51. What If My Passion Has Nothing To Do With What I'm Doing Now with Bill Kieffer

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt. I'm your host, Brock Briggs. And my job here is to help you earn more money, think deeper and make better decisions by delivering deep conversations with the world's most interesting veterans. Thanks for tuning in to my conversation today with Bill Kieffer. Bill served as a logistics officer in the army, followed by over 20 years in various senior HR and talent roles before setting out on his own. 

He is currently a professional executive coach and specializes in military transitions. We talked through some heavy hitters around our professional lives answering questions like, what if my passion has nothing to do with what I'm doing now? And the four things that you must bring to an interview. Bill's unique perspective showcases what HR and hiring managers are really looking at in hires and also flips the script on how you can hire more effectively if you're in that position. Each of these pieces will help you as a colonel, former service member become more lethal in the workplace, lethal in the best kind of way. 

Something I need you to do really quick before you get started whatever errand you're running. Back up to the homepage of the podcast and your listening app and leave me a review. I need to know how I can improve and your reviews help the show get into the ears of who needs to hear it. I'm gonna wait to start the show until you do that. So I'll give you a few seconds. Yep, I'm still waiting.

Brock Briggs

If you're driving in Kent, I appreciate you stopping when you can and leaving me a review. It means a lot, helps me grow the show. Like I said, gets it to the people that need it the most. Please enjoy this conversation with Bill Kieffer.

Brock Briggs

You've gotten me like all hyped up on this like anticipation of like wondering who your hero is now? Who is your hero if you have one? 

Bill Kieffer  2:04  

Well, it's a great question. My hero is actually my mom.

Brock Briggs  2:08  

Okay, not as weird or scary as I thought it might be.

Bill Kieffer  2:12  

Yeah and here's why. She's the single strongest person I've ever known. And I've known some really strong people. She had absolutely debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. She had unrelenting pain that just got worse as time went on. She had it her whole life as far as I know. But she never let things get her down. She took the pain. Every once in a while, she had to reset a little bit. But she would define the positives in every day. And she would always look forward. She knew there was something better common. I learned more from her about strength and endurance and grit and resilience than anybody else I've ever met. And I found that the lessons I learned from her and you know, when I was a kid, it wasn't always lessons I wanted to learn, you know. 

Brock Briggs

They never are. 

Bill Kieffer

She wasn't necessarily my hero when I was a teenager. But that's my hero, you know, somebody that has overcome a tremendous amount of difficulty and went on to lead a really great value adding, an impactful life.

Brock Briggs  3:25  

What do you think was the source of that optimism for her? 

Bill Kieffer  3:31  

I think part of was her faith. I think the other part of it was, she didn't really have a choice. She could either let the pain and the challenges absolutely destroy her. Or she could find a way through, around over under and get past the pain to figure out how to make the best day she could every day. I don't wanna say it was like she was backed into a corner and it was either give up or get happy. But she chose to find the positives instead of just giving up because the pain was gonna be there no matter how you mentally prepared for it. And she chose the positive path around it.

Brock Briggs  4:15  

Do you think that there's such a thing as over optimism or too much?

Bill Kieffer  4:20  

Sure. Yeah, you know, when I talk to folks in career transition, especially, I say, you know, you gotta be positive. You gotta be optimistic, but you have to be realistic too. You know, a great desire to go do something cool and impactful is awesome. But you gotta pay attention a little bit to the pragmatic realities of things in order to get from here to there. You know, are you thinking about unicorns and rainbows? Are you actually figuring out, you know, what is that unicorn and what is that rainbow and where is it and how do I get to it? And when I get there, what am I gonna do with it? So I think the balance between passion and pragmatism is kind of what marks folks from being overly optimistic or unrealistic and being appropriately optimistic.

Brock Briggs  5:08  

One of the things that I have struggled with this will be like a little insight on my personal relationship but my spouse's always pointing to me and wondering why I'm so positive about things. Like I tend to lean on that really kind of positive side of every situation like almost to the point where it's annoying to her, which I find really funny. And thinking about it, I don't know that, I guess, for me personally, that I have some kind of crazy over optimistic view of the future. 

But I know that the downside is very low. And I think that that's one of the ways that it becomes very easy to be optimistic is by eliminating your downside in almost every circumstance that you possibly can, and then you know that if it doesn't work out, it's okay. You already don't have that job. If you're transitioning, you're already, you know, not doing what you wanna do. That downside is limited.

Bill Kieffer  6:11  

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've heard the phrase. I imagine you've heard it, too, you know. You plan for the worst and hope for the best. Well, yes, I agree with that, you know. I don't say necessarily plan for the worst but anticipate what the worst could be, like you said, and then hope for the best. And I think the other side of that is, you've probably heard this too, is hope is not a plan nor a method of execution. You know, you gotta go beyond hope on that optimistic side. You gotta hope for it. You gotta aspire to achieve it. And then you gotta put actions in place to make that hope become reality.

Brock Briggs  6:48  

I was mentioning this before we started recording, but I've heard you talk in several other podcasts and several other speaking events, and you sound as if you are doing what you were destined to do. And there's a certain tone in people's voice when they talk very authoritatively and I feel like I can pick up on it very quickly. We're gonna talk about your kind of role of what you're doing now. Has it always been that way for you? Like you were logistics officer in the army from 1985 to 1997. I have it here.

Bill Kieffer 

Correct

Brock Briggs 

And then various HR and talent roles at several other major corporations after your time and service before doing what you do now. Have you felt that feeling before this? 

Bill Kieffer 

No

Brock Briggs 

Really? 

Bill Kieffer  7:44  

Simple enough. You know, my life has been a long strange trip. I grew up in farmland, Ohio. I live in the same small town for agricultural town. At first, I had no intention of leaving. I was gonna work in town and life was good. My dad was the town doctor. He's a physician. And he said, you know, what are you gonna do? I said, I don't know. I think I'm gonna hang around here working the farms, whatever. It was, okay, well, whatever you're gonna do, do it right. And then as I got a little older, I thought, you know what? I wanna join the army. And he asked me why. He was an army officer right after the Korean War. And I said, I wanna join because I wanna be a drill sergeant. Really? Why? Because I liked the hat. I mean, I was a kid. What did I know? You know? 

Brock Briggs

Very nice hat. 

Bill Kieffer 

Yeah, it's cool hat, you know? So we kind of thought about that for a while and overtime because you know, if you're gonna go, why don't you consider going as an officer? Okay, so I went to the University of Toledo with the sole purpose of getting my commission. I studied business because it was the most interesting. And it's funny, I started out in economics, or in sorry, in accounting, and quickly realized not only didn't I like it, I wasn't very good at it. So I switched over to economics. And I really didn't like that and I really wasn't good at it. So I went to my advisor, and I go, okay, what kind of degree can I get? Because I'm actually here to get the commission. The degree is kind of secondary. And bear in mind, this was, you know, quite a while ago. And they said, we got this whole new thing called Human Resources. I said, great, do I have to do math? And they said, no. And they lied to me because you do have to do math. I said, great! Sign me up. So you know, I never intended early on to be an army officer. 

