Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Rally Pointers all in. Good morning everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There's Justin Leadford here on the Rally Point Media show
doing some warrior wellness. I'm here with Big Sarge Jay Hemingway.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Along with our producers.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
A good morning. I hope everyone had a great week.
Last weekend we had our inaugural Legacy rot Club of
Southwest Florida Rock to Go.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Not too bad. We have thirteen people come out, so
for a first time ever. It yeah, I mean it
was good. It was good. Can't complain.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're probably going to do that about once a month,
and as we progress, as we grow, we're going to
start doing some challenges, have some patches and coins and
different things like that.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh that's nice.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh yeah, so yeah, no, it was a great experience.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We're gonna start getting some more locations, do some pop ups,
you know, probably on Freedom Fridays we'll get out and
maybe go Rouck for some coffee stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
And folks out there in radio land, so that you're
tracking here, I may be a serget, but you know,
master Sergeant Justin is not really master art letter is
not being honest here. So I'm called Master's Art on
the radio because as we all know in the army.
In the military, although we're all veterans, the guy represent
the rank sometimes, so if I'm gonna be call myself
(01:37):
a sergeant, he gonna be a mass sarrant. So if
I slip it in that, folks don't be shocked. It's
just a matter of if you know it. Hey, I
mean you useduld pushing the ground down for not doing that,
so you know it's automatic for me. So matter start,
I gotta ask in moving on with the uh your
ruck Legacy Ruck March or we called Legacy.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Legacy Rock Club Southwest Florida rut Club.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
How do people get involved in a find like to
get on board with that?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So you can actually go to Facebook and it's Legacy
Rock Club. We actually started it last Sunday and so
in the first week we got one hundred and eleven members,
so I mean it's it's moving along pretty fast. And
you don't have to be a veteran to join the club.
(02:24):
You know, I want veterans to to come out for sure,
but if you just want to support the club, try
something different. It's more important that you get moving, get mobile,
and and get motivated at My goal is to get
people off the couch, get them, get them involved in anything.
And this is myself included. You know, I need to
(02:47):
be more mobile. I need to be more active. When
I retired five years ago. Now, well when I retired
five years ago, I retired completely.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, and I was just a lump for a couple
of years, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And yeah, so it it definitely packs on a lot
faster than it comes off. So yeah, just trying to
reintegrate back into the world and just be active and
get other people active.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Well I'm thankful that you guys actually did that, because
a couple of weeks back, we had Dane Boyle on
and he kind of does the same thing out in Texas,
and I think you guys are kind of collaborating if
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So yes, So Dane Boyle he is the coach, Oh yeah,
the coach.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Positively caffeinated.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
He is.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
This is his baby, this is his brainchild. So he's
got this going out in Sageine, Texas. And he talked
to Amanda and I about starting a Florida chapter and
just branching out. He has one in Kentucky now and
we brought it to Southwest Florida as part of Warrior
(04:09):
wellness and hopefully it'll grow as much as as his has.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to big things.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Well, the cool thing is match Sar. You had that
thing up the gate having thirteen eleven to thirteen people
show up on day zero. The first one, just starting point,
folks sp was thirteen to eleven. So it's gonna be
a massacre. I can see it coming already.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, we were talking about, okay, let's develop this group
and see what happens. And you know, we'll plan for
our first event in April May, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'm looking at my calendar.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's like, okay, softball, softball, softball, concert softball, you know, right,
and it's like, all right, well we don't have any
weekends for April or May, so let's do it next weekend,
you know. So so with like six days of planning,
it was like, all right, let's just do something. And
(05:06):
that was our litmus test, just to see if people
are interested and if people are going to show up.
And you know, we had a we had a good group.
I'm excited, and yeah, I hope they keep coming out.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We're gonna we're.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Gonna keep adding distance, keep adding different routes and if
you want to come out, you don't have.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
To carry a pack.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
If you if like I would love for you to,
But if you just want to be out there and
be involved, it's a sense of community camaraderie, and I want,
like I've said, I want people out there. So if
you have your ninja turtle backpack, as as Dane likes
to say, if you have your ninja turtle backpack with
a bag of flower in it, that's good enough.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Just get out.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
There, okay, zaying are you gonna be participating one of
these things?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Hopefully?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Hopefully that's all we can ask for, I will say,
And along along the lines of warrior one of the
best things I see out of this. It's not just
the ruck that's important. It's just the socialization, the whole
the whole environment. You guys just being there and communicating,
and that's kind of kind of that's kind of the
core element of you know, of warior wellness and on
(06:15):
don't you tell everybody For those who are not familiar
with warrior wellness, that's what that's all about.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So warrior wellness.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So it was basically an idea that I came up
with a few months ago just to get veterans up,
moving motivated, and there's a lot of things that veterans
don't know about. A lot of people get out of
the military and they're just like, I'm out.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's how I was.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's like, I retired from Colorado, let me get as
far away from the military as possible, and then I did, and.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Then I missed it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And you speaking acronyms, and you you talk about things
nobody else knows about. You've had experiences that know one
else wants to hear about or needs to hear about,
and so you shut down. You live in your bubble
and you don't have to, you know, if I'm not
(07:13):
going to make you talk about anything, you don't want to.
But where wellness kind of creates that safe space of like, hey,
there are other people out there that have had the
same experiences that I've had, that have.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Seen the same things, done the same things.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That I have, and it's a safe space for them
to not live in their bubble and not just be
withdrawn into themselves for you know, the rest of their days.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So the idea is, I'm by no means.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
A doctor or a psychologist or anything else. So if
I don't have the answers, I'm gonna point you in
the right direction. So if if you've not been to
the VA to have your your evaluation for your benefits,
you know, I'm gonna point you in the right direction.
(08:02):
Go talk to the DAV talk to a veteran service officer.
If we get to talking and we peeled the scab off,
then I'm gonna get you over to either Valerie's house
or Operation Solid seven, you know, one of our partners
that deals more on the mental health side, and just
(08:24):
get people out there and get them the help that
they need.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And for your veterans out there listening, if you know
anything about the battle Buddy system, it sounds like to
me that the Worry Wellness is a banned buddy consortium
where you have people with resources or different backgrounds, different places, different.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Branches.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
But the fact of the matter is we're here to
be our own kind of a sounding board for one
another and be a resource of You know, if you're
jammed up, you got someone to contact. You're not living
in that sidle all by yourself. Because I'll be the
first one to tell you the verge of being retired,
I'll say I am, but I'm having the hard time
of getting out of my routine that there at certain
(09:09):
times I'd rather keep things to myself rather than talk
about it. And what we have found out is that
the more stuff you compound it compresses, the more it compresses,
the bigger the higher blood pressure becomes, and a whole
bunch of self. You know, none good things you get
by holding things on the inside.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Sometimes it's better not the deal.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But I'll say that the program that Warry Willis has
is called the release or an option and keeping it
to yourself. And as we know, some of our family
and some of our civy friends lack the perspective of
knowing what we've been through and having a battle brother
or sister that's been there and done that by mos
and or by branch makes it easier, kind of easier
(09:50):
pill to swallow. And at the same time, as we
say walk and talk, I think the rucking and the
talking kind of come hand in hand with that. So
and it's therapeutic one hundred percent. But again, like Justin
has put out, or excuse me again, I'm pushing the
ground after the show master Saren has already said, it's
(10:12):
a matter of if we peel that scab. It's a
matter of we'll have resource to help you carry on,
ask care and escort ace baby. In the Army, we
had that program. If we discover something, I'm not gonna
sit there and leave it by yourself. I'll be witching.
I'll pass you off, make sure you get the right
direction before I, you know, back away. But just remember
(10:32):
the one thing will be in a veteran you choose
to be involved. You're a veteran for the rest of
your career and the rest of your lifetime, and you're
shrined by other veterans. It's up to us to meet
to one another. And I say thank you to the
Master Sariant for making that ruck the Legacy Ruck Club
what it is. And also out to the coach out
in Texas. Another brain child idea that's now Boston here
(10:55):
in southwest Florida. God bless him and God bless you
guys are doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Oh well.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And I can't take all the credit. Our co host Amanda,
who is cannot be here with us today.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
She is fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
On this and there you go.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh man, she she's she does a lot of behind
the scenes stuff that I can't do. She's she's a
lot more of a thinker than I am.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Master chief and a master storrgy amen hand in hand,
I'm actually that's.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Why I know my role as a sergeant.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
But the cool thing is, again, Amanda, you get better
out there. And again, folks, if you're not familiar, Amanda
Makanu is.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Our co host.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
She is the ops guru of our our situation here
at the rally point, and she's more vital to our
cause on any grander scale than you can ever understand,
because without her, a lot of our guests would not
be here, and we would not have access to a
whole lot of of a whole demographic of veterans that
we would even know it existed in Zane has some
(12:05):
we'll talk on that.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Yeah, she's become she's really become my hero because she's
you know, this is something that I need in my
life is to become more organized. And I'm going to
tell you, Amanda is probably the most organized person I've
ever met. So, you know, organization is kind of my
Achilles heel. I kind of fly by the seat of
my pants and wait till the last minute. But stuff
comes out good. Usually but I really would like to
(12:28):
be ahead of the game more.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Well. It takes a process and it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Oh I will say this, folks, Rally Points been on
for almost a year and a quarter right now, and
we're expanding. And I'll tell you right now, had she
not have been a part of that, I would be struggling.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And I'll just do that output out there.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And I've known Zane since day zero at the Rally Point,
and the natural progression in the evolution of our programming
started with Amanda. And as she knows the story, she
said know in the beginning, and one thing that's starts. Sorry,
we are persistent. We are persistent. We see we see talent.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Can't let that go away because it is gonna go
somewhere else. I go in the wrong direction. That's not
what I'm going to be doing. So as part of
the Right Point Network family, she is a critical She's
the thread that holds us together. And that's the honest,
true of the mind. I can I can concur that
and I have no problem saying it. So man, you
get well, your listeners in and us miss you and
(13:26):
know it. I'll see you tomorrow. But I want to
put that out there for America to find out about.
