An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag | Veteran Business Advice

This post is based on the podcast – An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag.

High Speed Low Drag IntroductionWelcome to High Speed Low Drag, the podcast for veterans and soldiers transitioning into the civilian world. War veteran John Lee Dumas interviews other veterans who are crushing both business and life, revealing the path they took to achieve outstanding success. Veterans, are you prepared to ignite?

John: Veterans, are you interested in owning your own business? Join me, Antonio Centeno and Tom Morkes, all successful entrepreneurs and veterans, as we talk about what it takes to build your own business from scratch by leveraging the skills you developed while serving your country. And you’ll have the support of a community of veterans that are committed to helping you succeed. Visit highspeedelite.com.

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John: High Speed Nation. John Lee Dumas here, and I am so excited you’re joining us on the first episode of High Speed Low Drag. I am joined by the triple threat, my partners in crime Antonio Centeno and Tom Morkes. We are just coming at you with incredible content. We are all veterans and we’re looking to help you in the military, transitioning out of the military, current veterans, whatever it might be in this great wide world that we now live in.

So, we’re going to be doing a lot of cool things throughout this entire journey we’re taking you on, and this podcast specifically is going to be dedicated to telling the stories of other veterans who have just crushed it in various ways in all branches, in all ways, shapes, and forms. So, let me take a second here. I’m going to introduce Antonio, then I’m going to introduce Tom, and then I’m going to bring it back to myself. We’re all just going to give you our vision of what we’ve created here at highspeedlowdrag.org.

So, Antonio Centeno, take it away, my friends.

13271654653_2641c571f5_zAntonio: Well, thank you very much, John. It’s great to be here. Well, yeah, I’d say this has been a long time coming. I transitioned out at the end of 2003 after spending a little bit of a vacation in Iraq, with stop-loss was with [0:02:14] [Indiscernible] Marines. I remember going through transition assistance, and at the time it was a week-long course which really actually was only three days, and of that three days, I don’t really remember any of it being useful and my mind was somewhere else. I was thinking about where I was going to go, what I was going to do.

I remember being in a room, sitting at the very back in the entire — there were maybe 200 marines there, and out of that 200, three were officers; it was me, another captain, and a major. And we were just looking around and I mean there’s — I love lance corporals and corporals — I mean, they make up the majority of the Marine Corps, but I didn’t really have much in common with those young guys looking to get out. They were doing a bunch of grab ass down there at the bottom and I was just thinking to myself what a waste of time.

They basically showed us how to write a resume from someone that probably hadn’t put out a resume for decades. And nothing against, the people there were doing a great job helping our soldiers, sailors and Marines, Coastees transition out there. And I hear the Air Force has a pretty good program now, but I would say that the amount of time they take training a pilot is nothing compared — I mean it’s a huge amount and the amount of time they spend helping pilots transition out is miniscule, and that’s where I feel that what we’re doing here is going to be a great thing and a noble service because I know I wish I would have had High Speed Low Drag whenever I transitioned out.

So that’s a little bit about — I’ll get into the me, we’ll have a whole interview, but Tom, I’ll go ahead and let you maybe talk a little bit about what’s your duty here.

Tom: Thanks, Antonio and John. Yeah, I’m more of the new blood around here and that I just transitioned out a year ago. So I can confirm that in the ten years that they’ve been doing transition assistance programs, they haven’t improved much nor have they changed much. So I was pretty similar, smaller classroom size though, but also everybody kind of bulked together in our classroom, and again, they did the resume training and I’m not sure how valuable that was to people if they were even paying attention.

Oh, one thing that stuck out on me though besides that was there was one day where they brought in these, I don’t know, businesses. It was going to be like a work day, like bringing the businesses to come and you can check out these different businesses and maybe connect with them and find out what they have to offer you as a veteran.

John: Like a job fair, so to speak.

Tom: Exactly, job fair. And I will show up, I got there, and every booth — I’m not kidding here, no exaggeration — it was some sort of trucking company. So the only option was to become a driver for [0:04:56] [Indiscernible] of what trucking company I want to go for.

John: Go Schneider, I love orange.

Tom: Yeah. So I was like, okay, this is sad because there’s got to be other options out there. And so, I guess, just like Antonio said, and John, the same way with you, I feel like there’s got to be a better solution out there, and it’s not being done right now. And I think that that’s where we’re coming out with highspeedlowdrag.org, and we’re going to hopefully create that change that we want to see. So yeah, that’s where I’m coming from.

