59. Defining the Lateral Limits of Transition and Life Possibilities with Victor De La Flor

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt. This is the show where we learn from the most interesting and successful veterans. I'm your host, Brock Briggs. And today I'm speaking with Victor De La Flor. Vic is in his last year of 20 years of service in the Marine Corps. And we have an open brainstorming discussion around his transition. 

We talked about some of the challenges he's facing, how he's learning from his exit and some of the resources he's building in the process. We also talk about his entrepreneurial spirit. Vic has had several side gigs over the years, including being a top seller on eBay, heat pressing uniforms for teams on base and selling over 10,000 units of Under Cover Clip, a clip that sits in your 8 point cover and holds your sunglasses for you. This episode has some great insight into the transition process and how to think about the problems that need to be solved, if you've got that entrepreneurial bug. Please enjoy this conversation with Vic De La Flor.

Brock Briggs 

Victor, you're coming up on like your last year in the Marine Corps. And with 20 years about to be under your belt, I think that the most appropriate place to start would be what are your biggest takeaways or like the biggest lessons learned from the last 20 years in the Corps?

Victor De La Flor  1:32  

Biggest lessons learned, it's definitely going to revolve around leadership, right? I've learned a lot of lessons coming up from I guess I have a big view from the enlisted side and the officer side, right? So a big part of that is the leadership side. How do you appropriately lead your young Marines to get them to want to do something for you, right? You don't want to force them to do something, you want them to do it out of the goodness of their heart. That's probably a big takeaway. I mean, I've had as most anybody who has, you know, worked in the military had good leadership, bad leadership. You know, you got to just take the good with the good and take the bad with the bad and just kind of make your own style, right? 

So that's probably the biggest takeaway, aside from like, you know, training and operations and things like that. I mean, leadership is probably the biggest thing because you're going to encounter, you know, difficulties with leading folks, you have to know how to maneuver these things. If not, you're not going to be effective, you know and you want to earn that respect too. You want to be in there, you know, in the grind with your fellow Marines, with your junior Marines, but you're not gonna earn that respect. So it's more of like a, how can I put it? You want to do it with them, not do as I say type of thing, right? So yeah, I think that's probably the biggest part after 19 years, going on 20 years, you know, how to effectively manage, how to effectively lead, you know, things like that.

Brock Briggs  3:15  

I was thinking about that earlier today, not in the context of your situation but just kind of a little bit frustrated with a situation that I've been outside of this and realizing that you can't really convince people of things you kind of have to, you have to lead them to their own conclusions about why something is right. Or you need to show them why what you're doing is the right way. And I think that that's, it can be more intuitive for if you've spent your entire life outside the military, but while you're in, you have the option to flex this muscle that just says, hey, you are going to do this because I say and like it can be unquestioning, it's like they don't have an option. And that can almost like, teach you the wrong thing about like what leadership really is. It's like, kind of almost ruling by fear, rather than, you know, in showing the right incentives. And like you said, kind of coming alongside them.

Victor De La Flor  4:20  

Yeah, yeah. Cuz at that point, once you get to that point and you're kind of you become a dictator, almost, right? You start leading and then you almost almost out of fear, you know, you're trying to instill fear in these junior marines, sailors, soldiers, whatever. That's not going to be effective because they're gonna have a bad taste in the mouth. That's why I think that a lot of folks get out after the first enlistment because they feel like they don't have a say, they don't get a chance to lead effectively. They get micromanaged and things like that, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it and I saw a video from the sergeant major of the Marine Corps. He was asked by a reporter like, hey, why do you think a lot of Marines are getting out these days? 

And he, you know, he answered the question, you know, it has a lot to do with leadership, it has a lot to do with. What's the word he used? Oh, God, it's escaping my head, work life balance. You know, so a lot of folks, a lot of Marines that I encounter, they don't like their personal business being sifted through, right? So when we have to do barracks inspections and things like that, not me so much anymore, but when you know, the higher up enlisted, you know. They don't like that because it feels like, you know, their privacy is being violated. And I get that to an extent, too, because I was a young Marine at one point and I hated when people came through and just started like, you know, white glove in my entire room. It sucked. I got it. 

Brock Briggs

Yeah

Victor De La Flor 

But I mean, it's the game, right? Without discipline, you got nothing, you know, that's the name of the game.

Brock Briggs  6:02  

Maybe compare and contrast, if you wouldn't mind, you know, pointing out that maybe younger Marines today have like a higher care for that. What do you think that you did care about that but to a lesser extent? Or maybe what was going through your head as a younger Marine coming up on the end of your first enlistment? And considering whether you ought to stay in or not?

Victor De La Flor  6:28  

So to answer your first question, did I care about the whole privacy invasion type thing, that mentality? I did to an extent but I knew that that was just part of life, right? Because at some point, when you start gaining rank and you become an E-4 or E-5, you are the person who's doing the inspecting, right? You're the person who's expecting these things that are your junior guys. So I always, I know I did hate it. You know, when I was younger, I always had it in my head, like, you know what? It's just part of the military, you know and being in the Marines, being, you know, one of the toughest branches, I'm like, okay, well, this is what I have to do, I suppose. And I didn't really push back on it too much. It's just part of my routine, part of the battle rhythm. 

As far as what kept me around after four years, that was number things, man. It was a lot of the, honestly, the leadership I had, you know. So my first enlistment, I was in Camp Pendleton, California, didn't know anybody, didn't know anything. I've lived on the East Coast my entire life. And I had, you know, some leaders, some corporals, sergeants who really took me under their wing, you know, kind of showed me around, took care of me. You know, I've had some staff sergeants who actually took care of me, right? And took the time out of their day to sit down with me to show me how to progress, to show me what kind of courses I need to take to progress. 

So what became when I first joined before I even got to Camp Pendleton, I thought, you know, I'll do this whole four years thing, this four year enlistment and get out. That was the whole idea of it. But it was leadership that kept me around I think. It was the fact that people actually actually gave a crap, you know, because I felt lost a lot of the time and I had somebody to turn to and you know, they were there. And I fear that a lot of folks don't feel like that. They don't have that same experience that I did. That's maybe why they get out. They feel like folks are retaliating against them. Whatever the deal might be, I never felt like that. You know, I always felt like I was taking care of.

Brock Briggs  8:41  

Were you always in legal? And like, were you kind of getting the satisfaction you wanted from a job pursuing that field?

Victor De La Flor  8:49  

Yeah, I always worked in legal since day one. A funny backstory to that is when I was trying to when I was actually joining and talking to the recruiter. I wanted to do counter Intel. And then he's like, yeah, that's not available right now. I'm like, okay, well, what's the next best thing for me? It was Combat Camera. It was like part of the public affairs. It was a combat camera. Because I like to do in graphic design. I did that in college when I went there for a year, right? And he's like, yeah, that's not open for another six months. And I thought, man, I want to get out of here. You know, what else is available? So like he said, legal, you know, legal admin, alright, so let's try it out. You know, military justice. Let's go for it. So yeah, I've been doing legal since day one. 

The idea behind that was, you know, do two years as the recruiter told me. He's like, hey, if you want to really switch jobs, do your time, do two years in this MOS field and then you can do a lateral move. It’s called lateral move to another MOS. I thought I would do that. But honestly, once I got into it, I didn't even think about it. In my entire time through, I've never thought about lateral moving. Just because of the folks you encounter, the type of work that you do. There really is about the people around you that make it enjoyable I think and I've had nothing but great experiences, to be honest. I mean, I'm not trying to blow smoke or anything like that, you know, and just because it's the podcast, right? I'm being honest. I mean, I've had nothing but great experiences, man. A lot of folks go into it, you know, they go into work pissed off. 

And you know, that's not me. And I'm thankful that I have new day, I'm thankful that I have a job, I'm thankful that I'm employed, that I get to work around folks, you know, that have the same mindset and the same, you know, motivation that I do, you know. I'm thankful for all that stuff. So it's, yeah, I've been happy in my MOS. I mean, the job is tough. There's a lot of crazy things that go on and you're exposed to a lot of, you know, investigations, things like that you see a lot more than other people see, but, you know, at the end of the day, you know, its job and it's a good one. I think it's one of the best in the Marine Corps.

Brock Briggs  11:09  

You kind of teed that up really nicely. That was exactly where I was gonna go with that as like, I have to imagine that you're dealing with like NJPs and people who are more or less in trouble for something like within the service, but then also out in town to what kind of environment does that. I imagine that that's probably extremely negative, dealing with people who are probably pissed off and kind of angry, maybe all the time? Is that the case?

Victor De La Flor  11:43  

It can be. I mean, it depends on the capacity of the work, right? So there's different facets of Military Justice of legal rights. So you have like military justice itself, where you go actual court martial routes and you prosecute and then there's defense, there's legal assistance, which is great because you're actually helping dependents, you know, civilians retirees in doing their wills and actually helping them solve problems, right? Like immigration and things like that. So it's a really good type of job. There's jobs like I was doing admin law, which, I mean, you're familiar. You were in the service, you know, if there's rules and regulations for everything you do and you break one of those rules and regulations. 