But that being the case, we can go to our
next segment.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
All right, coach justin For those of us who are
civilians and we don't know what rocking is, could you
explain please.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So it's cardiovascular exercise, but it's also a sense of camaraderie,
a sense of team building. You know, we're all in
this together. You know, you have your you have your backpack,
you have your rocksack, which for you civilians, a rucksack
(14:05):
is basically just a backpack, and it's it's self challenging.
We're not in the military right now, so we don't
have to rock information, you know, five paces apart and
all of that, you know, staggered formation. Oh yeah, so
(14:27):
so we don't have to do all that. So it's
more about challenging yourself. So if you are that person
out there with the the ninja turtle backpack with a
with a three pound weight in it, you're just challenging yourself.
So next time you have two weights.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I have a.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Nice that sounds vintage.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
How about this?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
You go the next time one of these times, you
bring that eve a canievel and I got your roadhouse bill.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The next time we go to have it, we have
a meal. Fair enough.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
This yeah, absolutely, this sounds like so much fun and
real a great cardio two.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, I will say that on this side of the fence,
for those who aren't in the military, I think it's
also an opportunity for you to meet other people and socialize.
I mean, like back in the days of the military,
like it, are that far from me when you did
that formation of rucking staggered out five meters a pop.
There is no speaking, there's no talking, and then usually
(15:25):
be doing simulated attacks and all that good stuff. But
now on the reverse side of it, it's a matter
of you know, meeting other people and getting to know people,
socializing and as you know, in the times that we
live in it's kind of ionized and separated and segregated
and all that good jazz. It's an opportunity for you
to meet other people that you never met before and
(15:45):
hopefully build a kind of a group at the rut club.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And you know, like I said, it's
all self paced. We start together, we finished together. But
you know, if you're bagging back a little bit, that's okay,
no reason to feel discouraged.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You just you know, we'll we'll all make it. We're
all gonna make it. You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And hopefully down the line we're how child waiting for
you at the end of the ruck. That's one thing.
The army loves to definitely ruck early in the morning
and then eat, not the other way around, folks. And
I remember those days Holy Christmas, and that's during for
those we're having a flashback to europe old days, during
the first days of boot camp. That's when you're that's
(16:34):
when the child was killed. No, the child was definitely
grew up to be a man on that day. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So maybe one of these times we'll have some veteran
victuals at the end, a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, foreshadowing things to come, folks, things that come. But
hopefully we'll do a brew out of time. But you
know how that goes. But that being the case, did
that answer your question?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
There's an absolutely, you can't.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
I can't wait to try it one of these days
because I walk every day a lot. Oh you do, yeah, absolutely,
So we're just talking adding maybe what forty pounds something like.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That Oh yeah, I mean if that you don't have
to do okay, you know, you don't have to impress me, Zane,
You're good.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
But one of the cool things is as a matter
about testing yourself. And I'll say this, and I had
this mentality while I was actually in service during boot camp.
It's me versus nature because it's easy to give up.
I'm telling you right now, the easiest thing and natural,
the most natural thing to do, is to stop doing
(17:35):
something that's not natural to your being or to your physicality. Easy,
but to push through it, you define yourself. You find
out who you are at the core. We go through
physical mental adversity at the same time because you doubt yourself,
and then all of a sudden, that foot still goes
one step further and one step further, and you're like going,
sweet Jesus, I've just gone four miles. I never did
(17:59):
that my entire life. And then you're you're not You're
you're on your way back when you're saying this stuff.
So it's definitely one of those motivating things where you
say I can't do it, and then i'd say, as
a sorry would say, way, mcte ash, you a question,
Are you an American?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (18:13):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Doing anything? The last four lens is an American?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I can't. I don't't hear anything, don't want to hear
a word of it. You can do something that's a
that's a as an artificial, artificially implanted thought in your head,
you can't because you are who you are.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
So sometimes we all need to draw sergeants to remind
us so what we're capable of.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Well, I think the Rook Club is a bunch of
drill sergeants helping them on another out and no one's
pulling ran something.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
No one's pulling rank.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well and another thing.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So if you're a walker or a runner, you know
that a lot of times that you're your time to
escape and just be alone with your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And if you're out there, you have that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So if you just want to be at peace and
just follow the person in front of you, that's great.
If you want to make friends and talk about experiences,
that's that's great too. That's what we did last weekend.
I met a few folks that I hadn't met before
and just talked about military experiences. The ones that were civilians.
(19:16):
We talked about, Hey, what do you do? Where are
you from? And you know, everybody has a story, and
maybe that's not a military story, but everybody has a story.
And you know, just get out there and and share
your story and share your experiences and and.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, just do it with.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Like minded people that just want to be just want
to better themselves.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
He in order to make our country better, folks, we
got to do one community, one family, one individual at
a time.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And not for nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I think that the Legacy Rock Club is an opportunity
to to do all through the same time. And know what,
you never know what happens after you're done with the
rock once that's over, you know, a piabo warm down session.
I don't know about all that, but I know these
broken bones need to do after I'm walking or running,
which I don't do much of these days. But that
(20:12):
emotion is lotion.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, at the end of the last one, it was
basically Okay, what does the next one look like? And
at the end of the next one is what is
the next one going to look like? And and just
keep building up, keep getting more folks, getting more miles,
getting more everything, Just keep building up. Because to me,
woror wellness is self wellness. So whatever you need to
(20:37):
improve yourself to better yourself, it's all about taking care
of yourself and doing the steps necessary to improve. And
if you're out there, you're improving.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And what comes to mind, folks, people, we live in
a society where people say, if if you're even self love,
that's selfish. That is untrue. In some regard. We need
to have self love before we can love anything else,
because if you don't appreciate yourself, then you'll you won't
(21:12):
be able to appreciate your spouse, your significant other, your pet,
your child, and that kind of sets the standard of
what quality of life you want for yourself and for them.
I'm those psychologists, but I'm going to tell you right now,
if you're in a bad state of a state of mind,
you're not really good for anybody. And I'm pretty sure
every person listening as a veteran, had heard this thought
(21:34):
one time or another or heard this before. Take a
walk and get your mind right, because you need to
think about what's going down and get your thoughts together.
And that's what basically the ruck does.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You can't fix anything with broken parts.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
There you go, folks, baum write that down that's his tagline,
folks right down. Well that folks, thank you very much,
and we'll go to our next segment.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
All right, wellness warriors.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I got a big event coming up tomorrow on the
twenty ninth of March, Sinnethon coming up at the Franz
Ross YMCA at seven thirty to ten thirty. So what
we're going to do. We're going to be in there spinning.
So I'm starting it out. We've got a Nissa, we
got Kristen.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
It's going to be a good time. So come out
and join us if you can.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's going to be four hours from seven thirty to
eleven thirty four hours.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It's spinning.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So if you want to challenge yourself, come out, pick
a bike and let's go.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Okay, folks, this segment, we had one of our financial
gurus back on our show, Meetchi Jeffries.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
How you doing, ma'am excellent? How are you not too bad?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And ma'am again to remind America of your credentials, could
you please reintroduce yourself?
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Oh my goodness, yes I can so. I am Dimitrika.
Meetchi Jeffries served in the United States are force active
duty for twenty six years and six days retired with
my Diamond AKA as a first Sergeant. I'm also a
breast cancer survivor eleven plus years cancer free and counting.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Book.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
Yes, and I'm an author writing a book about my
breast cancer journey called No More Bad Days. And lastly,
for the last six years, I have been working in
the capacity as an entrepreneur, serving the community as a
licensed financial services professional and financial literacy educator.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Oh really, we share a common passion. One of my
first lives for the militaries. I was with Oh My
Good Merrill Lynch as an investment advisor and I specifically
cliented law enforcement or first responder as a military for
the simple fact that A that's the direction I was
going in a way and be that's part of my family.
(24:02):
So that was my little niche, so to speak. And
I always found that that's one of the few things
I thought there was missing in the military during those briefs.
But that's a whole nother story, because that allows you
the opportunity to provide our listeners and our fellow brethren
and sisters of that education that we desperately need about financials.
Speaker 7 (24:20):
Yes, absolutely, thank you so much. It's always an honor
to be here before you all. I really do appreciate
it so very much, and I just want to share
some things with you about what I actually discovered myself
over the past week. So we actually we my office,
my business, we actually hosted a Federal Employee Retirement System
(24:48):
workshop aka FIRS some of you, many of you, probably
because I'm fully aware of even my own husbands who's
an Air Force veteran, he's still in the federal system.
And as you know, it has rules, it has benefits,
It often has parameters and how you utilize certain benefits.
(25:08):
And one thing that you all will probably agree with
me on is that we've spent many, many years being
dedicated and devoted to a system, but we never really
fully understand exactly how the system works. We don't, yes,
we don't understand the benefits, what benefits we are entitled to.
(25:29):
And that is the case with the First Program. As
a matter of fact, just a little bit of educational
acts here. Content created the First System in nineteen eighty six.
It went into effect on January first, nineteen eighty seven.
Since that time, the new First System has been the
(25:51):
retirement plan for all federal employees, and as you probably
have guessed it, there are more than seventy million. It
is the largest retirement system in the country. Actually. Indeed,
for having said that, yes, it's good to be a
federal employee, to continue to serve the communities and mankind
(26:14):
at large in that way, However, we cannot be so complatent.
