Military Financial Independence

“So Nords, why are you still blogging?”

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Doug Nordman

February 2012: 9400 blog hits

Thanks for reading The-Military-Guide.com! I’ve blogged for nearly 18 months, and we just had our second-highest month yet– 9400 hits! Sure, last August was higher because of the book’s release and a guest post on a popular blog. (My hits died right off after that month.) Last month was noteworthy for a solid 300+ hits/day nearly every day. February was less than 30 days and it still beat 9000 hits. Last month also had a guest post in another popular blog, and it looks like you new readers are still hanging around. I’m pretty happy about the solid growth trend. Hits for a blogger are little doses of daily morale booster– please keep it up!

A friend asked for more blogging advice, so I’m going to summarize our correspondence of “advanced blogging tips” that have worked for me. I’ve written an earlier post on starting a blog, but today I’m going to add more ideas. This is probably going to go long enough to fill two separate posts. Or three. I’ll spread it out over Thursdays so that you can spend the weekends tinkering with your own blog.

Before I start, I’d like to thank The Masked Investor at Life, Investments, & Everything for asking the questions that generated this post. The best way to improve your blogging (and your checklists) is to teach your technique to someone else. He’s helped me clarify my thinking while writing more content. His investment analysis has also helped me pay for quite a few longboards, so if you’re an active investor then subscribe to his blog and appreciate another master of his craft.

First, let me reassure you writers. There are no arcane secrets to this craft. Your blog audience grows from writing content that people want to read. It’s not search-engine optimization or paying for backlinks or keyword stuffing or fancy custom themes or any “Get readers quick!” tricks. It’s regular doses of quality writing. Those two adjectives are both important: “regular” and “quality”.

Of course unless you’re hardwired to write, then those two issues can also be a challenge. You have to figure out how to “Just write it”, or by next year you’re going to be one of those people who used to host a blog. Nobody else will nag you to write. Simple as that.

Even if you’re hardwired to write, you have to focus. Write here first before you do your other writing assignments or post to other discussion boards or answer e-mail. Write to your audience. (On this blog it’s nine million servicemembers, veterans, and their families.) Remember why you’re writing (to market the book) and keep tying your writing to that theme (financial independence).

Seems pretty simple. But I’d love to see WordPress’ statistics on how many people start blogging and are still at it a year later. Judging by the constant effort they put into motivational campaigns like “Post A Day”, I’m betting it’s around 10%. Per year. If you’ve blogged for over four years and you’re still hitting your stride, then I’d love to hear from you. You are part of the 0.01%.

Decide how often you’ll post– and then post about it so that the peer pressure keeps you committed to it. Mine is “Financial independence & early retirement for veterans every Monday, Wednesday, & Thursday” at the top right-hand corner of my blog. Use the blog’s “schedule” or “publish” feature to put up your posts at the same times, and let your readers know if you’re going to change the plan. If you’re going to turn out the lights (or turn the blog over to someone else), then warn the readers for several weeks in advance. Readers appreciate the notice.

Need more blogging motivation? Then how about this list of personal finance blogs that have sold for a million bucks? Keep in mind that it’s easier to play professional football in the Super Bowl: there are literally millions of bloggers, the personal-finance genre is immensely popular, and this sales list only has seven entries. But it’s relatively straightforward for us mere mortals to develop a PF blog that brings in $10K per year, a side hustle which will max out your Roth IRA and help you reach financial independence that much quicker.

By the way if you’re willing to spend $10K to BUY a personal finance blog, then please contact me. I’m just as happy to be a contract writer like J.D. Roth as I am to be a blogger entrepreneur.

I probably have over 200 hours of “just” configuration & tweaking into this blog, and infrastructure gets old fast. The good news is that most of it is a one-time setup and there’s little recurring maintenance. The other good news is that you only have to do as much of it as you care to do. Instead of being distracted by the following discussion on blog look & feel, I recommend that you start by blogging regular doses of quality content– and then add one tip per week.

On to the tips.

Readers and subscribers

Here’s your first advanced blogger tip: you have more readers than you think. Thank goodness.

Blogs count the unique Internet protocol addresses that hit your site (besides yours). Advanced software can tell you where those IP addresses go on your blog, how long they stay, and even where they came from. That’s good information if you’re trying to boost your traffic by being where your readers are.

Ironically, however, your “best” readers probably don’t even come to your blog anymore. They subscribe to it through e-mail or a “really simple syndication” service like Google Reader.

Professional bloggers (the ones trying to earn a lot of money) love e-mail subscribers because you can market to them separately with newsletters, special discounts, and bonus deals. Your e-mail list can’t be taken away from you by a bad server or WordPress glitches or a change in Google’s search ranking. Some blogs have a static landing page (the first page you see on their blog) designed solely to get your e-mail address. Others beg & grovel for it, hopefully in an entertaining yet strangely compelling manner. (All the kewl kids are subscribing to this blog. Try it– it’s fun. You know you want to. It makes me feel better, too.) I haven’t started e-mail marketing yet so I don’t focus on this niche. For you readers it’s just a convenient way to read the blog.

RSS readers are a “problem” because people tend to read your blog yet not comment on it. (Comments are eye candy for starting your blog’s community.) You can tease your readers by setting your blog feed to only give them the first 100 words, forcing them to click the link to read more. This puts pressure on the blogger to have a compelling lede or to play tricks, and I think it also annoys the heck out of the readers. I want you guys to learn about financial independence, not to enrich me, so you get the whole article in your reader. Of course I hope you go to the blog and post a comment– but it’s really my job to motivate you to do that, isn’t it?

