A HIRED CALLING!

Dr. DEW (00:06.565)
is letting your letting your head.

Mario P. Fields (00:09.251)
Yeah it is. So I just put it in there for you.

Dr. DEW (00:16.05)
There it is. Okay.

Dr. DEW (00:25.969)
doesn't allow me to do my little accents over the E's here with my keyboard here. But nevertheless, so welcome to today's episode of Resume Rebellators, a Hired Calling Podcast. I've got Mario Fields here with me. I retired Sergeant Major and Mario does a lot of amazing things. I him several questions today about all these endeavors. And so first off, Mario, my apologies to you sincerely. I know you don't want to hear it again.

But about kicking this can down the road in terms of getting you on this podcast, the past couple of months, my schedule went from crazy to crazier. had to say, so starting in June, rented a, started a contract to rent a new house and had to get my current house that I own moved down and rented to somebody else. had to prep that still in work. And right when I thought it was going to be done, I was basically shooting some screws and some drywall that I was repairing.

putting drywall over a repair that happened like six months before, because behind the washer, nobody cared about it. Shooting in a screw, and I shoot that screw right into the pipe that I just got fixed. I was like, mind blown. So that's been going on. I had to bring my daughter to Vegas for her dance competition, my youngest daughter.

And it was there for a week. Blew a tire on the way there. to replace, I replaced four while was in Vegas. And then we were ready to leave and it was so hot that the air conditioner and generator were like, nah, we're done. We're not going to do this. Despite the generator being brand new. So basically had to buy a new one and put on a hitch hole in the back and run the quarter on the side of the generator, like a true redneck, but it worked out just fine. It was like 115 degrees that day. There was no way I was going be leaving Las Vegas with that time without full electricity. I didn't care

Mario P. Fields (01:47.736)
my goodness.

Dr. DEW (02:13.66)
way.

Dr. DEW (02:18.533)
that's been going over here. That's what's added to the delay. I'm still moving in here. I just hung those things up behind me a few minutes before we started this podcast. It's not gonna be in my final background, but it was something better than the bare wall. We got all of our stuff into this place, but nothing really up yet. After we back from Vegas, had...

week with my brother in town and my wife's brother in town. So as I said a minute ago, this is like the first real professional thing I've done in the past six weeks. It feels like this related to actual business and you know, what's gonna happen in the world here?

Mario P. Fields (02:53.773)
Wow. Derek, think those external factors were testing your soft skills, and comfortable in crisis, being resilient, and all of the above. So I'm just glad that we were able to get this can kind of crack it open, have a couple of sips of conversations on your show.

Dr. DEW (03:03.376)
Yep.

Dr. DEW (03:14.353)
How's your summer been, Mario?

Mario P. Fields (03:16.249)
It's been great. It's going fast. I mean, I have a passion landscaping and I tell you, man, of course I got the best grass in North Carolina, but no, it's been great. And as I told you before the show, our first granddaughter, her name is Layla. She will be arriving soon. So we are stoked here in the Fields family, man.

Dr. DEW (03:34.951)
Very cool.

Dr. DEW (03:39.815)
Congratulations again on that. Good name choice. My daughter's name is Layla too. I can't imagine what it's gonna be whenever.

Mario P. Fields (03:44.356)
Dr. DEW (03:48.669)
My kids have grandkids right now. You mentioned earlier the teenage years. One is full on 15 and then one is turning 11, but she thinks she's turning 30. Likes to be pretty bossy to her big sister, but they get along pretty well. But then again, they fight like cats and dogs. Now you kids are pretty close in age. Any kind of old school recommendations for this time period?

Mario P. Fields (04:12.195)
Yeah, you know what I learned is they are their own human beings. Every single one of them. And so one thing I told my daughter and my son when they were teenagers, I said, one day want to be your friend. Right now I'm your dad. I said, you're going to make mistakes, but if you don't learn from them and you continue to create turbulence in the house, I will always be your dad and never your friend.

So let's work together so I can be your dad and your friend. said, and when you guys become adults, you will love me being your friend and not just your

Dr. DEW (04:50.269)
It sounds like it's worked out pretty well for you. You got 28, 29, so you've succeeded. Congratulations.

Mario P. Fields (04:57.219)
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what your definition of success is. I would just say for mine, my definition of success is I still have hair in my eyebrows. You know, I lost my hair on my head, but I still have some eyebrows.

Dr. DEW (05:11.225)
parenting is hard, there's no manual, there's plenty of books out there but no real manual. I don't know, I think everybody's version of success is probably different but being in your kid's lives, being in your grandkids lives is, being able to talk about them on a podcast means that you're in their lives so that is definitely a peak of success too. So let's dive into a little bit of

Mario P. Fields (05:21.783)
Anyway.

Dr. DEW (05:40.369)
the time period between your retirement as a Sergeant Major to where you are now and you're doing all kinds of great things that are Unharbored Talk podcast, Parade Deck. I'm not sure how all these things fit together, but what's your ecosystem, what's your role in your building there?

Mario P. Fields (06:00.931)
Yeah, so I'm a professional content creator, so that's kind of the synergy. Derek is, is Parade Deck. I helped the founder create that platform about three years ago. And the problem I had, the challenge I had was having a landing page that had all of my social, social media links and company business links. And so I helped them create that, which, resolved my problem and then

that founder of Parade Deck, Andrew, make his vision become a reality. So overall, I'm a professional content creator. then as a philanthropist, I founded SteelServing Incorporated, which is a nonprofit, 501C3, IRS code. And we're about to hit six years in running. And so I do have lots of experience in that space. And then in the for -profit side,

Along with the professional content creation comes the speaking industry and that's broadcasting, keynote speaking, podcasting, I mean, you name it. And so that's kind of my background, but it's all related through science in my best career focus area, my friend.

Dr. DEW (07:16.925)
Last time we talked, you had a lot of science -backed career tools you were talking about. So what got you into knowing all about these career -focusing tools? What's the science behind it that you're referring to? Did this all come from your role as an employment facilitator with the DOL and the TAPS program? Tell me more about that.

