62. Never "Leaving" Service and the Power to Create with Paul Szoldra

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt, the show for current and former service members looking to life outside of the military. I'm your host, Brock Briggs and today I'm speaking with Paul Szoldra. After Paul's exit from the Marine Corps in 2010, he fell into journalism where he went on to write for publications like Business Insider, We Are The Mighty and later became the editor at Task & Purpose. 

He's the founder of the popular military satire newsletter, Duffel Blog. And late this last year went full time on a solo newsletter, The Ruck, a weekly national security newsletter. In this conversation, Paul talks about why everyone has the ability to create through writing with heuristics on getting started, the origins of Duffel Blog and his early insight into content marketing and going solo as a writer with some of the tools he uses in his process. I'd highly recommend checking out Duffel Blog and The Ruck if you haven't already. I'm a subscriber to both and hearing this conversation will give you even more appreciation for those. Please enjoy this conversation with Paul Szoldra.

Brock Briggs

One of the things that I like to start off with is more of a personal question just to kind of get to know you a little bit better. Is there something that you're really really proud of but maybe you don't get to talk to a lot of people or tell them about?

Paul Szoldra  1:35  

I don't know. I guess, you know, on a personal note, I don't talk about this very often, but I'm really proud of my kids. And I'm really proud of my family. And that's not something that really ever comes up in any kind of forum or any kind of, you know, professional kind of, I guess this is professional-ish. But my kids are awesome. And they're really smart and they're creative and they're fun. And they're grown up and they give me a lot of joy. So that's definitely my answer there. And hopefully it will give my wife a smile and approving nods.

Brock Briggs  2:37  

That's a great answer. And I love hearing stuff like that because it really gives you an idea about what people think is important. Because there is like, like you said in a professional capacity, you are always being asked about maybe like work accomplishments or things like that, but get an idea about what people really care about when it comes to things that they're proud of. So that's cool. You spent a good amount of time around a year or so in the Marines. How do you think that you will position the Marines to your kids?

Paul Szoldra  3:13  

You know, the answer to this question is sort of ebb and flow and I suppose. I think when I first joined the military and how I would have positioned that to my kids, I'm like a moto. You know, I love the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps is awesome. You know, this is the coolest job ever. Being an infantry squad leader was the best job in the world, you know, this kind of my vibe and mindset. But it wasn't all sunshine and roses being in the Marine Corps and I got out of the Marine Corps before I made it a career, you know, that certainly says something. So you know, I've sort of struggled with the answer to this question. It's sort of like, would you support your kids going into the military? 

And sometimes I think no, sometimes I think yes. Ultimately, I guess where I fall right now is I think that when the time comes when my kids want to join the military, if they want to join the military, I'm just going to be honest with them if they asked me questions about what it was like and what service is and what it means and what it means in practical terms, in terms of you know, how much it can suck sometimes and how awful it can be to lose friends, to deal with really, really hard times. If they ask me those questions, I'll be honest. But I won't dissuade them. And ultimately, it's their decision. And I'd be proud of them either way. It's tough to say for me, like, I get conflicted on this question. And it's like, it's kind of weird. Like, you start off on this. This is like one of the heaviest questions for me, like, right off the bat. 

But I got a lot out of serving in the Marine Corps. A huge amount, I mean, a huge amount of my life now is arguably thanks to serving in the Marines. And all came from that. And I won't ever forget about that, you know, now that I'm out and I've been kind of reporting on this stuff. And being a journalist outside of the military and seeing so much of the awfulness of, you know, sort of things that happen that are, you know, bad things that happen to service members, especially junior service members. You know, it's frustrating and it really upsets me. And so that gives me some pause, I guess, about joining the military. But at the end of the day, I think that we need really smart, really good people to join the military and we need to attract them. 

And I really hope that the military keeps working and improving upon itself and getting better. There was one thing that struck me like, about a month or so ago, is that a friend of mine retired from the Marine Corps after like 21 years, 22 years. And he had an officer who was, you know, speaking about him, you know, lauding him for his accomplishments and things like that. And he told him and my buddy, he didn't want to get out. He was actually, he was sort of like, at the end of his retirement, you know, it's one of those you gotta retire now kind of situations. And the officer was aware of this, knew him well. And he said, look, you know, don't worry about us. You have done, you've done an amazing amount of things for our country over 20 years, so many accomplishments and so many sacrifices you've made.

And there are plenty of people here that will pick up the baton and continue to carry the torch forward. And don't worry about you know, what comes next, there is always there. And so like, I guess, from that I kind of look upon this and think like, you know what? It doesn't really matter whether I'm conflicted or not about military service or whatever, whatever my kids go in or whatever. It's a big machine. And the military will keep rolling along. And it's a train and people jump on it, people jump off it, but it just keeps rolling along and it will continue to go along and change comes very, very slow. But it keeps going forward. I have a more optimistic outlook, I suppose on it nowadays.

Brock Briggs  8:55  

You have been reporting on military related issues basically, since you got out. And you said in another interview, something that I thought was interesting, you said that you never really got out of the Marine Corps. Like you kind of, you didn't get off the train, so to speak, maybe took the uniform off, but like didn't exit the train fully. What do you think was pulling you to stay with that?

Paul Szoldra  9:24  

I think well, skipping ahead. I think nowadays I have really pulled a lot to military veterans. Most of my deepest relationships are often with veterans. You get really quickly to the point, I suppose with a veteran is what I'm trying to get to. It's just a shared bond of common background that it's, I don't know, it's just nice. It's a nice bond to have and I kind of value it. I didn't really realize the value of it when I first got out and I first got out of the Marine Corps and over time, I'm like, as I've met more veterans and spoken with just a lot more service members from various branches outside of the Marine Corps and kind of got this really interesting perspective from all over. 