Once I decided I was gonna be an army officer, my plan was to make it a full career. I wanna do 20, 25 years, right? Because as I got into it, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And then partway through my career, but the 11 and a half 11 year point, life got in the way. I was married, had three small kids and I went through a divorce unexpectedly. And while I was on a promotion list to O-4, I resigned my commission to get out. So yeah, my passion was the military. Well, guess what? That ain't gonna happen now. God, now what do I do? And I really took a long time trying to, I didn't know what my passion was, my passion was still in military. And I find that a lot with the folks that I coach. Their passion is still what they did in the past, it's not maybe what they could do in the future.

So I spent 22 years in corporate America doing stuff that I was pretty good at and you know, I cared about you know, but it wasn't a passion thing for me. I was passionate about helping people. I was passionate about helping organizations optimize their capabilities and all that stuff. But it's still really wasn't feeding the beast, you know. Along the way, I found myself just incidentally and informally helping military veterans in their transition. And it wasn't all the time but somebody would connect with me. And then somebody heard that I had helped somebody and then it started to grow a little bit. In 2018, I decided I had enough of corporate America and the 70 hour weeks and the 70% travel and I decided to hang out my own shingle. 

And I knew that whatever I was gonna do as an independent, a core part of that work was gonna be helping military veterans make the transition into the civilian world. Now, I've been at this for four years. And I can tell you that I really am living my passion. Now, I do other work, too. I mean, I have to pay the bills and all that. But this is definitely a passion work for me. Now, I'm a practical guy, too. I gotta pay the bills. I like running water and electricity, right? So, you know, I gotta make some money, too. But I think I finally landed where I'm supposed to be. And everything that preceded this just helped shape where I am today.

Brock Briggs  12:04  

I think that's the goal. I would venture to say that most people want to end up doing something that they feel personally fulfilled by whether they can make money at that. There are certainly some careers where you can't. I'd like to think that the right application of it, you could, but you know, four years or just a spring chicken on that. So who knows what the future might bring?

Bill Kieffer  12:34  

Yeah, and you know, every year gets just a little bit better. So yeah, yep. Yeah, no, it's true.

Brock Briggs  12:42  

Talking to people in the military, I would guess that not many people know actually what serves their passion, or like what their passion truly is just talking to active duty folks. Would you say that that's true in your experience? Why do you think that is?

Bill Kieffer  13:02  

I think it's normal, whether you're military or not. You know, people ask so you know, some folks understand their passion. But a lot of folks, they get caught up in the dailies, you know. You know, I got my job to do. And I'm, you know, it's important and I've got some urgent things I have to deal with and you get busy dealing with life, you know, and to stop and reflect and go, what am I really passionate about? Is not necessarily an exercise that everybody does frequently nor is it an exercise that many people are comfortable doing. And quite frankly, a lot of folks maybe just don't know, you know, what am I passionate about? I didn't really realize that my passion was helping military veterans make the career transition until I had to go through transition and until opportunity came up for me to help a couple of folks. 

So sometimes understanding your passion, almost like it has to reveal itself. But I think most times people get caught up in living life and doing the dailies and, you know, a reflective kind of thought period, a reflective kind of discussion about what are you passionate about? Just doesn't happen. It's one of the things, one of the groups I work with is the Honor Foundation, and they spent a whole lot of time upfront helping people understand who you are, you know, what's your why? What are you passionate about? And why are you passionate about it? So huge question that I think anybody in career transition or anybody that wants to think about how they can make their career and life a little more meaningful, I guess, it takes some time and reflect on, what am I passionate about? What matters? And again, not just a unicorn and rainbows stuff. What's the stuff that fires me up enough to get up in the morning and go do the hard work?

Brock Briggs  15:03  

It is a very strange feeling to have that. And I feel that I personally have that now. And it's now difficult for me to comprehend, speaking with people that don't and it worries me. I wish I could like, look back on my younger self, you know and just shake him a little bit and say, wake up, you know. Like get it together, pay attention, ask the questions. You said, you think that people might be scared to ask that question. Scared of what?

Bill Kieffer  15:35  

What if my passion has nothing to do with what I'm doing today?

Brock Briggs  15:44  

Like, what they're doing is a waste of time, maybe?

Bill Kieffer  15:47  

Yeah or maybe not a waste of time necessarily. Well, if I'm not passionate about it, why am I doing it, you know? And it's funny, passion comes from different things. And a lot of folks think about the passion just in the terms of their employment, right? You know, if I think back to my transition, I didn't think about it in these terms. But understanding my passion at the time going through a divorce and changing my careers and all that stuff, I viewed, I focused on what my decision criteria were, right? And it was financial security for my family and geography. Those were my decision criteria. I'm gonna move to where I'm gonna move to. I'm gonna do the work I can do legal, moral and ethical. Let's put my family in the best financial position possible over time, right?

Well, if you peel back the decision criteria, the passion was family. Just how I supported it and how I viewed it and the actions I was willing to take, turned that passion into an actionable set of things. I kind of had to reverse engineer the passion, right? I came up with the criteria and then what I was gonna do based on meeting those criteria, and it was only in reflection that I went, passion was the family, you know. So I think people are scared that if I find out what it is, oh my God, what am I doing? And how well does that fit? And what if there's a disconnect, then what am I gonna do? Have I failed? Or have I wasted my time? Or now that I know my passion and it will argue maybe different than what I'm doing, I don't know what to do different. So that's where I think the fear kind of comes in.

Brock Briggs  17:30  

Was there a particular event that led to you having that realization? Because you spent your time in the army. You thought that was gonna be a career and then spent, you said 20 years working adjacent jobs across a couple of different companies, but same kind of space. And that kind of brings you to today. I'm wondering if there's a particular moment in time that stands out as a turning point for you and maybe what brought that on?

Bill Kieffer  18:03  

In terms of my career choices or in terms of understanding my passion?

Brock Briggs

Understanding your passion

Bill Kieffer 

I think understanding my passion was kind of there were two things really one, it kind of evolved over time. Life kind of revealed itself to me, right? I am very passionate about my work, right? I'm very passionate about helping military veterans service members make that career transition successfully. But beneath that even is another way to say what I'm passionate about or perhaps what's my why, right? And what really kind of drives me is understanding that lower and not lower, that more core level. At the root of things, my why is to make sense of things. In the application here with the military veteran space, it's about helping folks make sense of their situation and make sense of their future potential. And make sense of an approach to get from where they are today to where that new success might be. 

So I think it's interesting, you know. I actually am certified in the Why Operating System Assessment, right? And I don't wanna make this a commercial about the instrument, although if anybody's interested. And it's a really cool instrument online. It's pretty quick instrument, but it's powerful. And as much as it helps people based on your responses to set a question. What's your why or your purpose? Now that's different than passion necessarily, but I think they're tied. And it goes on to say, what's your how or what's the process by which your why comes to life? And then further than that, it says, what's your promise to the world? And I've never really thought about all these things in this context until I found this assessment. And I took it and went wow, that resonates. And I did my homework and checked it out, you know, this is a real thing. 

And what I found out that making sense of things, I can take complex things pretty quickly and make a sensible solution out of them, right? It's what I've done my entire life. When I was going through college, when I was in the military, was working as a senior HR executive, doing what I do now, I can look at things, assess them pretty quickly and get to a workable solution pretty fast. Okay, I make sense of things. That's my why. Now, my why gets applied to my passion in the case of helping military veterans make the career and now all of a sudden, we got some, you know, secret sauce to go make things happen, right? What's interesting about the further part of that is the how is my how is through what we call mastery. Understanding things as deeply and broadly as possible as time allows. That explains a lot to me because I'm a detail guy, right? And I ask a lot of questions. 