Mario P. Fields (07:39.011)
Yeah. You know, the interesting thing is I was actually drawing unemployment. You know, was retired in Southern California and when the pandemic hit, they kind of merged some, some positions and they offered, you know, they said, Hey, would you like to apply to be the CEO? And I was like, no. and I'll tell you why through science. I didn't know then I know now. So, so what, what, what, what create this opportunity is I had to apply for, three jobs a week to.

you know, continue my unemployment. And then this position appeared on indeed .com. I applied for it and I've been doing it for three years. Part of the onboarding training is we had to go through, when I say we, you know, I had to go through all of the curriculum, the assessments, and that's what started is I had to be trained in a career scope assessment that measures your interest and your aptitudes, your work values, and then your Dr. Holland Riaset codes. And

Here's the critical component there to tie them to industries. And that's where I see a lot of disconnect in all industries. There's a lot of folks go, I'm familiar with some of these, these assessments and tests, but do you know how to fundamentally connect your best science, you know, your results to, to industries? That's what started it about three or four years ago. And now, so everything you see that I do on my LinkedIn profile, they're

where I am a 99 to 100 % best fit. And Derek, I'll tell you, it's not work. It's fun. And I'm getting paid. So it's almost like you're in your passion on

Dr. DEW (09:19.515)
And that is very important. I think that having meaningful employment post -separation is the biggest contributor to veterans staying alive and well.

You know, there's direct link between unemployment and suicide that we just based on being on it for the duration increases with duration the number of times you go on it and even you know, I think the veterans Incidences of homelessness actually spikes years not the first two or even the first five It's after ten years when veterans end up going homeless So being able to identify and quantify what is meaningful employment for each individual is

Mario P. Fields (09:47.616)
Mm

Dr. DEW (10:00.009)
very important. Can you tell me more about how you've seen this work in your space?

Mario P. Fields (10:05.947)
Oh yeah. So for instance, and just a quick research fact, not just to veterans, but all the US population, about a third, 30 % of the US workforce, they switch jobs every 12 months. Every 12 months, my friend. And just over 50 % say that they're satisfied, not that it's meaningful. They're just going, yeah, the money, like the work -life balance, like I'm good.

But you don't hear too many people go, my God, this is so much fun going to exit, know, going, going to work is fun. You rarely hear that. And of course you don't even have to hear it. You can see it in your body language. So I bring, I bring that up because for me, my personality code as it's tied to industry is social. Social are helpers. So my highest is social, which is a helper. like to do activities to help people. My lowest is investigative.

which is normally found with CEOs. So I always wondered why every time I got promoted, I hated it. I never understood why the more rank I picked up in the military, the more I didn't like it. Well, when I did research there, the higher you go, the higher rank you go in the military and in industry becomes a very, for the most part, it becomes depending on what industry we're just talk Marine Corps, very realistic, investigative, conventional industry. My three lowest are

I didn't realize I was promoting myself into an industry that was opposite of my personality codes So so now in broadcasting and podcasting in the nonprofit, they're all social You know, those industries are helpers. The other component is in a career scope assessment. It shows you your highest Are you humanitarian? Are you accommodating? Are you protective like law enforcement? My top two highest are humanitarian

humanitarian and accommodate top two. Yeah. And these industries are about helping people, developing people where I've had some folks in my workshops who they were high humanitarian and they were zeros in accommodating and they wanted to go into health care. I'm like, you may find yourself with bad bedside manners because you're not accommodating.

Mario P. Fields (12:29.445)
So everything I do from the time I wake up when it comes to my nonprofit and the podcast and social media, those industries are high in social, enterprising, artistic, my three codes. And you can go on onetonline .org and check them out. And then my work values, as I conclude with this part there, there's three parts to it, is your work values. And my work values are achievement, relationships, and independence. And then these industries.

They really focused on allowing people to use their best abilities to accomplish a goal. Relationships are critical to me. I do not want to go to work in industries where people are like they're pissed. They're like they're fun sponges. Not for me. And I love being independent. So that's how I'm applying those three assessments, putting all the pieces together and being intentional in the industries that I am in, that you're seeing me in and that

facilitate to thousands of service

Dr. DEW (13:33.957)
So if I missed it, forgive me. So what was it that turned you on to diving into this space? it finding and applying for this role or were you already educated about this because of your experience transitioning out of the military?

Mario P. Fields (13:47.451)
No, it was when I had to go through the onboarding training for this part -time US Department of Labor facilitator position. That's when I discovered, wow. And you know what it did, Derek? It made me realize other things in my whole life at the time of 44. I mean, I'm almost 50 now. But yeah, I was like, no wonder why I didn't want to be the CEO of that company in Southern California.

No wonder why my own company, I don't mind being the founder. I don't want to be the CEO. And I never understood why do I hate those businesses? Like I don't like them. Well, it was during the training that I was like, man, they're high investigative. And that's my lowest.

Dr. DEW (14:35.229)
So in your role doing the TAB program and you're talking about this science and this quantitative search and what kind of feedback do you receive from

the transitioning service members, you know, at the beginning of it, at the end of it, how they're pick up and acceptance. I just remember, you know, my time sitting in TAPS class, I had a plan, I knew what I was going to go do. Granted, the plan failed. And I came back to California, call it a failure, whatever else, but I'm when I had changed. But I know I paid attention in TAPS class. But nobody was talking to me about quantifying anything about learning what you wanted to do.

TAPS counselor was taught us a lot about

the VA healthcare system and the VA benefits system and some of the state programs. But there wasn't and there hasn't been until I think recently really a focus on finding out what you are supposed to go to, what you wanna go to. Removing, I say, the onion apart and removing the prescriptions and apply to you. Your mom said you should be this, your dad said you should be that. Marine Corps made you with this. You think you wanna be this other thing, but you don't have it, haven't done any, you know.

soul searching and career searching and an understanding of what jobs actually do and what it takes to be successful in those roles and what kind of attitude you have to have. What are your motivations? So active duty, we don't quite normally buy into the feelings and emotions of this kind of thing. I don't think, but so that and I've been removed for many years, but what are you experiencing?