We cannot continue to be so complete. Since knowing that, Okay, yeah,
you know I got a federal job. Oh I got
a good you know I'm getting the paycheck. I got
a couple of benefits, So you need to understand what
those benefits are and that when you do retire, some
(26:36):
those benefits do change. You know. Let me tell you something,
and I know you guys know this already. When we
wore the uniform, and to those of you that had
the SGLI coverage service Members Group Life Insurance coverage, Okay,
that lasted while you were still in uniform and serving
on active duty. However, four months after your official retirement date,
(27:01):
that benefit goes away. You are no longer covered by
Service Members Group Life Insurance and now you have the
responsibility of finding coverage for yourself. So if it's anything
like me, because I was again that was one of
those people that was very complacent in the government. With
my former employer working under the United States Air Force,
(27:27):
I did not know anything about that particular part of finances.
To be honest, I don't know anything about finances. So
guess what. And I'm just being real. When I went
through tax number one, I only went through it once.
It probably would have benefited me better if I went
through it. Say maybe it leads two more times. And
(27:51):
one thing that I yeah, one thing I do remember
is that they give you They do have speakers that
come in, but they give you this sheet of a
bunch of links web sites you know, to go to
for resources. Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, I
don't remember anybody coming in the room to talk to
(28:12):
me about financing. I don't I don't remember anybody coming
up in the room to me saying, hey, now, things
are going to look differently in your paycheck when you retire. Yes,
you're gonna get the disability benefits. Oh, but by the way,
maybe if you have to fight a little bit longer
to get that one hundred percent rate of disability, you know,
you're going to have to figure out how is you
going to have to survive off the fifty percent fifty percent,
(28:35):
maybe even less than that. But no one comes in
and they talk to us throughout our military careers about
how we can start to save, how can we how
can we spend less, ay more? And what is it
that we can do with what we save. We haven't
said yes, oh, go ahead, Do you want to say something?
Speaker 4 (28:55):
No, I will say I agree with one hundred percent,
and that it's easier when you're on automatic, on duty
week after week and it's being taken out and allocated
in your government provide a life insurance program. But when
that goes away, and like you said earlier, it's a
responsibility to delegate funds to fund a life insurance policy.
(29:17):
And if it has cash value and what all that
good stuff means, that's a whole nother that's a whole
another beast onto itself, which we are left. I mean,
I don't know when I left the military, I didn't
get the debrief on how to do this for myself
and for my family, and you kind of left to,
like on your own concisence to figure that out. And
(29:38):
that's kind of I think that's where I think your
position kind of is outstanding because that's what you provide education.
Speaker 7 (29:44):
Yes, yes, And I will tell you something. So I
had the pleasure sitting in on a firm Federal Employee
Retirement System workshop that was online that was actually a
week aldgo Monday, and then we also offered it in
my office. I'm here in the lovely state of Maryland, everybody,
(30:06):
and my office is in green Belt, Maryland. And I'm
sure you guys already know that the county that I'm
in in Maryland is called Prince George's County and that
happens to be the county with the largest number of
veterans all throughout the state of Maryland. Oh yes, yes,
(30:27):
So we also hosted the first Federal Employee Retirement System
workshop in our office which is in green Belt, Maryland.
And one of the things that I learned is that
you have a lot of different moving parts to this system.
You have different moving parts things that talk about early retirement,
the different types of retirement, deferred retirement, survivor benefit, military
(30:55):
retire pay. You know, being able to match what the
employee is giving. If you're matching less than five percent,
then guess what you're leaving money on the table. And
you're not fully maximizing out on what you could be
getting after twenty thirty four years of working in the
federal system. So we learned about a lot of different things,
(31:15):
and there was feedback that touched me so much that
I remember it just like people said yesterday. And one
of the federal employees that was in attendance is a
lady that happens to be a nurse at a veteran
at a VA hospital, and she is sixty eight years old,
has been working in the federal system for twenty seven years,
(31:38):
and she said to the trainer, to the presenter, you,
I've never heard anybody explain the benefit so clearly as
you did. And she's been in the system for twenty
seven years. So you know what, if nobody's explaining it
to her and making it playing and making it to
where she can understand it and then actually be able
to take that knowledge and apply it put some things
(32:00):
in place for herself twenty years ago, fifteen years ago,
that would have been a much more better situation for her.
But no problem, this woman is sixty eight years old.
We were able to help her with something, but imagine
how much better it would have been if she was
able to get this information and understand it ten years ago,
twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. So what I
(32:22):
want to share with my veteran brothers and sisters and
their families, to their children, to their widows, to widowers.
I I along with my green Belt office, my green
Belt family, who we have quite a few federal employees.
We have people that also have a military background, not
(32:43):
just myself, and we also have spouses of people who
did who knows people that have served in that capacity.
We are always committed to serving our federal employees and
our veterans, especially our military families, especially them. So how, yes,
how do I do this? How do we do this?
We have workshops free frae Hey. In the military, one
(33:08):
thing we understood was free. Isn't that right? We understood
that word free free, So we offer a variety of
free workshops. We also have free resources on financial literacy.
So that means not just are people able to go
to the workshops, but we also have books. I'm looking
at one right now. It's called a Finance one Umber
(33:29):
one Saving your Future, And we have so many different
topics in here that's covered so many different things about finances.
You know financial foundation, What exactly is that? What does
it look like inflation? How your money is impacted by
different taxation categories, you know, the tax now category, the
tax lader or tax deferred, as well as the tax
(33:51):
advantage category. Debt management. You know what, let me tell
you something. There are veterans out there that if it's
just one thing they probably need, it's totally debt management.
Is that management? And I say, and I say this
because there is an army veteran, a lovely young lady
that I was able to help. I met her through
a referral program that I'm a part of, and we
(34:14):
did our financial review, which is also free, and she said,
I don't have any money. Yes, I do have a job,
but I have credit card head and I owe people money.
I just don't have any money. But at the end
of the day, two things happened. Two things happened. Number one,
I was able to help her find an extra ninety
dollars on the spot. Because you know, when you don't
have any money, if you find somebody an extra thirty dollars,
(34:35):
you're an angel. If you help somebody find an extra
fifty dollars, that's a godsend. Yes, so I was yeah,
so I was able to help her find an extra
ninety dollars and then yeah. And then also I asked her,
I said, do you are you working with a tax
representative you know? And she said, well, I just go
to you know a certain company and have my Texas cloud.
(34:57):
I said, okay. I said, well, I know somebody that
it happens to be my brother here in this business
as well, and he's also a CPA fifteen plus years
of experience working with people from all different backgrounds. Maybe
he can give you something that you can take with
you that will help you. And maybe he can just
look over your your your finances for you and see
(35:17):
how he can help you with your tax And she said, okay,
no problem. I followed up with this young lady. Let's see,
we met in March, and then I followed up with
her sometime in May. I said, hey, how did everything go?
She said, well, I want to let you know I
was able to pay off an actual debt of two
hundred dollars. Wow, So add that on to the ninety
dollars that I already helped her find that she did
(35:37):
not know was under her nose. And then lastly, she said,
I did work with your a CPA guy, and as
a result of that, I'm getting ten thousand dollars back
in tax money. Oh my, that's what I said. So
you know what, if it's free, don't not get because
the services that I know that we have that are free,
(35:59):
they have helped me personally tremendously. So we talk about
things like retirement plans. Let me tell you something. When
I retired three plus years, I let my TSP sit dormant.
What do I mean by that? It was just sitting there.
I wasn't contributing to it, honestly because I was retired.
But also I had it in the GEN fund. Oh
(36:20):
now we already know. Nothing grows in the G fund.
I mean, there is very very it's very conservative. It
will protect you from most risks, from most loss of money.
But if you're looking to build long money, G fund,
ain't it. That's not it. That's not it.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
It's a bond, basically, it's.
Speaker 7 (36:39):
Just that's right. That's right. So I actually learned through
these workshops. Okay, well, I have TSP money that I'm
no longer contributing to. I didn't know that I could
move it because unlike my husband. I did not go
back to work. That was a choice. I did not
(36:59):
go back to work, so I just let the money
sit there. I was afraid to move it, didn't know
if I could, didn't know where to put it. So
I'm telling you today because there are probably some people
out there who were worse like me, that don't know
that they can move their money. They don't know that. Okay,
you got your TSP here, when was the last time
you had your TSP even looked at. Let's do a
review of your TSP account, and let's show you. Okay,
(37:22):
if you want to keep it the CSP, then maybe
you need to look at diversifying and let's look at
the G the c the f you know, the FDI.
Let's take a look at those cs or maybe you
want to roll over some or maybe all of your TSP.
No problem. And then I go to work and I
look up illustrations from a multitude of different companies, and
(37:43):
based on the level of risk tolerance of those people
of the veterans, guess what, I'm able to find them something.
I'm able to find them something that they can put
some money away. Let it grow. Five years, seven years,
nine years, ten years, maybe look at it from a
growth perspective, or look at it from a lifetime income perspective.
(38:07):
So not only do they have their pension, not only
do they have there be a benefit, but they will
also have a third pot of lifetime income to pull.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
From one hundred percent. Now, I wanted to ask you, me, Chi,
do you feel that a lot of resistance is coming
from either financial illiteracy or any other factor, because I
think one of the biggest, one of the biggest hurdles
that you may faced or I face back in the day,
is that when you're sitting down and talking to someone
about G funds and B funds and C funds, I
(38:38):
get that dear expression. I'm not going there's not they
don't understand a word that I'm saying. And I'd say, folks,
let's go back to basics. And the point of the
matter is I had to build a concrete relationship with
my client saying look this, you can't you can't help
yourself unless you don't know, if you don't have the
knowledge of how to do that basically, And it sounds
like you basically provide financial literacy in your programming.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Yes, all day, every day. Yes, we understand that, and
thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 8 (39:10):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
I think there are many different factors that the lack
of knowledge stems from, and one of them is, you
know what. I'm gonna use myself as an example. When
I was in the military, I believe every single word
that my leaders told me. I was very comfortable. I
was comfortable with knowing, Okay, well I have a health issue. Okay,
(39:34):
I can go to the medical center on the days.
