From the desk of:
Jarrod H. Smith
Washington, D.C.
December 4, 2020
Independence Day...plus 150ish
Liberty...& Freedom
“Full steam ahead.” “Damn the torpedoes.”
“Come and Take It.” “Join, or Die.”
I’m a history geek, and a wannabe science nerd. I enjoy looking at the rhymes of history. What about you? How much do you understand, truly know, the world, systems, and environment in which we live, work, and play?
As mentioned in previous editions of this newsletter, our perspective determines how we live our lives.
This month’s OPREP contains the story about Freedom Accelerator for a Turbo Transition out of uniformed military service. We’re all on that path, and we’ll either reach that Liberty Day, or die on active duty. There is no other option.
My mission during transition is to help you avoid mistakes I made and missed opportunities throughout my nearly two decades in service. We’re going to tie together the first five OPREP newsletters (00-04) this month. I’m proud of where this journey has taken me, and I want to share that journey with you.
OPREP-00 through to this month’s edition build on each other, so don’t fall into the gaps if you haven’t read and completed the exercises in the previous months newsletters. That knowledge and information will change your life.
My guarantee remains certain. If not...I’ll give you back what you paid for this newsletter. That’s nothing, remember!?!
Liberty Accelerator originates from my unique life experience, the opportunity for self-education that I was luckily afforded during the pandemic, and from a persistent curiosity about our world. What I learned knocked me down.
I was lied to. I let myself be deceived. That’s my fault. And now I’m taking action to fix it.
I’m tabling his month’s Loud & Clear (Lima Charlie) section until 2021. It’ll be back, then...maybe.
In February of 2018, in Hawaii, I received a random message on LinkedIn from a total stranger. Former US Army officer, his profile experience read, he asked me if I’d care to have a free profile review.
His about section concerned helping the 1% who serve our Nation become the 1% who influence it.
Cheesy, I thought. Egotistical, for sure.
At the time, I was very likely much like you are today. I was a different man then, and I hope through these discussions I can walk to the horizon so you can see me, and I, you (with binoculars) where you’re at, and then perhaps bring you along side of me, and eventually launch you way ahead as we regain ground and make up for lost time.
I’m very, very far from that place now, and it was a two year journey as I type these words.
So, being a naive CDR (sel) (okay non-Navy folk...that’s an O5/LTC; uggghhh.) and believing I had all that a corporation would want in a dedicated employee, I said, “sure” to his profile review. My profile sucked, but I wouldn’t admit that.
And I didn’t know what else to do.
Who’s to turn down a free LinkedIn profile review from a self-proclaimed expert? Not me, not then, with at least five years remaining on Active Duty.
Of course, I checked out his profile before responding, and I really liked what I saw. He seemed legit, and trustworthy enough for me to let him into my world.
It was a phenomenal 15 minute session, though what he told me at the time I didn’t come to really understand until over a year, perhaps 18 months, later, in the late Spring of 2020. My entire world changed on that warm, winter day in an historic Ford Island home. But hold on a minute for that.
He set me on this path of not worrying about all I can give, but about what the customer wants. That customer, in this case, being Corporate America and a big business paying me a six figure salary to do what they want me to do when they want me to do it….sort of like the U.S. Navy. In my sircles, we call that wage slavery. There’s another phrase for it, but I’ll tell you that some other time, when we know one another better.
My interaction with him took a 90 degree turn, and I started reading his content. Hours went deep into the night. Days turned into weeks. Weeks, months….and now months, years.
It was fascinating, and opened my world up to an entirely new way of thinking, about not only post-service employment, but life. And his expertise was in military family wealth management. I was knocked on my hind end ass.
But I didn’t fully trust him, because I hadn’t gotten to know him. I was in Hawaii, he wasn’t.
I’ve offered some of that insight in my OPREP newsletter on WEALTH. Read about it there. More is forthcoming in my book, available Memorial Day 2021.
So a few months went by, and I couldn’t get enough of that veteran’s content.
