it definitely worked out for the best.

Yeah, I had a similar situation. When I was a platoon leader. Well, first of all, I went right into the army, I was a second lieutenant. And then within 30 to 40 days, I found myself in Iraq and had my first platoon in Iraq. And that was stressful in itself because you don't want to cut your teeth like downrange, you ideally want to spend time in Garrison, right. I didn't have that choice. So with that being said, by the time I came back from my deployment, I was a first lieutenant and I was pretty well weathered and experienced, having dealt with all the things I dealt with downrange. The one thing that I emphasized the most when I was a platoon leader and an executive officer for my company, as a first lieutenant, was education. Because at the time we were deploying a lot, and I would try to get the younger enlisted folks to understand the importance of "When you're here, focus your Fridays and Saturday nights at the Education Center. Utilize your time." So the story that you mentioned, the conversation that you had in 2003 with the...was it your platoon sergeant or your squad? Squadron,

He was a shift supervisor.

Shift Supervisor. I mean, it could be anybody in reality that you have a small conversation with, that kind of has that light bulb go off in your head and tells you to go now. I had that conversation with several my own soldiers. So going back to what you mentioned, you said TAP earlier for people out there who don't know what TAP is? Would you mind just briefly explaining what that is?

Yeah, absolutely. So TAP is the transition assistance program that's mandated by DOD and Congress. And what it does is it puts the service member through a three, four or five day process, depending on a number of different factors. Now, it's based off tier groups. And essentially, it's designed to help them prepare to separate from the military, whether or not they've been in for, you know, four years and they're an E-4 or they've been in 30 years. And maybe they're an O-6. That's That's what TAP essentially is in a nutshell.

Yeah. And I want to make sure that folks out there that are listening, you know, I want to underline that because when I made my transition out, I was my own worst enemy. I didn't go through TAP. I literally...I was an officer. So I was an O-3. So I could kind of skip the line on some of the things when I was out processing and getting things signed. And I had, I had this thing in my head where I thought, "Well, I don't need them." Like, "I'm good," right, "I'm good." So I went over there, like on the last day that I needed to get the signatures and I just walked in, I was like, "Here, sign this." And they're like, "Well, wait a second." And I was like, "No, I'm good. Like, I got a job. I am good to go". Utilize all your resources. All right, listen, because you never know, there's someone in there that could probably help you out. And so yeah, I wanted to make sure that people understood what TAP was

You know, that's a good point. So I don't traditionally teach the mandated TAP courses. I do help with them since COVID. They've kind of brought me on and said, "Hey, can you help teach some of these courses?" Right, but I do what we call...I do a lot of Capstone. So the capstone is that, that last kind of interview with a TAP counselor, who ensures that you have really all the things you're supposed to have to get your DD 2648, which is that form, you know, it's not your DD 214. But it says, "Hey, this person's received all their career readiness standards." And I think you kind of hit it on the nail. So sometimes I hear...so I can do a Capstone on an E-1 who is separating for whatever reason, and I can do a Capstone on an O-6, who's retiring. Back to Back. E-1, O-6. And I think you kind of hit it on the head, I think sometimes, all too often I find people who don't think they need it. Right. And what I tell everybody is "everybody has different needs based on a number of factors. At least go get all the resources, ask all the questions," because, you know, if you have 200,000 people who separate a year, those are 200,000 different scenarios, right? And if you go to TAP and you get just one thing that says, "Holy smokes, I didn't know about that. Let me learn that, or let me ask more questions," that I think you've probably gained value, especially if you're networking within your course. And you're asking some of the instructors, vital questions. I think, you know, part of the TAP process is, you know, those TAP instructors - how much information you're sharing, because TAP is very basic. It's very basic. But if you have a TAP instructor who's kind of going in the weeds and putting out information, I think the light bulb comes on. And that's why I've kind of approached my LinkedIn posts the way I do, because there's a firehose of information. Some of it, you may have not heard some of it, you may not realize that applies, whether or not it's a TAP book, or VA benefits book. And I'd like to kind of break TAP down. But like this morning, I talked about the VA on-the-job training program, which a lot of people aren't aware of. But that's spoken about VA benefit scores, right? But somebody, they may have missed it, but they may need it or want it. So I'm like, "hey, go read those books, highlight, dog ear pages, contact us and say, Hey, can you kind of reiterate?" Because, you know, when you asked about my transition, one thing I didn't mention is, I think one thing I started saying or one thing I often hear is, "I wish I would have heard about this sooner." Right. So there's nothing worse than hearing about a resource that you could have taken advantage of at year two, and you're not hearing about it until you're essentially leaving, right? Because now you're maybe behind the curve on getting a degree or using COOL or Onward to Opportunity or Skillbridge is a big one. Right. So, you know, kind of, I would say maybe humble yourself, go to that course, ask the questions, and then engage with those instructors and people in that process.