And it's not to the level of a court martial, but you know, it's a little bit above a NJP or page 11. So they take it into an admin board. So I was actually the one walking into an admin board, representing the government on probably almost 300 admin boards over the course of my career. That is a little tough because you're basically in a courtroom. It's me and it's defense counsel and it's a panel of three members, which are, you know, act as jury. And you present this case and you present all witnesses the evidence and you allow them enough, you give them enough information for them to make an educated decision on whether they should recommend to the commanding general, whether or not this marine should be or even sailor should continue to be employed by the government, by the department defense, by the Marine Corps or the Navy.

So yeah, it has its downsides. 

There's a lot of negatives that come, you see a lot of the negatives, especially investigations, there's death investigations, things like that. You're exposed to like photos and things. But I mean, at the end of the day, I see it as a learning some, you know, learning an avenue to learn something that I didn't know before. You know, even though it's negative, I actually enjoy doing these things. You know, it's a little strange to say, but I actually enjoyed, you know, going through and doing these investigations, going through and sifting through evidence and presenting things and talking to witnesses. 

Not that I want to be an attorney at all. I've thought about that before, I might not. That's not the route I want to go and I'm going to where I am right here. But yeah, there's a lot of negatives they have to deal with. And sometimes you encounter some folks and outside of the Marine Corps. That's happened to me before where you encounter somebody who I've, you know, processed out and they're like, hey, sir, remember me? I’m like, oh, man, this is not good. Let's get out of here. 

Brock Briggs  14:33  

Yeah, it’s not what you wanna be remembered for

Victor De La Flor  14:34  

No, no, no, not you know, but at the end of the day, you know, I used to go and shake these people's hands. I'm like, hey, look, man, it's just, I'm just doing my job. You know, you have a mission. I got a mission. Not that I don't care about you or the Marines or anything like that. I just have a job to do. And, you know, you might have done cocaine in the Marine Corps or in the Navy. And there's rules and regulations here. We got to process this man. And it's not my call, it's really the commander’s call, you know, the CO. So, I mean, once they get it in their head and once they start the processing, it lands on my desk. And, you know, I just, that's my mission. That's what I have to do.

Brock Briggs  15:19  

What do you think is the most interesting thing that you learned about the rules and regulations of the military that maybe really make sense or really doesn't make sense?

Victor De La Flor  15:33  

Yeah, so there's, once I started doing some digging into it, when I first started, right? It was an older guy, one of the Gunnies that I was working with. He's like, hey, take a look at this, you know, you'll come to find out there's a rule for everything you do in the military. And I got to thinking about I was like, holy crap, man, there really is. You know, there's a drill manual, there's the way you know how to walk. 

You know how to talk with tact, you know, how to cut your hair, you know, there's a rule for everything, right? And then digging deeper and I'm like, some of these articles are kind of out there. Like there's an article was, I don't know if it's still in place. It was abused to public animals. I'm like, what? It's prohibited to abuse the public animal, right? 

Brock Briggs 

Okay

Victor De La Flor 

Yeah. So I'm not going around to the park and kicking geese or anything, but,

Brock Briggs  16:35  

Right. Yeah, one Marine who did and he ruined it for everybody.

Victor De La Flor  16:40  

That's why they put it in there, right? Somebody punted a gopher. And that's what happened because of him. But yeah, I mean, there's no, I mean, there's rules are everything man who really and I mean, I don't know how, folks are privy to these rules where they know they're left and right lateral of it's, they just have to fall within those bounds and keeping those clean, per se. But that's really it, man. It says, there's right and wrong. I mean, there's a gray area sometimes, but you don't want to find a loophole to everything. You just complete the mission. I mean, just do what you gotta do. That's it. That is the recipe for getting 20 years, just do what you gotta do. That's it, to the audience.

Brock Briggs  17:24  

You make it sound so simple.

Victor De La Flor  17:27  

Yeah, it can be. It can be.

Brock Briggs  17:30  

Well, you make it look easy. And there's going to be an interesting segue there. We're gonna have to, I want to come back and revisit that statement. Because while you have done like a 20 year spin, you are doing things that are very not by the rules. And like, I'm going to just kind of tee that up,. We're going to come back to that. I do have one more question about like your legal career. What influence has working around rules and the law? How has that formed you as like a person? Do you think that that's changed your outlook on things?

Victor De La Flor  18:13  

I'd say I could agree with that. I'd say yes, a little bit. I'm definitely more detail oriented than I used to be.

Brock Briggs  18:21  

I've seen some of those attorney statements. Man, they are like, they are writing it all out.

Victor De La Flor  18:27  

Yeah. And, you know, I used to help writing those things. I've helped in writing manuals. You know, you're definitely more detail oriented, you have to get in the weeds on a few things, right? Just to make it clear but I mean, as far as what was your question, again? I'm sorry, it escaped me.

Brock Briggs  18:45  

I was just asking how your time spent around rules and regulations and upholding those has maybe influenced or changed how you look at the world?

Victor De La Flor  18:56  

Oh, okay. I mean, I'm definitely. So I don't have, I'm proud to say I don't have bad paperwork because I know what's right and what's wrong, right? So that has definitely influenced it, right? So as a young Marine, I knew when to remove myself from certain situations. I knew because I was exposed to so many knuckleheads and so many investigations on things people would do, right? And I'm like, huh, can't do that, you know, shouldn't do that. Not that I don't like to have fun but, you know, I just knew my left and right lateral limits, right?

Brock Briggs  19:38  

Well, and you're like, so much closer to the negative outcomes. It's not like this distant thing that you like, oh, you know, I don't know if they have something similar in the Marines but like, in the Navy, they'll have like a public mast. And like, people like younger sailors, like everybody gets to watch this person just get annihilated by the captain or whatever and like, it's meant to send a message. And yeah, like you're really your hands on dealing with this is the punishment that this person is going to receive because of this.

Victor De La Flor  20:12  

That's right. So I don't my office is not actually initiate the NJPs. But we do like the after effects of that, right? You get so many NJPs, we're gonna process you administratively or punitively, you know, through a court martial. So it has definitely switched my or at least altered my outlook on what to do, what not to do. And even teach my kids and young marines, I'm like, hey, you probably shouldn't do that. Probably shouldn't do that, right? 

I mean, my rule is, I mean, if you got to think about it and you gotta think twice about doing something and it doesn't feel good in your gut, hey it's time to walk away. You know, because nothing good is gonna come of that. Yeah, so it's definitely altered the way I look at the world. You know, not that I'm, you know, 100% by the book or anything like that, but it's just, I just know right from wrong. And I like to live my life that way because nothing good is gonna come out of me stepping out of those bounds. Yeah. 

Brock Briggs  21:12  

You've mentioned this term a couple times. And like, if you could unpack that you like, knowing your left and right lateral limits Where's that coming from? Maybe, like, I'm familiar with the phrase,and I get it but I'm wondering like, there's probably either a story or a reason why you refer to it that way.

Victor De La Flor  21:33  

No, no, it's no story. It's just, it became normal vocabulary as I was going through, like training, you know, as you have your machine gunfire, you have your lateral limits, you know, kind of like overlapping fire, right? So you shoot here, you shoot here. The other guy who overlaps yours. So you know where to start and where to stop, right? Almost like, I guess like a basketball court, you have your left and right lateral hemisphere, one side of the court to the other. Anything else is out of balance, right? 

So you want to just fall within those limits. That's simply it. I mean, I went through it you know, in my staff Academy, when I was younger, TBS the basic school when I was doing officer training, you know. So that's kind of been pounded in my head a lot. And it's just become part of my vocabulary. It's probably something I need to lose if I'm talking to civilians and as my transition progresses.

Brock Briggs  22:27  

Now that'll just make you sound a lot more tactical and it'll be good. It's all about the positioning here. How do you think about defining those left and right lateral limits when you're in a situation where there's not, when those don't exist. You've spent the last 20 years working in a career as you've described that as those very well defined and you're now like, stepping into this like transition mindset of like getting out and thinking about your next steps. And those limits don't exist anymore. Like all bets are off on the sides and you can go any direction that you want. So I'd love to hear how you're thinking about defining what those edges are?

Victor De La Flor  23:18  

Okay. Well, I would say, I need to know my capabilities. And I need to know what I'm getting into. Because if I don't know a situation, if I don't know something, I'm gonna do my best to either recon or to research, you know, here go with the terminology. I’ll do my best to research the situation. And I'm going to make sure that I'm as well educated as I can be on what I'm getting into. I guess an example would be when I was looking at a SkillBridge recently. I found SkillBridge on the SkillBridge website. I asked, I emailed the folks and I asked them if I can go over there and see their operations, see how they run things, right? And it wasn't what I thought it would be, right? I'm glad I did it. I kind of educated myself before I went into it. Like I made sure that I read as much as I could about the company. 