And I do a lot of homework. And I figure things out to the deepest degree of detail I can find in the time we've got, I won't hold things up. And sometimes that's very helpful. And other times it drives people nuts. I’ll give an example. I'm actually an elected official in the small town that I live in, right? And we had a really big issue coming up about where do we source our water? Do we get it from the municipal wells that we've had for years? Or do we tie into a county system? And there was a lot of discussion about it, good, bad, and otherwise. And some folks agree with it on its merits and some folks disagree on its merits. And a lot of folks are just emotional about the whole thing. 

And I said, you know, we have to make a decision one way or the other. Shouldn't we know as much as we can as deeply as broadly as possible? And some folks agreed with me and other folks, just now we've got enough information, we're good. I came up with 93 questions across seven or eight different areas that I thought were relevant to help us make the best decision possible. Because this is a long term decision. It's kind of I won't say there's never a going back. But you know, once you change your water source, it's pretty hard to go back, right?

Brock Briggs  22:18  

It's a one way door.

Bill Kieffer  22:19  

It's kind of a one way door, right? There's a small crack going the other way, but just a small one. And when I come up with the 93 questions, there was a number of people went, oh, good God, there's Bill being Bill. What's he doing? He's just being difficult. Well, at the end of the day, it wasn't about being difficult. It was about me being me. It was about me trying to understand get a level of mastery on the content. And then beyond that, relative to this instrument, the whole issue of what do you deliver? Or what's your promise to the world? My what is trust. I wanna deliver solutions that people can trust. 

And I wanna build relationships that are built based on trust. So it all kind of ties together. And I'm trying to it's not very long answer to a good question. Was there a moment that define my passion? I don't know that there was a specific moment. But there was an evolution of things that all came together. That said, you know, this is what I'm passionate about. This is the work I'm gonna do. And now I've got some self understanding about my purpose, my process, and my promise that helps tie it all together and turn it from a passion into a real deliverable for the world.

Brock Briggs  23:31  

Several things that you said there resonate with me personally. I tend to also err on the side of trying to find out more information. If there's a situation or an experience that I'm taking part of that I'm unfamiliar with, my first instinct is to I need to call everybody in my phonebook who knows about that and I need to like find out. One of the problems that has plagued me is struggling with the analysis paralysis of like being unable to make a decision because it always seems like that there's more information that you can find out about whatever is happening. How do you think about when to draw the line of saying I have enough information to make a competent decision? And any other piece is not going to change the answer?

Bill Kieffer  24:30  

Yeah, I think when the act of information gathering and analysis starts to slow down or hinder positive progress on whatever the topic is, that's the point for me. You know and I look back and I go, okay, you know, am I asking too many questions and slowing down progress? If I am then yep, okay, check, time to stop. If on the other hand, the work I'm doing isn't slowing anything down, if the analysis I'm doing is still adding value, then great. The other bit of it is, you know, what am I actually analyzing? And I look at this in terms of or similar to like having performance metrics for work. You know, just because you can measure something doesn't mean you should measure it, right? 

And is what I'm trying to assess and analyze really gonna add any value or just do it. Is it just kind of interesting because I like doing analysis? That's the other way I look at it. So if in fact the work I'm doing is slowing down positive progress, then yep, we went too far. And if in fact, the real reason for my continued analysis is just the exercise of analyzing it, well, then yes, definitely time to stop and move on. You know, I like what Colin Powell said years ago, you know, the 80% solution on time is better than the perfect one late. I'm always mindful of that. And I have grown over the years. I was a bit of a perfectionist back in the day. And there was always something better we could do, right? And I realized that, you know, the enemy of good is better.

Brock Briggs  26:04  

Yeah, that 80/20 rule rings out a lot, especially when you're undergoing rapid change. And a lot of times have to make several decisions in quick sequence that have drastic outcomes. You don't have all day to sit there and analyze and analyze. You need to take the best with what you have now and try not to burn any bridges behind you if in case you need to go back. 

Bill Kieffer  26:30  

Right. I think the other thing that's helpful is that for most decisions, you know, a minor error isn't gonna be fatal. And realizing that yeah, okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can afford a little wiggle room for error and you can adjust and move forward. Now some decisions really are fatal. You know, you screw up in brain surgery, then you might have a problem. Okay. But most decisions aren't that. So I'm actually a pretty big advocate now of the 80/20 rule. Let's get the good decision and let's move. We'll adjust afterwards.

Brock Briggs  27:04  

On the last episode, I spoke with a gentleman named Beau Higgins who retired from the Marine Corps and now works as a talent manager at Amazon. And he spent a bunch of time talking about one way doors and two way doors and how a lot of decisions that you make are actually not two way doors even though it feels like it. And the more you can kind of choose one way or maybe I'm saying this the other way around. He said most decisions are two way doors, even though it seems like they are one way. And by sticking with and prioritizing those two way doors, you can allow yourself the room to make a bad decision and come back, rather than risking it all on one thing.

Bill Kieffer  27:57  

No and I agree with that. Now, the challenge comes in is when you're in an organization or in a team of people, and if not everybody, excuse me, not everybody agrees with that. Like a look at has to be X or Y. And it has to be X because quite frankly, that's what I want. Or I only see it through this lens or that better fits my priorities and parameters. And things that at their route really could be a two way door, start to feel like a one way door. And I think this is where kind of the art and science of decision making bumps up against the tools and techniques of relationship building. 

You know, unless you're solely responsible for a particular decision, that's really not gonna impact anybody else. You have to take into account the other partners in that decision process and the folks that will impact or be impacted by the decision you're making. And you know, not everybody's gonna agree. But if you can get most of the people agreeing and you can mitigate the impact of those that disagree, you're probably in a good place to move forward. 

Brock Briggs  29:10  

When you were talking about the why instrument earlier, I was reminded of something that I actually had already written down in my notes this, I think it's a Japanese word. And I'm gonna butcher saying this ikigai or I've heard people say ikigai. But it's like this Venn diagram of, you know what you're good at, what the world needs, what you love and what you can get paid for. It sounds like you found that and I think that your personal circumstances arise from being able to work for yourself. And I'm curious and I know that you work with the Honor Foundation and there's the balance of that. But what have you come to believe about your own personal kind of entrepreneurship journey and like pursuing your passion through something that's just you rather than another place that is, you could do that under.

Bill Kieffer  30:07  

No it's interesting, you know, my whole career, military was in huge companies and huge organizations that was full of resources and full of structure and, you know, full of standard operating procedures. And in a lot of ways that was very compelling. It was a positive thing. I don't know if you're familiar with Jim Collins work on his book, Good To Great came out, oh, my goodness, probably over 20 years ago now. But fantastic book about what makes organizations great. 

One of the concepts that he presents in there is flexibility within a framework. And he talks about organizations that are optimally successful, having a framework by which they operate, but allowing the flexibility to move around inside of that framework and maybe even around the edges of that framework to go find success as you need it. That worked out really well for me for a lot of years. And in fact, a lot of the work I did inside these companies was kind of startup, one of the companies I joined. I joined them when they emerged from bankruptcy. 