Yeah, definitely. I had a plan. But my plan wasn't bulletproof. And that was the problem. I didn't run my plan by anyone else. And I think if I had sat in front of someone like yourself, who has literally seen hundreds of other people transition, you would have brought up things that I didn't think about. And that's one thing I wish I would have done better for my own transition.

That's good. You know, I made a post about that a couple months ago. And the way I opened up my LinkedIn post is, "do you have somebody punching holes in your transition plan?" Right? And then underneath that I gave, I don't know, a dozen, a couple of dozen different - "What about this?" And, you know, the idea is, it isn't to, you know, piss anybody off or offend anybody. You know, when I'm doing it, and I tell people like, "Hey, I'm not going to try to, you know, piss you off. But I'm going to ask a whole bunch of questions about what you just told me." And it gets you thinking, you're like, "holy smokes." You know, like, a lot of people will say, "I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna use my GI bill for housing." That's great. But what happens if the program doesn't start for two months after you get out? What do you know about housing allowance spent? Because you're not going to get it? Right? What are you going to do if the Skillbridge is 90 days, but you only have approval for 60 days in all these other scenarios? Right. And you as a leader, you know this, in the rmy. And what you do now is, you always want to have different courses of action. Right? If this didn't work out, what's my backup plan? Because it happens. I think....somebody on Act Now. I think it was maybe Nicole or Micki put down what some of the best transition advice you're given...you've been given. And one of the things we often talk about is saving money and having a budget, because you get out 1 May. But what happens if you don't have a job and you don't have a retirement check until July? Did you budget? You know, because you can get hired on but a company may say, "Oh, we're going to hire you but we're not stopping you for another 45 days." Right? So there's so many scenarios where, if you're not talking to a person who has either lived that experience or they're the expert in that area, they can ask you a number of questions where you are like "oh, I didn't think about that." It sounds good. But it's somebody vetting your process. So that's real good.

Yeah, that's really, really wise to do that. You know, that's a great segue into my next question because I want to talk to you. Man, you, you post a lot of really thought provoking content on the Act Now Education, Facebook group, as well as your LinkedIn. I mean, things that I read, and I'm like, "Wow, like that's, that's incredible." Or you're opening some eyes to some new type of opportunity that's out there. Tyrone, how long have you been a member of Act Now Education? So I think it's I think it's been a little over two years now if I am remembering correctly. Yeah, I mean, so Act Now Education has been around for a few years. It started out with just Jai and then Jai was was posting and posting and posting and then all of a sudden, we had like extra folks that wanted to be involved with it like yourself, who Jai picked up as well. And some really great, we have some really great board members that are....I think the best thing about our board members is their overall passion. I mean, these are folks that are holding down full-time jobs, family people, that still manage, just like yourself, that still manage to find time to reach back and help out our military community. And would you mind talking to us about your role as an education administrator with Act Now? Yeah, so before I do that, let me say a couple things. So one, yeah the team is amazing. Like when I talk to members in a team or I see what they're saying or doing, you know, like, I think you just had Yasmin a couple of weeks ago. And when she talks about, you know, some of the stuff we do, and she's giving ideas, I'm like, I'm like, "Holy smokes, that's really good." And then like, Nicole, man, you know, Nicole is an Army veteran, you know, she's always, you know, talking about transitioning, career readiness and stuff like that. You know, she's another person where I kind of sit back and I'm like, "Man, she's like, she's brilliant." And kind of going to Jai. So Jai reached out to me, I think it was two years ago. It's so interesting. COVID is kind of thrown all these years into one. So I get like, 2020 and 2021 really confused. And he and I spoke and we were talking about Act Now Education, I had been falling Act Now Education for a while. In some of the interviews he was doing and in some of videos. And I was like, "Man, this guy's really good." I was like...some of that stuff he was sharing and some of the stuff he was doing. I was like, "Man,...like, let me stalk this dude." And then he contacted me. He's like "Hey, you know, do you kind of want to, you know, join this team?" And I remember talking to him for about 15 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes, and he's telling me some of the stuff he had envisioned. And then I started getting kind of scared. I was like, I was like, "Man, this guy is like...."