Mario P. Fields (16:16.185)
Yeah. So, so number one for your listeners and I don't know if this is on YouTube, but your viewers, but number one, they can go on my LinkedIn profile and read the recommendations, like literally read what they've been saying. So that's one I've been lucky to have the service members actually leave their feedback. then number two, they, so we start, when I say we, know, U S department of labor facilitators.

TRS is five days. We actually come in on day three, four, five. And in each workshop, it's about 33, 34 service members. Spouses can attend too. So when they first come in, it's like, okay, I've done assessments. They always say test. Like I've done tests. have, and especially the older folks, okay, we've done this before. I've been to college and so on and so forth. Like, okay. I mean, that's your belief.

It's yours. Who am I to tell you? It's not a good belief. I said, just keep an open mind. And Thursday for us here in the Jacksonville, North Carolina area, Thursday is the day we do all the self -assessments. And then by three o 'clock that afternoon, we call it putting the pieces together. And I would tell you, Derrick, I would tell you by Thursday, know, 330 when I'm getting ready to wrap up the workshop, it's a whole different ballgame.

I mean, and I mean that metaphorically, but they they're walking out going, I would have never thought of this industry. I didn't know that job zones meant how much prep to get into this industry. You know, I didn't know that I am high in humanitarian and zero in

No wonder why as a corpsman, because I have sailors and we, you know, I have airmen and, we, you know, we do all the branches of service. I wonder why I love helping people in the hospital, but when they start to complain, it really bothered me. And I can and now they can go into industries and pursue industries and not waste time and money. Like I had one last week, so I was going to get a degree in engineering.

Mario P. Fields (18:38.245)
But now after going through the assault, the self -assessments, I am not pursuing a degree in engineering. I'm going into aviation mechanics. Yeah, man. So it's just been wonderful the last three years.

Dr. DEW (18:55.005)
Thank you for that. I'm very interested in learning more from you about the assessments that you use, why you use them and why they work. And I will share with you a link to one based on the IOM from Fingerprint for Success, now called Marley, out of Australia. My mentor also mentored the CEO of that company and it's an incredible program.

Mario P. Fields (19:12.805)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. DEW (19:19.503)
I was coached by Dr. Harshman based on the IWAM, which is individual work attitudes and motivations, IWAM criteria myself. then I wanted to go apply the same AI on my resume website to this type of assessment and coaching. And I got about two steps down that path. And he told me, go look at this company. They're already doing it. And it's fantastic. And I don't normally.

I put some stock in some assessments, I am very critical of all assessments, especially the Myers -Briggs type of assessments in the disk. The only one that really nailed it for me was the Strength Development Inventory, SDI, and then this one right here, the Fingerprint for Success. I'll share that link with you in the next talk. want to give you a bit

Mario P. Fields (20:09.209)
No, Derek, I'm used to this. again, I am the difference between this and all the other ones is one of this is US Department Labor. Number two is accurate. It's extremely accurate in a time to industries. The things I haven't seen with the other ones I've done is they haven't. There's not as resource that I can take that data and tie it to industry. But I can go on onetonline .org right now. I can do yours in seconds and go, yeah, I would never put you in this industry.

Your lowest heckin you know, you're protected, you know your personality you would clash with this industry yeah, and you see people all the time They have no idea they have no nonverbals They have no personality and they go into an industry as high high and social or reverse I'm high and social you put me in an investigative industry, dude I am probably going to get written up by by the end of the

I'm going to work in these industries going, what's wrong with Jim? Is he okay? Is Jenny all right? No, they're just very investigative and realistic people. And I'm in an industry that's conflicting with my personality code. And then my aptitude is high and clear. yeah. Yeah, so that's why I've declined job offers there. I have declined job offers. I had someone offer me a job and they great money.

fringe benefits are amazing. So give me a couple of days. I took all my codes, one on the onetonline .org, which is U S department of labor. So U S department of labor platform. And I looked at everything. I was a 66 % good fit for that position. And it was accurate. was like, yeah, no way. Nope. And I called the guy back and I said, Hey, thank you so much for the offer. But let me tell you what will potentially happen. I would

under deliver and over promise. And I would probably start looking for another job in 10 months.

Mario P. Fields (22:15.205)
Good money, but it's not meaningful.

Dr. DEW (22:19.677)
So you're getting buy -in from your students about how to use these categories and go find some quantification about how they're going to fit in in other industries.

Mario P. Fields (22:30.351)
Not even buying, it's so accurate, Derek, that I don't even have to sell

It's it's almost like a scientist going this is a half an inch. Any questions? You know, if you start to debate that, that's a little weird. So the way this is for them, the way the workshop is set up is literally when we're done, they're like, no wonder. You know what? I was doing this as a kid. You know, you know, one guy like, you know, guy last week, he was like, no,

I used to always go outside on the farm and build things and never knew that I had all these skills for construction. And he goes, I've always wanted to go into custom building. We put his results in knowing that he was 99 .9 % best fit for construction industry and custom builds.

Dr. DEW (23:28.921)
it's great to get people where they are going to be happy to find meaningful employment. And so I guess changing gears on you a little bit, some that came up last month that we as Marines probably gonna have some strong and varied opinions on when it comes into the history of it all. But SkillBridge has been a pretty impactful program across the services. I mean, from my research in

study that I did, everybody spoke very highly of it in terms of what they got from it. I do know people who have done it but didn't quite get what they thought they were going to get, but nevertheless pretty incredible program. But the Marine Corps just cut down eligibility from up to six months down to three to four months. Have you been hearing rumblings from your students, your folks transitioning out? What's going on on your site?

Mario P. Fields (24:25.179)
Yeah. You know, from what I've heard from, from my workshop is they understand there's a huge retention problem and not just a retention challenge. Let me get rid of the word problem. Something I've never seen in my 50 years of living is, is roughly there's a, not only is there a re there's a recruiting challenge. And what I mean by that is young folks today, it's harder to, um, for them to qualify.