13271850554_2d5f2e7c4b_zJohn: Well, High Speed Nation, I was going to break this down for a second because I want to ask a question. I’m just kind of throwing this question out there into the universe because obviously if you’re listening you can’t answer. Antonio, Tom, and myself will be getting to this at some point later on. But what is the military’s primary goal? What is their focus? What is their mission? It’s, number one, to protect this country; number two, to fight this country’s battles and wars. And you can go on and on and on in that direction. Its primary focuses and goals are not to help people that are leaving its armed forces to get cushy jobs somewhere in corporate America or the entrepreneurship world.

You can make as many arguments as you want about how they should be because we served our country and XYZ. There’s a lot of arguments to be gone on there. And I will say from a slightly different perspective, I’ve been incredibly thrilled. For instance, with my veteran’s healthcare, I am a priority three disabled veteran 10%, and I have been able for the last ten years to do just whatever I need done in that arena.

So I do feel on a lot of levels I’ve been taken care of, but to tell my specific story about transitioning out into the civilian world, job-wise, same experience as these two. I went into this room and I remember this crusty old first sergeant open up this drawer, and it was just packed with papers. And he said, “Grab a handful of these resumes and start reading, and you’ll get a great idea how to write a resume.” And I pulled some of them out, and some of them were hand-written. Some of them were like literally from a typewriter, like one of those things you actually type in like the little mechanical arm like going hitting the piece of paper. And I was like, “Oh, my goodness. What am I being presented with here?”

Long story short, I had a plan. I was going to law school. So I didn’t take the transition that seriously. I knew that I was going to get out, spend eight or nine months traveling the world, come back for my freshman semester in law school. And I kind of had it figured out on that level. Although, long story short, I ended up hating law school, quit, and had to jump into corporate America at some $35,000 a year job, base salary, which I merely was able to start working up the ladder, but it was not a great start for any stretch of the imagination.

So as you can see here, none of us, none of the three of us had great experiences transitioning out. There was an argument to be made that should the military really be putting more resources towards this? Or is there just a great opportunity for people like Tom, like Antonio, like myself to step out of it and say, “You know what, we’ve been there, we’ve done that. We know the right steps to take. We know the wrong steps to take. We know the mentality to have. We know the mindset to focus on.” And that’s what High Speed Low Drag is all about. It’s about fostering, building, and growing a community of veterans who are there for each other, giving each other every assistance along the way that’s needed, support, guidance, criticism, feedback, you name it.

So, Antonio, I’ve kind of gone a little bit into the direction we’re taking High Speed Low Drag, but why don’t you kind of talk a little bit more about your vision — the vision that we’ve talked about many times in our little missions that we sat down and had chats with, and share with High Speed Nation some of the ideas we’re cooking for them.

Antonio: Sure, you know one of the things that John, me and you have experienced, and Tom, I know that you actually took the lead — Tom, you’ve got the story. You went over and met with Seth Godith. And when I first read that about you, I was like, here’s a guy that gets it. You were still in the Army when you did that, correct?

Tom: Yeah.

Antonio: You just went over there and you are one of the only people that I know of that actually asked him point blank, “Hey I want to take your information. I want to create a book from it.” Because Seth, he does his own publications. But when it comes down to it, I felt that we are — let’s just face it, guys. I mean we were all officers. We had a lot of advantages that we all went to decent schools, we have pretty good educations, we were put in positions of leadership. I don’t know about you all, but I was mentored by amazing, basically — I look at the officers and the staff NCOs that worked with me to help me transform from — I always put it bluntly, I wasn’t the best officer going in. When I first got my commission as a second lieutenant, I was a [0:09:52] [Indiscernible], which John I don’t know if you have to go back if we’re going…

John: I just draw some flag on that.

Antonio: Yup. Yeah. But let’s just say guys you know what I mean. I was not the best option. But when I came out I feel I was a much better option than when I started because of the men and women that I was surrounded by and who took me up to the next level.

So I feel that we definitely have a need. I want to get to the why of why are we doing this, why am I dedicating so much time to this. I’ve got a couple other businesses. High Speed Low Drag right now is not a revenue-generator force. Why are we spending time? I look around and there are a lot of problems. I think, John, you hit the nail on the head when you said the military doesn’t focus on transition assistance. I don’t think they’re ever going to. It’s not mission-critical.