I'm like, surface level. And he's he was like, he's like, "I'm thinking about this, this. We're doing this. And I have this going on." I was like, "Holy crap. I just, I just like to share information." And I was like "Yeah, man, I'm

" And then when I got off the phone with them, I remember sitting down, thinking, "Man, I don't know if I can contribute anything." Because I started going into, you know, what they call "imposter syndrome." And I was like, "I don't think I'm what he thinks I am." Like, you know, but you know, we've been, we've been hanging tough for years now. And even still, when I talk to him, sometimes I'm like, you know, like, when we have meetings, I don't know if he sleeps. And you know, this, sometimes when we have our meetings, or stuff that's going on, is eight or nine o'clock here, it's three o'clock, where he's at. And I'm like "When does this guy sleep?" Because he has a full-time job. Right. He's this....he's not, you know, investing in something, you know, has all this free time. He has a full-time job and a family. But anyway, they did. Act Now...so what, so what I do with Act Now? All right, so Kopi, about a year, 15 months ago, 16 months ago, Jay reached out to us, he's like, "Hey, we got this deal with Coursera." Right. We're gonna be one of the, you know, one of the I guess administrators with that. So he spoke with John and I, you know, and kind of walked us through that process of what we will be doing. So what I do, what I currently do now, and I was doing it, you know, throughout this morning is, as the...so we have National Guard reservists, active duty service members who are a year out, active duty service members who are two years from retirement, veteran spouses. and military spouses. We have, I think it's almost 10,000 courses now. And some certificates that they can participate in for free, right. So and when that service member or that applicant applies, I'll go through their applicants and approve them. If I don't approve them, maybe I'll contact and say, "Hey, you know, I'm trying to figure this out." But I also kind of do some, there's some behind the scenes stuff where sometimes, you know, like, a lot of people ask, "What should I do in Coursera? Because there's a lot of stuff to do." So I may say, "What do you want to do? What's your career goals?" And then I'll either, you know, we're either messaging back and forth or emailing. I'll say "Hey, you want to go into HR, here's all these HR courses that I think would be really interesting." Or, you know, "You want to, you know, gain interest in Excel here are all these courses." You know, so even I took courses last year. I do transition for the main Navy, but a lot of the other branches I assist with. So I took, I don't know, six or seven different career courses, resume writing and LinkedIn courses. But what I do is, you know, essentially help people with that application process. And then if they reach out to me, kind of help them figure out, you know, what, what may be a way forward. Because once you log in, and you see what's available, it can be overwhelming. Because there's like I said, I don't know, 97- or 9800 courses right now. And it's like, "Holy smokes. What do I want to do?" Right, so.

Wow, yeah, I logged in as well, and saw all the courses that were available. And it's astronomical, like the amount of different varieties and diverse courses that are out there. And it's all free, like to our community, it's absolutely amazing. And going back to what you talked about earlier about the entire board and the Act Now Education team, there's definitely no shortage of passion and motivation and understanding when it comes to the experience of what it's like to transition out. And a lot of folks, a lot of folks, you know, when it comes to these, these type of nonprofits that are out there, a lot of folks are a little skeptical. They're like, "Well, you know, what's the...what's the, what's the catch here?" You know, there is no catch. There's no catch at all right? I mean, it's just us trying to, you know, be the family that we are, our military family. We've kind of built a family within a family because it's Act Now Education family. I mean, you and I, and Nicole, Micki, all of us, even when we have our meetings and whatnot. It feels, it's enjoyable, and it's fun. And we, we talk about business, but then we also, you know, have fun as well. And so I'm very honored to be a part of the Act Now Education team and have folks like you part of that as well. And going back to the Coursera. The Coursera courses that are being offered. Would you mind describing some of the impactful things that Act Now Education has been involved with, like maybe the number of folks that have taken advantage of the Coursera courses? And how many people have actually completed certifications through them?

