The Lessons We Learned from Our Honorary Exit Buddies

It’s the Season 1 finale! Kathleen and Rachel sit down to reflect on the incredible veterans who joined us on Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. From pilots to cyber warriors and nonprofit founders, each guest left us with hard-won wisdom on mindset, identity, resilience, networking, purpose, and navigating military transition. This episode is the ultimate recap: the biggest “aha” moments and the practical takeaways you can steal for your own transition. Whether you’ve been here since day one or you’re just finding us, this is your Season 1 cheat sheet to help you navigate life after military service.

Chapters

• 00:36 – Start planning early and take advantage of transition programs
• 01:13 – Build your safety net before you leap
• 02:08 – Prepare emotionally for the identity shift
• 03:13 – Start soul-searching early — don't wait for transition to happen to you
• 04:32 – Pause and rediscover your identity before jumping into the next chapter
• 05:16 – Your path may change — adapt with resilience
• 06:18 – You can pivot more than once
• 7:13 – Embrace your mistakes as lessons
• 07:59 – Protect your foundation: VA benefits & mental health
• 09:11 – Jobs are replaceable, but family experiences are not
• 09:55 – Ask for help early and often
• 11:27 – Mentorship takes many forms
• 12:23 – Find/build your tribe
• 13:29 – Translate your leadership experience into civilian terms
• 14:12 – Passion plus preparation creates opportunity
• 16:30 – Build your skills, grow your network, and take your shot

Thank you to our honorary Exit Buddies who trusted us with their stories this season — you made Season 1 unforgettable.

Thank you to YOU, our listeners, for walking this road with us, sharing episodes, and building this community.

We’ll be back with Season 2 for more stories and transition truths to guide the way. See you on the other side!

Visit us at https://exitbuddy.buzzsprout.com to learn more about the show.

Have feedback or questions for us? Email us at ashleyjones.creative@gmail.com.

Transcript

Kathleen Smith 00:00
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. Today we have a special episode because we've had some amazing conversations this season, and we've talked to some fabulous folks who just really shared their passion, their journey, and things that went right and things that went wrong. So today we're going to sum it all up so that you can really absorb the greatness that we've had this last season. So Rachel, kick us off.

Rachel Bozeman 00:36
There were so many great stories and so many things that we learned. And I think first and foremost, it was really about the mindset and that preparation, that transition out and kind of what came next. And really one that stuck with me in particular was from Shanon Raab when he talked about, you have to start planning early. It's taking advantage of those transition programs, not just sitting around and waiting for somebody or something to happen, but really being proactive. And part of that story was utilizing things like TAP and SkillBridge and all of those different incredible programs that really help in that transition.

Kathleen Smith 01:13
Yeah, in the mindset and the preparation, I really appreciated what Daniel Benjamin said. Remember, he was the Army vet of 20 years who was focused on signals intelligence, and he actually found that the reserves were more of his stabilizer. He was making sure that he still had his tribe, that he made sure that he still was connected. And it also allowed him to have sort of this built-in backup plan with some additional training, some income, but also an additional purpose as far as the contacts and contracts that he needed during his transition. And we all know that it's really good to have a good backup plan. And I thought that Daniel's idea of having the reserves as a backup plan was a really good one. What did you find next on mindset and preparation?

Rachel Bozeman 02:08
Absolutely. There was one I got to listen to. I didn't get to actively participate, but when I went back and listened to it, I might have listened to it a couple times to really get all of the goodness from Jaimee, who is an Air Force veteran of 28 years. And I loved the mantra there—she went from Chief to just Jaimee—and really talked about that identity transformation, because a lot of times you become your title, especially when you are serving so bravely. So it's not just a career change, moving from Company A to Company B. It's really going through that identity change and transformation. And so something that she recommended and was able to do in practice was drop that rank before she even left the position there. She just wanted to make sure that she understood who she was. So her signature line went from Senior Chief Freeman to just Jaimee. And I thought that was so incredible, and it's just mentally that preparation for being valued. It's not about your title or the uniform that you wear. It's really about who you are and what you bring to the table.

