Your Final Marching Orders

so it’s 2007

i’m in atlanta i’m in the heart of the

hood on old national and gabby road

shout out to college park i’m in the

flea market of all flea markets the

discount mall

and i’m standing there with a friend

going back and forth with a local

shopkeep

and i go hey there’s a song jumping on

and it’s the smash hit summer song of

the year it’s called hood [ __ ] [ __ ] by

a local atlanta rapper gorillazone

and when the song comes on i go yo

that’s my song

that dude is ridiculous and my man goes

well that’s my song because that’s all i

am ain’t nothing but a hood [ __ ]

it’s not what he said it was how he said

it because when he said it it hit me in

my mind body and soul

and i knew that instantly i was in a

sunken place

you see i realized three things in that

moment standing there with him

i realized one we gotta stop quoting

rappers all right

we don’t take life advice from people

who suck at life no mouse

two whenever i perform our own

self-image you see my friend didn’t see

a miracle a man of god a millionaire in

the making an entrepreneur that he

really is

in his own words he told you what he was

and our thoughts become our reality

and i knew the birds of a feather right

the third thing i realized was how far i

had fallen

you see it had been 15 months since i

transitioned out of the army

and standing him there that day with him

i realized i was in a different army

the army of the unemployed for legal

purposes let’s just say

had an entanglement with unemployment

right

so i realized who i was and where i was

in that moment wasn’t great and more

importantly i didn’t know where i was

going or really who i needed even to

become to get there

what really was taking place as i was a

part of a bigger statistic

you see there are five big issues in the

military community five

unemployment mental health homelessness

lack of education and physical injuries

for the sake of today’s talk i’m just

going to focus on the first three so

let’s dive in

the first one is unemployment now this

is important because even before

during or after covert soldiers are

always one of the highest

numbers of unemployment last year alone

it was over six hundred thousand

so you tell me what impacts our

neighborhood or our world

more than unemployment especially when

your neighbors are like that right

and what i didn’t understand was i saw

myself and i sold myself and i branded

myself to the marketplace

as a soldier and soldiers don’t get

hired business professionals do

message this and it was crazy because i

realized that oh i’m a soldier i’m a

soldier i’m a soldier

help me hire me i’m a veteran help me

but i had to mentally transition

from the mindset of a soldier to the

mindset of a business professional

so when i flipped it around i said wait

a second

how can i help your business grow how

can i impact your bottom line

how can i help your business make more

money save more money or save time

business professional not a soldier you

understand we were trained for the

combat battlefield

and not the economic battlefield and

understanding that we are the ceos of

our own career

the second biggest issue is homelessness

it’s one word i’m gonna wrap this up

with

it’s called house hack take your va home

loan

and get a multi-unit property a duplex a

triplex or quadplex you can live in one

unit and rent out the others

if i was secretary of veteran affairs

for a day

i would make it mandated that all

soldiers before they exit

have to get a multi-unit property right

you have a va home loan use it the third

biggest issue is the hardest

it’s called mental health put them in

two categories we say that half the

coverage the half the country suffers

from depression the other half suffers

from anxiety

sort of a fear of the past and the fear

of the future

can’t get over what happened last

childhood or last deployment or last

decade or last century

and we have a fear of tomorrow and even

hit yet add that up we have suicide

let me pause right there when i was 18

years old i was up at fort bragg

oh they were born

and then i was sent to uh afghanistan so

they sent an 18 year old boy into a

man’s war

when i came back we met with the

chaplain he gave us

the lord’s prayer gave us his business

card saying i’m feeling any type of way

call me all hours i’m here 15 minutes

after meeting with the chaplain

me and a group of guys went to the

nearest on-base liquor store somebody

gave me the bottle of hennessy and a 12

pack of real high life

and said don’t just walk it off drink it

off you can you’re an army now you be

all right soldier

just a a soldier issue an american issue

because i was today’s years old when i

realized why everyone in america

keeps a bottle of or a box of wine in

their fridge

absolutely and see when i was

doing some homework for the speech what

i realized was 14 veterans a day

commit suicide which is mind boggling