Brock Briggs  31:13  

That's a bold move.

Bill Kieffer  31:15  

It was. And I was hired to come in and create a global talent management strategy and process for it was a $7 billion company with over 30,000 employees. And I had a clean sheet, come up with the best way to do it, brief it to the sea level decision makers, make sure the budget fits. You know, there's some realities you gotta deal with. But you tell us how this needs to work best. And I'll tell you what, it was awesome. It was a great opportunity. And I was glad to be doing that work. But there aren't a lot of opportunities like that all the time in these big corporate things. There's a lot of positive, but sometimes you're constrained by the momentum, by the inertia, by the bureaucracy, by the weight, by the people, you know, the whole thing, right?

So I decided, like I said in 2008, that I just had enough. Corporate life just wasn't fun anymore. And you know, people go, hey, if you're not having fun, go do something different, right? And I always thought that was kind of malarkey. Until I realized it wasn't. I mean, there's not having fun. And then there's really not having fun. And I was really not having fun. I thought, you know what? I'm not gonna do this anymore. So I stopped to talk about your model a little bit here. I stopped it. Alright, let's take a look at the practicalities of my life. Okay, where am I financially? Can I afford to take some risks and go out on my own? And the answer was, I'm not quite where I wanted to be. But yeah, I can take some risks. Let's look at what I'm passionate about. And we had that discussion a moment ago. 

And then let's take a look at my capabilities. What am I good at? Not just in the context of my corporate job. So what am I good at overall? I thought, you know what? When I take all that and put it together, I go, yeah, I could probably do okay here as an entrepreneur as a solopreneur at that. You know, I'm a sole proprietor LLC. You got the whole enterprise on the phone right now. All right. And I realized what I was good at. But I also realized what I didn't know, mostly. There's some things I still don't know what I don't know. And I knew I had my eyes wide open because I do my homework, right? That it takes on average three to five years for a small company startup like this to become profitable, let alone you know, blatantly successful, right? 

So I understood what the runway was gonna look like or could look like. And I understood that there were things I didn't know how to do. I'm not naturally a good sales guy. I'm not naturally a good marketing guy. But I also knew that one of the things I'm good at, one of my key is finding people that are good at it. And partnering from them and then learning how to do what I need to do. I am not a tech guy. Well, guess what? I am the entire IT department, right? Except that I got people I can call if there's something beyond my capability, right? So I knew it was time to go when I wasn't having any fun. And I knew that the right thing was gonna leverage my passion, my capabilities, and do so in a manner that met the practical realities of my situation. So similar to your ikigai model. 

Brock Briggs  34:48  

Still don't know the right way to say that. When you were initially setting out on this and making that decision, what did you have in your head as this is what I'm going to offer? This is what the business what the product that I'm going to be selling is and how has that changed since you started? 

Bill Kieffer  35:08  

Okay, great question. So I knew, I work in four areas. The primary one I knew was gonna be military career transition. That's where my passion was. And I knew I needed to chase that at this point in my life, right? And I also had, you know, some success doing it informally. So let's turn that into a business, right? I still do some of the HR work, the talent management work that I had done in corporate America. I just do it as a contractor independently. I'll work with business leaders on strategic talent management. 

I'll work with individuals and teams for leadership and executive coaching because I'm a certified coach and a couple of different instruments. And I'll still do a fair amount of public speaking events and those kinds of things. So that's really the four areas I work in. And I knew that I wanted to, the propensity of my focus on the military veteran career transition, the other things are available if opportunity arises but I'm not really chasing them that hard. What I didn't estimate properly, was my competition.

There's over 40,000 registered nonprofits that alleged to help veterans and many of them are very good. They're free. Sometimes you get what you pay for. I'm not free. I charge for my services. Now, when I started out, I was doing, I still do a lot of pro bono stuff. But everything was free when I started. I hadn't figured out how to commercialize or how to monetize what I was doing. And what I found was that the folks that were getting stuff for free, were starting to blow me off. 

Oh, well, I couldn't do this today. Are we committed to this time? It's like, wait a minute. I'm putting time into you, I'm investing in you, why aren't you investing in yourself? And finally, I realized, you know what? There's some stuff I can do pro bono and other stuff, if I don't charge, the client’s not gonna have any skin in the game. So I do charge for my services. And I didn't understand that at first. I didn't understand the dynamic of people going, I didn’t pay for it. I don't really value it. So you know, I'll just blow it off. Well, that's just bad business. 

Brock Briggs  37:17  

There's kind of a weird mind game that's played there when it comes to pricing products, a study business, I really, really enjoy that. And the business itself of pricing products is incredibly interesting because what takes place in the customer's head is you automatically assign more value to something that is expensive than you do to something that is free and readily available, which is kind of true. Not always true. 

But you look at like luxury goods like Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton bag, like, you know, it must be worth $3,000 because that's what they're charging. There's something that's assigned to that, then you've got a knockoff bag that's got a Louis Vuitton badge on it. Is that worth the same amount just because it costs less? Or is it the mental model of you know, that assigned value? And I think that, like you said, you mentioned, they had no skin in the game. And so you have to charge.

Bill Kieffer  38:24  

You know, and I charge reasonable fees. I'm not out to, you know, unduly burden anybody from a cost standpoint, but my time is worth money. I got 30 years of experience. You know, the story about the I think it was a ship, a freighter that the engineers wanted to start. And they brought in a whole bunch of folks. Have you heard this? They brought in a bunch of folks and they couldn't figure out how to do it. And they find this guy that's been around forever. He came in and I don't hit something with a hammer and 10 minutes later, he was done. Send him a bill for like, 20 grand. They're like 20 grand for 10 minutes? 

And he goes, no, he's 20 grand for 30 years of experience. I knew what the hit were with what to make it work. Nobody else knew that. So, yeah no, pricing is an interesting thing. You know, it's got to be reflective of the value. It's got to make sense from a business standpoint for the provider. But it's also what you deliver, it's got to actually have the value you're charging too. People have to see the result, right?

Brock Briggs  39:27  

Well, and I imagine in it, a business like that, too, that is so personal, it's not you're not just selling like a book or something. You're selling consultancy over a period of time that is an extremely stressful period of time in somebody's life. And I would imagine your inkling as to incredibly over deliver based on that price and then it makes it seem like you get a good deal as the customer you know. When you're receiving more value than you assign to that dollar figure, you're able to be like, oh, yeah, no, that was good. That was worth it. 

Bill Kieffer  40:05  

Yeah. I don't know how many times I've worked with folks. And they're like, oh, my God, I didn't realize. We engage for whatever period of time and whatever frequency to achieve whatever the agreed objective is. And many times at the end, they're like, oh, my God, this is so much more than I thought it was. Like, Well, I'm glad I can help. 

Brock Briggs  40:29  

You mentioned before that you offering a paid service or competing with nonprofits that are doing similar things. I'm sure that there's a very wide range of effectiveness of those things, especially from a free service. What do you tell individuals who are asking you about what you offer as how you differentiate yourself from some of these nonprofits?