I mean, when I said that, you know, I didn't really get out of the Marine Corps, it's you know, I got out. I went to college, GI Bill. I got out and I basically, I started Duffel Blog in college and also started an internship with Business Insider covering the military. And it was a, it just became a thing, you know, where I got out of the Marine Corps and was very much like, okay, I'm gonna have to figure something else out and find whatever the next thing is, getting out of the military, which I thought was going to be like business, you know. Like you know, be some manager at, you know, some corporation or something like that. And through a series of accidents, became a writer and started writing about the military and just never stopped. That's really like my, you know, my career in a nutshell.

And you know and then it's like, along the way, the people who have read my work are military members, a lot of them. And then they reached out to me and we talk and I become, you know, I follow more and more military members and learn more and more and I just become endlessly fascinated by all these new things that I'm learning about this organization that I was just part of, that I had no idea of, you know, that's like a lot of the things that I've done and worked on or written about, a lot of them are like, just, you know, my curiosity about a thing or I like find out some new thing, where my sphere in the Marine Corps, like I would have never been exposed to that.

Brock Briggs  12:51  

It is interesting how you often need to like step back from the sphere that you talked about to really get a bigger picture on things that you may be, you know, you're writing on, like national defense and all of these things now, but I'm guessing that that was not front of mind issues for you, while you're running in the infantry. And I feel very similar, talking to interesting vets doing this podcast writing and reading of all of these people, it sure makes you feel or during at least my time in, I'm not going to speak for you or others, but my time in it certainly makes me feel very closed minded about what I was going through. And even though that I thought it was really tough and all of this stuff at the time now offers like a much different perspective once you get out and talk to other people.

Paul Szoldra  13:51  

You know, I think though, you hit upon a really a good point, which is like, you know, in that small, you know, little sphere that you're in when you don't really know the big picture, it's really a bad thing. And I feel like that's a pretty common trait, you know, for being a junior member of the military. I can't imagine you know, you working on the FAA team imaging systems, like people are telling you at least any regular basis like hey, how this all adds up into the grand scheme of things like kind of at least motivating you to show you like, hey, this actually matters. To you, you just like oh, I have this freakin’ job and I have to turn a wrench or whatever. 

And it was the same for me. You know when you're a grunt, they don't tell you like really much of anything. You know like, we're going to, you know, we're going on deployment to Okinawa. Why are we going to Oki? No one, nobody tells you. You don't really know, like the bigger picture. You just know it's gonna be hot. And it's gonna be miserable sometimes and stuff like that. And you know, I think when you have a chance to at least distill some of that, like bigger picture on to like, bring that down, I think that helps you a lot like in just motivating you to do your job. Like one of the things that I guess I think about now is like, I am really mission driven, you know and I think that's something from the military like, I like to have a mission. 

And like something that I'm driving towards something that I want to accomplish and something that's like a bigger picture that's like motivating, that's not money, you know. It’s like everybody needs things like money, you know, like health and, you know, their family taking care of, but like, if you're going to do something all the time or like a big majority of time of your day like work, you know, is it going to be something for like some bigger picture that's like driving you to do good. And you know, my mission really is driving big picture. To me, it's a personalized one. It's you know, like, my family and maximizing time with family, you know and like, hanging out with them and being able to take them places and do things. That's so whatever I can do to enable that is what I want to do, at least for me, I think like a mission is really, really important to setting up for yourself, like even if that's on an individual basis.

Brock Briggs  17:26  

Did you look at going into journalism as something that would be in support of that family mission that you're talking about? I think that getting out of the services, it's very clear that that is not a great way to have a really outstanding and stellar family life. But simultaneously, like working in kind of like maybe an entrepreneurial endeavor or something like where you're directly responsible every day for what you're doing there. And I kind of view writing as that way that I don't know that it's probably you're coming home every night for sure, which is much different but maybe challenging and kind of like a different way. Have you looked at journalism as a way to kind of still support that family mission?

Paul Szoldra  18:21  

Well, I guess I would say that my, you know, the driver of me, it's changed over time. I mean, I'm 39 years old and I've been married now for four years and got two kids, two dogs, like very domesticated, you know and so my mission is pretty obvious. Like that's, you know, supporting that. 10 years ago when I first started in the journalism business, you know, the circumstances were a bit different. I was really brand new and I didn't really know anything. I started out as an intern at Business Insider and my mission was basically like, just try to get a job, you know, get my foot in the door. Really. And mission was, you know, just scrap anything together to feed your family. So you know, that changes over time I suppose. But, you know, I certainly wouldn't. I don't recommend the journalism industry for like, you know, endless riches.

Brock Briggs  19:37  

I've been told that by many people. But I will say that every journalist/writer that I speak with, the quality of life that they speak to, I think, outside of monetary gain is very clear to me. And I think that that's difficult to put a price on. We were talking about transition a little bit before we started recording. And I think that there's this really big idea that you need to, you know, you get out and you go get a job and, you know, you work that job so that you can do this next thing and you get this promotion or whatever. But it doesn't seem to me that there really is a focus on like, things that you actually want to be doing in life and like finding things that actually lights your fire every day. And because I think that if more people were honest about that, they probably wouldn't be pursuing that path. And they can find other ways of like, taking care of the home life and stuff by doing other things.

Paul Szoldra  20:51  

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, the appeal of journalism and writing to me is really about being creative, being able to just be, I just love the idea that I can write about anything, you know. Saying, like, here's what I want to do in my life, I want to write things and post them for people on the internet to read. Like, kid me couldn't even think of that. Like, it's like, that's nutty. It's crazy that it's even possible so. And you know, but beyond that, I think the appeal is really like, I feel like I'm serving other people, you know. I'm doing a task. I'm using my experience and my skills and my knowledge to help other people understand the world, you know. I'm taking really complex information about national security or I am reading some really, just crazy hard to understand, you know, 200 page report from wherever. 