Yeah, absolutely. So I will. So I had to take the snapshot. I was like, man, we've hit those numbers, because I track those numbers, right, just because I mean, it's one I actually like numbers, I like analyzing things, even though that's not what I do with a job. So to date, right, this is just a couple of minutes ago, so almost 53,000 morning hours. That's what those individuals who log in every night every other night, have participated in. So you know, 53,000 hours is a lot, right. You know, so these are people logging in on their own time before their family wakes up or afterwards, whatever, taking a wide variety of courses. Almost 12,000 different enrollments. So their enrollments could be multiple enrollments in the same course, or different course. So you're talking to almost 12,000, you know, somebody going in and saying, "Hey, I'm gonna enroll in this and complete it." And then today, a little over 82,000 lessons taken. Right. So you know, I think so we're what June 11. So I think June, I think June, I think summer starts June 21, or June 31. I gotta look at my calendar again. But I am going to try to announce almost like a Summer Slam. My goal is to get maybe to hopefully...Let me look, and I was gonna announce it on there, but I'll just kind of talk about it now. I think I'm going to try to get by the end of the summer, over the summer: 100,000 lessons taken, maybe 75,000 learning hours, and 25,000 enrollments. 25,000 enrollments may be tough. Alright, guys, if everybody's taking vacation, they may be going down. As we get more courses, and we're peaking interest, we're going like, "Hey, let's help. Let's help these people accomplish their goals." And every once in a while, we'll have people post their certificates and we'll put on a page we'll approve it and say, Man, because you know, for anybody who's taken a certificate or gone to school, that's, that can be tough. If you're working and you have a family, or even if you're stay-at-home parents, because that's a lot of stuff going on. So to take that time on your own, when it's a lot easier to watch, you know, you know, Dwight on The Office, half your night away, right. You know if these people are committing time, right, so we like to highlight a lot of the accomplishments to help people know "Hey, we recognize you, and we applaud you" and to help... to help motivate other people. Because I've had people message me, they're like, "Hey, I'm not sure I can, you know, I can do all this." I'm like, "Hey, just do one course at a time, you know, one hour a day." Sometimes I'll wake up on, you know, back then I was waking up before my family and doing it or, you know, I mean, I'm in the office doing this. And my wife is like, what are you doing? I was like doing some more courses. But, yeah.

And there's a mobile app as well, for Coursera as well, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So I mean, what better time to knock out some certifications in courses than when you're sitting out on the balcony somewhere on vacation, and just during some downtime, I mean, you'd probably be reading a book and relaxing anyways. So stimulate yourself.

Let me touch upon. That's kind of funny. You say that so many years ago, I heard a guy speak. His name is Barry Black. He's the Chaplain Senate. Right. And he was talking, he had a sermon. It was a, it was at church. He was he had a sermon called "Why Not The Best," right. And this is kind of what I took into my transition, because I heard it right about the time I was actually on shorter duty, right, going to college. And he was telling a story about how President Carter was a midshipman. He was interviewing to go into the Nuclear Propulsion Program in the Navy. And he had that interview with Admiral Rickover. Who Ran. He's like the godfather of nuclear propulsion for the Navy. Right. And if this, if I remember the story correctly, the admiral asks President, then, you know, Midshipman Carter, you know, "Where are you at in your graduating class?" Admiral Carter tells him. I think he's like, maybe 89 out of 600? I think those numbers are right, and he's probably pretty proud. But Admiral Rickover is like, you know, "what is that?" And he's like, "Did you give your best?" And President Carter, the way the story goes, is he thinks about it. And he's like, "You know what, maybe I haven't. And that kind of goes to the mobile app, right? So right now I'm big on audiobooks going to and from work because that's like 30 minutes each way, where I'm really doing nothing. So I'm listening. Right now I'm listening to "Grant" by Chernow. But even when I heard this sermon, as I was going to college, and in the Navy, you have to study for advancement exams. So when I thought about, you know, Admiral Carter, President Carter, the way he kind of explained it is, when you think about all your free time, you're waiting in line to buy groceries, you're waiting in line to go to medical, or all these other things, all these approx 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, what are you doing? Are you studying for anything? And Admiral Carter, President Carter, was like, "Man, I could have used my time a lot more wisely." Which kind of goes to what you're saying, if you have that app, and you are, you know, sitting somewhere, you know, sitting somewhere maybe doing nothing or not much. Hop on and knock out one quick lesson. So that's kind of cool that you brought it up. I don't know if any of that makes sense. But I think that kind of makes sense. When you know, we there's so much sit around and wait, right. Sit around and wait for your oil to get changed, right. Sit around and wait for us to call you to get your teeth clean, righ. Sit around and wait to have your groceries delivered to your car, when you're in the parking lot wherever you go. Right. And that adds up.

Totally, totally, I can't tell you. There's been times where I've binge watched stuff on Netflix, or I binged myself on tic toc, and only like, maybe an hour into it or so I'm thinking to myself, "What am I doing?" Like, I'm completely wasting my time right now. Time is just melting away. I could have done something more productive and I'd have something to show for my time than just watching someone else's content? Like why not make my own content? Or why not do a certification or why not? Like what am I doing? So you got to ask yourself that question sometimes. And you know, Coursera makes it so easy, because there's the, there's the mobile app. It's, you know, for our military community. If you meet those parameters that Tyrone mentioned earlier, then why not sign up? Why not go into Act Now Education, sign up on the Facebook group and then take advantage of the Coursera courses that are being offered free to our military members out there. And, you know, over 80,000 lessons completed. That's, that's a huge crater. It's a huge impact in the folks out there, for our military community who are taking advantage of it, but we need more. We need more people to take advantage of this opportunity. Because it's available and it's free, and it's only going to enhance your overall career.