And actually the VP was actually walking me around and showing me all these different areas of this company. I equipped myself with as much information as I could. I made sure that you know, I toned it down in military terminology. But really, that was it. I mean, it was just knowing at least having the 80% solution, the 80% knowledge of what I'm going to get into. I understand that I'm not going to have a solution for every scenario. That's just a given. Nobody has every solution to every scenario, you know. It's just a matter of going into it knowing that you are somewhat educated on the situation. And that's what I try to do myself. I understand that I'm stepping outside of this bubble, this nice cushy bubble that is the military, right? Everything is done for you. There's rules and regulations. I know how to work all this stuff. And I'm walking into a civilian world where I don't really know, you know, the lateral limits, but all I can do is talk to folks who have been there who are currently doing it and educate myself on those, you know, the world outside of this. Yeah, nobody's got all the answers. I just gotta go into it with confidence. 

Brock Briggs

Right

Victor De La Flor 

I gotta act like I know what I'm doing.

Brock Briggs  25:48  

Yep, act like you know what you're doing, act like you belong there and just roll with it. 

Victor De La Flor 

That's it!

Brock Briggs  

Well, and that's so difficult too in transition, like getting out because there's one of the things that I really struggled with is you kind of like, you think that you are aware of everything like, you know what information you've been provided about hey, there's this resource, whatever and then you go and kind of track those down. And you're like, okay, I know it, like I'm good. 

And then all of a sudden, you're kind of just like stumbling around and you talk to somebody and they're like, oh, have you thought about this? And you're like, what? It kind of like forces you to reevaluate everything because you have to kind of like, there's a new thing that you have to go figure out and see, like, oh, is that right for me? And that just like, that doesn't stop. Like every episode of this podcast has been like, oh, I learned something new. And you have to like, go figure out whether it's right.

Victor De La Flor  26:49  

That is excellent. That is an excellent answer to that because nobody knows everything, right? And you can only add on to your knowledge, right? That's something that I keep very close is constant education doesn't have to be college or anything like that, just knowing something. You could be walking somewhere be like, man, how that guy get in that situation? You know, how do I not be in this situation, you know? And that causes me to research things. Man, I'll tell you, I'm constantly while I'm on my computer, I have three screens, right? 

And I have one open with my work stuff. I have another one open with just things that I'm researching, like, how do I do this? How do I do that? You know, anything, anything, you know? And it's an everyday thing. You know, you always want to add on to your knowledge base. That's why I have my green logbook. You know, that's why I got that because I write everything in that thing, you know, from thoughts, ideas, tasks, and you know, education is non stop. So that's awesome that you said that.

Brock Briggs  27:57  

One of the things that I'm interested to ask you, this is like a kind of a big question here. But what do you think scares you the most about getting out? Like, it's a big jump. Like I got to ask, like what's the thing that staring you right in the eyes and you're just like, kind of afraid to look at?

Victor De La Flor  28:18  

Yeah, so it's similar to like, when I was in Hawaii and I jumped in the middle of the ocean and I could not see anything beyond the deep blue ocean. It's the unknown. That's what scares me. Not knowing right now really not knowing where I'm gonna live. Not knowing because we have not established a state yet or a city. So I'm

Brock Briggs  28:44  

You at least have a country nailed down. 

Victor De La Flor  

Not even, not even you know. 

Brock Briggs

I might have just opened up the lateral limits for you there on that one. Like you're like, oh, well.

Victor De La Flor  28:57  

Oh, it’s 360 now, there's no way 

Brock Briggs

All directions

Victor De La Flor  

Yeah, no, no, no. I think I mean, to play it safe. I mean, we're thinking about some things, right? Because my wife is a GS. She's got a GS position. So she could probably get a job somewhere like in Japan, you know or in Germany. So that's why I laugh at it. Like we haven't even established that yet. But I think, you know, the US would be a safe bet because I know it, right? We haven't established a state. So that scares the crap out of me because I'm less than a year out now. And then given the SkillBridge, I'll probably be out in a few months. So it's kind of scary. And really, I think the only other thing is, I don't know what I'm gonna get into. 

Like, I joked about it like on Facebook and, you know, to friends. I'm like, I still don't even know what I want to be when I grew up yet. You know, because I've been having so much fun in the military. You know, now it's time to, you know, put on my big boy pants and try to figure things out in the civilian world. But yeah, that's a little scary because there's so many options, so many things that I want to do. It's hard to narrow that down. And I was even talking to some guy on LinkedIn. I was like, just looking for, you know, some kind of guidance. And he straight up told me he's like, you don't even know what you wanna do yet. I'm like, you're right. And that's why I'm reaching out to you. Like, you know, that's the whole premise of me, you know, reaching out. And I understand that. 

But yeah, I mean, I don't know yet. You know, I'm getting my master's in project management. Is that something I really wanna do? I don't know, I'll tell you when I get there, you know. But, you know, right now I would like to get into a veterans organization, like Wounded Warrior Project or something like that. I really hold that kind of stuffed to heart. There are not a lot of positions where I want to be. A lot of them are like, in the middle of the country. And I'm like, I'd like to be by the coast somewhere because that's what I'm used to. But I think that that's a scary thing, too, is trying to find a place to set my family down, trying to find a place where that has good schools, you know, for my kids. Somewhere where it's close to family, but not too close, you know, close enough. 

Brock Briggs  31:30  

Not next door neighbors or, you know. Like, we need an hour drive notice at least.

Victor De La Flor  31:37  

Yes, I know. My brother lives within 10 minutes from my parents and yeah, that's a rough life.

Brock Briggs  31:45  

Oh, I just came by for some eggs, you know, like

Victor De La Flor  31:50  

Why don't you come visit me? You're only 10 minutes away. 

Brock Briggs  

Right 

Victor De La Flor

No, but yeah, I guess there's a multitude of kind of scary things, right? But I don't show it on the exterior. But it's something that keeps me up at night sometimes something that I think about all the time, right? I mean, if I could stay here where I am right now, the school is great. You know, I love it here. But it's California. And it's, you know, it's not the most cost effective place to live, right? But you know, if we end up here, we end up here. But really, that's what I think about a lot is where the heck am I gonna end up? Where am I gonna put my family down? What kind of job am I gonna get into, you know. I'm confident that I'm gonna find something. It's just I don't know what.

Brock Briggs  32:45  

One of the framings that I really like to use. Not that I am some transition expert by any means. But I talked to a lot of people about it. And a framing that I found extremely helpful not only with this, but in other situations is when you don't know what to do thinking about what you don't want to do. And so maybe if you're down, maybe we should talk about like what are the things that you do for sure don't want to do and then starting from a position of like, hey, I have all these options. Eliminating some down actually helps you see clearer on like, what it is that there might actually be there rather than just oh I can do anything like you can but you'll be stymied by the analysis paralysis. So what do you not wanna do?

Victor De La Flor  33:41  

Well, how much time do you got? Because I got a whole lot of stuff I don't like to do.

Brock Briggs  33:44  

I got all night, man. I took a nap today just for this, like we can go all night. 

Victor De La Flor  33:50  

What don't I like to do, you know, just going off top my head, I would rather not. Not that I don't like to do this, but I would rather not sit at a desk all day. That is, I've been doing that for a long time. Not sitting at a desk all day but actually being in the office environment. I'd like to have a change from that, right? I joked around with some friends the other day. I was like you know my ideal job would be like a forest ranger or something like that riding around the forest and ATV, you know. Let me see your fishing permit or something like that, you know. Because you're outside, you're outdoors. I want to be in the outdoors you know. I wanna be outside. I don't wanna be like doing construction or something. 

I like to do something with my hands but not specifically that but being outside I think would be beneficial. Yeah, so I guess the office environment let me see, though I do like Hawaii. I don't want to be in the ocean. So I like the water. I like the beach but I'm not trying to swim with sharks and stuff. So yeah, that's out of the question. Got a friend of mine who was, we went on a tour of the science center out by Kaneohe Bay. And they had some openings at some point about, you know, with testing waters for hammerhead sharks and that's not for me, you know. I'll pass on that. 

But I think that there might be still an opening with the University of Hawaii. What else don't know, I mean, I don't like to sit down all day, you know. I mean, there's not a lot that I really don't like doing, right? I'll try everything. That's a tough question because I just really that the only thing that's crossed my mind is get out of the office a little bit. I know what I do want to do is, you know, be around people that I like to be around, right? Be around a mission oriented team, a forward thinking team, innovative team, playing with ideas, playing with projects, things like that, coming up with solutions. I do want to do those things. I don't want to be around folks who don't want to do something like that because then everybody's stagnant, right? You know?