It has nothing to do with the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, but you know, they're just not qualified. I think I did some research about a month ago. I think it's like only a quarter of folks who are eligible to apply to volunteer to join any branch of service, they can't even qualify. So that's a major challenge. Number

Number two is the retention. mean, you know, remember when the military, you you and I were in, they had the old legacy retirement program, you know, high three, you know, 2017 that went away. So now you don't have that where if you do 20 years, you know, you get a pension. it's very complex. So the, the, the hundred, you know, all of the folks that I've experienced in last three years, like they understand that there's a retention problem.

And the organizations have to do something because it's a national security issue. One of the other changes, I don't know if you saw this, but active reserve as of like a couple of days ago, it is getting so challenging that now the Marine Corps is going to tap into active reserve for special duty assignments. I've never seen that in my, in my short life of living. And I'm a prior drill instructor. But now if you're on active reserve AR.

Now you either can volunteer for a special duty assignment or you're going to be, as the article said, voluntoed. So very, very complex dynamic situations currently. And you know, as well as I know, the enemy gets a vote.

Dr. DEW (26:37.993)
Well, I mean, I find some strategic complications in taking folks out of active reserve and putting them into being a recruiter or a drill instructor as their primary because those are two things that the person doing it should want to do it to some level. You don't want to have somebody disgruntled being a recruiter.

Maybe you want to just go to a drill instructor. don't really know. It depends on how you want to look at it, but I'm it's not healthy for long term. But these are all short term fixes. think limiting or restricting seal bridge is a short term fix. I need to be able to show incoming.

Mario P. Fields (27:10.106)
No.

Dr. DEW (27:25.435)
graduating high school folks better stories about veterans. That's kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing is to show that we can go get good jobs. There is life after service. You can find meaningful employment once you get out or retire. And there are still a lot of benefits to serving despite the current political climate and everything around that.

for people who can't afford college, people who for whatever reason don't want to go to college. There's lots of job training available. But the other side of me who has done the deep down research, I understand that those things don't quite add up to the appropriate salary when you get out and get into math right now, but I really want to. But what are we going to do long term to really show better opportunities and...

Mario P. Fields (27:56.005)
Yeah.

Dr. DEW (28:24.263)
How do we help from our seats improve the recruiting situation as it is right now for the long term?

Mario P. Fields (28:28.88)
Yeah.

Mario P. Fields (28:34.411)
I know for me, if you go on my social media, I've had more folks on my YouTube channel, TikTok. I mean, I'm on social media and I embrace it. When I was in when I was on Dirk, there was a lot of senior officers and folks who were very rigid and did not embrace it. You know, they didn't believe you should be on social media. If you were on social media, you were an officer officers. You know, as a sergeant major, they got they got wore out. And I used to tell the generals and everyone else, I'm like, you guys have a very rigid way of thinking.

This is technology and it's a very solid marketing and recruiting tool. It reaches millions of people. so, you know, you want to show folks that, like you just said, Derek, we're not robots. We're very smart. It doesn't matter if you're an officer enlisted, you're a human with skills and you can transfer those skills out to the private sector. And the beauty about when they get out is just because you're an officer or a S .R. major,

It doesn't matter. The rest of the world doesn't care. What are your skills? What are your abilities? And can you solve my company's problems? And so that was a big one I saw in 2017, 2018. And we're seeing that. And so what are we doing? I can only tell you what I've been doing to create a positive environment, to create a positive impact for those who are going to boot camp. Just had someone send me a message on TikTok, say, I'm going to boot camp next week.

Hopefully I can meet you. You know, and I sent him a message. said, Hey, if you're ever in North Carolina, hit me up and I'll come see you on one of the installations. Very powerful marketing tool. But here's the deal. When I start searching veterans, YouTube channels, their social media, they're not on them. And if they are on them, it's either Politico or, know, it's nothing, you know, it's nothing positive for the most part. A lot of them do, but, you know, show them you love what you did. You made the choice. It was all volunteer.

You weren't drafted like my uncle, if you will mean, you know, he did 30 years, you know, but, know, it wasn't like it's not like that. And so that's that's my take on it is I can tell you what I've been doing for seven, you know, six, seven years. And what I continue to do since I've been out is throw some comedy on the tick tock that, you know, folks love it and give a positive, you know, perspective, honest.

Mario P. Fields (30:59.227)
perspective on if you join and when you get out there's lots of life and have some personality. mean, I know when I was the Lance Corporal and I came in, I was like, I don't want to be like that when I'm in my 30s. Just look like I'm just miserable. You know, I'm not doing that. I'm like, who would want to join any company and then leave and you have no personality. You just look like you're just pissed off.

You got to break that. That's a belief system. That's a very rigid way. And then you go, hey, there's life after the court and people are going, you look like you're miserable. know, 93 % of communication is nonverbal. And so I tell folks, you don't have to say much. People are going to look at you in your nonverbal communication. And that's another way you can make a positive difference for those who are currently serving and those who are getting

is use your own platforms to be very positive and honest. And if you have a belief about something, like you said, Derek, hey, this is just my belief.

Dr. DEW (32:07.503)
In your curriculum or in your program with the DOL and you get candidates or transitioning service members who are going to take an entrepreneurial path and are not actually looking for corporate roles, I assume you still put them through the same evaluation to get their codes of what industries and such, but do you teach the entrepreneurial track differently? Are you involved in that

Can you help guide people to during your program deal, can people into the entrepreneurial sort back into your program?

Mario P. Fields (32:43.387)
yeah.

The beauty about where the entire department is called career readiness standards and compared to when I retired five years ago and I don't know when you left, it is nowhere near the same. Where now each Transitioning Service member in all branches of services, they get before they get out, they can choose to go through all four two day workshops.