And that's good. Definitely with the enhancement, right. Because you're always learning something new. And some people will say "Well, how's this gonna help me?" Well, what did you learn? And even if you put on your resume. It's kind of like, you know, because I often tell people, one of the questions I would probably ask in an interview is, "Hey, I noticed you took this Coursera class, like, you know, in this subject, what did you learn?" Right. And then you can effectively speak about how much more knowledge you've gained in that area. Right. So, you know, I know there's some big wig names for certs that people are chasing, but are you learning the content for yourself, for your profession, and maybe going into another area?

Tyrone, that's actually fascinating that you mentioned that because I was in several interviews where that happened to me. Gone are the days where you can just have the the degree, the graduating diploma of your bachelor's degree or master's degree, because that same day that you sit down with those recruiters, there's going to be five to six other people that also have degrees as well. So that's not impressive enough. For the specific ones I was talking about, I sat down in several interviews, where they actually asked for my transcripts. And before the interview, they looked through my transcripts, and they took note of what classes I took. During the interview, they were asking me, they're like, "Hey, it looks like, you know, while you were getting this, this degree here, it looks like you took these classes. Can you explain to us what you learned in those classes, and how you would apply those to this specific position?" And I was like, "Whoa." I had to go back. And because they're not just looking at the cereal box anymore, they're actually turning it on the side looking at the ingredients saying "What's in here?" You know. And so that's sort of, and that's really where certifications come into play. I just got a certification through DOL Coach for project management. And I did that because I wanted to be able to quantify the level of experience that I have in project management. And that's what their certification does. Yeah, I can definitively say that I have done project management at a certain level, whereas my MBA is in project management, and it's very general. So. So yeah, I completely what you're saying with that.

Yeah that's good stuff.

Yeah, man. And so for the folks out there, you know, within our community, the veterans and military spouses and the service members, what would you say, would be the top three modern day strategies, for our community, with career transitioning?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think one area that people often lack and maybe don't quite understand, or underestimate is, I would say, the networking portion. Right. So networking may be a lot easier for some people than others, because, you know, that can be the difference between being an introvert and an extrovert, right. So if you're an extrovert, you don't mind having conversations with people, right. You could talk about anything, you could start to conversation, right. And I, you know, what I often tell people is, in many cases, you know, it is who you know, right. On getting to where you want to go, right. And once you start networking, you're building these genuine relationships, people get to know you, know who you are, speak about who you are. But you also get a really good idea of, you know, if you're networking with somebody in a company, what that company is about, what roles are available, et cetera. Right. And I tell everybody, "If you're transitioning, I would have a conversation, quite literally, with everybody." Right. I remember, I was in front of my house. And the person, there was a person who came by and he dropped off an Amazon Prime box. And I asked him three or four questions, because I was very curious about what they did, how many hours of working week, how many hours a week, they worked, all these things. Because I was kind of intrigued by that job. Right. And a person may say, "Well, that's not for me." But I think sometimes people miss out on career opportunities, because they don't know or they, they just, they don't understand it. Right. So, you know, when I'm talking to transitioners, particularly, and they say, "Well, how can I start my networking?" Well, in many cases, you know, I would start my conversation off with "What's going on." Right. So if you and I were speaking, and we go to the same church, or our kids are part of the same volleyball team, you know. I would say, "KP long time no, see what you got going on." Right. And I tell everybody, "Oh, man, I don't have much going on. I'm retiring. I'm getting out of the army in about a year. So I'm really looking at some career opportunities, not quite sure what I want to do. Hey, John, if I remember correctly, you said you're a financial analyst with this company. I'm not really sure what that's about, would you, you know, can you kind of explain it to me?" And what I find this people are really interested in talking about what they do, and talking about their companies, particularly if they love what they do, and they love where they're at. Right. And you can do, it's like recon. You're gaining information about these areas, that you may not even be, because there's so many jobs in the civilian world. It's crazy. Like when you go to a job offer, and all these companies, you learn about all these roles, and you're learning about it. Then you say "Man, you know, I like numbers. I like figures, maybe being a financial analyst, or is an analyst, something that I would be good at and like to do." Next question is, "Well, how do you become an analyst? You know, do I do I need a certificate? Do I need a degree? Do I need experience?" And as you're networking, I mean, you can network with anybody, you know, your family, your friends, your neighbor, people at church, if you have kids, they're often part of daycare schools. And, you know, sporting teams, if you're in the line and somebody in front of you works for Verizon, and they have Verizon in their shirt, ask them, "Hey, I noticed you work at Verizon, what do you do?" Because you want to gain as much intel as possible, right. I think the number says, 40% of veterans leave their job within the first six months. I think that's the number.