Brock Briggs  36:19  

Well, I mean, look at what we just did here, like I can just based off the things that you just said 

Victor De La Flor

Yeah

Brock Briggs

Think about the profile of a job that you just created for yourself in this, like, we know, hey, like, let's just assume that you're going to live in the US at this point. You have said that you'd like the coast. And so you know, that's I don't know how many coastal states there is maybe 20 total. So we've got it narrowed down to half. We also know that a remote job is like not going to be your thing. So that eliminates a huge portion. You know that you need a mission driven like tight knit team. So you're probably looking for an employer that there it's probably smaller or it's like a cause that you really care about Wounded Warrior, maybe something like that. 

But you see, like, those are the types of things that you can be like we're creating a profile of and that still is a wide aperture. Don't get me wrong, but it's better than 360. 

Victor De La Flor  

No, it is. Absolutely, absolutely. 

Brock Briggs

And then as you kind of like, continue to think about the things that you don't want, you get to slowly be like no, not that. No, not that, like and taking that industry approach would probably be the next thing that I would think about, like, I'm not really into, I mean, we already eliminated construction. But you know, what are the other industries and stuff that you could kind of mark off the thing and then expected pay, you know, like, pretty soon, you kind of keep, like getting more and more rich on the detail. And soon you've got a pretty good, like kind of profile of what you're looking for. 

Victor De La Flor  38:05  

Yeah, so for a while. I like the exercise, though by the way. It's kind of brainstorming, trying to establish, you know, your likes, dislikes and where you want to position your path. I like that. For a while there a few months back, I was like, man, I have no idea what I'm going to do. So I'm like getting certificates and anything that I could find get my hands on, right? And I even went out and started doing like forklift classes. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, hey, man, if things fall through, you know, I can be a forklift driver for a Walmart or something like that. Not that, you know, they don't pay too well. But I can do that whatever, you know. And, you know, I had to get my OYC to sign off on that. It was for, you know, because it was on base, right? It was like a safety thing. He's like, yeah, just you know, I approve of this. 

And he's like, Vic, really? I mean, you're building systems for the Marine Corps over here. And you want to be a forklift driver. I was like, I expected more out of you. I'm like, well, damn, sir. You know, I'm just trying to get all the certs I can. But no, no, it's, yeah, I think that kind of, was my scramble, right? It was, like trying to do too many things at one time and not having a focused direction on where I wanna go. Now, I'm starting to get a more focused direction, like, hey, I want to do something with like veterans, right? You know, I like to do art, I do a lot of art, you know, and I find that it helps me out with my stress levels. You know, it's my way to decompress after, you know, a day or a week. 

So I do a lot of that stuff. And it's been you know, my stuff is in museums and stuff here in Southern California. So I'd like to do something with art, if possible, you know, help veterans who are affected by PTSD, you know, get them outside of that and then help them find a way to cope with that. That's big with me too, you know. So I mean, there's different avenues I can take with this, is just I'm starting to narrow it down a little by little, as I go along to what I really wanna do, but what really kind of gives me that passion, right? Because now I have as I'm retiring, I have the option to do something that I'm passionate about that I really want to do and not just what I'm told to do, right?

Brock Briggs  40:32  

20 years is a long time. And 

Victor De La Flor  

Yeah, yeah 

Brock Briggs 

Like I complain about I'm like, man, four years felt like a lifetime of like not being in charge of my own, you know, decisions. And I sympathize with that. And I'm excited for you to kind of like, go through that. And, you know, it's obviously scary, but like it's a good thing too. 

Victor De La Flor  

Yeah, it is. It is. 

Brock Briggs 

One of the things that I have been talking to a lot of people in transition about is like, what are you missing from either the Marine Corps or finding and talking to people on LinkedIn or like other resources that you're using to help you? What is missing from that, like, list of resources that you're not getting from somewhere? 

Victor De La Flor  41:26  

So I'll tell you right now, I don't know what I don't know, right? Put it like that because I have yet to do the transition readiness seminar. I start that in two weeks. So I hear that there's a lot of good information that goes into that. I've taken the initial one before, which was like an introductory, like hour long class and it kind of went through everything at rapid speed. So I know that there's more good stuff to come. So I don't have that information yet. But I think, you know, probably I figure this out myself, but like, you know, the medical records management stuff, how to request all that. Let me see what else we got. Probably, I don't know if they touched on this at the transition readiness seminar. 

But I think a lot of Marines could benefit from like financial management classes going out, like leaving the service or you know, any service members. You know, I mean, there was a big homeless problem and especially here, like in Southern California. And, you know, I feel like crap when I drive by and I see these homeless folks and they happen to be some of them happen to be veterans. And I'm like, man! Not that I look at them and say, I wonder if he has a financial management class. But I really do wonder that like, what are these folks being taught on the way out that they just make bad decisions? Like, what kind of decisions were they, you know, shown? Or what kind of issues were brought up? What kind of transition did they receive, you know? And now they're homeless, now they're living out of a tent. And there's a ton of those here in Southern California. 

But, you know, I'm kind of bouncing around here, but things that I would want to see financial management, probably expand a little bit more on the benefits from each state. Again, I don't know if they touch on that from at the TRS seminar. But I've done all that research myself. I've gone to each state's website, at least the ones who are military tax friendly, to see what they all offer, you know. Some offer free college, some, like CalVet. California has CalVet. You know, if you have any kind of disability, your kids, your dependents go to school for free at any State University. I didn't know that until I actually, you know, typed it in Google. It was like, holy crap, you know, this is awesome. This is good information. I didn't know that. 

Then I got to search and some more than asking questions like, oh, yeah, that's been around for a while. Well, crap. Nobody's told me that. So I think more information on, you know, state benefits. I'm sure I'll get some of that information, you know, as I go through the whole transition process, but if they don't already give that I think that that'd be beneficial because that is a big deciding factor for a lot of folks I think as they make the transition. I know it is for me because I'm looking for military tax friendly states. And I'd like to know what their benefits are school wise and medical wise, you know, things for dependents, things like that.

Brock Briggs  44:45  

I’ve never thought about that before, that you're the first person that's ever mentioned that to me and I think that the retirement transition class is different than the non retirement one. So they may have a different conversation with folks who did 20 or getting out after an extended period may go over different things. What do you think that you should have started earlier in the process? And maybe what are you right on time for? You know, you've got a year ish last and you're kind of attacking it, you know, getting out talking to people, taking these meetings. 

And it sounds like you've been very proactive about preparing for that. There are people who maybe started earlier than one year. There are probably some people who don't, maybe they wait till the last month, whatever it is. I'd be curious to hear what and maybe this will be more of something you'll be able to answer in hindsight. But I'm curious if there's anything that is sticking out to you as oh, I'm doing this right at the right time.

Victor De La Flor  45:55  

Yeah, so I'll start it with this.I was always good about doing my 10 year plan, 5 year plan, especially being in the military, right? I did my five year plan and that included a possibility of retiring at 20 years, you know, and then a possibility of going beyond that. So I actually was not fixed on retiring from the Marine Corps until about, I wanna say three weeks ago, but about probably three weeks to a month ago, that something happened that it was my defining moment. I was like, you know what? It's my time to go, then. What I could have done earlier is probably anticipated a little sooner. Like, actually, there was no way really for me to tell, right? Because I always, I'll get into this real quick. 

I applied for a position as a combat artist in the Marine Corps. I didn't make that position. And if I would have, that would have taken me to 21, 22 years. But since I didn't get selected for that position, I decided you know what? That’s it. I'm not going to move on to another duty station 20 years here. So it was hard for me to anticipate that early on. But what I wish I would have done sooner is actually done the TRS class at my 18 year mark because you're allowed to do it twice within two years. I wish I would have done it the first time at my two year mark. And again, now my second time just to get more information. I wish I would have established my resume a little earlier. I understand that they have resume writing courses now. 

I have somebody from Hiring Our Heroes doing my course or my resume. And I'm grateful for that. But I wish as now as I'm looking for jobs and I'm like, damn, I'm qualified for that. I wish I would have my resume ready in order to start applying for these things, which I don't, I'm still working on my resume. So I wish I would have done that a little bit earlier. I don't know. I mean, that's probably the top two things aside from establishing place where I want to live. But yeah, the transition rate is because I would like to have that information last year so I can start making educated decisions now as I go along. 

I think, you know, I started LinkedIn at the right time within my one year premium timeframe. So I think that was good. I'm starting to build a network up. So I think that's good. I probably could have started that a little bit earlier. But I wasn't really again, I was on the fence on whether or not I was going to stick around or not until last month. Yeah, I think that that's really the only thing as I'm thinking about it right now. Because I probably could tell you more as I finish the transition process, but right now, yeah, it's just those two things.

Brock Briggs  49:19  

Well, maybe now it'd be the right time to talk about your debut into YouTube. So you're gonna take this transition process to the web with like the Green Book official. So do you want to talk about that, like kind of what your plan is for that and work from there?

Victor De La Flor  49:40  

I just started maybe probably last week, two weeks ago, maybe? It's called the Green Logbook, right? So the idea behind that is throughout my entire military career, I've had a green notebook, a green little log book, right? Little five by eight little notebooks that you get from the supply store. And that has carried me through my entire military career. I mean, I have them. I don't know what it is, maybe I like to keep these things around. But I have every one of them dated and itemized on my bookshelf from the time I was an E-2 to now, right?