So they can go through vocational track, which is career credential and exploration. That's the assessments. And then they didn't like the following week or week after whenever at their convenience, they can go to two day entrepreneurial workshop that's held here in North Carolina, Jacksonville, the community college. Then the next week, if they wanted to, they can go through the two day employment workshop and then they can go through the education, literally.

And I did some research, Derek, and each, if I facilitated each of those workshops outside of the Department of Defense, each of those workshops are valued at about 20 to $40 ,000. Like my, my facilitation fee would be about 10 to 15 K a day. Yeah. So they're, so they're walking out. So they choose if any service member choose to take off for workshops, they could literally transition, transition out of the military.

with just under $200 ,000 worth of information in ProTips, where the rest of world would have to pay.

Dr. DEW (34:14.749)
Okay, kind of the same kind of track and gets more expansion on that. Isacson and Rowe Act was signed in, I it was one of the last things Trump did on his way out of the office last time. And it provided, you know, I think $10 million to veteran transition research. And literally just this morning, I saw a grant opportunity.

where they're giving out, I think like $4 million in grants, $500 ,000 a piece to organizations in this space to help transition veterans. If you could do anything, what would you write a grant about for this space? What would you tell them you can do with the money and what would it be?

Mario P. Fields (35:01.689)
Yeah, so the first thing, you know, first thing I would do is I would mandate everybody, every service member before they take any other workshops, they all go through career credential exploration. That's what you and I've been talking about with the assessments. Everybody from commandant down. So one, I would say I would recommend every human go through that because that's the foundation. Literally.

Now to your question, if they said, Mario, we have these funding streams for grant to improve veterans and opportunities, where would you send that money to? I would take a Bureau of Consolidation focus. What I've seen is there's a lot of resources, but there's not much synergy.

You know, and so what I would do is say, let's take this money and, how can we create like a speaker's bureau, a one -stop shop post -military? you know, you go to these places and there's so many resources, so many resources, but are they synergized? Are they synergized at the local chamber of commerce? You know, are they sitting, you do we have veteran chamber of commerce in every state? I know we have the national veteran chamber of commerce.

You know what mean? And I would take that money. Let's let's take an accurate approach.

to synergizing these resources, rid of, breaking down silos and finding some efficiencies where not only now these service members and family members are getting this world -class facilitation before they leave, but let's have that external, that continuity of professional care and let's have kind of this one stop, a bureau if you will, where there's not all of these resources

Dr. DEW (37:05.437)
So there's a book cited in my research and titles, Sea of Goodwill, where there was at that time over 40 ,000 veteran nonprofits. Now there's over 50 ,000 veteran nonprofits. And there's lots of research pointing out that veterans.

struggle with organizations that have similar names, similar measurements. You mentioned the overlapping. And then there, I have a issue with the number of nonprofits that exist that are actively receiving funds but not actively doing anything back for the community. And I'm taking a special approach and investigating this a little bit. But so, I mean, so what you're describing is

Mario P. Fields (37:28.638)
Mm

Dr. DEW (37:54.073)
a centralized repository of all the resources is a great idea. I think there are a couple of boards that tried to do that before, but it always ends up like just again, another pot of everything, but you can't quite figure out where to go. So you're highlighting a definite problem that needs to be fixed.

But I've been thinking about the same thing and I wanted to do a Prof and Brenner diagram which is like, you you start in the small circle, this is you, this is what you can do for yourself and then here's your layers of resources and you go outside the ring. How do you interact with those organizations and their steps, you know, going from your local government to your county government to your state government to your federal government and then all the organizations in between on that chart and then the way to navigate through it. And there are a couple of those orgs that exist

I always think that somehow it always appears that something's left out. They focus on one set of companies or one set of nonprofits that are their clique and the other cliques are left out. They're all still doing better work.

And in my business, I had contracted with a leading nonprofit to use my products. And they did a one month pilot and I can see how much AI they were using and they weren't using it very much. I kept calling chicken and Hey, how's it going? What's going on? How you like it? All of these cravings.

Mario P. Fields (38:54.789)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. DEW (39:15.975)
And at the end, they're like, well, it doesn't quite work for us. And I was pretty annoyed because it didn't work because you didn't use it. Because I can see how much you've actually used. You used enough AI for maybe a week. Not the full month. You didn't get the full experience. But I quickly discovered that it wasn't just about making them more efficient. I made them more efficient, But actually, four times more efficient.

But when you become four times more efficient as a nonprofit, you all of a sudden need four times more customers or four times more people to help, or you can't go ask for more money. And if you're trying to grow your footprint and be the biggest and best, you need to be able to ask for more money. So I really felt like that they chose to show need where my product solved their need to build a bigger bank account versus

helping veterans and I take a lot of offense to it. I'm kind of taking that as a driver to go investigate through GuideStar who's getting what funds and how they're being used.

Mario P. Fields (40:22.639)
Yeah. know, Derek, and it's funny you mention that because that's how still my company, my nonprofit is structured. did an interview about five years ago and they said, how do you measure success? I said, human impact. I I don't measure success on how much money I raise. I measure success based off the impact on human. And I said, when you go on my landing page and you see the number

of students that were impacted, it's not about how much money, it's about the impact. And like you said, there's a lot of organizations that are overlapping and we want to fill out our 990s and we want to show we've raised and exceeded six figures or whatever. Fine, that's your focus. mean, that's your goal. But like you said, the goal is, and we talk veterans, is do you have testimonies?

I mean, if I go on your LinkedIn page, their founder and president of that particular veteran nonprofit, I'm going to read. What are your customers saying? Are you even serving your customers? Who cares about what you want? What do they want? What do they want? And I've seen a lot of organization is reversed. It's, I believe this is best from my experience. Have you interviewed like 20 % of your town that are vets?

So yeah, so I love how you brought that up because literally that's how design, I'm still serving where it's very lean. I'm a self -funder for the most part and it's the impact. I mean, I get random letters from students and faculty all the time come out of nowhere and say, you. I'm going to Duke University or I'm going to East Carolina University and what you did.

what your company did for us for creating those networking events and those skill development events, we will never forget

Dr. DEW (42:22.653)
So that's one of the tricky parts of the nonprofit space that when I set up my business, I looked at nonprofit, then I got some education from USC too about the way nonprofits work and nonprofit financials. And I decided that it was probably as efficient to be a for -profit in this current state and do it a little bit differently.