And then now I'm trying to translate that into 500 to 800 words of something that's you not only want to read, but you're also really like, entertained by it because I transformed it into a narrative. Like, I like that challenge of doing that. And you know, ultimately, it's like just going back to that, you know, I never left the Marine Corps thing. You know, I'm serving a mission of like helping other people get smarter, you know, raising up the collective level of intelligence in the Western world. It sounds like lofty and kind of crazy, but it helps me, it helps set my work into perspective, like, hey, this can actually matter to people. And writing is a very lonely profession, you know. It is like, when you write stuff, you have to find feedback. 

And it's, you know, maybe somebody will message you or you know, text you or what have you, but you know, comments or whatever it is, like, when you get somebody that says, hey, this was really helpful or this is really good. It's like a huge rush, you know, it helps like make it all worthwhile to where, like, hey, I wasn't just, you know, spinning my wheels and wasting my time. Like someone actually read that and got some value out of it. I just, I love it. I love the feeling. I love publishing new things. I just love creating and building new stuff and especially when it comes to you know, national security and just kind of what kind of things are happening in the world. 

Like I have to like, remind myself sometimes like oh, I'm a weird person. I have, you know, all these different feeds of information of like all these different events. I'm kind of covering and seeing all these things. And when I go in my house and talk to my wife, if I mentioned any of these things I'll have to explain more than I know because like I'm just it's already in it, you know, like, oh developments to Somalia? Yeah, yeah okay, I'm watching that, you know. It's a weird place that I currently reside but it's fun.

Brock Briggs  25:14  

I think that you mentioned something there that I think is really interesting. Your awareness of the fact that you are in a unique position of all of these different feeds of information. And in a way everybody is like, but the thing is, we don't oftentimes know that. It's very easy to feel that like, we're all kind of looking at the same posts and reading the same news. And I think it's for that reason that many people don't feel inspired or that they have the ability to offer the world something unique. And especially like in the writing space, maybe it's the video space and the creator space. So we'll probably use that word, a handful. It's a bit overused, but we'll use it. How do you think that people can overcome that? Because I think that overcoming that and realizing that you do have something and everybody has something unique to offer the world is probably one of the keys that you need to unlock being a creator, I guess.

Paul Szoldra  26:29  

Yeah, I really agree with you. I think that you know, most everybody has something of value. And something that's unique to share with the world. I see a lot of this on Substack, especially. Substack is the newsletter hosting platform where I host the Duffel Blog and The Ruck. And it makes it really easy for people to write on the internet. I mean, they have really just simplified the process of what is essentially starting your own blog. It's just today's version of the blog. And, you know, there's people I follow, you know, this media executive that writes about, he's been in media for, you know, 30 something years and he's writing about tech and media and all these different trends. I can tell, he's got a very fascinating way of looking at things and just a really, really good mind, really great thinker. 

And so it's really valuable to me. I love reading that stuff and there's just so much out there. And I look at a guy like that and a lot of these different things. And also just going back to Duffel Blog, I think it really starts with looking around your own sphere of influence or what your industry is or, you know, what you like to do. And doing some basic research does something that you would like to see doesn't even exist. When I was a kid, I'm gonna date myself but when I was a kid, there was this website called GeoCities. Which geo cities was like, you could create your own website like this is back in the day, this is like 20 years ago, internet 1.0. And GeoCities like anybody create a website and so like, it was like the weirdest websites in the world were on GeoCities.

But I was a huge fan of Top Gun, wild wild Top Gun and there was not a like a repository of all of the information about Top Gun that I wanted. I wanted all the photos. I wanted the script. I wanted the best quotes. I wanted, like all of the like I just wanted the greatest fan page for Top Gun and so that was like the GeoCities thing I just made that you know, on GeoCity. But like, that's kind of how I always think about these things like I guess don't create for all these people that you don't know and will never meet like create for yourself. You know, wherever you are like, you can tell whether there's a lot of people that are you know, like would be interested in this thing, just like if you're you know, working at Amazon and you're an Amazon worker, you know. 

Like working in one of the factories that like if there was like an inside Amazon blog by one of the factory workers like writing just like a post a week about what it's like to work at this place, oh my God, that'd be an amazing read. It'd be so great. I would love to read that. Like, just like Insider takes are just really great writing opportunities. And I saw this a lot with military especially with like military blogs about a decade ago with you know, soldiers just writing about, you know, patrolling in Iraq and you know, going and doing things and doing civil affairs projects and all these other things. Like these started as just like, you know, simple blogs that are of, you know, not really of much importance. But when you really think about it nowadays, if I were to look up, like I mean, one of the people one person that did this was a soldier named Kobe Buzzle. I can look up his posts from the Iraq War, you know, that he wrote when he was in country, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it is.

And it's a part of history now. You know, we have this great insight into the mind of a soldier from that period of time. And I love that I'm just very much pro-write, you know, just write about what you know, write about what you see. You know, not all of its going to be fascinating and amazing. And maybe people won't like it, you know, but you're never gonna know unless you give it a try and see if it works. And if it doesn't, like no big deal, you know. It's like it's, you know, blogs come and go all the time on the internet. But yeah, I think everybody has, you know, has interesting things to say about their lives, their jobs, their families. And it's just really a matter of finding the words to say it.

Brock Briggs  32:31  

I think the benefit is twofold. First and foremost, the value to be had from putting your thoughts down on paper and solidifying what those actually look like, gives you unbelievable clarity about what you actually think. And just like the phenomenon of like, thinking you know something and like going to write about it and realizing you don't know anything about it really highlights that. So that's the first and foremost. But second, I think, especially if people are willing to share publicly, it's not a big stretch to find other people that are interested in it and maybe even like, maybe it's not for everybody.

But there are people that make careers out of it, you know. People writing on Substack I know that make great livings doing that. And it's just stuff that they were doing anyway. And that actually allowed them to quit their job because they just were willing to share publicly so I am a big proponent of it as well. What was the original inspiration, I guess for Duffel Blog? That was kind of your longest standing public project that you're working on and still run into this day. And I'm a big fan. I'm a subscriber. I love it. And I know that a lot of people listening will be as well. Where did kind of the inspiration for that come from? And I guess why do you think that that needed to exist at that time?