Nobody's gonna charge me. I don't have to pay for
medical care. I don't have to pay for health care.
But when you retire and depend on the punts, what
side of retiring you're on? There are some things now
you got to start paying. Okay, you have to pay.
But I was a so complace and comfortable with that world.
I didn't pay for much of anything. So because of that,
(39:55):
you become very comfortable and you're not going to at
least in my case, I was not critically minded enough
to say, you know what, I'm going to be retiring.
I'm not going to stay in this position forever. So
what is it that I'm doing now? What's my money?
What is it that I need to be thinking about
doing right now with my money. Twenty years later, now
that I'm going to retire, things are going to look
different from me. At least I want to be in
(40:16):
a better position. That never came to mind. Well, I
tell you why I didn't come to mind, because not
only were we comfortable, but guess what we did. We deployed.
If we'd be getting ready to deploy, getting our family
geared up for the deployment, and then coming back from
the deployment, reintegrating with our family, reintegrating with the job,
doing a whole lot heck of them more with a
(40:37):
whole lot and less, and then studying for promotion that
we hope we get picked up for on the second,
the third, or fourth time around. So all these different dynamics.
Nobody wants to really talk about financial literacy. Nobody.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
And that's critical in our second phase of our lives
as veterans, because basically, you're going you're now a contributing
citizen in the United States, your veteran. But it's on
you soldier, you gotta figure that out, or air person
or marine. Once you lose your colors and you're now
wearing that polo shirt, you gotta pay for medical care.
(41:12):
Oh you gotta pay for you want insurance.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
You got to figure that out.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
And I love the VA, but I always double down,
you know, if any opinion, I doubled down. But that's
a whole nother conversation. But I wanted to ask you
again to a degree, what do you feel would be
what do you think as veterans are our biggest hurdles
about financial literacy and ourselves. I think you hit a
(41:36):
couple of points two seconds ago about no one told
us right right right?
Speaker 7 (41:41):
Uh huh, yes, my goodness, this is very good fear,
you know. I was actually on a radio station out
of Baltimore Friday. In one of the callers, she said,
I don't know why there aren't a lot of people
actually trying to call in and respond, but I was
(42:03):
asking for people to call in with their comments and
with their questions. And she said, but I think a
large part of that is fear. You know, where we're
check this out. We're not afraid to go in debt.
I'm afraid of people trying to help us to get
out of debt and build well. I don't understand that somehow,
you know, keeping you in debt, you know, getting credit
card number five when you haven't even paid off the
(42:25):
first one. Nothing's wrong with that. But when I talk
to people and shows them, hey, you don't have to
live like that. You don't have to live in debt.
You can get out of debt. It's not going to
happen overnight. But you can through a systematic process get
out of debt if you're willing to open up your mind,
be disciplined enough and focus and do it. So a
(42:46):
lot of people are afraid to change from the norm,
what they're used to, what they're used to. Remember the flintstones,
of course, you're the flintstone, and how it comes on
all the time, all the time. It comes on a
freshling zone in a rock quarry, on his bronosaurus, and
as soon as a foreman yanks to tell of the alarm,
(43:09):
he jumps off the bronosaurus and he plops out and
he's rushing home to the cleaners or whatever. That's a system.
That's a system that we're born into, and anything outside
of that system is a threat. Anything anything outside of
that system that will allow you to do something differently,
because what you've been doing for the past ten fifteen
(43:31):
years isn't working. Something that will cause you to really
step outside the conformity of everything that's scary, and we
are very quick to just wish it away. Oh you
know what, I it sounds good, but you know what,
I'm good? Are you really exactly what does that mean?
Does it mean that you're good from the paycheck? Doesn't
(43:53):
mean that you're good because you have your little pension
plan from your company. Doesn't mean that you're good because
now you can let them a little bit of on
social Security. But what happens when social Security goes away?
So some people are just comfortable being comfortable. Man, They're
comfortable with being the standard. And I don't mean it
in a bad way. I just mean that you can
(44:15):
do something better. Nobody ever came into the military to
be a millionaire. Nobody nobody ever works for the federal
government to be a millionaire. So when I challenge people
to shift their perspectives through education and say, hey, you're
working for somebody right now, But what about working for
your own agenda? What about setting goals for yourself? What
(44:37):
about region those streams to pass? You can make it happen.
You don't have to stay here for twenty plus years.
If you don't want to, but you can start working
on something now that's better for you, your future and
the future of your family. And a lot of people
are afraid to just shift. They're afraid to shift from
something that they've known that's comfortable for them, and then
everything is a scamp. Oh right, everything is a scam.
Speaker 8 (45:02):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
I'm licensed and I'm regulated, and everything that I do,
I can't sneeze, wink or blink or belch. Hope that
wasn't a bad.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Words choose your person.
Speaker 7 (45:15):
Without fin rather financial industry regulatory agency getting worried about it.
So I have to do things in good order that
are professionally done, that are ethically found, and that's not
going to hurt the customers. I can't I cannot tell
you anything I want to tell you. I can't do that,
(45:35):
don't want to do that. So, yeah, people are just complacent.
And then there's a fear factor and just being able
to shift your mindset and saying, okay, I've been doing
this like this for twenty five years. Okay, but there's
nothing wrong with changing now so you can do better.
So hopefully I hit it on that it can.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
All change today if you want it to. M Well,
then mit you. I want to.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Say thank you for coming on our show today and
I wanted to ask you could you please give out
your information So if people have any questions listening to
our show today want to reach out and talk to you,
where can they find you?
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (46:09):
Sure absolutely my number. My number is two four zero
two one zero four four eight nine. Again, my number
is two four zero two one zero four four eight
(46:36):
nine outstanding.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Any email addresses.
Speaker 7 (46:39):
For us, Yes, so it's meetche that's Emazon, Michael E
E C h I, E J E SSN, Frank SNN,
Frank E r I as an Indigo s ISN Sam
(46:59):
at gmail dot com. So it's meet you Jeffries at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
There you have it, folks. You have that, you have
the numbers, and you have the information. Make that happen
for yourself. Tomorrow won't be there unless you make it. Uh,
thank you for being on our show A Michi and
we'll be with you again.
Speaker 9 (47:14):
Thank you very much, and that's our show for today.
We want to thank you for joining us on the
Rally Point show in the future. If you're at all
interested in being a guest, or if you have any
questions about the show or suggestions for segments you'd like
to see. You can shoot me an email. It's machiato
m A C C H I A t O at
(47:36):
the number one rallypoint dot org. We are happy to
take your suggestions as well as find new guests to
have on our show. Isn't that right? Sarge?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
That is correct?
Speaker 4 (47:48):
And if you know anyone who want to be on
the show, please let her know and we'll give them
on there as soon as possible.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Absolutely, and with that we hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Thanks for joining us on the rally Point Show. Rally
Pointers full out this.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Missed, wake UPO me amazing.
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This is coach name with a rally point catch me.
The first Friday of every month, the positively happinated be
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Thank you for your support.
Speaker 10 (49:27):
I'm Staff Sergeant Marc anthem as Stafstargist Smith, a car
staff Sergeant how.
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Staff Stargan William Lewis, and I am proud to defend
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Speaker 11 (49:34):
The Air Force Reserve is part of the story of
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Speaker 5 (49:38):
Grateful that I have a chance to wear the uniform
of the heroes that weapon perform in.
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I'm proud to be part of a team that helps
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Speaker 11 (49:44):
Every day, men and women from communities across this nation
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our commitment to defend and protect this nation remains steadfast.
We celebrate those who have served and those who are
proudly serving. We celebrate our proud history and look towards
(50:08):
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fly through the funds and win in air space and
cyber space.
Speaker 10 (50:17):
And I'm proud to be a member that.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I'm proud to serving that and I am proud to
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Speaker 1 (50:21):
Proud to serve in the US Air Force Reserve.
Speaker 11 (50:25):
Affreserve dot com.
Speaker 6 (50:27):
Our veterans risked it all to protect our freedom. One
of the best ways to say thank you is to
volunteer to support them at a time and history where
kindness is a virtue. Volunteering at a therapy bag event,
teaching a craft class, or simply helping veterans at a
hospital means a lot. For over forty seven years, Help
(50:48):
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Help Heal Veterans supports VA hospitals, patients at home, and
(51:08):
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Speaker 10 (51:27):
At Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, we're fighting against childhood
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Most of us.
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Want to make some type of difference in the lives
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The fact that no one has to pay. It's a
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Everybody is welcome here, and it doesn't matter your religion
or what part of the world you're from.
Speaker 11 (51:55):
All that is taken away. It just gives you some hope, just.
Speaker 5 (52:00):
A nice feeling to put your energy into something that
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There's just no greater gift. If we have the ability
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To help finding cures saving children. Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Find out how you can help at sinjud dot org.
Rally Pointers all in. Good morning everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There's Justin Leadford here on the Rally Point Media show
doing some warrior wellness. I'm here with Big Sarge Jay Hemingway.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Along with our producers.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
A good morning. I hope everyone had a great week.