Your blog software has the widgets to offer your readers their choice of subscriptions. Look for the orange RSS button near the top of the right-hand column of my blog, a few inches below the header photo. Click there and your reader should do the rest. Or go to your reader and enter the blog’s Web address for it to figure out the subscription format (this one is “https://the-military-guide.com/feed/“).

Social networking

Your blogger software should enable you to automatically publicize your posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. (That’s your Facebook fan page, not your personal one.) If your blogger software doesn’t do this then you need to find different blogger software.

Depending on your audience, you might even need to publicize your content on places like Google+ and MySpace. Clueless? Ask your readers where they spend their time. Post a poll or request their comments. There’s always advanced hit-tracking software to help you figure out where your readers came from, but you also need to figure out whether your target audience is on those sites in the first place.

You’ll still want to put up other announcements & tweets on social-networking sites, but automate the blog publicity part. Then you can tailor your other social networking to different subjects or current events.

Pinterest is in the news because it’s generating more referral traffic to blogs than LinkedIn and Google+ combined. It appeals to visual learners instead of text readers, and it’s one more way to grab attention. I’ve started my Pinterest account and another on its most manly competitor, MANteresting.com, but I’m way behind on populating them. My “brilliant” marketing plan is to add the book and its recommended reading list. I can show a bunch of surfing photos, too, but beyond that it becomes clear that I’m not much of a visual learner. If you are, please tell me what you’d like to see me pin nail on those boards workbenches.

Commenting on other blogs

Social networking puts you where your readers spend much of their time, but you also want to find new readers. The quickest way to find them is on the other blogs in your field.

The first step is to build your blogroll: your list of other blogs linked from your blog. It’s tedious but it makes it easy for your readers to learn more, and it lets the other bloggers know that you care enough about them to call attention to them. If those other bloggers are intrigued by your content then maybe they’ll mention you or even add you to their blogroll, too, but don’t count on it. Build your own blogroll and don’t worry about theirs.

Your next step is commenting on their blog. Your blog will be linked to the comment: when you draft your comment then their blog software will ask for the URL of your website, and it’ll be linked to your comment’s poster name. Don’t be spammy. Contribute to the conversation. Say something nice, don’t criticize the blog content, and add a new point. “Those are great ideas, and [insert technique here] helped me too. Financial independence is easier if you happen to have a military background, and you can learn more at my blog.” Or once you’ve made your point then you could add a phrase like “… and I discuss that on this post at The-Military-Guide.com”. I usually refer to my post on how many years it takes to reach financial independence because it answers a specific frequent question, and it’s applicable to both military and civilian readers. Many will read it and never return, but statistically 1% of those readers will be part of the military. They’ll look around the rest of the site and, if I’m doing my job, they’ll become another regular reader.

When you comment on these other blogs, don’t pitch your blog with every comment. I mention my blog on other major PF blogs no more frequently than monthly. I may comment more often on their blog (especially if it’s a good discussion) but I won’t link to mine every time. And yes, I keep a regular schedule to make sure that I comment on their blogs monthly. That’s what happens when engineers start writing.

SEO

I’ll put this section next so you’ll stop asking “Eh, where’s the SEO?!?”

The world’s most boring blog title is my concession to search engine optimization. It could’ve been “The Military Guide!” or even “Nords’ Words“. However, I chose to describe the content: “Military Retirement & Financial Independence“. (Not very catchy, huh?) In its defense, it’s working: put any of those three words into Google in any order, with or without quotes, and see what pops up at the first page of millions of hits.

I could blather on for two or three posts about search engines and their features, but you don’t care and it doesn’t significantly affect your mission. Google’s “Panda” algorithm is rumored to have over 200 factors, and they change as people start to manipulate them. It’s an arms race, and you’re outgunned from the start. Believe it or not, the most significant factor is: regular doses of quality writing. If a search bot sees your blog doing its job like clockwork then it figures there’s a real writer at work here.

If you must, you could put your blog title in the text of each blog post. (I did that two paragraphs ago.) Just about every one of my blog posts mentions “achieving financial independence” or “if you have a military retirement“. Every link you include should have descriptive anchor text like “Google Panda algorithm changes” instead of the dreaded generic words “linked here“. Yes, I know there’s no link there. Without good anchor text, there might as well not be anything linked at all.

Ranking algorithms even look at factors like the text in the header, or what percentage of keywords are in your blog. You could do this for SEO, and you could buy plenty of software to do it for you. However, the reality is that you’re using headers to break up the text for readers who scan your post, and you do the same with keywords to help them focus on the content. Write for your readers. Let the bot worry about the rest so that you don’t have to.

Wow. 2000 words already. Enough for today, and enjoy your weekend tinkering with this part. If you want homework, then add a few websites & blogs to your blogroll. I’ll have more next Thursday!

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Book review: “Give Smart”

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Doug Nordman

Every once in a while a book review jumps into the posting schedule because I have to give it back to the library tomorrow. I can’t extend the loan because lots of other readers have reserved it.

“Give $mart” must be a popular book. It’s only been out for a few months, but it’s already jumpstarted our thinking. Maybe it’ll jumpstart yours.

I didn’t grow up around charity. I didn’t appreciate my church’s corporate philanthropy or our school activities, and I left those behind when I joined the military.