You know, what do you think USC's biggest driver is? What is USC?

Mario P. Fields (43:00.729)
You said USC. You you said as far as University of Southern California.

Dr. DEW (43:07.875)
What is their main revenue or income source?

Mario P. Fields (43:14.351)
Yeah, I'm not familiar with them.

Dr. DEW (43:19.293)
So it's

Mario P. Fields (43:19.995)
I'm on the East Coast, so I deal a lot with the ECU, East Carolina University.

Dr. DEW (43:27.729)
USC is a private for private for -profit or private non my gosh private nonprofit university and you would think that you know the biggest income is tuition or maybe even the football team or whatever else but it's actually the nonprofit hospital

USC is a hospital with a school attached to it. It's in many ways. I got to look through the financials as part of a class and really understand the way that nonprofit money kind of moves around. was almost like there was more work involved in doing that than reporting your financials. then there's the whole space that you're allowed to be in, not allowed to be in. But nevertheless.

So.

Mario P. Fields (44:17.583)
Yeah, there's a great book I read before I founded my company. It's called Charity Case. And Charity Case, and every time I coach anyone who is, you know, thinking about starting a nonprofit all the time, people, know, lot of folks will refer folks, hey, reach out to Mario. And when I have a discovery meeting with them, I'll say, well, before you do anything, like before you do your articles in the corporation,

before you make the decision to either click for profit or nonprofit before it goes to the secretary of state, read this book, Charity Case. And the reason why I recommend that book is because it goes back to the genesis of the charity world and how this even began. To your point, you

describing the complexities of USC and the funding streams and all of that, that is one reason, and it's in that book, that is one reason why, like last time I did research, the American population's approval for nonprofits is lower than Congress. Yeah, and that's not opinion. And that's why, another reason why Derek, I designed

I'm still serving incorporated where I'm predominantly a self -funder. So my podcast, my YouTube channel, like all of my social media, it is monetized. So that all goes to still serving. about 95 to 96 % of my nonprofits funding, it comes from multiple funding streams within the Fields family.

And it's because of that and Americans from research, they don't like to donate. And through my research, I don't like to ask for money. doing the self -assessments and being self -aware, said, I need to design a very lean structure where high impact, low cost and self -funded.

Dr. DEW (46:34.589)
So thank you for that. And I understand the bootstrapping. I'm going to share my screen if you don't mind for a moment here. This is part of my dissertation. Initiatives to reduce better not under employment, unemployment. So Abraham Lincoln told us that we're going to care for him who shall have borne the battle. So we have that requirement. 1965, Sir Francis Bacon proclaimed, in charity there is no excess.

There was 300 billion in 2006. 2001, totaling 2 .48 billion in 2011. So in charity there is no excess. I don't know. I mean.

Mario P. Fields (47:06.157)
Mm

Dr. DEW (47:19.153)
Maybe we have excess charities. Maybe, I mean, maybe there's, there's the opportunity to combine and, and focus missions and get rid of the overlap and then join together. But then that doesn't seem realistic because you have so many different heads, people who want to have their or grow be successful. They want to make a name for themselves. So how do how do you remove the self from the charity cases or charity, not sure cases, but these charity, if I want to

And that's the individual themselves, but also the organizational self of them wanting to be the best nonprofit, the biggest nonprofit, the most people coming through the system, the highest salaries after.

Right. And so I guess in general, betray us told us one time that, likes the competition, sometime your competition to be the best teammate. was a pretty powerful speech. That was the best part of it was, you you're always competing even with her on the same team to be the better teammate should be we're competing for. But so how do we get. Nonprofits to be better teammates, or is that just a fallacy? because again, we see clicks of groups that work together, but then there's another click that also worked together through

They have their own ecosystem doing the same thing. So what's the crossover? What do we do?

Mario P. Fields (48:41.339)
Yeah, you know, I can speak from my own experience. I've had board members and people call me and say, we need to, we need to expand or we need to. I go, okay, let's accurately dissect what you just said. That's your belief. You just communicated your belief on me. We need to, you believe we need to. And I said, okay, now let's, let's go to phase two. What, why?

And I would tell my team, you know, not my team, but some of my closest teammates in my companies, say, why? And let's accurately articulate the why. Not a belief, not an opinion, not a metaphor.

Why do you believe we need to expand program

And I said, let's take a few days. But when we discuss again, discussion to learn, it's not discussion to prove anyone right or wrong because no one learns. So we're going to discuss to learn in this business, this company, on how to articulate the why accurately. And then they would come back and go, and I would even come back and go, I still can't figure out why. If we change our metric, our metric of success, which is human

And we see that we're not making an impact on the students in Pitt County. I believe through that, that that's a reason why we should change our program delivery. But we have made an impact on over 600 plus. So why do we need to expand? We can't change the world. We literally can't. It's 8 .5 billion humans, latest

Mario P. Fields (50:31.909)
but at least we can be an example while we're living, because we don't even know if we're going to live tomorrow, right? And we can make a choice to make an impact where we can confirm it through our program delivery that we have now and continue to over promise under deliver and be in a better position for an external factor like the pandemic when it hit and our company still grew. So yeah, I've had these discussions. I said the issue is, the issue

with the founders, it's their belief systems and they're very rigid and they're protecting their belief systems and that's why it's hard to get synergy because whatever their belief system is, whatever they believe, their organization, it's their projecting. And instead of going, why do I not want to merge with, why? because I'm going to lose a grant. See, you're focused on you. How about the customer?

Yeah, that's what I've seen over the last six years. And I just see a lot of belief systems are manifested in leadership leadership behaviors. And I watch the company I watch what I see is belief system projecting on each other and forgetting about the

Dr. DEW (51:51.613)
I want to take you back to that grant that's coming out now and what you would do in writing this grant and are you going to write a grant for this opportunity? And so in that, what would you provide to transition service members after they've gotten out? So now they're veterans, they can't go do tech class again. I'm sure they can access your materials though, right?