Last weekend we had our inaugural Legacy rot Club of
Southwest Florida Rock to Go.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Not too bad. We have thirteen people come out, so
for a first time ever. It yeah, I mean it
was good. It was good. Can't complain.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're probably going to do that about once a month,
and as we progress, as we grow, we're going to
start doing some challenges, have some patches and coins and
different things like that.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh that's nice.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh yeah, so yeah, no, it was a great experience.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We're gonna start getting some more locations, do some pop ups,
you know, probably on Freedom Fridays we'll get out and
maybe go Rouck for some coffee stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
And folks out there in radio land, so that you're
tracking here, I may be a serget, but you know,
master Sergeant Justin is not really master art letter is
not being honest here. So I'm called Master's Art on
the radio because as we all know in the army.
In the military, although we're all veterans, the guy represent
the rank sometimes, so if I'm gonna be call myself
(01:37):
a sergeant, he gonna be a mass sarrant. So if
I slip it in that, folks don't be shocked. It's
just a matter of if you know it. Hey, I
mean you useduld pushing the ground down for not doing that,
so you know it's automatic for me. So matter start,
I gotta ask in moving on with the uh your
ruck Legacy Ruck March or we called Legacy.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Legacy Rock Club Southwest Florida rut Club.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
How do people get involved in a find like to
get on board with that?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So you can actually go to Facebook and it's Legacy
Rock Club. We actually started it last Sunday and so
in the first week we got one hundred and eleven members,
so I mean it's it's moving along pretty fast. And
you don't have to be a veteran to join the club.
(02:24):
You know, I want veterans to to come out for sure,
but if you just want to support the club, try
something different. It's more important that you get moving, get mobile,
and and get motivated at My goal is to get
people off the couch, get them, get them involved in anything.
And this is myself included. You know, I need to
(02:47):
be more mobile. I need to be more active. When
I retired five years ago. Now, well when I retired
five years ago, I retired completely.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, and I was just a lump for a couple
of years, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And yeah, so it it definitely packs on a lot
faster than it comes off. So yeah, just trying to
reintegrate back into the world and just be active and
get other people active.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Well I'm thankful that you guys actually did that, because
a couple of weeks back, we had Dane Boyle on
and he kind of does the same thing out in Texas,
and I think you guys are kind of collaborating if
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So yes, So Dane Boyle he is the coach, Oh yeah,
the coach.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Positively caffeinated.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
He is.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
This is his baby, this is his brainchild. So he's
got this going out in Sageine, Texas. And he talked
to Amanda and I about starting a Florida chapter and
just branching out. He has one in Kentucky now and
we brought it to Southwest Florida as part of Warrior
(04:09):
wellness and hopefully it'll grow as much as as his has.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to big things.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Well, the cool thing is match Sar. You had that
thing up the gate having thirteen eleven to thirteen people
show up on day zero. The first one, just starting point,
folks sp was thirteen to eleven. So it's gonna be
a massacre. I can see it coming already.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, we were talking about, okay, let's develop this group
and see what happens. And you know, we'll plan for
our first event in April May, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'm looking at my calendar.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's like, okay, softball, softball, softball, concert softball, you know, right,
and it's like, all right, well we don't have any
weekends for April or May, so let's do it next weekend,
you know. So so with like six days of planning,
it was like, all right, let's just do something. And
(05:06):
that was our litmus test, just to see if people
are interested and if people are going to show up.
And you know, we had a we had a good group.
I'm excited, and yeah, I hope they keep coming out.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We're gonna we're.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Gonna keep adding distance, keep adding different routes and if
you want to come out, you don't have.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
To carry a pack.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
If you if like I would love for you to,
But if you just want to be out there and
be involved, it's a sense of community camaraderie, and I want,
like I've said, I want people out there. So if
you have your ninja turtle backpack, as as Dane likes
to say, if you have your ninja turtle backpack with
a bag of flower in it, that's good enough.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Just get out.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
There, okay, zaying are you gonna be participating one of
these things?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Hopefully?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Hopefully that's all we can ask for, I will say,
And along along the lines of warrior one of the
best things I see out of this. It's not just
the ruck that's important. It's just the socialization, the whole
the whole environment. You guys just being there and communicating,
and that's kind of kind of that's kind of the
core element of you know, of warior wellness and on
(06:15):
don't you tell everybody For those who are not familiar
with warrior wellness, that's what that's all about.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So warrior wellness.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So it was basically an idea that I came up
with a few months ago just to get veterans up,
moving motivated, and there's a lot of things that veterans
don't know about. A lot of people get out of
the military and they're just like, I'm out.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's how I was.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's like, I retired from Colorado, let me get as
far away from the military as possible, and then I did, and.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Then I missed it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
And you speaking acronyms, and you you talk about things
nobody else knows about. You've had experiences that know one
else wants to hear about or needs to hear about,
and so you shut down. You live in your bubble
and you don't have to, you know, if I'm not
(07:13):
going to make you talk about anything, you don't want to.
But where wellness kind of creates that safe space of like, hey,
there are other people out there that have had the
same experiences that I've had, that have.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Seen the same things, done the same things.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That I have, and it's a safe space for them
to not live in their bubble and not just be
withdrawn into themselves for you know, the rest of their days.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So the idea is, I'm by no means.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
A doctor or a psychologist or anything else. So if
I don't have the answers, I'm gonna point you in
the right direction. So if if you've not been to
the VA to have your your evaluation for your benefits,
you know, I'm gonna point you in the right direction.
(08:02):
Go talk to the DAV talk to a veteran service officer.
If we get to talking and we peeled the scab off,
then I'm gonna get you over to either Valerie's house
or Operation Solid seven, you know, one of our partners
that deals more on the mental health side, and just
(08:24):
get people out there and get them the help that
they need.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And for your veterans out there listening, if you know
anything about the battle Buddy system, it sounds like to
me that the Worry Wellness is a banned buddy consortium
where you have people with resources or different backgrounds, different places, different.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Branches.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
But the fact of the matter is we're here to
be our own kind of a sounding board for one
another and be a resource of You know, if you're
jammed up, you got someone to contact. You're not living
in that sidle all by yourself. Because I'll be the
first one to tell you the verge of being retired,
I'll say I am, but I'm having the hard time
of getting out of my routine that there at certain
(09:09):
times I'd rather keep things to myself rather than talk
about it. And what we have found out is that
the more stuff you compound it compresses, the more it compresses,
the bigger the higher blood pressure becomes, and a whole
bunch of self. You know, none good things you get
by holding things on the inside.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Sometimes it's better not the deal.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But I'll say that the program that Warry Willis has
is called the release or an option and keeping it
to yourself. And as we know, some of our family
and some of our civy friends lack the perspective of
knowing what we've been through and having a battle brother
or sister that's been there and done that by mos
and or by branch makes it easier, kind of easier
(09:50):
pill to swallow. And at the same time, as we
say walk and talk, I think the rucking and the
talking kind of come hand in hand with that. So
and it's therapeutic one hundred percent. But again, like Justin
has put out, or excuse me again, I'm pushing the
ground after the show master Saren has already said, it's
(10:12):
a matter of if we peel that scab. It's a
matter of we'll have resource to help you carry on,
ask care and escort ace baby. In the Army, we
had that program. If we discover something, I'm not gonna
sit there and leave it by yourself. I'll be witching.
I'll pass you off, make sure you get the right
direction before I, you know, back away. But just remember
(10:32):
the one thing will be in a veteran you choose
to be involved. You're a veteran for the rest of
your career and the rest of your lifetime, and you're
shrined by other veterans. It's up to us to meet
to one another. And I say thank you to the
Master Sariant for making that ruck the Legacy Ruck Club
what it is. And also out to the coach out
in Texas. Another brain child idea that's now Boston here
(10:55):
in southwest Florida. God bless him and God bless you
guys are doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Oh well.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And I can't take all the credit. Our co host Amanda,
who is cannot be here with us today.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
She is fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
On this and there you go.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Oh man, she she's she does a lot of behind
the scenes stuff that I can't do. She's she's a
lot more of a thinker than I am.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Master chief and a master storrgy amen hand in hand,
I'm actually that's.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Why I know my role as a sergeant.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
But the cool thing is, again, Amanda, you get better
out there. And again, folks, if you're not familiar, Amanda
Makanu is.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Our co host.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
She is the ops guru of our our situation here
at the rally point, and she's more vital to our
cause on any grander scale than you can ever understand,
because without her, a lot of our guests would not
be here, and we would not have access to a
whole lot of of a whole demographic of veterans that
we would even know it existed in Zane has some
(12:05):
we'll talk on that.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Yeah, she's become she's really become my hero because she's
you know, this is something that I need in my
life is to become more organized. And I'm going to
tell you, Amanda is probably the most organized person I've
ever met. So, you know, organization is kind of my
Achilles heel. I kind of fly by the seat of
my pants and wait till the last minute. But stuff
comes out good. Usually but I really would like to
(12:28):
be ahead of the game more.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Well. It takes a process and it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Oh I will say this, folks, Rally Points been on
for almost a year and a quarter right now, and
we're expanding. And I'll tell you right now, had she
not have been a part of that, I would be struggling.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And I'll just do that output out there.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And I've known Zane since day zero at the Rally Point,
and the natural progression in the evolution of our programming
started with Amanda. And as she knows the story, she
said know in the beginning, and one thing that's starts. Sorry,
we are persistent. We are persistent. We see we see talent.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Can't let that go away because it is gonna go
somewhere else. I go in the wrong direction. That's not
what I'm going to be doing. So as part of
the Right Point Network family, she is a critical She's
the thread that holds us together. And that's the honest,
true of the mind. I can I can concur that
and I have no problem saying it. So man, you
get well, your listeners in and us miss you and
(13:26):
know it. I'll see you tomorrow. But I want to
put that out there for America to find out about.
But that being the case, we can go to our
next segment.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
All right, coach justin For those of us who are
civilians and we don't know what rocking is, could you
explain please.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So it's cardiovascular exercise, but it's also a sense of camaraderie,
a sense of team building. You know, we're all in
this together. You know, you have your you have your backpack,
you have your rocksack, which for you civilians, a rucksack
(14:05):
is basically just a backpack, and it's it's self challenging.