When I was on active duty, I didn’t make an effort to volunteer or donate. Sure, I’d contribute to the Combined Federal Campaign some years. Most of our charitable activities were done on command workdays or could be tied into a family time as a good parenting example. Our Girl Scout troop would spend a few hours at a shelter, or we’d do a beach cleanup. My daughter and I spent six months of weekends volunteering as dog walkers at our local Humane Society. But our volunteering and charitable giving occurred more by convenience or coincidence, not by plan.

Once I retired, though, some of the pieces started falling into place: we found a few local causes that we cared about, and we realized that we had room in our budget. The Internet makes it much easier to research a charitable organization anonymously, and Fidelity’s Charitable Gift Fund makes it much easier to donate anonymously. Today we can give to the causes we care about on our own schedule, and we hardly get any junk mail at all. I really appreciate being able to quietly pursue my interests without being pestered by unsolicited appeals.

I began reading about philanthropy. The research was less than impressive.

Many of the books were historical or biographical. They’d recount how Carnegie or Rockefeller or Ford developed their philanthropy. They’d analyze how other 20^th-century families were torn apart by sudden wealth or generational affluenza and eventually figured out a charity plan. Some books were more descriptive: They’d tell you how to give of your time & money (donations, charitable gift funds, trusts, volunteering) or talk about things to watch out for.

Some advice sounded like a typical business book: form a family group, discuss what’s important to you, develop a written philanthropic mission & vision statement, hold occasional meetings to decide how you’re going to donate. Have the family office organize a workshop to teach the young ‘uns how to contribute to charitable causes. “Mission & vision statements”? Seriously?!? Their recommendations made the whole subject seem a lot like having a job!

A few of these books mentioned websites and blogs, so I started reading online. I finally stumbled across Give $mart.

The authors came together from the business world and academia. Both spent their careers improving the management performance of for-profit and non-profit corporations. They served on boards of non-profits and found themselves improving those operations, too. Eventually they formed the Bridgespan Group, which works with hundreds of non-profits to improve their management and their infrastructure. All non-profits have services and back-office tasks that they have to execute just like real businesses: fundraising, dispensing funds, accounting, and preparing tax returns. Bridgespan improves that daily routine, of course, and then helps the non-profits focus on their mission.

But the authors also worked with philanthropists, and they noted that their foundations had their own “business challenges”. The difference was that philanthropists really didn’t know how they were doing because they had few tools to measure their performance. Businesses, however, have a lot of measuring tools. Corporations like Wal-Mart will quickly disappear if they don’t sell things to customers. Non-profit organizations will also quickly disappear if they can’t raise donations from the public or get grants from foundations. But foundations don’t really have to survive, because they’re supposed to give money away. They approve those grants and then get glowing reports from their grantees (who would be happy to accept more grants, of course). They’re courted by all walks of society & government to help fund other programs, too, and nobody is ever going to tell a blissfully ignorant philanthropist that their support staff is doing a crappy job. They’re not going to tell the philanthropists that they could do better, either.

It turns out that there’s a demand for better philanthropy from the philanthropists themselves. Entrepreneurs and business executives are accustomed to performance tools and expect to see the same in their foundations. Computers and the Internet have revolutionized business and made a lot of tech execs rich, and now these same people are using the same tools to improve their philanthropy. Better still, the tools & techniques used by billionaires are now available to us little guys who want to do a better job with our pennies.

The authors focus on six areas:

- What are my values & beliefs?
- What will I call “success” and how will I achieve it?
- What am I accountable for? Do I meet my self-imposed standards?
- What will it take to get the job done?
- How do I work with grantees?
- Am I getting better?

Each of the book’s chapters describes one area, with plenty of sea stories examples. The authors run their non-profit group like a business, of course, and they’ve done hundreds of philanthropy case studies. They know plenty of ways to fool ourselves and to get into trouble. The solutions aren’t always very easy, but they explain how to look for the warning signs.

I noticed the parallels between pursuing financial independence and then pursuing philanthropy. You’re doing the first for yourself (and your family) while you’re doing the second for society (and maybe your family again). By the time you’ve achieved financial independence, you know all about aligning your values & beliefs with your spending. “Success” is clearly defined, and you learn very quickly to hold yourself accountable for your own behavior. By the time you reach your goal you know exactly what you need. Now it’s a matter of figuring out how to pass on your skills and measuring your own success as a mentor.

You don’t have to be a billionaire to form a foundation, but you don’t even have to start a foundation to be a philanthropist. You just have to volunteer your time or your money.

The back of the book contains another self-assessment checklist that summarizes all the areas. You could literally copy those five pages to monitor your own philanthropy progress. You could do it the same way that you monitor your budget and your investment portfolio. Like a physical-fitness test, the checklist will help you figure out if you’re doing the good deeds you intended– or if you’re just fooling yourself.

From my own experiences I’ve learned that I can’t just enjoy an afternoon at a food bank or a shelter, get a karma boost, and come home feeling good about myself. Instead I analyze the process, I try to improve efficiency or speed, and I eventually turn it into a job. I also tend to take on too many time commitments or meetings, although I’ve learned to cope with them. Maybe I’ll change that as I get older, or maybe I’ll never be very happy about working in an organization.

But I really enjoy doing philanthropy on my own. I enjoy screening charities with Internet tools. I actually like looking at their reports and their tax returns to see if they’re doing well. I’m interested in whether they can grow their “business” or whether their grants & donations dry up. I like seeing them in action or reading about them in the media. Now with “Get $mart” I can do a better job of analyzing my performance.