What should we be doing with this grant money right now to give veterans the best next step?

Mario P. Fields (52:30.103)
Well, first I would say it's their choice. I mean, I've you know, there I've seen a lot of folks who get this this world -class Information and they go whatever I've seen that I've seen that across the street. Yeah, I have seen that live where I'm going What did you do for the last like three weeks? didn't pay attention Well, it's obvious You know, I've seen people get out and go all life is hard out here

We need to do more. We need to do more for veterans. I've seen both sides and I'm going, you chose not to pay attention. So it's your fault. Let's have some self accountability here. So that's the point where I would first educational on any when I do it now, when service members are leaving and going, hey, just remember, you have a, you have, there's a level of accountability

there's more resources available in 2024 than I've ever seen, you know, in my life. Now, going to the continuity of, I call it professional abilities for anyone who served in any branch of service. The first thing I would do is we need feedback. It's the feedback loop. I mean, you know this in business is, is we don't, I haven't seen, except if you like going my LinkedIn profile or whatever, and folks have left testimonies in your show.

But I haven't seen kind of this, this, you know, maybe a platform or something where veterans can, you know, 90 days, whatever different ranks. mean, you can sort it by field grade officers, junior officers, whatever. And what's the feedback? You know, the feedback loop, design a system, a platform. I don't know what the cost is. If we're folks can access that platform and look at feedback, not good or bad feedback.

I do it on my podcast. mean, there's a few episodes of my podcast that I've created feedback where folks can go and watch some of these episodes. have one matter of fact, I'm a record today and in the to do lessons learned there from from people that are in the veteran space that, know, before they got out, when they got out, some of them go back in and let's get some feedback. What works? What doesn't work? Why? What did you

Mario P. Fields (54:52.655)
What did you do that allowed your transition to be, you know, right, turbulence free, if you will. So that feedback is just critical. And I don't see it. I don't see the fee. I see lots of resources. But that feedback, unless I get on a show like yours or a couple of other shows or even my own platform, I really don't see a lot of feedback. So I would allocate some dollars for that kind of that resource capability.

Dr. DEW (55:21.895)
Thank you for that. I'm going to change gears. One, you kind of just brought in your podcast too. I'm going to be selfish in these last few minutes and ask for your advice about...

your process for editing, if you're doing it all yourself, because I still haven't delivered a full final edited version of anything yet. I've got, I think you're my 12th and 13th episode I recorded. I was working with a company, I'm still working with them for my analytics, but they started doing my editing too, but it just didn't kind of work out the way I think editing kind of goes based on treating it like a document in some ways where I would do proposals before and,

gather all the data which you here's your video I go through I do my first pass and then I want to hand it off somebody here you could do the things that I'm not good at add the logos add the websites make it flash you and then

Send it back to me for a final revision to watch it and then I'll check the box and say hey it's good and then you go put it where it needs to be. But we couldn't get past the second or third, I mean really the first step of editing. I would do my past but then they started on an unedited version and did their edits and then like well you should started with mine but nevertheless on that how how the sausage is made for my side. What do you do? You know yourself?

Mario P. Fields (56:34.395)
So when you look at all of my episodes, there's no edits. So we're on 126 now. we'll hit Unarmored Talk. We'll have our fourth year anniversary here in about 90 days. No edit. So when I hit record and you look at those episodes, there's no editing. So my process is I do a discovery meeting.

We taught we nailed down one one thing that thing and then the science of it Derek as I I do Interview post pre pre action is called pre pre action in action and then post action so reflection pre action reflection in action reflection post action and I keep my episodes about 18 to 25 minutes some of them will go 30 like the Navy

You know recipient or like Kevin Major Howard from full metal jacket. I have some folks that I've had over past years that may go about 30 But I keep them about 18 to 30 and then as far as the back I call it post -production my wife believe it or not. She's the video editor She has a Mac. So I take that video file That I record like we're doing now and I download it Send it to

And then she goes on her Mac because the Mac computer comes with video editing software and she puts the the the post the pre video for YouTube the post video. She murders that together. She sends me the YouTube vid and then she extracts the audio and she puts my recorded intro and outro in audio. And then she sends me the audio file. And then that's when I upload to Buzzsprout.

audio that goes out to, know, listen notes and Apple. And then I upload the video on my podcast playlist on my YouTube channel. And literally that's our cadence. And it's, it's, I mean, we, we've got it down so fast that when you, know, and of course I upload to Instagram and stuff like that, but we got post production down so fast. I literally about

Dr. DEW (58:41.189)
care.

Mario P. Fields (58:55.885)
a month ago recorded a video on a Sunday. The gentleman was in California. So we did the video about seven o 'clock Eastern Standard Time and I had it published on audio and video by nine thirty Eastern.

Dr. DEW (59:10.269)
Yeah, I need to get to there. Right now, I got like 12 episodes ready to be put together and I think I want to build a trailer around them too. know, folks talking about the same topic and expand out the way we, know, see all the fancy stuff done. But I feel like I'm stuck in a crawl of the crawl walk run situation in this. Partly because, I mean, I was trying to farm it out because I have too much stuff going on.

Mario P. Fields (59:12.717)
You

Dr. DEW (59:38.673)
But my oldest daughter is good at editing. I am trying to get her to do more stuff. But they only want to edit their TikToks and other kind of videos. They don't do any actual work. These teenagers these days, you know, you got to go uphill to school both ways, These guys don't want to do anything.

Mario P. Fields (59:54.235)
No. And you know what else I did when I first started in 2020? My cadence when I first started 2020 is it was an episode a week. But then I said, OK, I need a sustainable model, you something that I can continue to produce and and produce for years. You know, right. So what's worked for me since 2021 is I do two episodes a month.