It's more than that.

That's a lot. That's almost half. Right. And that could be, that could be for a number of reasons, right. Maybe they're going for a better location, better pay. But I think one of the biggest things is job satisfaction, right. Job satisfaction and work life balance, right. So as you're getting a lot of information, when you're networking, and you're doing these informational interviews, you can make a better, a better decision on what you want to do. And once you start applying for those jobs. Epecially like I said, when you when you've built relationships with people, you know, somebody would say, "Man, I know KP. I've known him for quite some time, great attitude, really level headed. I think he's somebody that would be a great team member." You know, the networking doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna get the job. But it definitely means you're gonna get an introduction to the rest of the team during an interview. Right. They may say, "Man, why don't you bring in KP next week. See what time is available for him. We'd all like to talk to him." Versus being that applicant out of one, two. Like, if you look at a job for the applicants and track them from LinkedIn, you know, you can have three, four or 500 applicants. So if you're applying for a job without the network, are you even going to get looked at? But when someone says, such and such company, "Bring so and so in. We know him, he's networked, he's, he's well versed with the company. Let's let's at least have a conversation with the person." So I would say networking, right. Not using LinkedIn. So I made a post I think yesterday on Act Now, maybe two days ago, an Act Now Education. And the question was, I know a lot of veterans who don't put that they are a veteran. They don't put it in their their title. They don't even highlight that they have that background. You know, "I was in the Army for five years, or 10 years." You know, and I just I honestly, I find it kind of strange. So the question was, why don't people highlight that? You know, so, you know, I would say, creating a LinkedIn account, and then really strategizing the networking portion, going back to what I said earlier, right. Connecting with people messaging them saying, "Hey, you know, KP, I noticed you're a project manager for this company. Very much interested in and I was wondering if you would have time to speak." Because I do find that a lot of people are always willing to kind of talk about what they do, right. And then there's so much information that's flowing through, the people you're networking with, or the people you're following with. Because you're gaining knowledge about information resources, about all these opportunities. Whether or not it's, you know, Act Now Education for veterans, you know, Vets 2 Industry, or any of these organizations. You know, like Bruce, I mean there's so many people out there that share so much great information, right. You know, because I'll talk to people and I say, "Hey, do you have a LinkedIn account?" They'll say, "No." They think it's like Facebook, and I'm like, "no." I'm like, if you're using it, well, you're connected with the right people. You know, it's always like Kevin Bacon, right, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You know, I had a guy in my class a couple of months ago, for, I think it was job search strategies. And then on the board, I have a whiteboard I like to use where I kind of talk about soft networks. Strong networks and soft networks. And I was telling him exactly what I would do and what I should have done because I didn't network the best of my capability when I was transitioning out. And I was like, you know, telling him that the church I go to, was big in community service. And I would have branched my network through those people who ran that organization. And one of the guys in my class was like, "Well, what church you go to?" And I was like, "Oh, I go to this church." He was like, "Well do you know so and so?" And I was like, "Yeah, I know him pretty well." And that student was like, "Well that's my brother-in-law." And I was like, "You gotta be joking me." So and I was telling him, that's exactly what kind of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is like because everybody seems to know somebody. So even if that service member, you know, retiring individual, did not come to my class, if his brother-in-law had ever come to me and say, "Hey, my brother-in-law is looking for some information about Skillbridge or resumes, can you talk to him?" So we wouldn't linked up there, because it's so strange. And it happens a lot. You know, I walk people through LinkedIn, and all these resources. And they don't realize sometimes how small your network becomes, or I guess how big your network becomes, once you start using it, right. So networking. LinkedIn. And then I would say the last one, is really, it's tough, because I would say....so this is what I noticed, every base does things a little bit differently, and you've kind of tapped into it. A lot of people go to the three day class, or maybe a five day class, depending on if they're doing a track and they would leave it at all, leave it at that. I would go to your branch office, right on base, and get with the transition office and ask them "What other resources are there available either on that base, or outside the gate?" Because the base has have a lot of other jobs or strategies, resume writing. They may have Skillbridge classes. They have a whole bunch of other resources, that's going to help give you a whole bunch of knowledge, right. Or who they're networking with, outside that gate. Because I often find that people are either uninformed or misinformed about certain resources. Right. And kind of like I said earlier, some people will say, "I wish I would have known about this sooner." But they would have heard about it sooner, had they maybe asked more questions at TAP or gone into the TAP office and said "Hey, can I learn more about scale bridge? Can I learn about Marine COOL, Navy COOL or Army COOL?" Right. And then one of those educators may go to say, "Yeah, absolutely. Let's sit down let's say, 30 minutes, let me walk you through this." Right. But I find a lot of people would....I think there's missed opportunities when you don't know about these resources. You know, I'm big on kind of VA education post 9-11. What I posted this morning, is about the on job training, right slash apprentice. So I get a lot of service members, and I get it, they don't plan on using their GI Bill because they don't want to go to college. I can respect that. But when they come through my office, I will walk them through the comparison tool and say, "Where are you going? And what do you want to do?" Here's some OJ opportunity. I just walked with, I walked a marine through it three days ago. I mean, I walk people through weekly, right. Because you know, you can get, you can go through an OJT that's approved by your state approving agency and the VA and get paid by that employer and still get your housing, right, for so many months, and it decreases over time. But it's more than worth it. Or if there's a company that's not approved, the state approving agency can actually get them approved. So a person may think "I don't want to use my GI Bill." Right. And my concern is they're going to miss out on those resources, but they're trying to get into an area. I'm like what better than getting trained for a job, right, and then networking within that job, and then getting paid by the job and then getting paid by the VA, and then you may set yourself up to stay with that company as a full time employee. Right. And that's just one of the things that a lot of people don't hear about. But I would say, try to network with people and find mentors and follow Act Now Education and all these groups, that's going to let you know about opportunities that you've never heard about. Because you're probably not talking about that on a smoke pit or the chow hall, you're talking about how bad life sucks and you can't wait for leave.