Philanthropy gave me the opportunity to write this book. “The Military Guide” donates all royalties to charities. Those charities were chosen by the servicemembers & veterans who contributed their stories & advice to the book, but we researched the candidates before we chose them. A couple actually had bad reputations with the people they were allegedly supporting, and one organization’s CEO had a suspiciously large salary. But Wounded Warrior Project and Fisher House were judged to be doing good work for the military, they had good ratings from charity-ranking websites, and they met our standards. Our own expenses are very low (“starving author” low), and I think we’ve done a good job of picking the right charities. We’re targeting as much support as we can with as few organizations as we need, and we’ll keep ramping up the funding as we get more revenue from the book and the blog!

Read the Give $mart blog, track down the hardcopy at your local library, and enjoy the stories as you ponder your own philanthropy. As you achieve your own financial independence, you’ll need this book.

Related articles:
Book report: Dilemmas of Family Wealth
Charitable gift funds
More military charities for “The Military Guide” royalties
Sales results for “The Military Guide”

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Get on LinkedIn, get a job

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Doug Nordman

I guess I should’ve seen this coming. I’ve blogged about financial independence and using your military benefits and coping with drawdowns… and suddenly some of you are wondering exactly how to go about getting a bridge career.

If you’re just joining us here through a search engine, then you might want to take a look at this post on what types of bridge careers are available for military veterans. (Hint: all of them!) The end of that post advises starting the transition early so that you and your contact network have the time to figure out what you want to do and where you might want to do it. Even two years in advance is not too early.

I’m only 51 years old but I’ve never had a “real” job. Frankly, I found it far easier to strive for financial independence than I did to look for a job. However, I’ve had plenty of job offers, and I’m happy to share my advice on how to set yourself up for them.

Let me back up that point for a second: if you push hard to achieve financial independence before you leave the military, then your search for a bridge career is much easier. You don’t have the financial pressure to find a job– any job– and you have the luxury to decide whether the first offer is truly your best & final offer. You can enjoy a few months off with family & friends. You can move to your final retirement location and get to know the area for 6-12 months to do more thorough research of the employment market. For some services, you’ll be out of the military for six months in order for the government ethics clauses to expire. This allows certain positions in defense consulting, contracting, or civil service to be made available to you.

But while you’re waiting for that blessed Day One of terminal leave to arrive, you might as well tutor yourself on the transition process. You don’t want to have to cram the study into a few months or rush through the actual transition.

Headhunters

You’ll also be auditioning headhunters. The popular firms (for enlisted technicians & managers as well as officers) are mostly non-exclusive. If you’re asked to sign an exclusive contract with one of them then you may want to assess exactly how much help they’ll be in targeting your specific career field. (Some headhunters are specialists, others more general.) It might be better to talk with the firms who don’t mind if you network the job search on your own as well as with their help. When you’re up front about your intentions, they can share their concerns before either of you is committed to a long-term relationship.

If you choose to consult a headhunter, you might think that you need to have a separation date before you can contact one to start your career search. Not so! The biggest task of a headhunter is to clean us up get you ready for the transition. One of their first goals is to help you figure out what you want to do during your bridge career. You’re not “just an infantry grunt” or “yet another aviator”. Instead you have to figure out who you’re going to be (not just who you are) and what you want to do about it. You may already know that you’re “a rising logistics professional”, but you’ll have to do better than “entry-level management” or a “mid-grade nuclear engineer”. When you contact a headhunter then you’ll be able to fill out a profile database and start the process of surveying your interests, strengths, & specialties. As soon as you realize you’re not doing another tour, that’s the time to start contacting headhunters.

Career-search reading

While you’re thinking about headhunters, it’s also time to do your reading homework. I’d start with “The Military Advantage”. Yes, it’s a benefits book, but it’ll also help you frame your career search with their help. Maybe you’ll want to use the GI Bill, or maybe the book will help you realize that you have other skills which employers are seeking. I spent a couple of days at a conference with editor Terry Howell, who’s also a military retiree. He knows his subject and you’ll start your search with a solid understanding of your benefits.

After that there are literally hundreds of career-transition books. One excellent example is the “Corporate Gray” series from Impact Publishing, including a Kindle compilation of all three versions. Another is The Fort Living Room Transition Course by USAA community blogger Chazz Pratt. Another classic is Richard Bolles’ “What Color Is Your Parachute?” At a minimum, I suggest that you skim a library copy of all three books and then buy at least one. If it doesn’t “click” with you, then go to Impact Publications’ career transition website and keep searching the titles until you find one that works for you. Don’t get discouraged if the “right” book doesn’t make itself immediately obvious. Just like your eventual bridge career, it’s out there somewhere– you will find it.

Contact networks and LinkedIn

A third tutorial comes from your contact network. You’re probably wondering how to develop a contact network for this transition, and I recommend that you start with LinkedIn. If you begin using LinkedIn months or even years before your transition, then you’ll be totally familiar with the system and able to exploit all its capabilities. Your first task should be to simply look at LinkedIn’s new users learning center. Just spend 10 minutes reading about the account– don’t worry about filling out your profile or uploading your image or importing your e-mail contacts. Don’t send out invitations. You’ll work on those skills in the coming weeks.

For some of you, this may be a good time to sign up for a new e-mail account. You probably don’t want hiring managers seeing “TopNuke@Yahoo.com” on LinkedIn any more than you’d want it on your résumé. Pick one based on your name so everyone can recognize that the e-mail address is you.