Paul Szoldra  34:07  

Well, thank you for the compliments. I really appreciate it. You know, I get asked this question as you can imagine quite a bit. And you know, I really wish I had some kind of grand awesome answer like, you know dark brown or something. I fell and you know, boom. I just came up with the idea for the flux capacitor. But the idea for Duffel Blog, it essentially came out of an entrepreneurial venture. It's like, it was a side project that became the main project. And when I got to the Marines, I felt sort of lost like I didn't really know what I was doing, how to go to college, what that was going to be like. I did eight years in the Marine Corps. So I was not totally to 20 years lifer status, but I was on the trajectory. And so just lost a lot of, you know, like I don't know, I call it how to be civilian, like skills. 

So it was just a weird time for me to get out. And so I went to the University of Tampa. I originally chose the major of business management, which, you know, I didn't know anything about it. I just picked it because it, you know, sounded fine. And if you're, I got out as a sergeant and I was, you know, leading Marines. And so that seems to mean to me that I could probably lead people. But, you know, in later research, I've learned that, you know, the business management is a pretty standard degree. So I changed my major a little bit and I also ultimately ended up on entrepreneurship. And you know, they have this program there that was basically all about starting your own business. And I found those very, very interesting and really wanted to do my own thing. And I came up with the idea for essentially, like a Yelp for colleges like for the GI Bill, like it was called collegeveteran.com. 

And it would be a place where veterans could check and see, like, you know, how’s the University of Tampa, you know, what are the veterans on campus say about this one? What is Yale like? Are their veterans there? What's it like or you know, this you know what's like, UNC looking like and kind of, like the veteran rating system for colleges was the idea and I pitched it and some competitions that college and you know, did pretty well and it kind of worked on that and made a business plan for it and everything. And this was all a time of learning for me about creating a business, about building a business, about online writing and marketing and one of the things I was learning about was content marketing. 

And blogs were, you know, a lot of companies would basically have a blog as a way to attract people to their company's website. And that's how Duffel Blog started. Duffel Blog was the first blog or the second blog, there was college veteran, you know, the actual blog about like the GI Bill, which no one read. And then there was a blog called Duffel Blog, which was just funny satire stuff that I just wrote up myself. And modeled it after the onion. And really, my thinking on it was like, you know, I really liked the onion. I think they're really, really funny. And they do an amazing job on so much. But I would always find myself reading like, some articles that they would write about the military and they would maybe mess up like the rank or the uniform would be wrong in the photo or something like that. 

And you know, it seems so stupid and small, but it really matters to the reader of satire when you are pulled out of the joke because you basically are sitting there and you're like, you read the thing but then the writer basically makes an error and like makes your it's like screwing me up in my own head where I'm not getting to enjoy it. And so I'm like, you know what? I can get the ranks right. I know the uniforms like ah, this is easy. No problem. Of course that's not, that was very, very hard but that was kind of it. I didn't really, I didn't have some kind of big long term plan. I just thought that this would be fun to do. And it'd be funny, they kind of crack jokes and write sort of news stories and a new style like that. But about the military and kind of taking those inside humor jokes and writing news stories around them, you know. 

Like I wrote stories about like cadences and stuff that I found really funny. Like, there was one. You know, there's like cadences, you know, we used to run around like, you know, C 130 rolling down the strip, you know. And I know, we've probably done double blog articles about, like, the C 130 rolling down the strip, like we're creating some sort of fictional world around that actual C 130. And that's just like, so fun and cathartic for the writers of Duffel Blog like to kind of transform that thing. Because just in that instance, that cadence, it's grating on so many people's ears at this point. We've heard it way too much. It's played out. We do not want to hear it anymore. And I'm just signing that statement, all of the junior enlisted. They all submitted letters to me and asked me to ask for the C 130 rolling down the strip cadence to be retired. So cut it out.

Brock Briggs  41:40  

How long did you write Duffel Blog solo? And how many writers you have now? How many subscribers do you have? You kind of give us like an idea of the size of it. And maybe we'll do plugs at the end where people can go and find it. And I'll have that in the show notes and whatnot. But,

Paul Szoldra  42:01  

So I started Duffel Blog in March 2012 and was writing that I think it was about once or twice a week. And was doing that for about a month or so. And then I finally, then I got this email out of the blue from a soldier in Kuwait who was just bored out of his mind and was like, hey, you know, and I remember exactly what the email was. But it was just like, hey, you know, I'm so and so. I'm super bored here in Kuwait. I'm at Camp Buehring. I mean, it's Buehring. I’m at camp Buehring Kuwait, it's probably how you're supposed to say it or at least what soldiers pronounce it as. And he's like, can I write for you. And you know at this point, I had no idea that anything like this was going to happen. It was sort of, you know, in retrospect it's like this, like, kind of lightning bolt moment, I suppose of like oh, this could be a place for military veterans to write. And you know, be able to learn this new creative skill. Like, I'm super proud of that now, you know, but at the time, it wasn't like that. 

But so like a month in, I got my first contributor. I added him on and, you know, kind of some contributors kind of came on over the months. And I vetted them and kind of various, you know, ways of, you know, how that rolled on, but the number has been as high as like over 100 at some points. Now, it's probably around now 50 or so, it's just kind of, like we basically add people as writers like, it's kind of an application process. And then once you're in the club, you kind of get to stay in the club and some people will write a lot. And then they like, you know, life gets in the way they, you know, go on deployment or whatever, you know. They just drop off and then they show back up again. Other people write like, hardly ever and then, you know, send in gold like you know, every three months. So it's a weird kind of system, but we have over 28,000 subscribers to the newsletter, which is our main avenue really is the email newsletter now.

Brock Briggs  45:14  

So you've obviously been running that for some time. And then you talked about being an internet Business Insider. You worked at We Are The Mighty, wrote at Business Insider full time. And then was the editor at Task & Purpose for some time. How do you think that your writing style has kind of evolved over that time 10 plus years doing the same kind of craft? I would imagine that you're significantly better than your first starting out.