that was 365 days in a year

so when i looked at the last five major

wars the last five major combats

vietnam both wars in iraq afghanistan

invasion of panama i realized that 68

000

troops were killed in combat 68 000

that’s a large city

but what i didn’t realize with justice

911 y’all

just since 9 11 98 000 veterans have

committed suicide so he got 68 000

killed in combat but 98 000

killed by their own right

which is like devastating to me because

i’m like oh the enemy they’re trained to

be a soldier have a heartbeat of a

soldier so they say the enemies in iraq

none of the enemies in afghanistan no no

the enemies south of the border build

the wall keep the internet out

hey tomorrow was like yo whatever

happened to like the caravan it’s not

like a real thing

no no just went away overnight different

different tedx different techniques

build the wall keep the enemy out so the

enemy’s over there and over there but

what if the enemies

like right in here right but i realized

that during the flea market but what i

was trying to do

buy a status symbol i realized that you

me we all have a hole in our heart

in the shape of our struggle

and it’s like an american thing not just

a soldier thing we don’t like self

soothe like we’re

self taught how to self soothe so we’re

learning to just suffer

in silence

and it’s wow because like we were

trained for the combat battlefield

we weren’t trained for the mental and

spiritual emotional battlefield

that’s why everybody runs to happy hour

on friday or 5 o’clock or

netflix and numb right

it’s wild to me it’s like not why the

addiction

but why the pain so who am i talking to

and let’s be clear about this so we have

like our current reality and we have our

desired reality

and it’s like what’s that bridge to get

there well here’s the secret sauce

and let me be clear so i’m talking to my

base commanders at fort bragg

i’m talking about guys at fort hood i’m

talking all the nerds and before gordon

i was one of y’all

i’m talking my old unit down at sauk

south southcom you lucky bastard station

in hawaii are the even luckier ones in

italy i’m talking to my naval air

station down at jacksonville

i’m asking you guys i’m asking to the

the secretary of veterans affairs

the secretary of you know the defense

it’s like we have to mentally mentally

have these both men and women transition

from a soldier’s mindset

to a business professional’s mindset but

people struggle without a system

so here’s mine here’s what i did and i

call it the rule of 168.

i’m giving you what i like to call uh

since you’re soldiers

you need to give orders or you follow

orders so here your final marching

orders for success after the military

and they go as follows

the first one i need you to establish an

llc in your name

you llc why the best way for me to

mentally transition you is to train your

your elevation

the best way for me to change your

elevation is changing your vision in the

process

if you are the ceo of you llc we don’t

have to

apply for the dream job we can create

the job we’ve been applying for

but we will transition and train to be

soldiers and not business professionals

that’s not cool i love doing in the

military but i’m not you can’t be a new

army though your whole life

right the second marching order i can’t

run away from that suicide number it’s

too busy so i

could be doing a travis sleep i didn’t

even speak on it the second marching

order goes as follows

listen i love soldiers because they love

themselves they love their country

so much like if america was a person

like this was a child

you would love her take care of her

protect her but you would never ever

hurt her

but someone would hurt yourselves so

your second marching order is this

i need you to love yourself as much as

you love your country that’s an

order and your third and final marching

order goes like this

so check it if you wore that uniform to

me

kind of like our brother pat tillman

like you’re a hero

so just when you take that uniform off

it doesn’t mean you’re not a hero

anymore but now i need you to be the

hero of your own story

because i’m tired of hearing people

losing building a life of mediocrity

when really you’re a miracle

but people struggle without a system

without a coach without a framework

without a process

and we don’t have any final marching

orders to be successful after that

they got no business losing y’all now to

be clear

this is not a motivational speech i’m

not a motivational speaker

there’s no cliches here just mastery

that means you understand something like

this is a clarity conversation a

strategy session

my name is richie thomas and i’m a

soldier’s coach

and i help and train men and women in

the armed forces to mentally transition

from a soldier’s mindset

to a business professionals mindset so

they can impact our neighborhood

and our world and stepping to their true

purpose

i think that’s my time damn

peace