Bill Kieffer  40:56  

Yeah. So my differentiator is that for as for career transition, is that I provide insights from the employer side of the desk, the graphic, you can see over my left shoulder, is cover on my book and Military Career Transition: Insights from The Employer Side of the Desk. Because what I found is, while there's a lot of discussion about career transition, one of the topics that's often left uncovered is what an employer is looking for. How do the employers view the military? How do you best interact with employers and what's important to the employers? So my differentiator is not only have I been a guy through transition, I've been that guy on the employer side of the desk for over two decades, that you had to get through to get the job you saw, right? 

So I thought, you know what? If nobody else was talking about that, I've got something unique here. And I've got something that I believe military veterans in career transition really need to know. Okay, so my book provides 151 insights. They're all separate short nuggets. Some of them are real simple one liners. Some of them are a little longer with stories and graphics and all that stuff to help the reader, transitioning service members and it works for other folks, too. It's just the examples here are all military. Help them understand, you know, the general business environment and civilian business work culture and what's networking? And what is this transition environment kind of look like? And what does the talent acquisition recruiting interview? What does it all process typically look like? In short, quick, digestible hip pocket training Guide kind of format.

Brock Briggs  42:49  

Well, I'm not gonna spoil the book because people need to go and buy it themselves and work through it. If you had to sum up what the difference and disparity is between where the transitioning service member is coming to and where the employer is coming to and that gap that's in between there, what is that? 

Bill Kieffer  43:13  

Well, 93% of the population never served in uniform, okay? 93% never served in uniform. Veterans, whether it's a first term or a career service member, typically haven't experienced the civilian workforce. So there's a culture gap between the two. Expectations and behavioral norms and all this are entirely different, right? How we speak and how we make decisions and how we dress. Think about the power of wearing a uniform. Now, most civilian jobs don't wear uniforms. Some do I mean, uniformed services, obviously, police, fire, one could argue medical, and some others, but most don't wear uniforms as such. Now, some folks kind of chuckle at that and go, well, why would they? I said, well, let's look at the difference and impact that has on someone new to your organization. 

You come out of the military and people's resumes are on their shirt basically, right? Depending on the level of uniform you're wearing, you know what rank they are, which means where do they sit in the food chain. You're likely gonna see what their qualifications are. You might be able to tell what their functional specialty is. You would understand how they fit in the group and the team and maybe a little bit about their history based on the ribbons and appurtenances they might wear, right? If you're used to that, think you're brand new. You think about you're brand new. You're going into a first staff meeting or your first team meeting. You'll look around and go okay, that's the colonel Anessa Sergeant Major, and this is the maintenance guy and that's a signal guy and this is the engineer and I get it. I know who everybody is and what they're here to do. Check. Now you go into your first civilian meeting. 

And everybody's kind of wearing business casual, you know, whatever that means, right? And you'll look around going, I don't know anybody yet. Well, you know, I met Brock. And I'm pretty sure this is what he does. I don't know why he's at the meeting. And you're spending all this time just trying to figure out who the players are. And they're off and running and doing their thing. It slows down the ability to integrate and ability to properly coordinate with others. Eventually, you'll get there may take one or two meetings, if there are who's who and what they're bringing to the party. But that's it just as a simple example of the cultural differences in the workplace between the military and the civilian workplace. 

So I think, one each side has to appreciate, understand there's a difference and appreciate the magnitude of those differences for themselves and for the other side, and they gotta be able to reach out and one of the things is language. You know, I talked to folks a lot about, you gotta give up the middle speak and the veteran ease. Okay, I screwed that up when I first joined the civilian world. I was in an interview and somebody came in and said, so tell me what you did in the army. I said, well, I was a 90 alpha five Papa, three Romeo. And they did that, they chuckled. So I thought I'd help. I said, well, I was a tactical multifunctional logistics officer that was airborne, nuclear, biological and chemical certified. Didn't help a bit. Went right over their head, right? And this is, I didn't understand the question they were asking. Tell me about what you did in the military, right? 

It's similar to the question that people get in interviews and early question is, tell me about yourself. That's what people tend to ask. But the rest of the question that nobody ever says, is tell me what you did in the military that's relevant to my opportunity. Tell me about yourself and how it's relevant to what I seek, right? That's what people don't ask. And if a transitioning service member understands to listen for the rest of that question that's never stated. And to answer it, that way, they can become a more attractive candidate. They can take a step towards closing that culture gap. And they can take a step towards closer to landing that job that they seek. 

Brock Briggs  47:19  

In another conversation, you brought up two points about the hiring process when it comes to veterans and two questions that an employer is asking when looking at hiring somebody. One, is can the candidate do the work I need done? And two, will the candidate fit in and add value to the team? Can you talk about those two things?

Bill Kieffer  47:44  

Yeah, at the root of this entire talent acquisition recruiting hiring process are those two questions. Everything else in this whole big old mess is about getting answers to those questions. Hiring managers, employers are gonna hire the person that has convinced them, they're best qualified to do the work they need done. And they're the best person to fit well and add value to the team boom, full stop. That's it. I've sat in hundreds of post interview reviews. And it always boils down to those two things, right? Now, the interesting part about that is it's not the employer’s job to pull that out of the candidate. It's the candidate's job to convince the employer that they are that person. 

So how do you get there? Well, the first is you gotta understand who you are and what you're bringing to the party. Understand your capabilities, understand your passions, understand how your experience is relevant to what the employer is seeking. You know, employers don't post jobs for anything. They post for specific things that help them achieve the business results they need to achieve, right? When they post a job description or they have a job advertisement or however, whatever they happen to call it, when they post it out there, they're telling the employment community, this is what I want. This is what I'm asking for. 

And that may or may not be 100% accurate. You know, sometimes the job descriptions aren't perfect. But they're giving the employment market a list of asks. And the person the candidate, the one that comes in and interviews, the best answers, each of those asks, is the one that's got themselves in a best position to answer the two core questions in a compelling way that causes people to go, yeah, we need Brock on the team.

Brock Briggs  49:47  

I was just speaking with a gentleman earlier today in like kind of a mentoring capacity for transition and one of the things that he said that I remember feeling being in a position of looking for a job. But he says, you know, I've got all these skills and I've got the ability to do this thing. I just need somebody willing to take a chance on me. And I was like I hadn't thought about that phrase for a really long time since I actually last experienced it. And I said to him and I said, would you take a chance on you? 

I feel as if job interviews, it's kind of like a courtroom. The burden of proof is on you, the prospective hire to show that you are capable of doing something. It is not the employee or it's not the employer's job.

Bill Kieffer 

Right 

Brock Briggs 

And that's talking about getting a job done there. They're putting that job application out there because they need somebody to fill that role not because they're looking for somebody to try and fill a role maybe and see if like it works out. It's like, no, no, we actually need this work done. And coming from a position of looking for generosity is not going to, that's not going to shine you in the best light when you're speaking with an employer.

Bill Kieffer  51:22  

Yeah, boy, there's a lot to unpack in that one. So if you think about what businesses do and what they need you to help with, in most cases, there's really only four things: help us make money, help us save some money, help us save time, and help us reduce risk. Much of what business leaders have to do is balance risk, the risk of trying something new versus the risk of not trying something new, and so on and so forth, right? And if you're in a position, when you're interviewing and it looks like you're doing the opposite, it's gonna cost them more to have you come in or bringing you in might create additional risk. That's not an attractive position to be in as a candidate, right? 