We're not in the military right now, so we don't
have to rock information, you know, five paces apart and
all of that, you know, staggered formation. Oh yeah, so
(14:27):
so we don't have to do all that. So it's
more about challenging yourself. So if you are that person
out there with the the ninja turtle backpack with a
with a three pound weight in it, you're just challenging yourself.
So next time you have two weights.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I have a.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Nice that sounds vintage.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
How about this?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
You go the next time one of these times, you
bring that eve a canievel and I got your roadhouse bill.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The next time we go to have it, we have
a meal. Fair enough.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
This yeah, absolutely, this sounds like so much fun and
real a great cardio two.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Well, I will say that on this side of the fence,
for those who aren't in the military, I think it's
also an opportunity for you to meet other people and socialize.
I mean, like back in the days of the military,
like it, are that far from me when you did
that formation of rucking staggered out five meters a pop.
There is no speaking, there's no talking, and then usually
(15:25):
be doing simulated attacks and all that good stuff. But
now on the reverse side of it, it's a matter
of you know, meeting other people and getting to know people,
socializing and as you know, in the times that we
live in it's kind of ionized and separated and segregated
and all that good jazz. It's an opportunity for you
to meet other people that you never met before and
(15:45):
hopefully build a kind of a group at the rut club.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And you know, like I said, it's
all self paced. We start together, we finished together. But
you know, if you're bagging back a little bit, that's okay,
no reason to feel discouraged.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You just you know, we'll we'll all make it. We're
all gonna make it. You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And hopefully down the line we're how child waiting for
you at the end of the ruck. That's one thing.
The army loves to definitely ruck early in the morning
and then eat, not the other way around, folks. And
I remember those days Holy Christmas, and that's during for
those we're having a flashback to europe old days, during
the first days of boot camp. That's when you're that's
(16:34):
when the child was killed. No, the child was definitely
grew up to be a man on that day. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So maybe one of these times we'll have some veteran
victuals at the end, a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yeah, foreshadowing things to come, folks, things that come. But
hopefully we'll do a brew out of time. But you
know how that goes. But that being the case, did
that answer your question?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
There's an absolutely, you can't.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
I can't wait to try it one of these days
because I walk every day a lot. Oh you do, yeah, absolutely,
So we're just talking adding maybe what forty pounds something like.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That Oh yeah, I mean if that you don't have
to do okay, you know, you don't have to impress me, Zane,
You're good.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
But one of the cool things is as a matter
about testing yourself. And I'll say this, and I had
this mentality while I was actually in service during boot camp.
It's me versus nature because it's easy to give up.
I'm telling you right now, the easiest thing and natural,
the most natural thing to do, is to stop doing
(17:35):
something that's not natural to your being or to your physicality. Easy,
but to push through it, you define yourself. You find
out who you are at the core. We go through
physical mental adversity at the same time because you doubt yourself,
and then all of a sudden, that foot still goes
one step further and one step further, and you're like going,
sweet Jesus, I've just gone four miles. I never did
(17:59):
that my entire life. And then you're you're not You're
you're on your way back when you're saying this stuff.
So it's definitely one of those motivating things where you
say I can't do it, and then i'd say, as
a sorry would say, way, mcte ash, you a question,
Are you an American?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (18:13):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Doing anything? The last four lens is an American?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I can't. I don't't hear anything, don't want to hear
a word of it. You can do something that's a
that's a as an artificial, artificially implanted thought in your head,
you can't because you are who you are.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
So sometimes we all need to draw sergeants to remind
us so what we're capable of.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Well, I think the Rook Club is a bunch of
drill sergeants helping them on another out and no one's
pulling ran something.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
No one's pulling rank.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well and another thing.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So if you're a walker or a runner, you know
that a lot of times that you're your time to
escape and just be alone with your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And if you're out there, you have that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So if you just want to be at peace and
just follow the person in front of you, that's great.
If you want to make friends and talk about experiences,
that's that's great too. That's what we did last weekend.
I met a few folks that I hadn't met before
and just talked about military experiences. The ones that were civilians.
(19:16):
We talked about, Hey, what do you do? Where are
you from? And you know, everybody has a story, and
maybe that's not a military story, but everybody has a story.
And you know, just get out there and and share
your story and share your experiences and and.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, just do it with.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Like minded people that just want to be just want
to better themselves.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
He in order to make our country better, folks, we
got to do one community, one family, one individual at
a time.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And not for nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I think that the Legacy Rock Club is an opportunity
to to do all through the same time. And know what,
you never know what happens after you're done with the
rock once that's over, you know, a piabo warm down session.
I don't know about all that, but I know these
broken bones need to do after I'm walking or running,
which I don't do much of these days. But that
(20:12):
emotion is lotion.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, at the end of the last one, it was
basically Okay, what does the next one look like? And
at the end of the next one is what is
the next one going to look like? And and just
keep building up, keep getting more folks, getting more miles,
getting more everything, Just keep building up. Because to me,
woror wellness is self wellness. So whatever you need to
(20:37):
improve yourself to better yourself, it's all about taking care
of yourself and doing the steps necessary to improve. And
if you're out there, you're improving.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And what comes to mind, folks, people, we live in
a society where people say, if if you're even self love,
that's selfish. That is untrue. In some regard. We need
to have self love before we can love anything else,
because if you don't appreciate yourself, then you'll you won't
(21:12):
be able to appreciate your spouse, your significant other, your pet,
your child, and that kind of sets the standard of
what quality of life you want for yourself and for them.
I'm those psychologists, but I'm going to tell you right now,
if you're in a bad state of a state of mind,
you're not really good for anybody. And I'm pretty sure
every person listening as a veteran, had heard this thought
(21:34):
one time or another or heard this before. Take a
walk and get your mind right, because you need to
think about what's going down and get your thoughts together.
And that's what basically the ruck does.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
You can't fix anything with broken parts.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
There you go, folks, baum write that down that's his tagline,
folks right down. Well that folks, thank you very much,
and we'll go to our next segment.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
All right, wellness warriors.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I got a big event coming up tomorrow on the
twenty ninth of March, Sinnethon coming up at the Franz
Ross YMCA at seven thirty to ten thirty. So what
we're going to do. We're going to be in there spinning.
So I'm starting it out. We've got a Nissa, we
got Kristen.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
It's going to be a good time. So come out
and join us if you can.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's going to be four hours from seven thirty to
eleven thirty four hours.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It's spinning.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So if you want to challenge yourself, come out, pick
a bike and let's go.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Okay, folks, this segment, we had one of our financial
gurus back on our show, Meetchi Jeffries.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
How you doing, ma'am excellent? How are you not too bad?
Speaker 4 (22:48):
And ma'am again to remind America of your credentials, could
you please reintroduce yourself?
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Oh my goodness, yes I can so. I am Dimitrika.
Meetchi Jeffries served in the United States are force active
duty for twenty six years and six days retired with
my Diamond AKA as a first Sergeant. I'm also a
breast cancer survivor eleven plus years cancer free and counting.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Book.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
Yes, and I'm an author writing a book about my
breast cancer journey called No More Bad Days. And lastly,
for the last six years, I have been working in
the capacity as an entrepreneur, serving the community as a
licensed financial services professional and financial literacy educator.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Oh really, we share a common passion. One of my
first lives for the militaries. I was with Oh My
Good Merrill Lynch as an investment advisor and I specifically
cliented law enforcement or first responder as a military for
the simple fact that A that's the direction I was
going in a way and be that's part of my family.
(24:02):
So that was my little niche, so to speak. And
I always found that that's one of the few things
I thought there was missing in the military during those briefs.
But that's a whole nother story, because that allows you
the opportunity to provide our listeners and our fellow brethren
and sisters of that education that we desperately need about financials.
Speaker 7 (24:20):
Yes, absolutely, thank you so much. It's always an honor
to be here before you all. I really do appreciate
it so very much, and I just want to share
some things with you about what I actually discovered myself
over the past week. So we actually we my office,
my business, we actually hosted a Federal Employee Retirement System
(24:48):
workshop aka FIRS some of you, many of you, probably
because I'm fully aware of even my own husbands who's
an Air Force veteran, he's still in the federal system.
And as you know, it has rules, it has benefits,
It often has parameters and how you utilize certain benefits.
(25:08):
And one thing that you all will probably agree with
me on is that we've spent many, many years being
dedicated and devoted to a system, but we never really
fully understand exactly how the system works. We don't, yes,
we don't understand the benefits, what benefits we are entitled to.
(25:29):
And that is the case with the First Program. As
a matter of fact, just a little bit of educational
acts here. Content created the First System in nineteen eighty six.
It went into effect on January first, nineteen eighty seven.
Since that time, the new First System has been the
(25:51):
retirement plan for all federal employees, and as you probably
have guessed it, there are more than seventy million. It
is the largest retirement system in the country. Actually. Indeed,
for having said that, yes, it's good to be a
federal employee, to continue to serve the communities and mankind
(26:14):
at large in that way, However, we cannot be so complatent.
We cannot continue to be so complete. Since knowing that, Okay, yeah,
you know I got a federal job. Oh I got
a good you know I'm getting the paycheck. I got
a couple of benefits, So you need to understand what
those benefits are and that when you do retire, some
(26:36):
those benefits do change. You know. Let me tell you something,
and I know you guys know this already. When we
wore the uniform, and to those of you that had
the SGLI coverage service Members Group Life Insurance coverage, Okay,
that lasted while you were still in uniform and serving
on active duty. However, four months after your official retirement date,
(27:01):
that benefit goes away. You are no longer covered by
Service Members Group Life Insurance and now you have the
responsibility of finding coverage for yourself. So if it's anything
like me, because I was again that was one of
those people that was very complacent in the government. With
my former employer working under the United States Air Force,
(27:27):
I did not know anything about that particular part of finances.