It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, but there was much, much more.
The problem was, he couldn’t deluge me with it.
He had to meet me where I was on my personal and professional journey. Providing too much information, too quickly, in the world we’re in proves, time and again, that people will simply get lost, and lose interest, or get scared.
So he, who would become a mentor and close confidant eventually, gave me my space, and let me take my own journey, coming to where I’m at today.
I pay him, too, for his time, knowledge, and guidance. I want to be like him.
And I couldn’t be happier about it, although those two years I can never get back. But hey, that’s life.
This veteran introduced me, virtually, to another. A former enlisted Marine without a lick of time in academia beyond high school. And you know what, he’s got a PHD of an entrepreneur. I’ll explain more about that, later. And that’s his advantage, too: no academia.
He’s built a couple of multi-million dollar businesses since the last recession, in 2009. He, too, is a mentor of mine and someone I consider to be on my Power Team. I pay him, too. His time is valuable, knowledge hard-earned, and experience priceless. He’s a pro at what he does. I want to be like him, too.
While taking online coursework through this Devil Dog, I had the chance to meet up with that US Army veteran, driving two hours south to Richmond, Virginia one Wednesday evening, to size him up.
Him and his wife and dog (he’s a dog lover, too, like us) were passing through on a return trip, and Richmond was the easiest point for me to “intercept.” I wanted to look him in the eye, and shake his hand before going “all in” and doing business with him. Then he asked me what I knew about cannabis.
And I couldn’t believe my ears. “Marijuana!!!” I thought. But being open to discussion, I listened. And yet again, he surprised me and opened my world to an entire industry that may help with TBI, PTSD, and suicides. He’s a Patriot, by God, an American Patriot! Just like you and me.
In hindsight, I was too cautious, and that wasted precious months, and likely some missed opportunities. I was institutionalized, and didn’t even know it.
But it’s our psychology and what we’re told in service that’s causing it. I overcame that, eventually. And it is liberating once you get here, too.
Both of these guys referenced yet another veteran during the early days of my getting to know them, who’s a multi-millionaire that’s been railing against the system for over three decades, maybe even four.
He too, is a mentor but doesn’t know me, or know it. Perhaps I’ll call him an influencer, instead. Yeah, he’s an influencer of mine. Do you have any influencers in your life? Who are they?
He had a profound impact on my personal finance education, and made me realize I’d been lied to, deceived, and that I had the power and control to change that. My other mentors contributed to this mind shift, as well.
Then, late in 2019, I began having a hunch that I might have some health challenges, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
I used to be typically viewed as an asshole (okay, friend….I know what you’re thinking, “used to?” - be nice), and didn’t particularly enjoy hanging out with people very much, going so far to sometimes have that same opinion at home.
As a young LCDR (O4 pay grade), my Commanding Officer at the time asked me if I’d ever heard of the Emotional Quotient. I nodded yes that I had, but never really did understand its applicability outside of an academic lesson. This was shortly after a “run in” with a more junior officer, who apparently didn’t like my tone, my ways, or I suppose just me.
Regardless, he brought that up at the time, and I began doing a little more reading about it.
Of course, during my Associates program I had a psychology class, during my MBA an Organizational Behavior class, and during my M.S. yet another leadership practicum where we were taught to be all feely lovey-dovey of others perspectives, so as to not ruffle their feathers. Bullshit.
Yeah, up until what I’m about to explain below, I still hadn’t grasped the importance of relationships.
It was the “un-educated” former grunt from the USMC who laid out the importance of relationships, as it pertains to business, and life. From a guy who killed terrorists in the War for Freedom against Terrorism. Yeah, he’s mushy wooshy...and he’ll take your currency and turn it into money in the blink of an eye. His approach: people do business with those they know, like, and trust. It’s as simple as that.
Fast forward to the Spring of 2020, and I had the good fortune to attend a “free” no-currency (what us laypeople call money, incorrectly) cost workshop about me, myself, and I.