I know as Marines, our job is to win wars and to fight, to maintain that killer instinct. There’s only so much a focused war-fighting machine can do, and it’s not about setting these guys up to become corporate leaders or anything like that. So the military is just never going to focus on it.

The other one is I’d see so many guys coming out with amazing skills and settling. These guys, you know, they’re former PJs and they’re getting out. These are the kind of guys that have your back. I mean the kind of guys that have gotten the Medal of Honor. We trust them with our lives, and yet they’re getting out and the only option they’re saying is, “Okay, well, maybe I could go off and work for this car wash or go into law enforcement even though I’m really not interested in that; I want to perhaps be a painter,” and for them not to know that there is an opportunity there.

So I don’t want to see guys settling. I want to see their minds open. I kind of talked about that at the end. But there are so many veterans out there who it took them 5 years, 110 years, 20 years to finally realize that what you learned and what you studied and what you trained on in the military does not define you. And you can become anything.

I mean, Tom, you’ve got a publishing company, right?

Tom: Yeah, that’s right.

Antonio: You didn’t train for that, did you?

Tom: No, not at all.

Click here to listen to An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag on Stitcher

Click here to listen to An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag on iTunes

Antonio: It’s hard to explain what John does because I think if you say podcasting it’s still an uncommon word. But I like to tell people he is kind of a radio jockey on iTunes, and he is out there just doing in a sense spreading the word, doing a great job connecting entrepreneurs with other entrepreneurs. I wouldn’t have known that you can actually make a very healthy living doing that. I mean I’m in the fashion industry. So if High Speed Low Drag and High Speed Elite are mashed, that can open your mind to what it is you’re capable of, then we will have succeeded.

And there’s also a third point I want to hit on, guys. It’s pretty serious. I mean if you look at the number of guys that get out and are committing suicide, 22 veterans a day kill themselves. It’s something we don’t talk about. We kind of sweep it under the rug. But guys, they get out and you go from being –let’s just take a quote from Rambo. Do you remember First Blood? I mean, this whole thing is he goes from being in charge of a tank to — and John, you know what that was like?

John: Oh, yeah.

Antonio: To all of the sudden, you’re getting monitored. You get a job that pays you half as much and they don’t even trust you enough. They’re monitoring you every time you log in to a computer. All of the sudden you went from being a guy that was on the tip of the spear, leading a platoon of men, to all the sudden you’ve got people looking over your back yelling at you because you didn’t cross this, you literally did not cross the T or something that when it comes down to it, you’re just like there’s got to be more to life than this.

The last thing I want to hit on is why we’re doing this is because of availability. If you look at all the parameters, they got to bring you back to the States, they got to try to run you though. I’ve heard of guys getting that maybe you’re stationed over in Italy and they’re getting sent over Germany for their transition assistance. Or if you’re over Twentynine Palms, you may be getting brought out to San Diego for the training. And even then the training is not that great.

Or I think everyone here, we are seeing… we’re at the tip of the spear when it comes to the business side. We are seeing what works real-time. And our goal isn’t to bring you the second or the third best. It’s to bring you the best thought leaders in the world when it comes to business, entrepreneurship, small business ownership, business skills, bring you the best in the world. And to bring it right to you so that you can access it anywhere in the world at any time and to be able to… Yeah.

So let’s go ahead. Tom, I’ve talked a bit there, and hopefully you can tell I’m really emotional about this. I get excited.

John: That’s good.

Antonio: But Tom, you’re just recently out. What was it that attracted you to what we’re doing here?

Tom: Yeah. Well, first, I just want to say that I’m glad we’re able to get Rambo and John in the same sentence here in this podcast. It won’t be the last time, John. Good.

What attracted me to this was I think just that I’ve always had that desire at least for the last like, I don’t know, four or five years, maybe a little bit less, but that I knew okay, well, the Army is not going to be something that I’d devote my life to. I’m not going to make it a career. But I’m very interested in business and that kind of stuff, like how do I do that?

So it was self-driven, a lot of education, buying books, buying resources, joining groups. And you mentioned the Seth Godin even. Yeah, I did that on a weekend. I bought a plane ticket and flew there for a weekend in New York City. It was quite expensive like to do that, plus these tickets are incredibly expensive. But I was like, you know, this is something I want to do. I just want to listen to this guy in person who inspires me and educates me and get that chance to interact with other people doing it.