Brock Briggs  50:23  

So how many is there?

Victor De La Flor  50:25  

There's probably close to 20 because I go through one every, probably more than that. I'm missing a couple over the moves, probably close to 18 to 20. I gotta count. But I mean, those hold my thoughts, those hold my tasks, quotes I hear, leadership traits that every little thing margins are filled in. It just got my doodles on there, you know, so I hold on to them because I look back on them to see what I've learned over the years, you know. It's just cool to see what I was thinking about back when I was in E-4 or E-6, right? Just looking back. And they hold so much good information, that's why I call it the Green Logbook because these things just hold so much good information. I felt like I needed to pass that information on to somebody else, right? 

Leadership trades, things, you know, best practices. So yeah, that's the name of the YouTube video or the YouTube channel, The Green Logbook. Basically, it is just a ton of videos, not yet but it soon will be, a ton of videos just explaining right now my entire military to civilian transition process. I'm doing all this research that I wish I had handed to me, right? And I really want to get it out to the world like, hey, look, let me show you what I'm having trouble with. Let me show you what you may have trouble with. Let me show you the best practices, let me show you what I've learned. So that way, it'll probably make your transition a little bit easier. You know, I guess the future plans would be, hey, bring on folks who have made the transition who have had success or failures and let them explain, you know, their best practices. 

But for right now, I'm just kind of documenting week by week what I'm doing, hey, look, I'm researching the states that I want to live in. I'm doing my Coursera work, you know, for certificates. I'm going to TRS classes now, you know, here's what I'm learning. you know, things like that, you know, it's gonna be something different every week. But it's something that I wish was out there as I'm starting to transition process, but I'm having to go to the VA website and going to LinkedIn, Facebook pages, and I'm having to get all this information from all over the place. I wish it was in one central place. And that's really what it is, is just educating folks. It's almost like not teaching but just passing on the knowledge.

Brock Briggs  53:09  

Well, and I think you get so much value toO from actually teaching a subject. Like you really got to know something and it shows too when you one thing that's I don't know if it's like a human being fallacy or whatever, but we kind of have this belief that we know things better than we do, actually. And so the way to overcome that is to teach it or write it. And so what a great opportunity to kind of like really cement the things that you're learning by sharing it with people and doing some good while you're at it.

Victor De La Flor  53:45  

And I always share it too. Like in my last video I shared at the end, hey, look, if I missed anything or you have anything additional, please comment below. Because I want to learn too, you know. If I'm wrong on something, let me know, so I can change it up, switch it up. Of course I don't want to be, you know, shelling out good or bad information. But you know, it's a learning process. And, you know, I always was always taught to me like, hey, look, the way you know somebody really knows the subject is that they can explain it at the lowest levels, right? So if they really can explain it and simplify it as much as possible, you'll see how much they know. You don't want to overcomplicate things, you know, I don't like to over complicate things myself. I like what we call Barney style.

Brock Briggs  54:36  

And this is also not your first foray into like media as well. You used to run a podcast and I'm eager to kind of hear more about it and listen to a handful of it. And I'm also eager to hear if you're going to kind of like spin back up as time allows. You want to kind of like talk a little bit about that.

Victor De La Flor  54:57  

Yeah, yeah. So back in I want to say it was 2019-2020, I started a podcast called Side Hustle Military, you know. It's still up there on Apple podcasts and Spotify and all that. You know, it started out with the idea of touching on my side hustles and showing people that, you know, multiple streams of income, even in the military is a good thing. You know, you're not doing anything wrong here, you know. And it can benefit you, it can benefit your family, if you have a second stream, third stream of income. Better yet, if it's passive income, right? Where you're making money as you go to sleep and you wake up and you wake up to sales and things like that. And then it kind of broke out into, you know, not interviewing, but I would do the interviewing and the back end and I would just kind of narrate what I talked to this person about, just so I can keep it concise to about 10 minutes or under. 

So it was a nice short podcast, you know, each episode was under 10 minutes. Not even it was like, you know, seven to five, seven minutes. You know, but I interviewed folks who are like, 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. And, you know, this guy owned a, he was an army captain who owned like a sandal shop made in Afghanistan. You know, it would benefit these Afghani women, interviewed an author, you know and I shared my own stories on there about, you know, starting up a, what was that? A heat pressing business in Japan, which, you know, looking back on it, I kind of feel bad because I put the guy off base out of business, you know, I kind of feel bad about that. 

But you know, it's a reality. And you know, business is business. And it was more so like, this green log book, where I'm just trying to spread knowledge on all this stuff, like, hey, look, if this person could do it, if I could do it, there's no reason why you can't do it, right? And it got good reviews, you know and I was thinking about bringing it back. But I stopped it because we did the old PCS move and I just had a lot more time at my last duty station than I have now. So I'm like, I have too much stuff going on right now. I couldn't dedicate all my time to that. But it was fun while I was doing it. It definitely was just, you know, again, spreading the knowledge, letting folks know that they can do these things.

Brock Briggs  57:43  

Now, as I feel like I've been waiting to like talk to you about this this whole time. We have got to get into some of your like accolades and entrepreneurship because you've got like some crazy funny stories. And like, we're like, can't wait to hear about some of this stuff. So you like obviously had enough going on to warrant like starting a podcast. 

Victor De La Flor

Yup!

Brock Briggs

You have like been interested like, I'm gonna kind of like tie this back into what I was saying at the very beginning about how you know the rules and whatever. Entrepreneurship, like, doesn't have rules. And so it's interesting to me that you like, we're so like rule focused and base but you come at your life with this mentality of looking for things that can be improved and looking for opportunities to make a couple bucks or like just make people's lives better in another ways. Where did that come from? Where did that little like, oh, mission, start this up as a business or what kind of inspired that?

Victor De La Flor  58:55  

So that started when I was a kid, really. I was always the creative type. I was always exposed to you know, I grew up in Jersey and you know, it wasn't a very good part. We always go to the market, you know, my dad and I and like a food market or like a farmers market and there would always be haggling going on. And I'm like, huh, you know, you can get this at a better price you know and then like, my mother was very creative. She would make these figurines and right now, she still does that. She's got like a 50,000 subscriber channel on YouTube. I don't know how. But she's very creative. 

And I think that's where I got the creative side of me from just figuring things out, you know. I was always curious, like, how does this work? How can I make this happen? If I saw something that didn't make sense to me or that I can do better, I would try it out. You know, I would try to do it myself. I'll give you an example when I was in Japan, stationed out there. I was the coach for my daughter's soccer team, little league soccer team. They gave us a bag of jerseys while the coach was right. And they said, hey, look, some of the parents like to name some back of the jerseys. If so, you know, if you want a name of the back of the jersey, here's the guy's information. He's off base. 

He runs a little shop that you know, puts names on the back of jerseys. I'm like, okay, cool. So I go over there. I probably had, you know, maybe 10 jerseys in this bag. I walked up to this guy’s shop and I opened the door. And, you know, it's him, his wife. It's like a family operation, right? And he had a ton of bags behind the counter, even in the other room like a ton of bags because not only did he do all the day youth sports on base, he did it all for the prefecture, like the county out there, right? So he had all the schools, he was doing the jersey for all the schools. And I'm like, man, it's gotta be like, 50 bags in here. And all of a sudden, it's like, things started winding up was like 50 bags, okay, 10 jerseys, each bag. Okay, that's a lot of money. 

And then this guy is charging 13. It was 1000 yen, which is equivalent to $13 at the time. And I'm like, this guy's making a ton of money doing this. And you know, we'll start spinning. And then I go home. I'm like, hey, start Googling heat presses. How much is a heat press to ship it out to Japan? You know, where do I get the line lettering from, you know? I need to get a silicone pad. I mean, how much time do I need to have thing downs for it to compress the vinyl onto the jersey. So I started doing all this research. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to start my own little company. And it was called The Jersey Guy because, you know, I grew up in Jersey and I was doing jersey. So The Jersey Guy, right? 

Brock Briggs 

Naturally

Victor De La Flor 

Yeah, naturally, right? So then I asked the youth sports record, hey, look, can I present this order form and all this stuff to the coaches at the coaches meetings because I am giving them a better price with a faster turnaround. And I'm even doing the coaches jersey for free if they go with me. So it was like too good of a thing not to go with me, right? So I did that for probably about two years. And I was doing it for the psi youth soccer, youth baseball, youth flight football, the cheerleading squad even so the security folks off base at the bar is off base. And, you know, I walked away after two years with about 20 grand extra in my pocket. You know, just by doing that, you know. 