Here’s a social-networking hint: LinkedIn is very aggressive. They want to own you tell you what information to give them and how to share it. Don’t do that yet– don’t even finish “Step 1” of LinkedIn’s sign-in process. Instead read through the links & tutorials on the left-hand side of the learning center page. Remember that you’re putting your professional image on display for other members to examine. Your primary goal is to assemble your information in a way that appeals to a hiring manager. However, keep in mind that your profile may be available to your wingmen… and even your XO or your commanding officer. Consider the tone of your writing and remember that a hiring manager is looking for someone who can professionally represent their company, as well as work for them.

Once you feel that you understand the basics of LinkedIn (or maybe you’re already at that point) then read Liz Ryan’s LinkedIn recommendations. She’s a hiring executive for Fortune 500 companies. She’s experienced or heard of every job-seeking technique, resume format, and interview tip: both good and “not so good”. (Her article helped me with several tips on my account. I’ve been on LinkedIn for several years, but it took her article to make me realize that my “professional headline” section of my profile should read “Author of The Military Guide” instead of just “Early Retiree“.) When you start using LinkedIn groups and discussions, the headline is the first thing that pops up when other LinkedIn users hover a cursor over your profile. So whether you’re a LinkedIn veteran or a new member, her article will help you discover a nugget or two that will improve your profile and streamline your search.

Liz’s article can take literally a couple of hours to work through, so I recommend that you bookmark it or print it out and work on it in 20-minute increments. Don’t feel compelled to have a complete resume before you start– you can use phrases that will later be included in your résumé. Once you’ve filled out your basic profile (the first 13 of her 25 steps), then take a break for a while and start browsing LinkedIn’s groups. Along with your friends and mentors, they’re the beginning of your contact network. Use the “groups you may like” feature, or search the groups for military keywords in your service, your specialty, and your interests. For example I’m a member of “Submarine qualified” and I’ve applied to join “U.S. Navy veterans”. Apply for your chosen groups as soon as you finish your basic profile, because it may take the group moderator a week to get around to approving your request. You only need to join a few groups, and at least one of them will be sharing bridge-career information. Don’t polish your profile cannonball before joining the groups, because the groups are another way to help you improve your profile. Get your “profile version 1.0” on LinkedIn, start joining groups, and begin thinking about v2.0 while you’re learning more networking skills.

Once you’ve joined (or been admitted to) the groups, then click on the group to see its latest discussions. Look for “Settings” on the link bar (hidden under the “More” header), and adjust your e-mail preferences. Choosing a “daily digest” will summarize that group’s discussion topics so that you don’t have to remember to check them every day. You can also use the digest to skip the sea stories and focus on the career-networking discussions & announcements.

Now you’ve set yourself up with a steady diet of information from groups. Some of that will include posts about careers, networking, and job fairs. Your digest e-mails will help you automate your daily online reading while you work on the rest of your LinkedIn profile and your other transition reading. A week or two of this will show you good ideas on networking as well as “other” attempts. By the end of the second month you’ll have a feeling for how you want to start asking questions, begin your own networking, and contribute to other discussions.

Note that you don’t need to start collecting contacts right away. Take a month or two to get familiar with LinkedIn’s tone and etiquette so that you don’t come across as a party-crasher or a spammer. If you recognize battle buddies and mentors then feel free to send them an invitation. (Hopefully you’re seeking mentors who are no longer in the military and can help you find that bridge career.) Let them know your plans without asking for help or favors. They’ll see your activity and eventually start sending info your way.

Once you’ve worked through Liz Ryan’s article, you’ll know more about LinkedIn than I do. You’re probably ready to start thinking about your chosen field and to start writing a targeted resume. I’m afraid that I’m no help there, other than recommending the above books.

Let me put in a shameless plug for USAA and other organizations who are specifically hiring veterans. If I was looking for a job then I’d start there. I immediately felt at home in USAA’s San Antonio building, and later I realized it was because I was surrounded by veterans. It’s the type of camaraderie that you take for granted in the service, but you may miss it once you’re wearing a civilian uniform. USAA has several bricks & mortar member service centers across the nation, and military-friendly employers are everywhere. You may feel a tad allergic to the military network right now, but these companies are filled with people who understand your background and your skills. You’ll fit in much more quickly and feel much more comfortable with your new environment.

Feel free to send me a LinkedIn invitation if you think that would help you, but keep in mind that you may not want to show a Hawaii early-retiree ponytailed surfer dude among your LinkedIn network. Employers might start to wonder just how serious you are about a bridge career… and they may never understand your goal of financial independence!

So what LinkedIn groups have you used for your career search?

Related articles:
Starting your bridge career after the military

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Book review: Your Retirement Quest

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Doug Nordman

Let’s wrap up “America Saves” week with a look ahead to the next step. When you have enough, will you really be ready to retire?

When you first start thinking about retirement, the next question that you’re going to ask is “How much will I need?” After all, it’s useless to try to figure out “what you’re going to do all day” if you don’t even know whether you have enough money to stop working.

That seems logical because it’s the way we’ve been trained. When you’re planning a military mission, your very next question is what resources you can expect. You want a safety margin. Nobody wants to “do more with less”. Mission goals are generally non-negotiable. So you’re going to focus on the resources and develop very creative & innovative ways to maximize them. We do this whether we’re invading a foreign country or fixing a leaky toilet.