So basically, number one was network. Number two is get yourself a LinkedIn profile. And number three, essentially was, sign up for Act Now Education because there are so many opportunities out there that you don't know about and you don't have to touch your VA education. And that's what Tyrone is talking about folks, that at the end of the day, there are so many things out there available to you that are not being marketed properly and are not talked about, you know, in the chow hall and in the barracks and everywhere else. So, this is the place where you can go and you can connect with folks, who even if you have questions, you join the Facebook group...

And that's a good point. So it doesn't matter what you do. You're not going to see every resource out there. There are people, you know, they'll post, "Hey, I want to share this certification plan" or whatever, right. Either myself or Jai or somebody will approve it. And when I read, I'm like, "Holy smokes, I haven't heard about that. Let me share that." Right. So I think we're probably going to get up to 30,000 members, hopefully today, on Act Now Education. But there are a lot of people, they may not necessarily be part of the team, but there are people who are part of Act Now Education, that are sharing some really cool stuff. And it's like, oh, yeah, we gotta get this shared. Or, like you said, sometimes people will say, you know, "Can I get some additional information about real estate," being a real estate agent or whatever it is, and we'll just share it. And a lot of people they'll copy and paste and say, "Hey, look at this, or look at this." And it's just a big network of people who truly want to be able to share information that they,... people get really excited when they can share stuff. And there's so much support for those people in those groups, where somebody may say, "Hey, I don't think I can do this." And somebody may chime in and say, "Hey, you know, I went through that same course, pace yourself, I did it. DM me, if you have questions." But yeah, absolutely join Act Now Education. Like I said, when I was seeing what Jai was doing a couple years ago, I was like, "Holy crap." I was like, "What is going on here?" And it's just compounded by the people, either joining the group or just part of the page.

It's totally great to be around like-minded folks. And sometimes, sometimes it's not cool to talk about education, it's not cool to nerd out on, on the future, and where I'm gonna go, right. But at the end of the day, some of us secretly nerd out on it. But we pretend to be cool when we're out around our friends. It's nice to find other people that find that stuff, interesting to think about tomorrow, and what am I going to be doing for the rest of my life? And that's what the Act Now Education family is all about. And so everything that you talked about. Everything that Tyrone talked about right now. As far as you know, I think, he talked earlier about new positions. Discovering that there's other positions out there that you didn't know anything about. And I got a real quick example that I was talking to someone the other day about my DOL coach certification that I received. And they were like, "What's, what's project management? Like, what what is that?" And I'm like, "How do you not know what project management is?" And this specific person I was talking to was working as a paralegal. And I was explaining project management and how it could apply to her specific career. And she's like, "Why do I not know that? So I could get this certification, I can do something that is a little more challenging and might, might pay me a little more money?" And I'm like, yeah, like, you don't think like this. It's more like this. Like, there's a lot of things out there that you can do, new positions and things like that. You only learn when you surround yourself with folks, like the family from Act Now Education. You talk to folks like Tyrone, that you find that out. And I'd say one of the things, Tyrone, before we wrap it up here. If you're a four year enlisted member of the military, you need to get on it. All right. Need to get on it. Don't walk away with just your advanced training or your basic training or your boot camp in hand. Walk away within those four years, with certifications, with your college degree if possible, college credits done. You know, it's never too late. Even I'm talking to you veterans out there as well. So we're always transitioning, and I always say the best time to find a job is when you have a job. So constantly invest in yourself. Join the Act Now Education, get in those certifications. And for the leaders out there. If you're not talking to your folks about these nonprofit organizations like Act Now, then you're wrong, because we need to align ourselves in a direction of success. And that's exactly why I'm focused on getting board members such as Tyrone here on the mic because Tyrone is literally an encyclopedia of career transitioning resources. And Tyrone, I really appreciate you giving me your time today. Before we round everything out and finish off the episode. I want to give you an opportunity. Do you have a message? Or do you have any advice for folks out there, within our military community, who have not tapped into the resources of Act Now Education?