And at the end, I sold the entire business to a staff sergeant as I was PCSing out of there. So, you know, he came over, I taught him how to do everything. You know, I gave them all the vinyl I had, how to order everything. So, you know, you have to get creative with it. I always got creative with things. And I feel like every duty station I’m into, I've started something new. And you know, I started doing stickers when I first got here and they were selling pretty well. And then I just kind of upped it to something else. And you know, it just keeps going up and up. But I think the idea of it was the way it started was at least in the military was to try to outdo my military pay, right? So whatever your base pay was, I'm like, I wonder if I can surpass this base pay just by doing side hustles. And after a few years, I did. 

And then all my military pay, I would just put into savings. And I wasn't too worried because my wife had a job too. I'm like, yeah, you know, this is just kind of plain money. And, you know, all the money will go into savings. And I would just play around with whatever I made on the side. You know, now it's grown to like eBay. I'm like a top seller on eBay right now. Because, you know, it's just people buy some weird stuff on eBay that you would never think of, you know, and it you know, it's just, it's a very good business to be and I think if you can find the right niche on eBay, but yeah

Brock Briggs  1:04:34  

Give me the rundown on eBay. 

Victor De La Flor  

You wanna know what I'm selling?

Brock Briggs

I want to hear it like, what are you doing? And like, how did you get into that? And like, why, what, like the jersey thing you saw the opportunity is like there's kind of, hey there's one person that does this and it's kind of if you notice that it's kind of like a supply problem, eBay a little bit different, maybe. How did you kind of stumble into that opportunity? And what I'm getting at here is like, how can we develop the mindset of like looking for those? Like, what should we be asking ourselves as we go and put ourselves in new situations?

Victor De La Flor  1:05:23  

Sure, sure. So, the jersey thing, when I saw the guy doing all these jerseys, the first thing that came to mind was like, why is he having all the fun? I want in on this fun, too, you know? You know, you just have to have that spark, right? That creative spark, you have to, I'm always looking around. You know, I'm always looking around at things. I'm like, I don't know if it's my friggin you know, my situational awareness or what, you know, for them being in the military for so long. But I'm always looking around. I'm always pointing things out. And, you know, I think that's a good part of being a Marine too, is like when somebody walks in the room. 

And this, you know, this is kind of strange to say, but when somebody walks in the room, you're already judging them. Oh, this guy's uniform was messed up, you know, his hair is all sideways, you know? So you start to think like, hey, how can I help this guy out? What's missing from this, you know? And I do that everywhere I go, right? Like, I go to Walmart, hey, that doesn't look right. How can I fix that? That doesn't look right. And you know, you come up with ideas, you have to have that kind of spark that want to make things good to make things better. And I feel like a lot of folks have ideas, but they just never act on them. You know, so it just dies as an idea. But you just have to take that next step and, you know, take action and do something about it, right? As far as the, what was the other thing you mentioned?

Brock Briggs  1:06:52  

We were talking about eBay.

Victor De La Flor  1:06:54  

eBay, that's right, eBay. Sorry, I'm just

Brock Briggs  1:06:57  

No, you’re good. Again, I'm all over the place here, so yeah.  

Victor De La Flor  1:07:00  

eBay was I've had an eBay shop for a little while, right? And I got back into it. So we were in Hawaii before here, before San Diego. And they didn't have a lot of thrift shops in Hawaii. They had some but it's a small island. You know, they didn't have too much stuff. And plus the shipping out of Hawaii to like the mainland was a little bit high, right? So it wasn't really you know, working out too well. When I got here, San Diego, there's a ton of thrift shops in San Diego. So I would go with my sons. And we'd go through these thrift shops, not just goodwill, like little mom and pop thrift shops too. And at one point, like my son came up to me, he's like, dad, is this a good shirt? And it was a brand new with tags Nike, Tom Brady jersey, right? 

And I was like, ah, yeah, that's pretty good. How much do they want? He's like, $7. You know, give it over, you know, let's see it. And that one since he found that I gave him the findings. I gave him the money for that one. But that one, we flipped and we sold it for about 120 bucks, right? So yeah, from 7 to 120. But I mean, there's things that I buy that like I would have never bought myself, right? Figurines, you know? Actually, one of my best finds right now is a set. It's like a what is it, a tumbler set or a bunch of wine glasses. 

That's what it is, wine glasses, hand painted. Signed by Norman Rockwell, right? So the artist like Norman Rockwell. So I'm going I have an appointment to go get it appraised here in a few weeks. But I might know if this thing is legit, I just you know, hit the jackpot with this. And I didn't pay much for it. And I don't think these people knew what they had when I bought it. I just sold a soccer ball on eBay two days ago for 700 bucks. So yeah, it is a World Cup official match ball. I got it for $1.50

Brock Briggs  1:09:24  

Wow, how are you like, one of the things like I see tons of like YouTube videos and Tiktoks and stuff of people like they're like in stores and kind of like scanning things they're like, seeing like what they sell for and even maybe even less so about thrift stores but more in like they're in you know CVS and they're like oh this one particular you know brand of soap or whatever it like. It was an exclusive run and it sells for 10x this or whatever. I don't know if something like that exists or like thrift stores but like, how are you developing the eye for things like, how are you going to notice a soccer ball like that, that just really stands out?

Victor De La Flor  1:10:10  

So, I know what you're talking about. It's called resell arbitrage. And the soccer thing I've always been in soccer. I love soccer, right? I watch it every day as the World Cup is going. I picked up the soccer ball. So it was at a garage sale. I picked up the soccer ball. And again, it was like an old lady. I picked it up and immediately I knew because it was, it didn't have the seams like the soccer ball does. Your normal sock balls do like you buy at Walmart. It felt like it was just three pieces together. And it was sticky, right? It was like I picked it up and looked brand new. It was sticky. And I'm like, this doesn't feel this feels different, right? Then I start moving it around. I see Adidas on there and like, okay, then I see World Cup, South Africa official match ball. I'm like, no freakin’ way. Hold on a second. So I pull out my phone. And I pull up eBay. And there's like, these exact same balls in the box are selling for 1000 bucks, $900. 

And I'm like, what? No way. And I'm like, ma'am, how much do you want for this? She's like, oh, a dollar 50. Okay. I mean, I bought more stuff from her. And she had like Transformers and GI Joes and stuff. So yeah, I mean, I bought that thing. And I immediately went home. I was like, I gotta put this on there. But as I put it on eBay, I probably got. It's only been on there for a month. And I probably got about 30 offers on it. And a lot of these folks have like zero feedback. Those are the ones you want to be wary of, right? The ones who have zero feedback, the ones who just created their account because it could be scams, right? The guy that bought it had a good amount of feedback. You know, I made sure that I vetted him. I made sure that I looked at his stuff. If it was like a zero feedback thing I would have just refunded and said, sorry, you know, I'll move on to the next one. 

But yeah, I mean, I've sold Batman figurines, you know, the latest one I sold was the Ben Affleck Batman figurine. I think it was like 30 bucks. It was like in a pile of toys, right? But you have in order to develop the eye for that, you need to kind of be around it. You need to, for one, have the app on your phone, right? Amazon and eBay. And look at the quality of it. Know what you're looking for. If it's something limited edition, you know, you kind of have to know what you're looking for in terms of that. My son was playing when we went to a garage sale, he was playing with the original ninja turtle little figurines, you know. And I'm like, oh, crap, you know, they got the whole collection here. And they were just thrown in a little box. And he's just playing with them. Dad, can I have this? Do you know what you're holding, man? Let me see that. 

Brock Briggs 

Yeah

Victor De La Flor

You just gotta have, you kind of have to be aware of what you have. Yep. You know, I've been looking for so long, been thrifting for so long that I'm kind of aware of all those things. I mean, some things I don't know a lot of the electronic things I don't know. You know, I recently sold a, it was like an 80s Sony boombox, right? And it was like the silver ones. It wasn't that big one that you put on your shoulder, but it was a little bit smaller. And I'm like, man, I got it for super cheap, right? I thought it was just, I thought it was gonna work. And they said, not working. And it was just a wire on the inside that I just like, touched together. It started working. I'm like, oh, cool. You know, let me put some electrical tape on it. And, you know, sold like that on eBay, you know.

Brock Briggs  1:13:55  

How much time are you spending on stuff like that? Because I imagine that this is like taking you mentioned it's taken some time to kind of like flex that muscle and get used to like things that you're looking for and whatever you'd like, out there pounding the pavement every weekend and 

Victor De La Flor  1:14:13  

No, no, no, nothing like that. I mean, it's more like so I have so much inventory right now that I haven't been going out as much lately. Half of my garage is full of like motorcycle jackets and you know, military memorabilia, things like that figurines and things. So before probably the last two months, I was going out every weekend, early on in the morning, Saturday morning with my son. And because I figured you know, kind of get more people more hands out there and just start grabbing things as I see him. You know, two is better than one. And he's kind of learning what to look forward to, right? So yes, Saturdays, Sundays around San Diego going around to the garage sales, thrift shops, you know, whenever we get a chance, you know, Friday Saturdays and there's other people doing the same thing, right? 

