Ep. 158: Sean Dowling, President, Eastern Operations Area at TurnPoint Services

Well-

A friend of mine from undergrad-

I, I, I wanna pause on that.

I wanna re- uh, rewind a little bit and dive into that a little bit deeper because it's so interesting that, you know, you went through so much training to be- To how to th- literally think rationally and calmly in the most extreme combat situation, and then now it's like, how did that all go out the window? But it's, it's, it's actually interesting because in speaking with other 51Vets members, and I've been doing this since 2017, it, it, it's, it's interesting.

It's almost like all the training, the systems, and the processes, method- being methodical, it's like not being brought to the job search process.

Exactly.

And it's like, "Guys, you gotta know how to do this."

It, it is a, that, that is like s- so well said, and, uh, I don't necessarily have like great advice for it either.

Because when you're on a team, it's probably gonna sound a little childish, but like when you're on a team surrounded by like the, the, the total studs that exist on, on special operations teams across, uh, the Special Operations command spectrum, like you, you're in your super suit, man.

And like you are a, like you are surrounded by animals and, and like you are therefore this sort of like untouchable, unbeatable machine, and it is instantaneous.

Like you r- you rely on that and revert to that training and break things down and don't freak out instantaneously because you're, you're like surrounded by a team of high-achieving individuals.

And even they're like individual actions, they, they still exist.

But when you sort of take that step off and you take that suit of armor away, you're exposed with this like person who doesn't really know how exactly to apply those like really incredibly value, valuable soft skills that like I make, you know, I make my living off of those right now.

Um, a- a- and I think that every single, every single person like goes through that differently.

And I think the more traumatic your sort of departure from the military, probably the, the worse you are at applying those skills immediately.

Um, but, but it is a, I think it is like the most pr- you know, prolific thing I see guys underselling themselves with consistently all the time.

Like they, like they don't understand how incredibly valuable and rare execution is.

And, and like ex- execution i- isn't like this like big strategic concept.

It is like you are not only trained to build a plan, but then to execute that.

And the type of person that's capable of doing both is, is incredibly rare.

There are people who can kind of follow orders, and I, I'll say those are different from executors.

There are people who are really, you know, high quant, left brain, really good at building strategy, but are incapable of execution.

But the type of person that exists in, in 51Vets and the s- you know, in SOCOM in general, sort of on, on teams, are strategic executors.

And that, that's like an incredibly rare, incredibly successful person.

And the, the guys that I know, and the girls, uh, there are, there are a few of them, uh, who have a ton of success are the ones who take that, who take that same dog a- and apply it to their day jobs.