So just take a chance on me. Really? You want me to take more risk for you? Convince me why, at least so another point that was inside what you talked about. Our military veterans come with tremendous capability. I believe that and in all kinds of different ways, right? But what they don't necessarily have in the each is credibility. Okay, I'm highly capable. Great. Make sure I understand why you're credible for the opportunity we're discussing now, right? And oftentimes, what happens is either conversationally or on paper, our service members kind of lean on the kind of intangible skills. Well, you know, I'm a great decision make and a great problem solver, and I'm a great leader, whatever that means. I'm a great team member. And those are all important. They're intangible, but they're important. But employers need tangible results. 

So now you've said take a chance on me and take a chance on me because I got great intangible stuff. You're not helping them. You're not helping yourself. You're not answering the four questions, the four priorities that they need, how are you going to help us make money, save money, save time or reduce risk. You're introducing risk and you're introducing questions that quite frankly, your competitors for that job, probably aren't introducing. Because oftentimes, your competitors are not other service members. 

There are other folks that have been in the company or in the industry or in the market for as long as you've been in the military. So your competition knows how to play this game, right? And they understand that while they may be capable, they're not yet credible in the employers eyes and they have a very brief moment in the grand scheme of things to prove their credibility and convince the employer that they're the best person to do the work they need done successfully and fit well and add value to the team.

Brock Briggs  54:14  

That capability credibility distinction is a very important one. And I've never heard it put that way before. But it's so true because then from a military perspective, if I'm an E-7 or an E-6 and I'm assigning work, I don't have the luxury of choosing who gets to do a job. I am given by the Navy or Army or whoever. And so these are the people that you have to work with to get the job done. You don't get anybody else that this is it. 

So it is a much easier position as a junior troupe looking for responsibility to say, take a chance on me. You don't have anybody else. In a job interview, that isn't the case. You don't have that. They've got all kinds of options especially in this job market, there's lots of people, lots of very qualified people. And you've been highlighted there, like you're almost operating under a structural disadvantage because of your time in the military. Like, there's already people that are playing this game. And understanding how that hiring process works.

Bill Kieffer  55:29  

No, yeah, exactly. You know, excuse me. There’s another model I like to use. You know, when you're in an interview, when you're talking, you need a mindset, a mental mindset on how to approach and there's a lot of ways to go at this. But a good trusted mentor and friend of mine years ago, told me when I was in career transition, he said, you know, you want to come in with a mindset that says, I have no problems. I cause no problems. And I'm here to solve your problems. If you walk in and go, hi, I have great intangible skills and I'm highly capable, but I can't explain it. So take a risk on me. Really? That sounds like a problem. 

And by approaching it the way you've approached it, you've given me no evidence or no reason to believe you can actually solve my problems. Now think about what that impact is on a person in a position of authority. Think back to your time in the military. You're in a role where you had people that you were responsible for folks reporting to you, the folks that had problems took an inordinate amount of time and it was time away from whatever your mission was, right? The people that cause problems spent a whole lot of time you spend a whole lot of time and effort dealing with them and those problems, right? 

And those folks that came in to help you solve your problems are the ones that became your go to, the ones that were the top performers, the ones that got looked at positively, for positive opportunities. They got looked at well for promotion, so on and so forth, right? Don't be the first to when you're interviewing and looking to join a company. I have no problems. I cause no problems. Be the third one. I'm here to solve your problems.

Brock Briggs  57:21  

How can we, as vets going into job interviews express that in a tangible way that will be meaningful to an employer? Because it's one thing to say, yeah, I'm here to solve your problems. But I'm guessing we wanna take, let's put a little more meat on that bone, like what does that look like to maybe apply that to a specific employer?

Bill Kieffer  57:45  

Sure. And I'll go back to the ask answer concept, look at the job description. Reflect on the conversations you've had with people you've networked with and so forth. Excuse me. Figure out what they're asking for. And before you ever get to the interview, draft your answers. When I coach people individually, I actually haven't go through the exercise where left side of the sheet, you put down everything that's listed on the job description of the three years experience doing this and capability for that demonstrated experience doing this, so on and so forth, right? And if each one of them, start writing down what's your answer to it. 

I don't know if you're familiar, but the SAR kind of format, what was the situation action result? Okay. So you've got definitive answers for every one of the asks, right? Now, when we do that we start with, you just write it down, however you write it down, which tends to include a lot of middle speaking veteran age kind of language, right? And then we kind of iterate those answers to civilian eyes to start using language that's more similar to what the employer is asking for or in fact, using the language that's on the job description. Okay? But to me, that's the best, most effective way to make sure you're taking action that closes the gap and starts answering the question that can convince people that you're credible for the job they're seeking to fill. 

Brock Briggs  59:16  

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of job interviews aren't that long, you know. There might be 30 to 45 minutes, mostly. They're not gonna be huge, long drawn out things where you're getting grilled about your entire job history. And all you really need is two to three homerun stories from your background that kind of pertain to those skills, like you're talking about, hey, here's how I applied this particular skill. And the more you can kind of like continue to go over those stories and practice them mentally, you're gonna have them playing in the palm of your hand. You're like okay, well, there's this one time because you've thought about it. You're not trying to come up with something on the spot because anything that they asked in the interview shouldn't be a surprise.

Bill Kieffer  1:00:10  

Ah, okay, I'm not sure I agree with all that but that's okay. 

Brock Briggs  1:00:16  

Okay, no no no, push back.

Bill Kieffer  1:00:19  

So yes, for some of the more frontline jobs, you know, 30, 45 minute interview, yeah, you're right, they probably aren't gonna take that long. Having a couple of good stories that you keep going back to can be very helpful. But if you keep going back to the same one or two things for multiple answers, you're gonna see one dimensional and not particularly impressive, right? You gotta do the homework ahead of time. Obviously, the more senior you are, the more experience you've got, the more longevity you have, you're gonna have more stories. But to go back on one or two or three key wins stories and depend on that, I can show a kind of a, there's not a lot of dimension to your experience. Okay, maybe great for the job, depending on the level. But it does maybe run a risk of making you maybe not seem quite as confident. 

The other piece of that is, the more senior it gets some of these interviews can get really long. I mean, I personally have gone through some that were panel interviews. Let's see, we started off with a panel interview that lasted eight hours. Second round was a full day on site with three different people. And the third one, I came back for a full morning with a VP that was running the show. That was pretty senior position, though. So you're right. There are some interviews that are really kind of quick. Having a couple of good stories is good. But I would suggest you wanna make sure you don't rely on just one or two or three. So you don't come off as maybe having limited dimension.

Brock Briggs  1:02:04  

I would probably guess that in some of those longer, more drawn out interviews, you're gonna be beyond the point of having a story. So maybe how do you think about preparing for circumstances or questions where you don't have something teed up then because you're not going to remember 10 examples very well of you doing one specific thing. And that was kind of more my point is like, knowing a couple things really, really well is gonna be better than like well and half hearted, not well thought out responses.

Bill Kieffer  1:02:41  

Right. And I don't wanna sound like a broken record here. But go back to that ask answer thing, okay, look at the job description, figure out what they're asking for. And then if you're engaged with a coach like me or something, I'm probably gonna come at you for each of those asked three, four or five different ways to get you prepared for the kind of answer or answers you might get. You're never gonna be able to be 100% prepared for every possible question. That's just inhuman, nobody can do that. So what you gotta be able to do is figure out the essence of the question they're asking, what really are they asking. you know, tell me about a time when you solved a complex problem with a team of people. Okay?