Paul Szoldra  45:48  

Now I'm really bad. What's probably changed the most is I'm a lot more comfortable with making my writing accessible to everyone. When I first started out and you know, I think like, when I first started out, I wrote about the military about national security. I had a lot of acronyms in my head. I have a lot of kind of, like, I don't know. I just got a lot of things going on up here. And it's really hard to explain, like the complex in a news story. It almost seems like really hard like you know, how could I possibly explain nuclear weapons or the use of nuclear weapons or like, you know, the mutually assured destruction theory in a news story about military, you know like about, about Air Force, you know, Global Strike command or something like I think as like a younger writer, I might not have explained or contextualized stuff, things as much as I should have. 

And I think, you know, the thing that I've learned in sort of both ends in journalism and also in editing Duffel Blog, too is I've applied it on both sides is I try to make everything accessible no matter who you are, you know. I think if you look at Duffel Blog, you know, Duffel Blog is very much catered to and geared towards military service members. But I never want it to be impossible for a person who has no military service to understand it. So that means writing out acronyms or you know, if you're in like just things that maybe become like standard in news stories is like ads, just shorthand editor doesn't even say like editors, like don't even worry about explaining it. I’m constantly questioning that from a reader perspective is like, are they gonna notice? Like, are they gonna get this? 

Because like, the one thing that I hate when I'm reading is when I'm reading something and then I like, come across some word or you know, something like, especially it's like a word choice. I'm like, I don’t know what the hell that means. Now, I have to Google the word. Like, you know, like writing to me is not some contest about, you know, showing how smart I am as a writer by using big words. Instead it's about extending information to the person who's receiving it in a clear and understandable manner. And you know, so I write and I try to write in simple language. You know, I don't really like you know, flowery like just kind of over the top prose, it’s just not my style. And I like to, I really like I've gotten a lot better with narrative and telling an actual story.

You know, it's just far more compelling to start a story something about something happening in the news with a story that a person can visualize. You know, good example is, you know, a really great example is like, I remember I was writing this one story about this company that was doing, they were doing like, they were making some kind of new, some kind of boat, like a really fast moving boat that they wanted to sell it to the US Navy. You know, you can start out that story in a number of ways. You could, you know, say, like, hey, the lead sense can be like this company just created this revolutionary new boat, you know, whatever. And that's compelling, you know, but the way I took it was, I wanted the context of the boat up front. 

And so I started with like, you know, the year is like so and so and you know, a ship was just attacked by Iranian gunboats. You know, X amount of sailors were killed and the ship was lost. This was a fictionalized scenario. But it was really war gamed in the year, you know, such and such. And this next boat could be the solution to that problem. Like, it's not exactly how I wrote it. But that's kind of like, it was painting some sort of picture. It's like, gives you that like, oh, shit as a reader. Like oh, this is real like, wow. Because people are super busy. 

And I do it myself. Like, if I'm reading something and I start to get bored, I leave. I don't continue it, you know, like and so that is my reader as well. And so I just try not to write sentences that are boring. Like, that's the constant challenge is you're writing stuff. And then when you go back over it, you gotta read it over and be like and try to look at it with fresh eyes and think like, can I make this a little bit better? And that's like, I guess I do that all the time.

Brock Briggs  52:27  

As a writer, how do you think about understanding like, where the knowledge of your reader is versus like, having to explain something every time? Because at a certain level, you're obviously having to assume that people know what you're talking about. And there's like, kind of a basic level of understanding versus like, going back and like rehashing something kind of every time. Do you think about that?

Paul Szoldra  52:53  

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there's actually, there's like a cheat code for this in journalism circles. And if you are an aspiring writer, definitely should look this up. But there's something called the nut graf. So graf, like GRAF. Everything in journalism is kind of like, it's this weird cutting off of letters for shorthand, but the nut graf is basically this is what accomplishes this. And you'll see this in most of the major papers, everybody does. This is basically like you start with your lead about, you know, here's like the most interesting thing that I'm telling you about right away, like the news, the hook that's important about the story that you're about to read. 

And once you've delivered that bit of information about the first or second, you know, one or two sentences, then you should get into what's called a nut graf, which contextualizes the thing in the bigger picture. It's like, basically a sentence or two that tells you like, what this is a part of. So like for example, if there is a, you know, an incident in the South China Sea, like you know, China and the US Navy. Like we just have this, we're like a fighter jet and our spy plane, they became close together. So like the lead would be all about, you know, these two planes came close to each other and they were 20 feet near each other. The nut graf would be about, you know, this is just the latest incident in after many years of tensions in the South China Sea between the United States and China in 2021 and 2018 da, da, da. 

And you kind of like, characterize a few different incidents to show the reader like, hey, this actually happens a lot way more than it should or vice versa. Like oh, you contextualize it, where it's like oh, this is totally new, you know, it's like, if that were the case. Like that's the place where it's super important. And it only takes like, you know, a couple of sentences. So it doesn't take a lot, you don't have to really like, you know, like beat a dead horse and over contextualize, you know. It's like, I think like, I always think back from the reader's perspective. And think about it this way. Like if the person reading this thing that you wrote, this is the first thing that they've ever written from you. What do you need to tell them? 

That's the context that you need in every piece of writing that you write, especially on the internet. You know, like I have like, just the distribution and how things work now, like nobody's really going to a website every single day, you know. People used to bookmark websites and then, you know, go to like, they visit this website and then that website and then that website. Nobody does that anymore. People just go and scroll their social feeds and then click links and then they go on their email and you click a link and you might go wrong. Like, nobody really understands like how or why they're viewing the things they do, it's just kind of part of their day. And you're catching them as a writer in between these moments. 