I remember when I got there. Actually, everybody else had businesses and stuff like that and they’d be like, “What do you do?” “I’m in the Army. I’m just here to learn.” Like that was it. Like I had nothing that I was bringing to the table in terms of like connecting people or like being a connector for people for business or anything like that. I was just there to educate myself, and I’m glad I did it.

I look at that and I tie that to my story a little bit. Getting out, there is just not many resources that that are apparent I think to people that are in the military. Like you said, it’s not a mission-critical focus. So at least in the Army, which is what I was in, nobody cares. Like when your time comes to get out, in my experience, they really want nothing to do with you. Some people have better experiences than that, but mine was like, okay, he is leaving, so we’re not going to focus on he can do his job and he then he can transition out, but we’re not really too concerned with him. We’re going to focus on other people that are still committed for the next however many years.

So it’s almost like a stigma getting out too, which is I think pretty brutal for anybody looking to get out because now they don’t have the people in their unit that used to care about them, support them and stuff like that. Now they’re kind of thumbing their nose at them. In some cases, I’ve seen this, not just my own. But that’s tough.

So I look at this and I’m saying, “Well, here’s an opportunity for us to do what the government can’t, to do what a bureaucracy can’t, to do what the military can’t, which is provide a resource and a medium to connect veterans to each other, to help them succeed through real training from real entrepreneurs who are actually doing it. Like you guys are killing it, and it’s that kind of advice and that education is invaluable.

And then being connected with guys like you and me to a lesser degree, I’d say I can connect with John and Antonio over myself anyway. But to connect to you guys, that’s incredible. And so I think that’s what we’re bringing to the table here, something that literally couldn’t be done by anybody else but us.

16153987029_6086a0a102_zJohn: For just High Speed Nation that’s listening right now, you’re going to really be getting the inside scoop, the inside stories of number one, myself. It will be the next episode where Antonio actually interviews me about my journey and my transition. You’re going to be getting Antonio’s full journey in Episode 2 and then Tom’s in Episode 3, which is why we’re not going into super detail about this right now because this episode is meant to be the intro for you who kind of maybe scratching your head and being like, “What is this red, white and blue banner we have here? What does HSLD stand for? What is this all about?” And you want to learn a little bit more.

Antonio was mentioning this a couple of times. So I want to make a clarification. We are all officers. We’ve come from that arena. However, High Speed Low Drag is for you, the veteran. It’s for you in any branch at any rank in the military who is transitioning out, who has it a couple of year away but wants to get a jumpstart, preparation is so critical, and then for those current veterans who are out and maybe have settled, like Antonio said. And when he said it, that kind of maybe hurt a little bit because you’re like, “Wow, I am settling. I’m a security guard at night on a third shift right here. What am I doing? I used to lead tanks in the battle and really command and be present and make changes and save lives. ”

So this is for everybody. This is all-encompassing. It’s just as great content that we are compiling for you, military veterans in general. We’re going to be doing some incredible live trainings. You can check it out at highspeedelite.com at any point. You can sign up for our next live free webinar whenever that might be. It will be at that page, highspeedelite.com, where you can sign up for that.

We’re going to be having a blast on these live trainings, giving away a lot of value. You’re going to be able to engage with other veterans as well. And then of course there’s highspeedlowdrag.org where we’ve already compiled a wealth of information, a wealth of knowledge, a wealth direction for anybody, past, present, in the military that is looking to no longer settle and to really make something happen.

So, Antonio, why don’t you just kind of wrap this up with a bow? Why don’t you just kind of take a second and just kind of share who you kind of picture, maybe a couple different avatars of highspeedlowdrag.org, in exactly who we are creating this for and what we are going to offer them just within our umbrella?

Antonio: That sounds good, John. I’ll start off with saying that I don’t like the word “transition assistance,” and I’ve talked with you guys about this a bit. When I joined the Marine Corps, I joined it because I thought they were going to be the hardest. I thought it was definitely going to be a challenge, that I was going to learn a lot about myself.

So if you’re looking for a program that’s going to be easy, that is going to be a handout, that is going to be like a crutch, this is not going to be this for you, because yeah, you can listen to our information and you can write it down, but really, we’re going to be trying to inspire you to take action. Especially if you are part of our Elite program, then you’re going to be required to take action. We will kick out people who are not taking action —

John: Mandatory.