To be honest, I don't know anything about finances. So
guess what. And I'm just being real. When I went
through tax number one, I only went through it once.
It probably would have benefited me better if I went
through it. Say maybe it leads two more times. And
(27:51):
one thing that I yeah, one thing I do remember
is that they give you They do have speakers that
come in, but they give you this sheet of a
bunch of links web sites you know, to go to
for resources. Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, I
don't remember anybody coming in the room to talk to
(28:12):
me about financing. I don't I don't remember anybody coming
up in the room to me saying, hey, now, things
are going to look differently in your paycheck when you retire. Yes,
you're gonna get the disability benefits. Oh, but by the way,
maybe if you have to fight a little bit longer
to get that one hundred percent rate of disability, you know,
you're going to have to figure out how is you
going to have to survive off the fifty percent fifty percent,
(28:35):
maybe even less than that. But no one comes in
and they talk to us throughout our military careers about
how we can start to save, how can we how
can we spend less, ay more? And what is it
that we can do with what we save. We haven't
said yes, oh, go ahead, Do you want to say something?
Speaker 4 (28:55):
No, I will say I agree with one hundred percent,
and that it's easier when you're on automatic, on duty
week after week and it's being taken out and allocated
in your government provide a life insurance program. But when
that goes away, and like you said earlier, it's a
responsibility to delegate funds to fund a life insurance policy.
(29:17):
And if it has cash value and what all that
good stuff means, that's a whole nother that's a whole
another beast onto itself, which we are left. I mean,
I don't know when I left the military, I didn't
get the debrief on how to do this for myself
and for my family, and you kind of left to,
like on your own concisence to figure that out. And
(29:38):
that's kind of I think that's where I think your
position kind of is outstanding because that's what you provide education.
Speaker 7 (29:44):
Yes, yes, And I will tell you something. So I
had the pleasure sitting in on a firm Federal Employee
Retirement System workshop that was online that was actually a
week aldgo Monday, and then we also offered it in
my office. I'm here in the lovely state of Maryland, everybody,
(30:06):
and my office is in green Belt, Maryland. And I'm
sure you guys already know that the county that I'm
in in Maryland is called Prince George's County and that
happens to be the county with the largest number of
veterans all throughout the state of Maryland. Oh yes, yes,
(30:27):
So we also hosted the first Federal Employee Retirement System
workshop in our office which is in green Belt, Maryland.
And one of the things that I learned is that
you have a lot of different moving parts to this system.
You have different moving parts things that talk about early retirement,
the different types of retirement, deferred retirement, survivor benefit, military
(30:55):
retire pay. You know, being able to match what the
employee is giving. If you're matching less than five percent,
then guess what you're leaving money on the table. And
you're not fully maximizing out on what you could be
getting after twenty thirty four years of working in the
federal system. So we learned about a lot of different things,
(31:15):
and there was feedback that touched me so much that
I remember it just like people said yesterday. And one
of the federal employees that was in attendance is a
lady that happens to be a nurse at a veteran
at a VA hospital, and she is sixty eight years old,
has been working in the federal system for twenty seven years,
(31:38):
and she said to the trainer, to the presenter, you,
I've never heard anybody explain the benefit so clearly as
you did. And she's been in the system for twenty
seven years. So you know what, if nobody's explaining it
to her and making it playing and making it to
where she can understand it and then actually be able
to take that knowledge and apply it put some things
(32:00):
in place for herself twenty years ago, fifteen years ago,
that would have been a much more better situation for her.
But no problem, this woman is sixty eight years old.
We were able to help her with something, but imagine
how much better it would have been if she was
able to get this information and understand it ten years ago,
twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. So what I
(32:22):
want to share with my veteran brothers and sisters and
their families, to their children, to their widows, to widowers.
I I along with my green Belt office, my green
Belt family, who we have quite a few federal employees.
We have people that also have a military background, not
(32:43):
just myself, and we also have spouses of people who
did who knows people that have served in that capacity.
We are always committed to serving our federal employees and
our veterans, especially our military families, especially them. So how, yes,
how do I do this? How do we do this?
We have workshops free frae Hey. In the military, one
(33:08):
thing we understood was free. Isn't that right? We understood
that word free free, So we offer a variety of
free workshops. We also have free resources on financial literacy.
So that means not just are people able to go
to the workshops, but we also have books. I'm looking
at one right now. It's called a Finance one Umber
(33:29):
one Saving your Future, And we have so many different
topics in here that's covered so many different things about finances.
You know financial foundation, What exactly is that? What does
it look like inflation? How your money is impacted by
different taxation categories, you know, the tax now category, the
tax lader or tax deferred, as well as the tax
(33:51):
advantage category. Debt management. You know what, let me tell
you something. There are veterans out there that if it's
just one thing they probably need, it's totally debt management.
Is that management? And I say, and I say this
because there is an army veteran, a lovely young lady
that I was able to help. I met her through
a referral program that I'm a part of, and we
(34:14):
did our financial review, which is also free, and she said,
I don't have any money. Yes, I do have a job,
but I have credit card head and I owe people money.
I just don't have any money. But at the end
of the day, two things happened. Two things happened. Number one,
I was able to help her find an extra ninety
dollars on the spot. Because you know, when you don't
have any money, if you find somebody an extra thirty dollars,
(34:35):
you're an angel. If you help somebody find an extra
fifty dollars, that's a godsend. Yes, so I was yeah,
so I was able to help her find an extra
ninety dollars and then yeah. And then also I asked her,
I said, do you are you working with a tax
representative you know? And she said, well, I just go
to you know a certain company and have my Texas cloud.
(34:57):
I said, okay. I said, well, I know somebody that
it happens to be my brother here in this business
as well, and he's also a CPA fifteen plus years
of experience working with people from all different backgrounds. Maybe
he can give you something that you can take with
you that will help you. And maybe he can just
look over your your your finances for you and see
(35:17):
how he can help you with your tax And she said, okay,
no problem. I followed up with this young lady. Let's see,
we met in March, and then I followed up with
her sometime in May. I said, hey, how did everything go?
She said, well, I want to let you know I
was able to pay off an actual debt of two
hundred dollars. Wow, So add that on to the ninety
dollars that I already helped her find that she did
(35:37):
not know was under her nose. And then lastly, she said,
I did work with your a CPA guy, and as
a result of that, I'm getting ten thousand dollars back
in tax money. Oh my, that's what I said. So
you know what, if it's free, don't not get because
the services that I know that we have that are free,
(35:59):
they have helped me personally tremendously. So we talk about
things like retirement plans. Let me tell you something. When
I retired three plus years, I let my TSP sit dormant.
What do I mean by that? It was just sitting there.
I wasn't contributing to it, honestly because I was retired.
But also I had it in the GEN fund. Oh
(36:20):
now we already know. Nothing grows in the G fund.
I mean, there is very very it's very conservative. It
will protect you from most risks, from most loss of money.
But if you're looking to build long money, G fund,
ain't it. That's not it. That's not it.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
It's a bond, basically, it's.
Speaker 7 (36:39):
Just that's right. That's right. So I actually learned through
these workshops. Okay, well, I have TSP money that I'm
no longer contributing to. I didn't know that I could
move it because unlike my husband. I did not go
back to work. That was a choice. I did not
(36:59):
go back to work, so I just let the money
sit there. I was afraid to move it, didn't know
if I could, didn't know where to put it. So
I'm telling you today because there are probably some people
out there who were worse like me, that don't know
that they can move their money. They don't know that. Okay,
you got your TSP here, when was the last time
you had your TSP even looked at. Let's do a
review of your TSP account, and let's show you. Okay,
(37:22):
if you want to keep it the CSP, then maybe
you need to look at diversifying and let's look at
the G the c the f you know, the FDI.
Let's take a look at those cs or maybe you
want to roll over some or maybe all of your TSP.
No problem. And then I go to work and I
look up illustrations from a multitude of different companies, and
(37:43):
based on the level of risk tolerance of those people
of the veterans, guess what, I'm able to find them something.
I'm able to find them something that they can put
some money away. Let it grow. Five years, seven years,
nine years, ten years, maybe look at it from a
growth perspective, or look at it from a lifetime income perspective.
(38:07):
So not only do they have their pension, not only
do they have there be a benefit, but they will
also have a third pot of lifetime income to pull.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
From one hundred percent. Now, I wanted to ask you, me, Chi,
do you feel that a lot of resistance is coming
from either financial illiteracy or any other factor, because I
think one of the biggest, one of the biggest hurdles
that you may faced or I face back in the day,
is that when you're sitting down and talking to someone
about G funds and B funds and C funds, I
(38:38):
get that dear expression. I'm not going there's not they
don't understand a word that I'm saying. And I'd say, folks,
let's go back to basics. And the point of the
matter is I had to build a concrete relationship with
my client saying look this, you can't you can't help
yourself unless you don't know, if you don't have the
knowledge of how to do that basically, And it sounds
like you basically provide financial literacy in your programming.
Speaker 7 (39:02):
Yes, all day, every day. Yes, we understand that, and
thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 8 (39:10):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
I think there are many different factors that the lack
of knowledge stems from, and one of them is, you
know what. I'm gonna use myself as an example. When
I was in the military, I believe every single word
that my leaders told me. I was very comfortable. I
was comfortable with knowing, Okay, well I have a health issue. Okay,
(39:34):
I can go to the medical center on the days.
Nobody's gonna charge me. I don't have to pay for
medical care. I don't have to pay for health care.