Kathleen Smith 03:13
She also talked about not only your identity shift, but she also talked about the soul searching that needs to go on, because I really see this a lot where people wait until the TAP class or until the papers are submitted to start the soul searching. And Jaimee started soul searching a lot sooner. So she started asking three questions a few years before leaving: what made her happy, what does she want to do next, and what did she need to do to make those things possible? And this early reflection—I remember in the episode she had some opportunities to take a high-paying job that was a great title and a really great salary and everything. However, it wasn't what was going to make her happy, and it wasn't what was going to make her family happy, and it wasn't going to be something that was a new challenge. And so she went back to her soul searching questions and said, yeah, no, gonna pass on this opportunity. I'm gonna go where my soul-searching questions took me. And then the next one—what's interesting is when you're talking about your preparation—it's taking the time to pause and rebuild your identity before you jump to the next chapter. Trecie Spencer, who had spent 20 years in the Air Force and now works with the GSA, she really set aside some time after she separated just to sort of gather her space, gather her energy, sort of where was she going to go, and really discovered who she was, what was important to her. And she didn't immediately go to the next job. She took some time. So she really said, enjoy retirement, explore who you are beyond the military. Second tip that I really found, or lesson learned, is understanding that this is not going to go smoothly. There's going to be some setbacks, and you're going to have to build your resiliency. And one great story that we heard was from John Stoner, an Army veteran who served for a decade, including in Afghanistan, and he had a specific path set, but he had to be resilient because the path that he wanted was not going to come through. He was all set to go work for the NSA. He had his career insights and goals set up to work for the NSA, and it didn't necessarily materialize the way he wanted to. So he had to pivot. He had to sort of think on his feet and take on a new trajectory. And he said to us, setbacks don't define you. They actually push you toward new opportunities. Or what I like to say, it's not what you get on your shoe, it's how you take it off.

Rachel Bozeman 06:18
That's a good one. Well, speaking of pivoting, you don't just have to pivot once, but you can pivot multiple times. And I think that was articulated beautifully by Steve Luczynski, that brave Air Force pilot who flew those F-15s and F-22s, did some incredible things, and his journey really spanned not only fighter jets, but national security, cybersecurity leadership, and then back to an aviation career direction. It just doesn't have to be locked. It's not just one path forward. It doesn't just mean you'll get one shot at it. And if that doesn't work out, gosh darn it, you're done. It really is about pivoting and looking at those and finding out what your purpose is and making those choices, and it's okay to shift multiple times when they're guided by your values, the timing has to be right, and ultimately, it's down to self-awareness.

Kathleen Smith 07:13
And part of self-awareness is something that Trecie Spencer again shared: understanding that mistakes are lessons. They're not necessarily something where you're going to get a demerit or something. It is actually an opportunity to learn. Trecie shared that during her career, she had a technical problem. We all have technical problems. We actually had a little technical problem before this episode. Sometimes technical episodes are opportunities to ask for help and to network with people, and that's what she really did. No better lesson learned than the one you've made a mistake on, because you're not going to make that mistake again. Rachel, what's another lesson learned that we had from our guest?

Rachel Bozeman 07:59
I think a theme that popped up quite a bit was self-care, and one of those that really stuck out was about protecting your foundation. And Jessica Ruttenber, retired Air Force pilot and nonprofit founder, said it's so important to document every injury for future benefits. Sometimes you may be trained to say, just suck it up buttercup, but that's not the way it needs to be. Any injury, anything that happens, get it documented. And address your mental health early. Don't wait for tomorrow, or I'll think about it tomorrow, or I can worry about that later. Address it today.

Kathleen Smith 08:37
And I'm really glad that you brought up the lesson learned about your VA benefits, because that was one that Rob Fuller really brought home, and I wanted to make sure that we reiterated his words, because he's now in a situation where he can't claim his VA benefits because it's not documented. So if you're having medical issues now, you deserve to get your VA benefits, and you deserve to get your medical benefits, so don't say I'm just going to suck it up. You need to go in and make sure that you're getting those reported and logged. Another thing that Rob really shared with us is that he wanted to make sure what was important to him stayed throughout his career, past the military. And one thing was his family, and he had someone, a new employer, a new boss that said you have to miss your son's first day at kindergarten because you need to go visit a client. And he said no, because it is too important to me to be with my family. My family is more important. And he kept saying it beautifully—jobs are replaceable, but family experiences are not. So really understand that experiencing life is a key point for your post-military life. So I'm going to move on to one of our next lessons learned, which is mentoring and community, because I find this in a lot of the conversations that we've had is understanding that when you transition out of the military, you are losing your community. You are losing those people that mentored you, or your commanders who helped you through, but understanding that you can recreate that after your military life. So Steve Luczynski was really great and said, ask for help early and ask for it often, especially as you go through your transition. It's very easy to be able to ask people who've gone before you. It is not weak. It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It is actually being very smart, recognizing when you don't have the answer, and being able to go find the people who do have the answer. And be sure when you're in the request for mentorship, please don't go and say, hey can you get me a job? I can't tell you how many times I've gotten that, and I really don't like that. But ask people about their transition, about their experiences, about their lessons learned. And realize that these can be conversations over a cup of coffee, and there are so many things that those one-to-one connections can really open a lot of doors. Any other lessons learned in mentorship that you heard?