And so think of that person who's like kind of invaded, like they need, you know, they need some kind of context around like, what the heck is happening in that space. And so, you know, if you're like a news writer, that means you need to give them all the context you need. If you're some kind of a marketer or a business person, you should be, you know, putting your like, who the heck you are? Explaining that like, what your experience is, having a call to action at the bottom, you know, because that's just the nature of the game these days is that there's so much content that yeah, it's you have to contextualize it and sort of, you know, do the work for your readers a little bit.

Brock Briggs  57:49  

That's really good. What else do you have? If you have more to say on that like, keep going because I'd love to hear more about like, I enjoy writing. I know, some listeners also kind of in like the writing space as well. How else do you think about approaching like the 2023 reader or consumer of content, structuring and like making and distributing the content, I guess, in the, you know, bombardment of short form video and whatever else, we've got served up on our plate to take our attention.

Paul Szoldra  58:29  

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, there's so many different places to go. And I mean, like you said, the short form video is just, it's wild. I mean, my Instagram feed is just nothing but video. It's sort of getting annoying at this point. But yeah, there's like a lot of avenues to create on the internet. I think the key usually is really, there's no real tricks, though. It's like, it comes down to a few things. It has to be good, you know. Like, there's no tricks to the stuff like you can see stuff that goes viral and like spammy video accounts that are just, you know, getting views to build up their account, but they're not quality. They're just garbage. The good stuff usually crowds out the bad or at least rises up above the bad. And so you know, the bottom line is content is king. You have to create good stuff, good things that people wanna actually read, share, view, value. 

And then you know, you have to figure out where the, you know, especially these days, it's all about trying to find the niche engage communities that are for that kind of content. When you look at like looking on Facebook, there's all these really like there's just a huge number of groups dedicated just really different things. You know, I'm kind of like, I kind of get surprised sometimes you see us on Facebook, look on Reddit and all the different communities on Reddit around all kinds of just you name it. The different topics that people are talking about and communities are being created around them. It's really fascinating. And I think that, you know, that's where like I think content is sort of coming around that community aspect. It's sort of going back to that and you know, that it's sort of a Substack thing. 

I think I'm very biased because I'm exposed so much to Substack and I'm subscribed to so many Substacks now. But yeah, I think there's you know, there's a lot of opportunities to write and do things on the internet at same time 2023 AI, ChatGPT. These writing tools, I'm also really like I think it's gonna be crazy this year, with just a lot of bad content created and published and living on the internet. So that could be also an opportunity. You know, there could be so much bad stuff out there that now people are trying to find the good or there's some Google has to surface the good over the bad and justice algorithm. I mean, I don't know how that's going to go. But I don't think that there's going to be any lack of a need for good writing. That endures, you know, and that was true this year. I think it'll be true next year and I think it's gonna be true in five years. 

Brock Briggs  1:02:34  

How do you think about knowing when you need to pivot or to maybe go in a different direction? I think, something that I personally have experienced and talking to people just entering this space. There's this conflicting battle between people just saying, you know, just pick something and just do it for long enough and it'll work itself out. And then the people that are like, you know, look for feedback. You were talking earlier about writing being extremely lonely and how much it means when somebody leaves a comment or writes to you and says, thank you or whatever. That is like a sign of good feedback. But those two things are often conflicting and make it difficult to decide as somebody who's just starting out on what to do. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Paul Szoldra  1:03:29  

Yeah, I guess, I would say, you know, seek feedback. Feedback comes in all different forms. Feedback can be a comment left, a text message, tweets, people sharing your work on LinkedIn, even data on, you know, the number of views on the article you wrote. It's all feedback, it all tells you something about what you're doing. You know at the data level, if you have 1000 views of the thing you just wrote, well, that's pretty cool. 1000 views, that's really awesome. Like, keep doing that and see if you can keep doing it to get 1200 views and 1500 views and you just keep measuring and continuing to look and seek that data and the validation. And if the numbers start to go down, then you adjust. It's like and you like, you know, I look at it that way and I think like okay, if this next one doesn't do as well as this one, now I start to compare and contrast. 

You know, what was the headline on this? What was the headline on that? Was it an image thing? Was it the content? Did I write about a different kind of thing over here versus there? Like, what was it that drove people to like, you know, A versus B? So you know, feedback can come in all different forms. I think when you're just first starting out, anything and everything is great, you know, like, as much as you can get is going to be valuable. Even if it's bad, you know, especially if it's bad. If you're getting negative feedback like hey, I don't really like this, it's not my jam or whatever. The worst thing you can do is get all mad about it. Most people won't tell you that. Most people, I know the internet is really, really mean. Most people in the comments are really awful. 

But most people in real life are nice. And they talk to you nicely and normally. And they don't say like, hey, you suck and I don't like what you're doing. So I tell you, when people leave a comment on something I'm writing and if it's some kind of negative, as long as it's not like some bad faith, like kind of, you know, trolling, that's a learning opportunity. Like they took time out of their day to basically show hey, look, I care about what I just read. I actually care about you. And I wanted to let you know that I care about you so much that I want you to get better the next time. And because you know, most people like you read something on the internet, you didn't like it, you just close the page, you don't contact the author. Like nobody does that. So you have to be accepting of feedback, good or bad. 

And yeah, not all, but you don't always adjust. And you know like, you know, change positions on you know where to go like every week, but you know, it all helps. I think the one thing that I started doing, I'd say in the past couple of years that I think has been really, really great is I survey people every so often. So at Duffel Blog, I'll do like a reader survey that I set up in Survey Monkey. And you know, it starts out with like a, you know, how likely are you to recommend Duffel Blog to a friend, which gives you this really great sort of metric of like value of whether people would promote you or not. And then it asks like a bunch of different questions, I think, five or six questions. And gives them an opportunity for comments. And like, you know, anything we can do better or worse, whatever. 

And what was amazing about this is I had a general feeling through just hey, I've been doing this for a bit, I watched the comments. You know I'm responding to messages on Instagram and stuff like that, like I generally feel like people like Duffel Blog. And I can probably go in an interview and tell somebody like, yeah, Duffel Blog is really popular in the military. And you know, but I couldn't really tell you much more than that. The survey tells me you know more about who they are, like, the services that they are, like, you know, like what just gave me all these comments about what they really, really liked and admired. Like it was amazing. It's super duper helpful. 