“Resources” are a fascinating question, and quite the distraction. Although retirement’s financial math can be simplified, the simplifications tend to mandate a bigger portfolio. Most of us aren’t willing to work until we die the portfolio is bigger than every possible threat, so we try to find some design compromises. If you have a deadline goal of retiring after 20 years of service (or getting the heck outta here after this tour) then you want to find ways to accelerate your financial independence. That turns into a question about budgeting, and then it brings up a question about safety margins and portfolio survival. Before long you’re analyzing expected investment returns or how much volatility your portfolio can handle or how much to cut back spending. Then you’re searching for books or blogs, wondering which advisors have the credibility to make their case, and debating all the finer points on Internet discussion boards.

What was the question again? Oh, yeah: “Can I retire yet?”

Eventually, usually very late in the process, another question comes up: “What will I do all day?” The answers seem trite: “Whatever you want“, “Every day is Saturday“, “Are you kidding? I’m still a parent and a spouse“, “Golf“, “Surf!“… and suddenly you’ve embarked on another round of resources-constrained planning. We tend to be goals-oriented professionals, so once again we start with the lists: “What do we want to do?” “What will we need?” “Where can we go?” “How long will it take?”

I guess the “good” news is that organizing our resources helps to answer the question “But… what will I do all day?!?”

However, we’re only 400 words into this post and I haven’t even mentioned the book yet, so you know that’s not the best answer.

The key point is back in that third paragraph. For our entire military careers we were handed the mission and told to get it done. The methods and tools are pretty standard. Once in a while you might have the chance to be creative on “how” you get it done, but you still don’t have much wiggle room on what you’re expected to accomplish.

Retirement is a new challenge. For perhaps the first time in your life, you get to create the mission. Maybe we’ve all been focused on the wrong questions, or at least asking them in the wrong order. Maybe your first question should be “What type of retirement do I want to enjoy?” Then you can think about how much you’ll need.

Some of you won’t have any problems with that first question. Your answer might be simple: “Screw this mission-planning stuff, I’ve had enough of that. I’m just going to spend a few months relaxing with family & friends, and then I’m going to see what comes next.” Maybe your retirement is still constrained by parenting obligations, or you’re going to wait a few years for your spouse to retire. Maybe you just revel in ambiguity and chaos: “Not all those who wander are lost”. * In my case, retirement turned out to be pursuing interests that I’d never had the time for. Now my days consist of getting my chores done so that I can go surfing and then spend a little time on these other interests. Frankly there hasn’t been much planning, either!

Yet retirement can be vague and scary when you’re working 50 hours a week, and nobody really wants to hear pat answers like “You’ll figure it out.” If you’re feeling concerned or maybe even worried & insecure, then it’s time for “Your Retirement Quest: 10 Secrets for Creating and Living a Fulfilling Retirement”.

Let’s get the secrets out of the way first:

Freedom
More than money
Stages of the quest
Planning
10 holistic elements (well-being, attitude, passions, other squishy stuff)
Mindset
Team effort
Action
Resiliency
Time

You won’t need every chapter in this book. It’s designed to relieve your concerns, and you may not be worried about every aspect of retirement. Read the introduction, skim the chapters you feel comfortable with, and focus on the concepts that you haven’t seen before. Try every one of the exercises to make sure that you’re not completely missing the point.

The authors point out that retirement still has speed bumps. For example, you have plenty of freedom yet you may still overschedule your own time. A year or two into retirement, you may realize that you were worried about the money– yet your real problem has been controlling the obligations that you’ve taken on.

They take us through the stages of retirement that they’ve seen in other retirees. Everyone’s familiar with the anticipation of retirement, and its honeymoon period of the first few months or years, but eventually almost every retiree goes through a phase of disenchantment: “Is this all there is?” You learn how to recognize these phases and move on to rejuvenation and, ultimately, a fulfilling retirement.

The authors see retirement as a quest through all the activities and lifestyles you’ve always wanted to try. You’re an explorer in a new territory. Retirement produces new interests and new distractions. Your first year of retirement might be pretty much what you planned, but your tenth year will be completely unexpected. During the journey, you’ll sort out your attitude and find your passions. You’ll grow as a person and develop the purpose that you want to pursue for as long as you can. Usually it involves developing new connections with your family and community, and giving back or paying forward what you’ve received. Other times you may feel that you’re wandering from one phase to the next, but working through the chapter questions and exercises will help you rediscover what’s important to you.

“Retirement Quest” is a great relief when you’re still working and have no idea how to handle your retirement freedom. It quotes plenty of studies and statistics. It has real stories from real people who might share your interests. Once you’ve worked through it, you’ll feel as if you have a plan– or at least a clue. You’ll stop fretting over the money and the activities and assess the real questions: “Am I ready to retire?” “Do I have a plan?” Then you can start your own quest, and you won’t have to worry. As the authors say, “A plan is only something from which to deviate.”

* It’s a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Related articles:
“But… but… but what will I DO all day?!?”
Myths of military retirement and early retirement
Ernie Zelinski’s “Get-A-Life Tree” activity planner

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Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Starting Your Bridge Career After the Military

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Doug Nordman

Long post today: I have 2400 words of real-life examples for a reader’s question.

When I started thinking about a book, I wasn’t writing “just another job-search manual“. I wanted to talk about early retirement and frankly, I was scared of the competition from other career-transition authors. However, I get questions every week about bridge careers. If you’ve pushed for financial independence, even for just a few years before separating or retiring from the military, then you have enough flexibility to take the time for a thoughtful job search.

