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