Well, I can think of six examples right off the top of my head, alright? Pick one that seems most relevant and move forward and answer the question. Okay? The other thing is preparing for an interview is important. But sometimes you run the risk of over preparing. You can't script this thing. You gotta have enough confidence in yourself and enough rehearsal and practice in how to interview and how to answer questions. They can go, I got this. I can do it. So when they ask those couple of questions that you use your one or two or three examples on, if they keep coming back at those similar kinds of things, have a couple ideas in the background. They go okay, I can flex the answer based on this other experience. Makes sense?

Brock Briggs  1:04:13  

Yeah, I'm tracking. We've talked a lot about this from the potential employee perspective, but I know I've got several listeners that also on their own business, and as somebody who is also interested in entrepreneurship and running their own business. There may be a point when we're in the position of looking to hire someone. What types of frameworks or questions are you going over as the hire to suss out whether an employee is good, whether they're a veteran or not?

Bill Kieffer  1:04:50  

So the first thing that's really most valuable is understand what the job is. Okay? If you really don't know what the job is, what do they have to deliver? Okay, whoever the incumbent might be, what do they have to deliver? You know, I'm a solopreneur. Might I hire somebody someday? Yeah, you might. We'll see how it goes. But what am I gonna hire him to do? Am I gonna hire admin staff? So I'm not, you know, chasing down schedules and all that. I could. Am I gonna hire another coach? I might. Am I gonna hire somebody else to do some training as a designer? I don't know, whatever. But you gotta have a pretty darn good idea of what it is you're looking for from the position first. Okay? 

I think it's incumbent on the employer to get as clear as possible about the expectations. And I say this with folks in career transition, if you don't understand the target, if you haven't identified the target, you're probably not gonna hit it. Same thing for the employer. If I don't really know what I'm hiring for, it's gonna lead to a vague search and interview process. And, you know, I might think Brock's a pretty cool guy. But if he doesn't understand how to do whatever I need him to do, then that doesn't necessarily mean he's gonna be a great employee. So get clear on what you need. 

And then once you know that and you've posted it, you're starting to get candidates and you're preparing to interview, base your questions and your interactions and your conversation on the job and the deliverables. Don't go wandering off at first. Because sometimes that can happen. People get really interested in a candidate and they start talking about cool stories from the past. And they get so enamored, they like the person and they forget that they actually have to demonstrate the ability to deliver what I need. And now you wind up in a place where you go, oh I got a cool guy on the team, but oh, geez, you can't do the work I need. Well, shame on you, Mr. employer, you should have vetted that at the start. 

Brock Briggs  1:06:54  

That's the hidden other strategy for getting a job here that you're explaining as you can either really understand the job and know how you do it well or you just charm the recruiter so much that you just knock their socks off, and then they give you the job either way.

Bill Kieffer  1:07:11  

Yeah, I mean, you know, people hire people, right? And oftentimes, you hire ppl like, that's part of fitting we wanna add value to the team. But if you don't have the other part of that, if you can't produce, you’re not likely to be a success in that role, if you get selected.

Brock Briggs 1:07:32  

You said that we ought to really focus at least at first on the job duties that need to be filled. Once you kind of go down that road when you're trying to uncover someone's personality and whether or not they're a cultural fit or the non tangible deliverables of a job. Are there any like go to questions that you have that you really like that maybe will tell you a lot about somebody?

Bill Kieffer  1:08:03  

Yeah, and I wanna be real clear. When you start defining the deliverables of the job that includes behavioral things, too. It's not just the monetary or the production kind of things, right? So yeah, you know, I'll ask things like, what's your favorite work environment? Tell me about the management style that works best for you. Tell me about your most difficult client interaction. How do you prioritize your efforts? Tell me about the toughest decision you ever had to make. And why was that tough? Tell me about a time where you experienced conflict at work and how did you deal with it? And what was the result? Those kinds of things get to behavior for people. How do you make decisions? Those kinds of things, I think are really important questions that get to cultural fit and behavioral issues beyond just the production and deliverable kind of metrics.

Brock Briggs  1:09:08  

I'm gonna kind of change gears with one last kind of adjacent question, and then we're gonna kind of go another way again. My last thing that I want to ask about is resumes. Do you have any particularly strong feelings about the way a resume ought to be structured? Are there things that you can put on there that are interesting that like showcasing something unique about you? Should it be very particular and catered to the exact job and company? Where do you fall when it comes to what the perfect resume might look like?

Bill Kieffer  1:09:42  

Well, preferred resume for me is really simple, not a lot of extraneous junk. I don't need a lot of lines and graphics. I don't need funky colors. And this is personal, but it's also what I've experienced with tons of recruiters and hiring managers through the years. Look, folks that are looking at resumes see a lot of resumes and they see a lot of resumes, while a whole lot of other work is going on. The intent of a resume is to get their attention so you can get the interview, right? So what you're trying to do is make something that's attractive and readable to folks that are really busy. 

The way you do that is keep it simple. I like black ink on white paper, right? And no funky fonts, something simple Calibri or Arial or whatever, right? Nothing with a lot of flourishes and all that put up on the top a very clear professional statement that gets my attention. Right underneath that put in some key words about your capabilities and skills, which by the way, ought to be customized to the job you're seeking. Use their words, right? If they see things that are irrelevant to the job, they're gonna go pass and right by it. This is a cognitive match between what I want and what I see. And if I see what I want, I might talk to you next, right?

In the body of it, reverse chronological most recent first, okay, what was the job? Where did you do it? When did you do it? And what was the company that did it for? And then a few bullets, 2,3, 4 bullets about the what and the so what of that job. Oftentimes, what military members do is they try to make the resume look like an NCO ER or an OER. And it speaks to responsibilities, which is fine, I wanna see kind of the scope of what you did. But if I don't see a result in there, I'm gonna keep right on looking to somebody else. Employers are interested in the results that you get. Okay? I'm interested in the scope and responsibilities too. 

But they wanna see what results you got. So I always say for each bullet, make sure it has a what and so what, responsible for production of a 5000 square mile area recruiting company. Okay, that's scope. Got it? What do you do with that? Exceeded all performance metrics and rated as the number one recruiting company in the you know, third recruiting region. No, okay. Excuse me, now I got a result. All right? I have a lot of stuff there. But everyone needs to be customized to every different job. Every one of them. Now, how do you do that? Well, you start with a base resume that's got a lot. It's got all your good stuff in it. right? 

And then a new opportunity comes up, you look at the job posting the job description, the information you have. And then you take that base one, copy and paste it, create a new one, and start using the employers words and highlighting and changing your bullets and your content. So it's customized to everything they're asking for, another way to help answer every one of their asks.

Brock Briggs  1:13:07  

I used to think that that was such a tedious process and like kind of drugged my feet about doing that in the job search. But what I've come to find out is that the ask of catering the resume wasn't actually the big ask is that I was had too wide of a scope when it came to looking at jobs. And I was more on the hunt for any job. And so if you're applying to 100 jobs, it is probably very difficult to cater your resume that many times. But if you have a targeted 5 or 10 jobs, it is much more realistic to cater your experience and work history to those specific needs.