Yeah, so you know, I'm actually going to add to what you said. So yeah, if you're, if you're three or four years in, definitely tap in, right. So you,...here's the thing, if you're in three or four years, you may do 30 or 40. You don't know because things change. But what I like what you said is, you're always in transition. We get a lot of veterans who go through Coursera and they are going into their third and even fourth kind of career or side hustle. Like, there's a lot of people, you know, in bookkeeping, or these other things. So when I'm talking people in their 50s, and 60s, because, you know, we'll either converse or looked at their LinkedIn profile, and I'm like, Man, this person got on in the 80s. And they did this, you know, and then they did this. And now they're, now they're going into IT, or they're going into bookkeeping, or they're going into program management. So the fact that you said, you're always transitioning is spot on. Because I'll always ask, I always ask myself, man, you know, "When am I going to make the transition into something else? And what is that going to look like?" Will I always do career advice, or academic advising, or am I going to go into something else? So, you know, as you become a part of us, you join our group, and you're seeing all these things that are available, that gives you an opportunity to kind of say, "Man, I'm really interested in that. Let me learn about it. Let me take a course or ask some questions." That way. You know, I can make sure I'm making the right move. And I'm much more better prepared. So yeah, absolutely. Always in transition.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of things you said today, I think a lot of people are going to resonate with, when it comes to either something that they've experienced or something they are currently going through right now. And Tyrone, for anyone out there that's interested in reaching out to you, and contacting you for questions. How can they do that?

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Facebook, through our Act Now page, Tyrone Hewitt or LinkedIn. Once again, Tyrone Hewitt. I think my header says "Encyclopedia of ransition resources," I have an Act Now Education banner. You can follow me, you know, connect with me, send me a message and say, "Hey, I have a question." My goal is either give you...so my goal is not always to give the answer. I'll give the answer if I can. But what I find about the, you know. Sometimes....sometimes people just tell you some information, but I'm gonna try to give you a resource and say, "Hey, this is where it says this," right. Or connect to somebody who does. I'm like, "You know, I don't know, get with this person, and they can answer your question." But yeah, definitely don't be a stranger. I'll do what I can to help you out or connect you with somebody who can definitely help out.

Let me tell you this much, folks, if you're interested in connecting with Tyrone, you can scroll down to the show notes. So if you're watching this on YouTube, scroll down to the bottom, you're gonna see all the links for Tyrone, how to contact him, his email, his LinkedIn profile, as well as the Act Now Education main website. And I'll also put the Facebook group link on there as well. So you can join the group, it's only a couple questions to go through. And then we basically vet people to join the group. And it's a very high quality group as well. So we make sure everything is very professional as well. Folks like Tyrone go through and they screen the questions and make sure all the posts are, are on point and purposeful. And I gotta say this much man, Tyrone, you're a heavy hitter in the military community as far as career transition. When I used to host the clubhouse room on Friday nights. When you weren't there. People were literally looking for your phone number to text you to get you on there because there was someone that desperately needed your assistance. And I think a few times they used to sing that song "Tyrone." I appreciated your support during the clubhouse days. And I currently love the fact that you're part of the Act Now Education team. And it's an absolute honor to serve next to you on the board, for this great nonprofit. So thank you so much for giving us your time today.

Yep, thanks, brother. Thanks for having me.

And folks, that's it for The Morning Formation. I want to thank you for tuning in and meeting Tyrone and getting to learn some of his insights on career transitioning. And as I always say, I want you to stay tuned, stay focused and stay motivated. Warriors fall out.