And the cool thing about it is, it's like it's standardized, you know. So if you do the survey this month, six months from now, from then you can see its measurable improvement instead of you know, trying to like measure the wind of perception. And you know, coming up very short with trying to figure out the sentiment of your audience.

Brock Briggs  1:09:33  

Oh, that's good. You gotta stay in touch with them and be constantly like looking for areas to improve. And I liked that idea of kind of running the same thing every so often to kind of keep your finger on the pulse.

Paul Szoldra  1:09:45  

Yeah, and the other thing too with Substack that they just added is we can do polls in the story itself. So pretty much everyone now, it just it has a thing at the bottom that's like, share your thoughts on this story and people can rate it. And you know, like it's not a popularity contest. I mean, we have a very diverse readership, you know, different services, rank all over the place. So not everybody's gonna like everything. But it is a good way to gauge like, you know, if I had two three stories in a row where people were like hatin’ on it like, all right, well, maybe we're off kilter, right? 

Now we got to figure out some better stories, maybe find something that's a little funnier, you know. Like I'm not doing a good job as another this week, you know, like, it's trying to find those ways to get feedback is like I said, it's really it's hugely valuable and just being able to listen to your audience is good. And they like it too. You know, like, it doesn't take a lot to just like to say, okay, like thanks for sending that, you know. Like on the Duffel Blog emails, anybody can reply. And you can email, it doesn't require me to like send back some really big complicated response, you know like, somebody compliments, say, hey, I love that story. You know, I respond and say, hey, thanks so much, I really appreciate reading. And I know the feeling of what that's like, of getting that response. 

It's a good feeling when somebody who is the writer of the thing you wrote or the editor or whatever, somebody takes the time and actually responds to you. And you know, says, hey, thanks. I appreciate that. Instead of just like, the tendency, I think in media is to like ignore a lot of everything, like, ignore the readers, like screw the comments, let's not even talk to them. Like, I think it's hugely important to be talking to your audience. And it's like, a two way conversation. 

And you know, like a lot of my sources, I mean, like people when I launched The Ruck, a lot of people were commenting. You know, congratulations, this was awesome. I'm so excited for you, this that. And I was telling them all I'm like, well, just let me know whenever I'm screwing up. I don't need the congrats, I need people to save my butt. And tell me when I'm writing something that's like, totally stupid and doesn't make the most sense.

Brock Briggs  1:13:06  

Yeah, well, let's talk about The Ruck. So this last year, you jumped to being a full time writer, presumably, starting The Ruck on Substack. How has that going, kind of maybe outline the premise of it, where you're at and kind of, I guess what you're looking to do with that over the next, however long.

Paul Szoldra  1:13:29  

So I started The Ruck in August of last year, so it's not too old, only a few months old now. So starting out, starting out pretty, pretty slow. And we're up to just about 3300 free subscribers, which is pretty cool. But it is a weekly national security newsletter. And I started out with the idea of, you know, hey, I was a Marine. I got out and I have been covering national security now for 10 plus years. I was the editor in chief for Task & Purpose for four years. It's a long time to be out of the writing game. And I really, really wanted to get back into it and share my thoughts again and especially share the things I'm seeing and things I think are really important, especially with what's going on in the Pacific that I just don't think is there is nearly enough being attention has or doesn't have nearly enough the attention that it should have

And it's this year, I'm kind of I'm actually at this like kind of crossroads of trying to figure out like, which direction it goes and where to go with it. When I first started it and this is like the cool thing about a newsletter and I think writ large, just being a creator, there's no rulebook that says like, if you start on one way that you have to continue and do that exact same way, the next day or the next week or whatever, you can change things the very next day. Like if something you didn't like or it's like just not working for you, just cut it off and or add something new, you know, the next time and I was trying to figure out what the format would be like, is this going to be a, like national security briefing thing? 

Like, here's the week like, here's what's going on in the world that you need to know about, you know, like, kind of a listing of bullet points. Or do I want to make it more of my style of writing columns, where I sort of report but also sort of share my analysis, a little bit of my opinion on things. And right now, it's a bit of both. So I do both of those things in one email that goes out on Thursdays. So the top section is typically a column and then the bottom section is like, the week in national security news. It's kind of a lot, I'm thinking about splitting it up or maybe like doing one or the other. I'm not quite sure which way I'm gonna go. Yeah, it's one of those things that I'm actually kind of wrestling with right now trying to figure it out. So you know, I will say if there's any readers of The Ruck that are listening to this right now and prefer one or the other, you know, please let me know.

Brock Briggs  1:17:20  

Yeah, absolutely. I'll be sure to include links to Duffel Blog and The Ruck in the show notes. But yeah, I highly recommend it. I was just reading your post on the US military pilots just the other day and was really enjoying it. And I liked the element of kind of being able to explore and like you're highlighting there and from your perspective, you can kind of see what resonates and like, also, what is sustainable for you, as a writer. There is the whole idea of like burnout, you could really work yourself into a pattern that is not sustainable for the long term. And find a cadence that works for you and kind of fits with your flow.

Paul Szoldra  1:18:11  

I think a lot of people set up, a lot of people like look at goals, you know or they adapt for the goal they want to achieve instead of building systems. And so you know, if you have a goal of like, I have a goal of losing weight this year, that’s probably so many of us do. It is January. And I have this goal weight that I want to get there, but like that's not enough. I also need to have a system of that says like, I get up and every day at 6:15. I exercise 615 to, you know, 7am or something like that, like that is a system that I kind of can set up and have that on my calendar day to day. And I think that's how it is for my work and for my writing is like having some kind of system of you know.