Bill Kieffer  1:13:50  

Have you heard the phrase pick your hard? 

Brock Briggs 

No. 

Bill Kieffer

Okay, so I don't know I've heard a lot of different contexts. But you know, a lot of stuff in life is hard. Okay. Customizing a resume to every opportunity is hard. Continuing to search for work because you haven't landed a job because you didn't customize your resume, that's hard too. Pick your hard. 

Brock Briggs 

Now what is your hard that you're picking right now? 

Bill Kieffer

Oh man, balancing opportunity and capacity. I got a lot of cool stuff going on. And

Brock Briggs  1:14:31  

Do you care to talk about it? Like is that? 

Bill Kieffer  1:14:33  

You know, I got opportunity with the military career transition work to continue to do the individual coaching both independently and with the Honor Foundation and with a Ranger for Life Group. I've got opportunity out there when the law enforcement community I'm chasing down. I've got a couple of similar career transition, I don't wanna say opportunities, but possibilities. They're pretty new yet with professional athletes, like, wow, how far do I wanna take this thing? I'm working on a second book. My first book was I'm getting out of the military and how do I land? The second book is I've landed, now what basically? Okay? So I'm working on that. 

The growing my coaching practice beyond career transition, especially with the why operating system, the why, the how, and the what. I think there's tremendous value for individuals and organizations. I've got opportunity to grow that. There's just a ton of stuff going on right now. And I'm having to decide, quite frankly, somebody that I gotta decide, what am I gonna say no to. Because one of the challenges of success is that you can success your way right to death, you know. I've seen too many times organizations, they have great sales, and then they have to go actually produce what they sold, and they maybe don't have the capacity to do it or, you know, whatever. So that's some of the stuff on how to balance right now. But it's good problem to have, I'm not complaining,

Brock Briggs  1:16:12  

It is a great problem to have. Can you give us a sense, maybe for the scale of your business, like how many people you work with on a yearly basis? And then it sounds like you talked a little bit about some of the potential venues of going forward. What ideally does that look like in five years for you from here?

Bill Kieffer  1:16:34  

Oh, let's see. So I work with hundreds of people every year, hundreds of people in career transition, whether that's through the nonprofits that I support or whether it's individually. It's literally hundreds of people a year. I was on three different coaching calls today before we met. You know, some of that help is a little more involved than others. Sometimes it's just a couple of calls and they get what they need and off we go. Sometimes it's a little more involved in as much, for example, I've coached a couple of folks to get into top tier graduate schools, you know, Ivy League schools. How do I interview? How do I ace the interview to get into this MBA program? I've done that kind of work.

It really, really varies in this broad. I would love to see the career transition stuff continue to grow with a greater balance on for profit work while I'm continuing to do the nonprofit support. I would love to see the career transition and work grow into the professional sports and law enforcement communities. I haven't scoped that quite yet. You know and quite frankly, you know, what does success look like in five years? I'm not really sure yet. I'm not really sure yet. I think if I was able to have, maybe, if the law enforcement and professional sports stuff grow, maybe have a partner focused on each of those and maybe take on one or two other folks to help with the career transition stuff. I think that'd be good. 

But I wanna be careful. I don't wanna grow this into, I don't need this to be another million dollar your business. That's not where I'm at in life. I wanna make sure that whatever I'm doing pays the bills now, right? Like electricity and running water, like I said before, but I wanna make sure I stay focused on making a positive impact on people. There are groups and I won't name any of them out there that are great networking groups, and the veteran transitions are great for networking. But I tend to see a whole lot of really expensive events. And I often wonder, what's the real value add for the individual veteran? So I wanted to stay true to my core here. And that really is giving that one on one help to the folks that really need it while growing a little bit so I can address bigger populations. Kind of a vague answer, but kind of where I am at. 

Brock Briggs  1:19:15  

Yeah, I wanna put your feet in the fire on that one. But no, that's good. It sounds like the landscape is widening for you. And that's a good thing. That total addressable market is getting bigger and that's a great thing as somebody who's attempting to tackle that problem. As you look back over your period of entrepreneurship and kind of venturing out on your own. What have you learned about that process? And who is that right for? Who from a veteran background is best suited to work for themselves?

Bill Kieffer  1:19:58  

Yeah, I think anybody quite frankly, could be an entrepreneur. Okay. But they gotta be really clear about what they're doing. You know, you can't just have these rainbows and unicorns kind of, oh, I think I wanna go do this. What does that mean? What specifically are you delivering? And why are you the best person to deliver it? And beyond that, you know, how can you monetize it, if monetizing it is your goal. 

So I think key characteristics, you gotta have passion, you gotta have a bias for action. If you're gonna be an entrepreneur, the only momentum you have and you're oriented is what you create. You gotta be realistic. You got passion, but you gotta be realistic. You gotta be a good listener, you gotta listen to what the markets are saying. You gotta listen to what the competition's saying. You gotta listen to what the customers are saying. And then you gotta be agile enough to be able to shift and move in a way that is responsive to the realities in the market. You gotta be a good networker.

If you really don't like getting out and networking with people and talking with folks, it's gonna be tough to be a successful entrepreneur, I believe. You gotta be tenacious because you're going to have some tough days. And you gotta follow up, you have to follow up. So you know, I always like to say, you know, you wanna under promise and over deliver, right? And part of doing that is following up on whatever it is you committed to. 

Brock Briggs  1:21:43  

I think that's good advice. If we didn't learn anything from this conversation, this has been very, very valuable. And I have enjoyed hearing and learning from you. If we didn't take anything else away from it, what ought we walk away from having spoken with you today? And what can we implement?

Bill Kieffer  1:22:00  

Okay, I think there's really three things. And the first thing is whether it's a career transition or starting on an entrepreneurial journey or whatever, you gotta know who you are. You gotta understand what you bring to the party. And you need to understand how you define success.

The second piece is you have to remember that the world is full of unlimited opportunities. When I first got out of the military, I kind of had this belief that any opportunity that came my way was probably gonna be the last one. So I needed to really nail it. Well, that was just ridiculous. Okay? There's gonna be some challenging days in career transition. There's gonna be some challenging days if you do an entrepreneurial thing. But keep positive, keep your eyes and ears open to the unlimited opportunities that exist. And then take the opportunities and then drive towards exploiting them in a positive way. 

And finally, I'd like to say remember, you can't hit a target you haven't identified. If you don't know what you're trying to do or where you're trying to go, your journey is gonna be kind of challenging. You may make progress or you may be in motion, but you may not necessarily make progress. So those would be the three I would offer.

Brock Briggs  1:23:19  

Those are all very wise things and great food for thought about thinking about where we're going and exactly how to get there. Bill, this has been a really, really fun conversation. Where can people go to find out more about you, buy the book, website? Anything you wanna put out there where people can kind of follow up?

Bill Kieffer  1:23:39  

Yeah, great. So I'm all over LinkedIn, William E. Bill Kieffer. I have a website, www.kieffer-associates.com. Those are the two best ways to get a hold of me. My book is on Amazon. It's in paperback or Kindle ebook. So Amazon is a way to go get that. Yeah, best way to get a hold of me is what I just described.

Brock Briggs  1:24:04  

Fantastic. Bill, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. 

Bill Kieffer  1:24:07  

Thanks, Brock. It’s been a pleasure.