Rachel Bozeman 11:27
I heard some great ones from the one and only and our fellow podcaster Tom Eston, Marine infantry turned cybersecurity trailblazer, had some really great insights into mentorship. And it's that mentorships don't all look the same. They're not all cut from the same cookie-cutter. They're going to take many different forms. They don't have to be official. You don't have to get a name badge that says I'm a mentor and I'm a mentee. It really is about just taking and embracing that opportunity. Sometimes it may look like a fellow veteran or a coworker or heck even a LinkedIn connection, if you will, can really change the trajectory. I loved hearing that throughout there Kathleen from folks that have been able to connect with you and really change the trajectory of what they're doing. So that five-minute conversation really can open up those conversations. And it's all about letting your network know that you may be out there looking.

Kathleen Smith 12:23
And another sort of networking idea that was out there was really about mentoring and getting a community, but you have to build that. It's not just going to be a switch that you flip. And that's what John Stoner really talked about was he built his cyber tribe through going to BSides and the Diana Initiative and various different local groups, and really started building his own community. And it's not something that's going to happen overnight. It's something that you're going to continually do throughout your career, and it's interesting—those opportunities gave him new visibility, gave him new support. He was able to build his brand. Everyone started looking for his mohawk. They all were like wait a minute where's John and his mohawk? I remember when he said he shaved it off and everyone was like are you really John Stoner? So understanding that community can really support you throughout your transition. So Rachel what are some of the next lessons learned?

Rachel Bozeman 13:29
Well I think it's what a lot of people come for, Kathleen, and that's about getting the job. And I'm going to start with Rob Fuller because he brought out some great advice about making sure that you translate your leadership experience into civilian terms. Service leaders oftentimes overlook their leadership experience when writing their resume. They forget that some of those things are absolutely transferable and should be included. And in Rob's case, it took a slap to the head from his dear wife to say, remember those eight years in the Corps you served. Let's make sure we get that on the resume, so recognizing and reframing those skills really can help position yourself for that next career.

Kathleen Smith 14:12
I really appreciate that because one thing that we always talk about is translating the value, not translating the skills and the experience. You're not just repeating what is in your job description or any of your military reports. You need to translate that value experience. And this is something that Josh Mason, an Air Force veteran turned entrepreneur, teacher, and chicken farmer, shared with us is that you really need to look at your resume and make sure that it's not line by line the same thing that you have in the military. You really need to think with a business hat. You really need to sort of match your budget skills, your management skills, your workforce management skills, making sure that you're reframing this into outcomes and leadership capabilities and adaptability, making sure that this is in a language that civilians understand. Employers are actually looking for your leadership skills. They're looking for your initiative. They're looking for your composure under pressure. These are qualities that cannot be taught in a certification course. They are really something that you have learned and you have put to action during your military service. One of our guests said they didn't hire me for my certs. They hired me because I knew how to stay calm when things went wrong. One of the things that I loved about Stephanie West, someone who was just fascinated with Starbucks, is that she wanted to make sure that she got her job at Starbucks in logistics and really making sure that behind the scenes at Starbucks everything works. So she studied the organization. She studied how they did their logistics. She made sure that when she was going through her MBA program that she was researching them. And what was interesting, the right role came along and she was ready to jump on it. And she really loves her job. When you're looking at your next job it's not only those skills that we're talking about. It's also about networking and having that courage to step up that is going to help you in your next chapter. Let's go back to Jaimee Freeman because yeah superstar, her three-part formula was this: first you build the skills you need, then you grow and nurture your network intentionally, and then when the right opportunity comes along, you take your shot, even if it's bold or scary, you take your shot. That's it for today. We've covered a lot of lessons learned. We've had some really great guests over this last first season. I want to thank all of our audience members for being part of our community, helping us grow in our first season, and so much thanks to all of our guests. It's been great that you've appreciated what we're trying to do here and for being with us. Remember to rate, review, and be sure to follow us, and share this episode with someone who is transitioning. Bye for now.