It was this single event, a monumental shift in my life, that set me on the trajectory to finding Liberty Accelerator, and figuring out that service members are being set up for failure, with government offered solutions alone, combined with an “entitled” mindset.
That’ll anchor you down and hold you back faster than anything else. Don’t be entitled. It creates scarcity, and that sucks.
For that particular offering and their team, I will be forever grateful. Though their financial topics, agenda, and content are less than is desired, as it’s a legacy approach setting most up for disappointment. The self-discovery rocks.
But hey, with free, you get what you pay for. And, like those free pancakes at IHOP on Veteran’s Day, you’ll wait 3 hours to get what you could do at home in 30 minutes.
The legacy approach is one of scarcity, not an abundance, mindset.
I’m working to get that leadership team to update their financial content, and perhaps let me teach it. Their lesson on military family finance aligns with that of the family support centers and that 1980s model is, well, forty years old, like me.
Remember, that self-made multi-millionaire veteran who began in the 80s? He, too, turned me onto yet another expert in wealth-building, a non-veteran this time, and someone who I now pay to learn all I never knew about 21st century methods to generate passive income and cash flow, and protect my wealth.
You’ll have to join my Voardrooms to learn about all that. It cost me time and currency, and I charge for it, too. So you should pay for it, also. That’s the Capitalism we defended for our Democratic Republic. Get used to it. This is the Information Age, and to get at the information fast, you must pay for it. The alternative is spending 15 months like I did to try finding it on your own.
And, well, in 18 months knowing what I know today can get you the financial freedom you seek, or keep you on the hamster wheel.
He’s slowly becoming a mentor, but for now he’s an influencer in my life, and helping me, along with his community, get set up to have a place to put the cash that my passive cash-flow assets will generate during the next crash.
Systems are crucial, personally and professionally. And managing risk is just as important, just like on any military mission.
Lastly, given I decided that the 190K+ service member officers on LinkedIn identify as “transitioning military officers,” I stumbled across a company who helps entrepreneurs improve their game on the LinkedIn platform.
I pay him, too.
In order to go faster.
And my results, in only a few weeks, from letting go of the fiat currency that was losing purchasing power in my bank accounts, and at extreme risk in the financial markets, launched my service offerings into the stratosphere.
So, after eTAP, which I took virtually during the last week of October 2020, I realized and had first hand knowledge account of how little the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) really does for those 2 years out from separation or retirement, or sooner. It’s the TrAP that very, very few see coming.
The Transition TrAP continues running the herd straight off the cliff.
So my Liberty Accelerator Program kickstarts a TurboTransition, and it’s a for-cost offering to help every military officer who’s looking for:
Liberty, Freedom, and Total Autonomy.
Who’s looking to be ready, able, and willing to embrace it all at their inevitable Liberty Event, when they’ll head back into society to immediately be healthy, contributing members to it, and not a burden upon it.
It’s a transformation program, where I transition the mind from the psychology that our education, military training, middle-to-lower class families, and duty to the country has burdened us with, and that many veterans don’t seem to overcome until years after hanging up the uniform, if ever.
And some don’t, God rest their souls…22 per day is a damn shame. Let’s fix it.
And fixing it begins on active duty. I want you to have the feeling I have. Right now. No matter how much time you have left on Active Duty, whether you think you control it or realize already that you don’t.
I want you where I am. In this mindset. It’ll make you better, guaranteed.
I want you adding value to your command assignments, taking care of yourself, and taking care of your people. You’re claiming you do so, right? Do it, and know you’re doing it. Our service members’ mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers demand much from us...that we send them back home. Don’t lose somebody to their own hand. Embrace change, pay to go faster, and win.
For real.
Today.
Now.
Are you ready? Go to the last page.
Sign up now, and win, winner...with a team.
Enter the Liberty Accelerator Transition Superhighway
#HeckYeah
Your Liberty Awaits. Come...and Take It.