Like when I see news and I see it in a lot of different areas, you know, whether that's you're in the CNN app or you're on Twitter or wherever, like there's all these different places where you get your information as a consumer. And I had to figure out like, where can I capture all of that in one place that I can access at a given time? So that when I'm writing the news rundown, I have it you know and I don't I have to go to like, friggin 20 different places to try to, like, try to search through this stuff. Like at the time I see it, I now have this, you know, system in my head where I'm like, oh, I can share that off to Trello. And then it's on my Trello board. And that's where I go to find it. And so like, you know, just building systems is like breaking down, you know, the building blocks of the task you have is like, I find that it helps me get things done a lot easier and just more efficiently.

Brock Briggs  1:20:43  

Well, and getting it all written down kind of on paper, like a process or however you want to look at it or maybe visually just seeing it, you're able to see like, hey, maybe this other step needs to be put in here. And that will save this other time or I can do these things at the same time. Allows you rather than just kind of like, hey, I've committed to writing a weekly newsletter and you just kind of like, kind of wake up one day and like, do it. 

Paul Szoldra  

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

Getting it down on paper like, that's a recipe for failure, for sure. Just, you know, you gotta figure out what the right processes and then, like you said, get it in a way that's repeatable.

Paul Szoldra  1:21:26  

Yeah or like, outlining also is great. I highly recommend that if you're writing something, especially, that's more complex you know, write it first in an outline format with just, you know, just the basic kind of bullet point information of, you know, if you're going to create a PowerPoint, what's gonna be up on the slides. And you know, like for me, I'd set that off to the left side of the screen. And then on the right is my like, writing portion. And that's just my little cheat sheet, like, okay, now I can write about that and expand upon that. And that also helps me a lot with getting through writing projects.

Brock Briggs  1:22:18  

Is there any other tools or software that you'd like to use that help you with that process? You mentioned Trello. Is there anything else?

Paul Szoldra  1:22:29  

Yeah, Trello, I like a lot. And I use that quite a bit. Trying to think of what else there's this new app that I just started using. I think it's still in beta. But it's called Mem, mem.ai. And it's like a note taking app. It's like Evernote, I used to use Evernote a lot. And you know, Evernote got really bulky and it was just bloated with all kinds of extra stuff. And I stopped using it. And I was in this like, wilderness of where do I put my notes and went back to like Apple notes. But recently discovered this Mem tool. And it's pretty neat. I like that it makes the capture of information is really easy. Like, I can basically like saving emails, like people send me an email that I'm like, oh, this is cool. I wanna save this, you know, just something I might access later. 

And what I can do is I can for that to an email with some like hashtags, like this is information about China, #China, #Taiwan. And it will create a new note in my Mem, like Notes app, with the entire email in it with a tag. And then like, you know, if I'm doing research on something in China, that email, I mean, like there's no freaking way I'm ever gonna find that like in Gmail ever again. But if I'm doing research on China, I just go and hit the China hashtag and then I'll see kind of what I've researched, what I've written about there, CAPTCHA there and it uses AI so it also will surface some other new stuff. And so far, it's a pretty neat tool. 

But other than that, you know, I use Google Calendar pretty much and I like time block. So I just, you know, whatever. If I have a task to do I try to like time block what the timing of that is and just put it on the calendar. And that tells me my brain that's like, this is a thing that you should get on and actually get done and not procrastinate. So that's my method, you know, it works for me. It won't work for everybody. But that's what I use. I would also highly recommend a Substack that I love. It's called Wonder Tools. And that's how I found the mem tool, actually. It's this journalism instructor, one of my journalism instructors, actually at CUNY and he writes about, like lots of different software and apps and like new kind of cool stuff. And it's like a weekly thing. 

So a lot of times he's, you know, sharing these new things that have appeared that I've never heard of before. Oh, like actually, I just, I'm seeing a new one on there that on his page that I also use a lot, which is Canva, is just absolutely incredible for graphics and graphic design if you're a creator on the internet and you know, if you're like struggling with Photoshop, you can put Photoshop away, get a Canva account. And this will, you know, there's so many templates and tutorials and like, it just makes creating graphics really, really easy. I've been using Canva, like Canva is, you know, all of the graphics, all of the imagery of Duffel Blog like this, how it looks, you know, professional is because of Canva. And just kind of how their tools there are designed, it's really, really good. I'm like kind of surprised by how good it is given that it's, you know, it's something that works in your web browser. That's like, crazy when you think of you know how much Photoshop was, you know, the standard forever.

Brock Briggs  1:27:42  

Yeah, I'm checking out this Wonder Tools sub stack right now. This looks like there's a lot of good content in here. I'm gonna have to put that on my subscribe list. And I'll put that in the links of the show notes as well. Paul, this has been a really really fun conversation, learned a lot about writing process, your history. And for those of you who haven't checked out The Ruck or Duffel Blog, I'd highly recommend it. Where can people go to find you? Or how can people, listeners or myself be useful to you?

Paul Szoldra  1:28:19  

I think if there's a place I want you to go it's just to subscribe to Duffel Blog and The Ruck. So those links will be in the show notes so you can Google them. But I would love it if you read my work there. At Duffel Blog, I am the editor. So I don't write as much as I used to, but what you're seeing there is the work of veterans of active duty servicemembers. It's really awesome that I'm, you know, I can't believe that. I can say that it's been around for over 10 years. And so yeah, I would love for you to read that. And also at The Ruck, you know, wherever that goes, it's going to be you know, essentially whatever it is, it's going to be my National Security newsletter. 

And you know, I'll try to make it good. You know, I always tried to do that. So if you subscribe, I would very much appreciate it. And then other than that, I'm on all the social media sites under my real name. Instagram, Paul Szoldra on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I used to be on TikTok. I'm not really on TikTok anymore, deleted it. Highly recommend you do the same. But yeah, so if you do see me out there on social, please feel free to reach out and say hello. And if you listen to this, you know, I'm here. I'm just a guy. So I'd love to chat.

Brock Briggs  1:30:17  

Awesome! Paul, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Paul Szoldra  1:30:21  

Thanks, Brock. Great to talk to you.