I mean, I see folks all the time on their cell phones, you know, looking up stuff prices on eBay and stuff like that as rummaging through clothes. So they're all out there. But I don't dedicate that much time to looking for things. What takes a lot of time is taking photos and from different angles and then posting it up there. I think that takes a lot of time. I'll probably be on the computer for about two hours on a Sunday, posting things up and I'll get like five things posted up, six things posted up. You know, but you know, it's enough. I think one of the other things that I've sold recently that was really good was I found an Audi vehicle. It was like, I don't know how to explain it. It was a little figurine, a little Audi car inside of a plastic box. And the bottom is said dealers only. 

So I looked it up. And it was something that was sent out as like a promotional item to dealerships, only Audi dealerships. So that was sold for a pretty good amount. It was like 200 bucks. And it was like super cheap. It was like in a box of toys, you know and then I sold a 12 pack of pencils for about $150. So it was a pack of pencils that was a promotional item if you bought a Lucid electric vehicle. So Lucid is like almost like a Tesla, right? 

Brock Briggs 

Yeah, yeah. 

Victor De La Flor  

So for some reason, they had this promotion if you buy a Lucid and they’ll give you a 12 pack of these limited edition pencils for free or something. I don't know what kind of promotion that is, but I found the pencils. It was like two bucks for a box. And I'm like, hey, look, put it up on eBay. Found some similar ones sold for 150 bucks. So I'm making these sales, you know, several sales a week. So it's kind of surpassed the military pay a little bit.

Brock Briggs  1:17:26  

That's fantastic. 

Victor De La Flor 

Yeah

Brock Briggs

Well, and you've kind of trying out all these different things. And like you said, you're creating something, you know, you're creating multiple streams of income for yourself. And 

Victor De La Flor 

Yes

Brock Briggs

You're setting yourself up really well for getting out and you've got all this, you know, you could go full time on some of these side gigs. And 

Victor De La Flor 

Yeah

Brock Briggs

You know, you may not even need to work.

Victor De La Flor  1:17:53  

I agree. I even, I thought of that. My wife brought it up to me. And she was like, hey, why don't you just stay home and do your eBay thing? And I'm like, huh, I didn't know if she was joking or what. I'm like, are you serious? She's like it's bringing in enough but I'm like yeah, but that's not a stable thing, right? Like it's I'm doing it now and it's fun now because I have a secure paycheck coming in every month and if times are tough on eBay then I can kind of fall back on that paycheck, right? But I mean I've considered it, you know, just doing that full time. It's you know, it's hit or miss and that's the only thing is some weeks are better than others but I mean it's really fun and it really is. I mean I'd urge anybody who's on the fence about doing that stuff and wanting to try out eBay or something like that go out and just try it out. I mean that's how I get into things, right? I just try things out if I like my life and we if I don't, move on to the next thing. That's it, yeah.

Brock Briggs  1:18:56  

You can have to sit down with me and one of these days and give me the quick and dirty on hey, here's what to look for at the garage sales and that's kind of got me like up like, oh, man, maybe I need to be doing that on the weekends or whatever as if I need another hobby to take up a bunch of time. It’s the one that would return some money though.

Victor De La Flor  1:19:16  

Yeah, it definitely is addicting. Once you see the money come in and you realize people pay for this stuff? You know, you're gonna wanna get out there all the time.

Brock Briggs  1:19:28  

Yeah, we got to talk about undercover clip. 

Victor De La Flor

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

Give us the rundown about the origination of undercover clip and how that came to be and where you're at today?

Victor De La Flor  1:19:41  

Sure. Yeah. So undercover clip, I'll explain what it is. It is the most functional piece of gear for any marine or sailor in the military surface right now who wears an 8 point cover, right? So what it does is it's a little clip that let me see if I have one here. I don't. It's on my workshop. It's a small clip that goes just a piece of plastic that goes inside the interior of the 8 point cover. It holds a pair of glasses, sunglasses or eyeglasses safely inside the cover. It keeps the front of your cover looking straight. 

And I have two models, the tactical model, which is just those two things, and the motivator model, which actually holds an extra set of rings, so it has like little holes in it. The shape of a cross, right? And it holds like an extra set of rings in there. So that came about when I was in Hawaii. Funny story is I had just bought a new pair of Maui Jim sunglasses. And if you're familiar with Maui Jim, they're not cheap, right? So these things were like 200 bucks. And I was running late for formation, I went up to the formation, I took my sunglasses off. And I'm like, let me just stick with my cargo pocket real quick. There was a promotion formation, right? So I didn't, I wasn't aware of the time that I had like a screw inside my cargo pocket. And some like, spare change and stuff that just stuck in there.

Brock Briggs  1:21:14  

Oh, the damaging items to sunglasses

Victor De La Flor  1:21:17  

Yeah. And you know, we got out of the formation. The CO was like, hey, come around and congratulate all these, you know, new promotees. And I didn't even think about it. I just went up there. And I was like, you know, some of these people were my Marine. So I'm like, hey, congratulations, marine. You know, congratulations, taking pictures just walking around. And then as I'm walking back to my car, I hear like the clack, clack, clack. And I'm like, oh, crap, you know, I pull it out. The lenses are completely scratch, you know, the frames are scratched. I'm like crap. And I just bought these this past weekend. So that was depressing. So what made me think next was, you know, there's got to be a better way to carry my sunglasses. There's got to be a better way. 

And then I started looking around my uniform. I was like, where can I carry these things? And still be in regulations. So I was playing around with like, the inside of the cami blouse. Maybe like on the inside of my pants, you know, just everywhere, right? And then I took my cover off one time, I wish I had my cover here I'd show you. I took it off. And, you know, I sat down just thinking and I looked inside the cover and I had a kind of credit card in there, an old credit card that had stuck in the front. And I'm like, huh, you know, I could probably put something in there. And I took it out, took measurements and stuff. I was like, hmmm. So that weekend, I went to Hardware Hawaii, which is like an Ace Hardware store. And I got like clamps, I got little pieces of wood, glue, you know, just different things like I got modeling clay. 

And I started making my own type of prototype from all these different things. And nothing really kind of fit and right. I'm like, man, what can I do with this, you know? bBecause I know it's good idea. I know I use it. But when I started making the prototype for it, it wasn't to sell. It was like for my own use, right? I wasn't thinking about selling it at that point. So then I started drawing things out, I started drawing it up. And then I downloaded it or not even download it. There's a website called, I think it's called Thingiverse that I went on. And you can basically design things for free on their, 3D design. So I started like playing around with measurements and stuff like that. And my library on base at the time had a 3D printer, where you can print a free 3D print item. You just have to send them a file and you're limited to one print per week. 

So I'm like, alright, I sit on this print and then I go pick it up. And then the thing would break. I was like, should I gotta wait another week. And then the thing would break. You know, I'm like, oh, man, this is taking too long, right? I was waiting like a week, we can have some times because the printer would be down to get my prototype. So then I went online and found my own 3D printer, kept on going on with this, you know, 3D design software and started making different prototypes. And I think I've got like seven prototypes that I made over the course of about six months to get to the final design. So yeah, it was just a bunch of learning how to 3D design myself, learning how to work with a 3D printer. 

And after that, I showed it to some friends. They're like, holy crap, man! You got something here. I’m like hey, shut up. Don't say anything. Let me patent this thing first. So I started doing the whole patent thing first. And then I approached tactical shops and asked them, hey, look, here's how this works. And I had nice packaging for it, all this stuff. Here's how this stuff works. The guy tried it out. He's like, hey, I like it. You know, we want to order 100. I'm like, alright, cool. And then I built a website. And then when I built that website and started doing this whole stuff on Facebook and advertising on Facebook, I actually had to take leave for about a week because I could not keep up with the orders. It was just too many orders that I could not fulfill in time. 

So I was promising a three day turnaround. I was like, shit, I'm getting too many orders. So I took some leave that I presented it to the marine shop in Quantico. So that's a big shop over there because that is normally where new officers go to get their dress blues tailored, right? So they put my stuff front and center up there on the counter. And I just got an order from them not too long ago, you know, to replenish their stock that I presented it to the Marine Corps exchange and they wanted to buy some. I set up a kiosk in front of the Marine Corps exchange in Hawaii and sold a tub there. So you know, just getting the word out and stuff like that. I was offered by a guy who owns another, he owns another Marine Corps item, I guess the patent in the store for another Marine Corps item. 

He offered to buy my company. And I declined. I respectfully declined because I was like, you know what? I'm making daily sales with this thing. It's too good of a thing right now. I can't let it go. So it just started escalating from there, you know, in a good way. Even today, I just sent out, you know, a whole bunch of orders. So I dropped it off right before the podcast. But yeah, I mean, it was just, you know, just getting creative, just doodling, drawing, trying to figure out a way to fill in a gap that you identify. That's really all it is, you know and I've got a ton of ideas, just like that the thing is trying to find the time to execute this stuff. That's all it is. But yeah, I mean, once people started buying it, I was like, holy crap, people liked this stuff. People want this? Holy crap, you know and it just started flying.