And that cadence has been very, you know, along with, you know, the things we got going on in our family travel, you name it. And it's been real good where I'm able to my listeners and viewers, they know that every two weeks there's going to be an episode. And and I have the flexibility to do a special episode if I want. Sometimes I go live. But for the most part, two a month has been very, very supportive of, you know, the other things I got going on.

Dr. DEW (01:00:52.625)
I get this. That's a good plan. I've been told to advise to kind of do like you're doing it once a week, once every two weeks. Or the other strategy is get them all booked, know, record as many as you can at one time and then chop them up and distribute them as appropriate for their needs. And the people I'm working with is actually Impingin Analytics of most everything they do. He's Chris Kitchens. He's the owner. He's a marine veteran as well.

Mario P. Fields (01:01:10.17)
Mm

Dr. DEW (01:01:22.629)
also USC, MBV, GRID, all this stuff about, essentially I'm gonna be able to hand him my files and they put them all the places that they need to go. it happens, basically, once I drop it into the place it needs to be, you file in, then it gets separated by AI, put it where it needs to go. So that's where we're headed to eventually.

Mario P. Fields (01:01:42.671)
Yeah, no, we, a, again, folks look at Mario P. Phil with Dr. Jerry Washington, just so you know, I know he kind of connected us, but Dr. Jerry Washington, he really, really, really played a, my God. love that guy. He played a pivotal role in unarmored talk podcast success. He hates it when I do this publicly, but I don't

And I love him for it because I tell you there if it wasn't for Jerry Washington, I think I would have probably released six episodes and it would have been done. But it's so, yeah, I mean, I remember I remember Jerry calling me and going, you know, like seven episodes in going, all right, Mario. We're getting there.

Dr. DEW (01:02:32.702)
I've been thinking about an episode where I get interviewed and I'm probably going to ask Jerry to be the interviewer. Maybe Jerry and Dr. Carl Horsman.

Mario P. Fields (01:02:45.165)
If you if you get him to interview you, you call me directly. Because I've you just you tell him I said if he gets on your show and he interviews you, I want a phone

Dr. DEW (01:02:49.359)
Okay.

Dr. DEW (01:03:01.477)
now he might not do it. I can't threaten him with Mario. Mario P. Fields come out and it right now. Let him do it first. I actually was flexing my thing because Jerry's been impactful in my career since we met as well and what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do. I really appreciate his advice and these kinds of things. He's been on my show. He hasn't been released yet. Nobody's been released yet. he was actually, this was a first person on and it might be

special content reel. don't know if it was like first go around but I was thinking about having one where I get interviewed to talk about what this thing is and Jerry knows a lot about what I've done at USC and what I do my dissertation and Dr. Carl Harshman is the one that coached me years ago. He's a former dean of a school in Missouri company consultant on leadership development for many years

General Atomics, General Dynamics, lots of school systems, Ford Motor Company. He knows a lot about, again, personal human development, building companies, building people, and building humans and coaching them. part of this is about that. So I think if those two were interviewing me, I'd be unable to squirm enough, I think.

Mario P. Fields (01:04:15.995)
I honestly, I 100 % recommend that. I know Jerry would because I mean, you know how he is. Jerry's a very accurate, you know, he's very articulate. And I believe if he's interviewing you, Jerry's not the type that when you're he's going to actively listen to you. Where I've seen some podcasts where they don't really actively listen, they just wait, you know, wait for you to be done so they can move on with their point.

Jerry will actively listen to you and he will discuss to learn and ask you like what do you mean by that? Or, you know, let's talk about why this? And I believe that's critical for it to be reversed where they're interviewing you so you get a chance to, you know, communicate on the whys.

Dr. DEW (01:05:08.989)
Well Mario, need to get that to happen too and I also have to create episode zero at some point. you create episode zero? Okay so your trailers episode zero are they supposed to be the same thing or different?

Mario P. Fields (01:05:16.515)
I did. have a trailer.

Mario P. Fields (01:05:23.169)
No. So if you go on my, if you go on Armour Talk podcast, audio, and video, but if you want to listen to it, it's on Apple. don't know what kind of platform you listen to. but I'm on, you know, I'm on Spotify, Apple and the trailer is just, it's just a quick, you know, snapshot of the discussion framework of the why, why is your podcast? And if you notice what I did was I, I took four months before I launched my trailer. Jerry helped me.

And what I did was, believe it or not, I listened to all kinds of podcasts, I listened to how they did their trailer. And I took a compilation of examples and then that's where I developed my own authentic trailer.

Dr. DEW (01:06:14.289)
Thanks for that advice. I'm going to be diving into that as well, too. I don't have my intro or outro videos. Well, I do. I had the intro and the outro, but they're not attached to anything yet, right? All those steps, I need to get put together right the right way. I know we're over time here, Mario, and I will let you get off here. I'm going to go try to do some more professional things today and a little bit more accomplished getting back into the groove of getting into that again.

Mario P. Fields (01:06:25.428)
Right.

Mario P. Fields (01:06:33.007)
No worries.

Dr. DEW (01:06:43.809)
I have you on next time. Hopefully we're talking about Jerry's interview of me and I want your opinion of the Fingerprint for success coaching and Marley I'll send you those leaks those links can't speak now told you but I lost my voice That's why I moved the meeting the last time it has never quite returned I think I might have long term long Kovat or long whatever it is that my voice may not be coming back So I figured that as well

Mario P. Fields (01:07:11.823)
Well, I am here for you, my friend. you ever need anything as far as in the digital space, just let me

Dr. DEW (01:07:19.591)
So what can I do for you between now and our next visit?

Mario P. Fields (01:07:23.195)
You know, just continue to share, share the content on LinkedIn. You know, again, I'm a human impact type of person. My passion is helping people. It's actually on my LinkedIn profile. So please get on my social media, continue to share on LinkedIn the content. And that's all I ask. Let's make a difference together. Positive impact on the world while we're still here.

Dr. DEW (01:07:44.189)
All right, Mario, I'm gonna just get off here. I appreciate you.

Dr. DEW (01:07:50.887)
Bye.