Antonio: — because this is something we take very seriously. I want the go-getter. I want the guy who — and I will be the first to admit again. I wasn’t, initially when I started off, the best officer. I became a much better officer throughout my time and by the time I left. I look at what I’m doing here and it’s in a sense a way for me to step back in uniform and to be able to give back to the marines, to the airmen, to the coastees, to the soldiers, to the sailors who in a sense are still serving.

Many of my friends are still there now. It kind of cracks me up. They are lieutenant commanders and colonels now. But those are the guys who I know are still — and I talk with them on the phone. They were a little bit frightened about they’ve got three kids and they’ve got a wife. They are used to a certain way of living. How are they going to make that transition out?

Or I look towards that staff sergeant. I had a great staff sergeant. He had four kids and I was always amazed at what he was able to do. But I know if he transitioned out, I look at what’s happening right now. There are literally [0:22:26] [Indiscernible] forces and some of you guys are going to be forced out who are listening to this. You are probably in that boat where you literally received the pink slip and you’ve got to make a decision. “What am I going to do? I thought I was going to be a career Army man and here it is 16 years in and they’re cutting me loose. What can I do? I’m not going to have that pension to fall back on.”

So those are the kind of people I’m shooting for, the people that are willing to take destiny and they’re not just walking towards success. They’re running hard for it and they’re carrying that 80-pound rucksack and they’re hard chargers. That’s who I see is the avatar.

13271599423_90bca74ea8_zJohn: Just to kind of break this down for you High Speed Nation, we are going to end this with just sharing a couple of things that we’re really excited about highspeedlowdrag.org, and then of course High Speed Elite, those people who are looking, like Antonio said, to be sprinting forward. You have myself, and again, you’re going to get more detail in future episodes. But I am the founder and host of EntrepreneurOnFire which I’ve turned from just an audio-only podcast in iTunes to now a full-fledged business that in 2014 alone has a run rate of over $2.5 million in revenue. So I’ve been able to take an idea and turn it into a massive income and a great business and a lifestyle business.

I’m here as I’m speaking to you, standing in my living room in San Diego, looking over the Pacific Ocean. This is the lifestyle business that I’ve created. And Antonio, Real Man Real Style, he has done it with his business, he is crushing it. All you have to do is go to the website to see exactly what I’m talking about. It’s obvious that this guy’s business savvy has just got him with no assistance with that transition to where he is now.

And then we have Tom here who is like the up-and-comer, the guy who is doing all the right things, connecting with all the right people, and he’s going to be such a great resource for anybody within this community because he is that person who is doing that right now. He is an up-and-comer. He is that hungry for action. He is willing to do anything, willing to invest in himself.

Just like those people that are still listening now at minute 25, you’re hungry to take action because you’re still here, you’re listening, you’re on a run right now, you’re in your car right now, whatever you’re doing right now, you’re sitting in that third shift, it’s dark out because you’re a security guard, you’re hungry for change, you’re hungry for action, and that’s what we’re going to give to you.

So, a couple of calls to action here at the end. Obviously, check out highspeedlowdrag.org and get on that newsletter list. We are going to be giving out some great content in that website alone. It’s a gold mine.

But if you are saying, “Wow, my fire has been lit. I see a spark within me. I can see a light now way down at the end of that tunnel.” Go to highspeedelite.com. Sign up for our next live training. We will bring you to that light because that’s what we’re here for, to open up the doors and to show you a lot of great things. Again, it’s going to always be back to you to step up and take action, to be a man, to be a woman, to be this military veteran that you are right now, and be proud of it; and of course, what it always boils down to, just start.

So Antonio, Tom, thanks for taking the time today to join me on this podcast. I’m excited to be releasing pretty much within the next week of this being live your episode telling your journeys, and really sharing that with High Speed Nation as we go forward.

So High Speed Nation, take action, step up, follow these calls to action; and, of course, all three of us will catch you on the flipside.

Veterans, your education doesn’t stop here. Go to highspeedelite.com to join the exclusive veterans mastermind that will give you the unfair advantage to succeed in both business and life. We have dozens of training courses, HD videos, a private Facebook group, and the chance to interact daily with John and other successful veteran entrepreneurs every month on live hangouts and webinars.

High Speed Elite is more than a mastermind. It’s your ticket to the land of success.

Are you prepared to ignite? Go to highspeedelite.com today to find out more.

Click here to listen to An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag on Stitcher

Click here to listen to An Introduction to High Speed Low Drag on iTunes