Brock Briggs  1:27:42  

Yeah, this plugin is your website right now. This thing is super slick. Like it's just clean, simple, it's like solves a massive problem. And it's just like, it's unbelievable what you’ve been wearing eight points for I don't know how long and something like this hasn't existed yet.

Victor De La Flor  1:28:00  

Yeah. So yeah, there's another gentleman who makes a magnetic one. It doesn't hold sunglasses, but you know, it's like a little magnet in there. I'm grateful that he reached out to me. He's like, hey, I wanna make sure I'm not stepping on your toes with any patent stuff. I plan on making this, you know, so I'm like, yeah, go ahead and it doesn't step on my toes, man. Do your thing, you know. 

I'm happy to support any other folks who are trying to be creative and do something, right? 100% support that stuff, man because I think we need more of that stuff. And, you know, just being innovative, coming up with solutions to problems, you know, that's where it's at, man. I mean, that's like the future of the services, right? If we continue not that this is the future of the services, right? Under Cover Clip, but we need forward thinking folks to continue to innovate, to continue to push the, you know, the services forward. And I mean, I preach that stuff all the time with something so small, how it can make an impact

Brock Briggs  1:29:03  

Well, not only make an impact on the people you're making it for but like a huge impact obviously, on your life. 

Victor De La Flor 

Yeah, yeah. 

Brock Briggs

Like financially and like creatively and all these things. You sell these things for9 or 10 bucks per clip and then you offer wholesaling. How many if you don't mind sharing, like, how much have you done in sales since you started this?

Victor De La Flor  1:29:30  

Let me see. Trying to think because there's a graph that I go by on the website. I probably sold about 10,000 of these things. Probably a little bit less, a little bit less, but I'll tell you what? My thing just runs. No, probably not 10,000. Maybe a little bit less than that. But my 3D printers do not stop running. You know, I've had to buy more 3D printers. I have a whole wall in my garage of 3D printers. And that's really all it is, man. I mean, I make them in the garage. And they're all made in the USA, you know and the quality assurance goes through me first. If there's anything messed up with it at all, I throw it in another bin and I sell it as a tester, right? Hey, look, this one's like half price. If you don't, I mean, it may have a little mark on it or something like that. It's not up to par with what I expect of my own quality. 

So if somebody wants a tester for half the price, still works the same, just may have a little mark on it, have it a half price, right? That's how I get rid of those. But all the quality goes through me. I mean, I packaged all of them. Me and my son, we package all of them. But yeah, I mean, when it first started it was late nights and even now it's like, it kind of slowed down a little bit. But you know, I'm doing it myself now. But because the orders are getting bigger now. And like less individual orders. So I can package these up. And I have a ton already prepackaged anyway. So I can do it all myself. But yeah, it definitely is a good thing. If you can be creative, it can definitely work out for you.

Brock Briggs  1:31:21  

On that whole idea of like, kind of making money while you sleep. I have to imagine that after the first time that that happens, it's like, oh, wait, I need more of that. Like I need to be, how do I get more of that going?

Victor De La Flor  1:31:35  

Yeah. So there is almost like an adrenaline rush right here. I don't know what they call it. But kind of like when you hear a little ding on your phone and you hear like, oh, somebody's text messaging me, right? For me, it's a little ching thing ching, ching, right? And that kind of gets you going. It's like, oh, heck yeah, you know, I do the same thing with Etsy. I have an Etsy store, you know and I sell things on Etsy. A lot of 3D printed items, right? Not specifically the undercover clip. But I kind of branched out from there. Like look, I know how to use the 3D printer. So I'm going to make, you know, battery holders for cameras. I'm going to make what's it called? What are they called? So this thing called diamond painting. My wife got into it a while back. 

So there's, it holds these little, it's like mosaic tiles. They're tiny, right? They're like little beads. And they call it drill trays. It's a little tray that holds all these beads. I don't know why people go crazy over these things. But those things sell like crazy on Etsy. So I have a ton of those already made up. And I just get orders for those things and just package them up. Put a little thank you note in there and then send them on their way. So I mean, I talked to a buddy mine not too long ago. So he drives a Porsche. There's a little item on the back of the Porsche that constantly breaks. He's like, dude, I just made 20 grand just selling these little pieces, like on Etsy and Amazon. 

So he just manufactures these with his 3D printer. I don't know what part of the Porsche it is. But he's like, it's a little piece in the back, I guess. They constantly breaks. So I’m like, hey! More power to you, man. I'm glad you're doing that, you know. So I mean, if you can find something that constantly breaks or you know, a clip or something like that on a backpack or something like that or you know, your issue gear and you can manufacture something through a 3D print process, man, you can make some good money with that.

Brock Briggs  1:33:43  

That was going to be kind of one of my closing statements or closing questions for you would be what would your advice be for somebody that kind of maybe has that spirit and is looking to kind of get their first thing going and off the ground? They maybe got ideas or, you know, what is the secret to that first step?

Victor De La Flor  1:34:06  

Let me say I'd say start designing, start drawing, getting your ideas on paper, right? Don't talk to too many people about it because obviously, you know that that's your idea. And the more people you tell about it before you actually start manufacturing this stuff or start the patent process, they're just going to take it from you. If you tell the wrong folks, right? So I mean, you could have them sign a nondisclosure agreement and then talk to somebody you know, but the biggest part of it would be brainstorming, you know, getting your designs on paper, getting somebody you trust to help you with the process, help you design. Like I assisted somebody recently with a prototype of their product. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement for it. I wasn't you know, nothing that I would want to make anyway. So I'm like, yeah, whatever. That's cool, you know, but I'll help you out with the prototype process. 

So, but yeah, it's having that idea and taking that next step to actually take action on that idea. Because like I said before, ideas without action are just hopes and dreams and nothing ever comes to those things. You gotta put something on paper, you gotta, you know, have milestone set, like, hey, here in two weeks, I wanna be at this step. I wanna have this prototype, you know. Here by this step, I wouldn't have talked to an attorney or have talked to somebody or you know, whatever gone forward on the design. It's just a matter of being creative too. Like, just don't look at things black and white, you know, don't stay within your lateral limits. Get outside the box, get outside the box a little bit. And I think that's what's worked for me is I'm very outside the box when it comes to the creative process. 

Because I look at things from all angles, you know, I like to poke at things and see why things don't work the right way and see how I can make things work the right way. And you have to be that person, I think, if you're going to be able to create something. And it doesn't have to be about creating something. It can be about, you know, establishing an ebook or something like I've known people who made ebooks on like, top 10 things that they know best about, right? And how to do things better. And they put it on eBay and they put it on their LinkedIn. They put it on their Facebook and people buy these things, right? 

I mean, I just bought a book from a guy on LinkedIn, How to LinkedIn Mastery is what it's called. And, you know, I just bought it because I was starting LinkedIn. But the guy knows what he's talking about. So I’m like, you know what? Let me try it out. He knew about it. He wrote a book about it. He's marketing it, he sells it, he's making money, he's become a success. I think just getting outside of your comfort zone, getting outside of the box would help you out in making yourself a success.

Brock Briggs  1:37:13  

That's such great advice. It is. As somebody kind of in that position, it's difficult and it's intimidating and you kind of like want to do something but sometimes taking that first step is really the hardest one. Vic, this has been a really, really fun conversation. I have enjoyed chatting with you and kind of getting to know you as you kind of go through transition process. 

Victor De La Flor

Thank you!

Brock Briggs 

Where can people go to find out more about you? And anything you wanna plug like website wise?

Victor De La Flor  1:37:47  

Yeah, so I'll plug my Under Cover Clip. It's just undercoverclip.com You can find it on Instagram or Facebook @undercoverclip. I don't have a website or anything. I have my LinkedIn, which is just Victor de la Flor. If you look me up, just feel free to connect or, you know, follow or you know, reach out to me about anything, anything really. I'm really open book and I'm willing to help out as much as I can with any project or anything like that. I do a lot of art. Like I said, it's a de stressor. If there's anybody out there who you know, is working through PTSD or you know, some kind of issues, military wise or not. Check me out and I'm willing to help out with that as well. It's just @dtdelaflor on Instagram. That's really I mean, I'm not very creative when it came to the name. It was just @dtdelaflor. 

Brock Briggs  1:38:50  

Make it simple. 

Victor De La Flor  1:38:51  

Yeah, that's it.  I mean, the easiest way to find me, right? But I do post a lot of my art on there. I mean, I just did Fleet Week San Diego. I have my stuff at the Oceanside Museum of Art for veterans exhibit. So I'm big on the whole, you know, veterans helping veterans, active duty helping active duty, so please reach out. But otherwise, the easiest way to get a hold of me is on LinkedIn.

Brock Briggs  1:39:15  

Fantastic! Vic, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Victor De La Flor  1:39:18  

I appreciate it, man. It was a great time.