You don’t have to sprint to sign a job contract before your terminal leave is over! There are dozens of books and tools to choose from (see the links near the end of the post) and if you have a specific topic area then I can even recommend specific websites and books.

Here’s an e-mail from a long-time reader:

Hi Nords,

I found the Early-Retirement.org site about seven years ago after a Google search for “is military early retirement possible”. I have spent many late nights reading the forum, learning a lot! My question for you, is that you always comment on the job offers that “come out of the woodwork” when you retire, and I wonder what type of jobs you are referring to.

My husband is eligible for retirement in 2.5 years. He is really experiencing burnout. We would not be able to fully retire, and would need a bridge career, but he just doesn’t know what is out there.

Your name came up in our conversation today, after a particularly frustrating day for my husband.

He was relating a story about a Navy guy who got news of a bad assignment. I said that according to Nords, they really start messing with you the last few years of your career. He laughed that I get my information about other services on a retirement forum, and said “Why don’t you ask Nords what kind of jobs are out there after you retire.” So I am! Thanks for your time, and all your past posts!

Back in 2005 a survey conducted by Russ Graves, a retired officer, concluded that 85% of retired officers immediately returned to civilian work after the military. This was independent of military career satisfaction, wealth, expenses, and other lifestyle factors. However, in the more senior ranks, the percentages returning to civilian work were even higher. As unbelievable as the statistics may seem, it’s easier for military retirees to get a job than to stay retired.

In the middle of a tough tour, your spouse is facing long hours and burnout. You’re both a bit too busy to sit back and watch the world around you, occasionally commenting to each other “I could SO do that job“.

When you’re spending 60 hours a week at work, then pursuing financial independence is less effort than tackling the scary job search. After most military retirements, you face the stress of relocation and perhaps the financial pressure to “get a job”. You may not know the local employment market in your new retirement location, you might not know anyone there, and you don’t feel comfortable taking 6-12 months to find a bridge career that you really enjoy.

Yet there are thousands of jobs out there for military retirees. We have skills. We have experience. You’ll be surprised at how urgent the hiring standards can be. Your biggest problem is networking, and your second-biggest problem is being patient enough not to leap on the first offer.

Part of our employment fear comes from the military’s self-perpetuating culture of constant criticism & humiliation. Our chain of command tells us every day that we’re barely capable of performing at our current rank, let alone getting promoted. We need to “pull our act together” and “step it up”. We hear about how hard it is to find a job in the civilian world and we get scared.

What Employers Want

The reality is that you & spouse are members of a demographic in high demand. Employers are seeking the skills that you’ve developed over two decades: “bringing order out of chaos”.

It’s walking into a room with people, learning how they do their jobs (or how they’d like to do them), listening to their problems, and figuring out how to get things done. Maybe it’s writing a document or preparing a presentation.

It’s cutting through some sort of workplace bureaucracy or figuring out who to call for help. It’s making coworkers happier & more productive so that they can form a team and solve problems.

In the military, we use squishy words like “leadership” and “taking care of our people“.

In the civilian world, it’s called “middle management” or “operations” or “program manager” or even “consultant“.

The corporate world is full of waste, inefficiency, and needless drama. Companies want people who can show up regularly, healthy & sober, and ready to work. They want employees who can communicate. They want workers who can recognize a good idea when they hear it. They want people who can remain calm under pressure.

Judging from some military commands, our resumes should have bullets like “Knows how to get yelled at” and “Doesn’t get upset about deadlines“. They want people who have “common” sense (not so common) and who can think. They want people who can talk in front of a crowd. Being able to do math is a bonus. They can teach you all the other details about sales & finances. The basics can be learned from the Internet.

My final tour was at a training command. My (unsolicited) job offers were: GS-11 training program manager at the Pearl Harbor shipyard, contract instructor at several military commands in the area (like the instructor training school), and contract instructor at the local business college.

Because I’m a nuclear engineer with way too much time standing watch and keeping the lights burning, I also heard from the local electrical utility, the local trash-burning power-generating plant, and shipyard firms.

I didn’t write a résumé or network with submariners. I’m an introvert who prefers to avoid socializing. Heck, I don’t even play golf.

Other shipmates are at engineering firms. Another takes care of the shipyard’s Emergency Command Center. A couple are Troops to Teachers at local high schools. A few guys who used to do incredibly stupid things on liberty with me are now running the corporate world, but that’s another bunch of sea stories.

When my spouse left active duty for the Navy Reserve, she drilled at a local headquarters command. Whenever she did her two weeks of active duty (or a few weeks of relief watches) she’d get a job offer by Day Three. It’d be a civil-service job (running an office or helping update programs), or an active-duty mobilization, or a contract to help design & run military exercises. One offer was a full-time instructor contract to teach military watch teams how to use the command’s specialized computers and software.

Other career options

Civil service is just one choice. Almost everyone in the military learns about maintenance, testing, and quality assurance. My submarine & aviation shipmates get those types of civilian job at defense contractors and QA firms. Military retirees know about military exercises and tactics development. Every major command contracts a network of military retirees to work a few dozen days a year designing scenarios for training and exercise simulations. A military pension lets retirees be selective about the contracts.

An Early-Retirement.org poster has been getting calls from wingmen who retired before him. In addition to civil-service offers he teaches online classes at a local business college. Because he and his spouse are near a military base with a steady stream of tenants, they manage several rental properties. He’s financially independent so he doesn’t stress about the work or his performance. He just enjoys each day as it comes.

Another Early-Retirement.org poster retired from the Navy to finish his bachelors’ degree in sports management. He’s stitched together a career of refereeing community basketball & softball games, plus working on the golf course. He doesn’t need a lot of money and he’s doing what he loves. He’s also part of a huge job-search network because everybody knows him from their leisure activities.

At USAA’s blogger conference I met a retired Air Force officer who’s “just a pilot”. A wingman hired him for a distribution job at a national retailer and he’s now their flight operations manager– he says he gets paid to fly all over the country. He just wants to fly, but he does some management & paperwork on the side to make sure that the products are getting where they need to go.

If you’ve saved and invested during your military years and you’re close to financial independence, then you can use volunteer service to start a bridge career.

Consider non-profits. After my spouse retired from the Reserves, a shipmate asked her to volunteer with a military family literacy group. She’d presents the program to military commands & family groups before the deployment, and give them the program materials. She’d run a display table at book fairs & milspouse conferences. A couple of years later she was hired as a part-time regional volunteer coordinator, and then as a program manager. She has savings and a Reserve pension and she doesn’t need to earn a high income.

Consider military-friendly companies like USAA. At the blogger conference, I met a submariner who’d left active duty after his service obligation. He’s spending the next two years working 4-6 months in departments dealing with various member-related operations and special programs. They’ll teach him what he needs to know.

At the end of that time, he’ll fill out a “dream sheet” and let USAA’s “assignment officer” give him “orders” to a “billet”. USAA actually sets a goal of hiring at least 25% of their new employees each year from the military. I still don’t know exactly what some their people do all day, but they learned their skills on the job and they’re happy. USAA hired them for their potential and their military experience, not because they had graduate degrees in the insurance business.

Self-employment

Consider blogging freelance writing. This blog reaches a potential audience of four million military & families. After 16 months it averages 300-500 hits per day (and rising!). Personal-finance bloggers write for an audience at least 10x larger. They start with nothing and spend two years writing for free to build up an audience of 1000-2000 hits/day. They learn tips & techniques from other PF bloggers.

After a couple of years, they have their audience and an advertising income stream of a few hundred bucks a month. They learn more techniques from other professional bloggers and marketing execs– ironically from reading their blogs and watching their videos.

After a couple more years the income grows to $1K-$2K a month from affiliate marketing, 50-page e-book sales, website advertising, podcast/YouTube advertising, contracting for smartphone apps… it’s an endless list.

Their success is based on their writing ability, sure, but a much more critical skill is perseverance. When you’re writing for free then it’s easy to give up. When you’re close to financial independence, though, you have the time to be an entrepreneur and grow the business.

Very little money is required to write, publish, and sell a book. Again it takes persistence and patience, which you have acquired in bulk from the military.

One book won’t buy the groceries but the process gets you started on a writing & speaking career. One of my shipmates used her military training experience to write a leadership book that she’s built up into a six-figure public speaking and career-coaching business.

Three ways to start

If military retirees were already living in their ideal retirement locations then we’d be able to research these careers in person. Most of us have to do it remotely, or have someone else do it for us, or we spend a few months doing it after we retire there. Taking a few months to learn the area can be scary because you’re living off of “just” a pension & benefits.

“Remotely” means signing up for LinkedIn.com, filling out a profile, and joining their military groups. Read posts by other servicemembers & spouses in those groups who are networking their next career. Don’t be intimidated by the jargon– these people got through their own transition, made plenty of their own mistakes on active duty, and would love to tell you what they’ve learned. The “hard” part consists of learning the bridge career’s new culture & language, just like transferring to overseas duty. Despite the scary stories, note that people are swapping job offers and career advice.

“Someone else do it for you” means a headhunter. Their staff will help your spouse (and you, too) decide what you want to do by translating military skills & personal interests into civilian equivalents. Then they’ll teach your spouse how to wear a different uniform, handle a different set of protocols, network, do interviews, and get hired. The hardest part is getting the servicemembers to figure out what interests they’d like to pursue.

Servicemembers are overwhelmed with “Who would hire me?!?” but the answer is “Everybody in your chosen field”.

All veterans have to come up with is a list of “what I like to do” from self-assessment surveys and other career-transition tools. My favorite headhunter story is the shipmate who spent months trying to figure out what bridge career he enjoyed. He did so well at career networking and interviewing that… Lucas Group hired him to be a headhunter. Then he went on to help another dozen of my shipmates find their bridge careers.

If you choose to spend a few months doing it after you move to your retirement area then join local service groups like VFW, MOAA, Rotary Club, or Lions. Just enjoy socializing at the meetings. Volunteer for service projects. As people get to know you, the job offers will come. If you’ve saved enough cash to go a year without a paycheck then it will help you relax and make good decisions without financial pressure.

Impact Publications has an entire catalog of books and pocket guides that cover every aspect of the transition.

Let me know if you want introductions to other Early-Retirement.org posters who were a big help on the book. They’re at all stages of the journey to financial independence, and they can help you too.

It’s not just about your spouse. At USAA’s blogger conference I met a dozen military spouses who have carved out their own entrepreneurial careers (because they move so frequently). There’s a huge network out there for your “milspouse employment”.

I hope these stories help. I’m collecting more stories for the second edition. Please tell me yours!

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Posted in Career | 2 Comments

Military Financial Independence