But when you retire and depend on the punts, what
side of retiring you're on? There are some things now
you got to start paying. Okay, you have to pay.
But I was a so complace and comfortable with that world.
I didn't pay for much of anything. So because of that,
(39:55):
you become very comfortable and you're not going to at
least in my case, I was not critically minded enough
to say, you know what, I'm going to be retiring.
I'm not going to stay in this position forever. So
what is it that I'm doing now? What's my money?
What is it that I need to be thinking about
doing right now with my money. Twenty years later, now
that I'm going to retire, things are going to look
different from me. At least I want to be in
(40:16):
a better position. That never came to mind. Well, I
tell you why I didn't come to mind, because not
only were we comfortable, but guess what we did. We deployed.
If we'd be getting ready to deploy, getting our family
geared up for the deployment, and then coming back from
the deployment, reintegrating with our family, reintegrating with the job,
doing a whole lot heck of them more with a
(40:37):
whole lot and less, and then studying for promotion that
we hope we get picked up for on the second,
the third, or fourth time around. So all these different dynamics.
Nobody wants to really talk about financial literacy. Nobody.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
And that's critical in our second phase of our lives
as veterans, because basically, you're going you're now a contributing
citizen in the United States, your veteran. But it's on
you soldier, you gotta figure that out, or air person
or marine. Once you lose your colors and you're now
wearing that polo shirt, you gotta pay for medical care.
(41:12):
Oh you gotta pay for you want insurance.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
You got to figure that out.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
And I love the VA, but I always double down,
you know, if any opinion, I doubled down. But that's
a whole nother conversation. But I wanted to ask you
again to a degree, what do you feel would be
what do you think as veterans are our biggest hurdles
about financial literacy and ourselves. I think you hit a
(41:36):
couple of points two seconds ago about no one told
us right right right?
Speaker 7 (41:41):
Uh huh, yes, my goodness, this is very good fear,
you know. I was actually on a radio station out
of Baltimore Friday. In one of the callers, she said,
I don't know why there aren't a lot of people
actually trying to call in and respond, but I was
(42:03):
asking for people to call in with their comments and
with their questions. And she said, but I think a
large part of that is fear. You know, where we're
check this out. We're not afraid to go in debt.
I'm afraid of people trying to help us to get
out of debt and build well. I don't understand that somehow,
you know, keeping you in debt, you know, getting credit
card number five when you haven't even paid off the
(42:25):
first one. Nothing's wrong with that. But when I talk
to people and shows them, hey, you don't have to
live like that. You don't have to live in debt.
You can get out of debt. It's not going to
happen overnight. But you can through a systematic process get
out of debt if you're willing to open up your mind,
be disciplined enough and focus and do it. So a
(42:46):
lot of people are afraid to change from the norm,
what they're used to, what they're used to. Remember the flintstones,
of course, you're the flintstone, and how it comes on
all the time, all the time. It comes on a
freshling zone in a rock quarry, on his bronosaurus, and
as soon as a foreman yanks to tell of the alarm,
(43:09):
he jumps off the bronosaurus and he plops out and
he's rushing home to the cleaners or whatever. That's a system.
That's a system that we're born into, and anything outside
of that system is a threat. Anything anything outside of
that system that will allow you to do something differently,
because what you've been doing for the past ten fifteen
(43:31):
years isn't working. Something that will cause you to really
step outside the conformity of everything that's scary, and we
are very quick to just wish it away. Oh you
know what, I it sounds good, but you know what,
I'm good? Are you really exactly what does that mean?
Does it mean that you're good from the paycheck? Doesn't
(43:53):
mean that you're good because you have your little pension
plan from your company. Doesn't mean that you're good because
now you can let them a little bit of on
social Security. But what happens when social Security goes away?
So some people are just comfortable being comfortable. Man, They're
comfortable with being the standard. And I don't mean it
in a bad way. I just mean that you can
(44:15):
do something better. Nobody ever came into the military to
be a millionaire. Nobody nobody ever works for the federal
government to be a millionaire. So when I challenge people
to shift their perspectives through education and say, hey, you're
working for somebody right now, But what about working for
your own agenda? What about setting goals for yourself? What
(44:37):
about region those streams to pass? You can make it happen.
You don't have to stay here for twenty plus years.
If you don't want to, but you can start working
on something now that's better for you, your future and
the future of your family. And a lot of people
are afraid to just shift. They're afraid to shift from
something that they've known that's comfortable for them, and then
everything is a scamp. Oh right, everything is a scam.
Speaker 8 (45:02):
You know.
Speaker 7 (45:02):
I'm licensed and I'm regulated, and everything that I do,
I can't sneeze, wink or blink or belch. Hope that
wasn't a bad.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Words choose your person.
Speaker 7 (45:15):
Without fin rather financial industry regulatory agency getting worried about it.
So I have to do things in good order that
are professionally done, that are ethically found, and that's not
going to hurt the customers. I can't I cannot tell
you anything I want to tell you. I can't do that,
(45:35):
don't want to do that. So, yeah, people are just complacent.
And then there's a fear factor and just being able
to shift your mindset and saying, okay, I've been doing
this like this for twenty five years. Okay, but there's
nothing wrong with changing now so you can do better.
So hopefully I hit it on that it can.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
All change today if you want it to. M Well,
then mit you. I want to.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Say thank you for coming on our show today and
I wanted to ask you could you please give out
your information So if people have any questions listening to
our show today want to reach out and talk to you,
where can they find you?
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (46:09):
Sure absolutely my number. My number is two four zero
two one zero four four eight nine. Again, my number
is two four zero two one zero four four eight
(46:36):
nine outstanding.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Any email addresses.
Speaker 7 (46:39):
For us, Yes, so it's meetche that's Emazon, Michael E
E C h I, E J E SSN, Frank SNN,
Frank E r I as an Indigo s ISN Sam
(46:59):
at gmail dot com. So it's meet you Jeffries at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
There you have it, folks. You have that, you have
the numbers, and you have the information. Make that happen
for yourself. Tomorrow won't be there unless you make it. Uh,
thank you for being on our show A Michi and
we'll be with you again.
Speaker 9 (47:14):
Thank you very much, and that's our show for today.
We want to thank you for joining us on the
Rally Point show in the future. If you're at all
interested in being a guest, or if you have any
questions about the show or suggestions for segments you'd like
to see. You can shoot me an email. It's machiato
m A C C H I A t O at
(47:36):
the number one rallypoint dot org. We are happy to
take your suggestions as well as find new guests to
have on our show. Isn't that right? Sarge?
Speaker 3 (47:47):
That is correct?
Speaker 4 (47:48):
And if you know anyone who want to be on
the show, please let her know and we'll give them
on there as soon as possible.
Speaker 9 (47:54):
Absolutely, and with that we hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Thanks for joining us on the rally Point Show. Rally
Pointers full out this.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Missed, wake UPO me amazing.
Speaker 8 (48:06):
This is coach name with a rally point catch me.
The first Friday of every month, the positively happinated be
reminded to wake up the amazing, live the life you
have while you ultimately create the life you love.
Speaker 9 (48:17):
Are you looking to honor a loved one who served
in our armed forces? Now's your chance to make a difference.
The one hundred point nine FM rally Point Show is
proud to announce our partnership with Wreaths across America Radio,
now broadcasting on the iHeartRadio app the Odyssey app and
the tune In app. Help us sponsor a veterans wreath
in honor of or in memory of a hero. Your
(48:38):
tax deductible donation allows us to designate a wreath but
one of the millions of heroes who rest in honored glory.
Your contribution, no matter the size, plays a crucial role
in our mission to honor every veteran in America. We
invite you, your friends, family, co workers, and organizations to
join us in this heartfelt endeavor. Visit the number one
(48:59):
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forward slash to make your pledge. Once on the page,
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this massive mission, your generous support will help us recognize
(49:20):
our veteran sacrifices. Today, let's honor our veteran sacrifices together.
Thank you for your support.
Speaker 10 (49:27):
I'm Staff Sergeant Marc anthem as Stafstargist Smith, a car
staff Sergeant how.
Speaker 7 (49:30):
Staff Stargan William Lewis, and I am proud to defend
my family and our nation.
Speaker 11 (49:34):
The Air Force Reserve is part of the story of
this great nation.
Speaker 5 (49:38):
Grateful that I have a chance to wear the uniform
of the heroes that weapon perform in.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
I'm proud to be part of a team that helps
make a difference in the world.
Speaker 11 (49:44):
Every day, men and women from communities across this nation
serve as Reserve citizen airmen. Even news technology eVols and changes,
our commitment to defend and protect this nation remains steadfast.
We celebrate those who have served and those who are
proudly serving. We celebrate our proud history and look towards
(50:08):
an exciting and uniting future. And our mission is to
fly through the funds and win in air space and
cyber space.
Speaker 10 (50:17):
And I'm proud to be a member that.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I'm proud to serving that and I am proud to
protect our country.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Proud to serve in the US Air Force Reserve.
Speaker 11 (50:25):
Affreserve dot com.
Speaker 6 (50:27):
Our veterans risked it all to protect our freedom. One
of the best ways to say thank you is to
volunteer to support them at a time and history where
kindness is a virtue. Volunteering at a therapy bag event,
teaching a craft class, or simply helping veterans at a
hospital means a lot. For over forty seven years, Help
(50:48):
Heal Veterans are not for profit organization, with the support
of citizens like you, has created, manufactured and distributed therapeutic
art and craft projects for our veterans and military at
no charge to them. As a National Veterans Service organization,
Help Heal Veterans supports VA hospitals, patients at home, and
(51:08):
our active military. Together help your veterans and volunteers like
you have delivered over thirty two million therapy kits to
injured and recovering veterans. To a volunteer or learn more,
visit heel vets dot org. That's heel vets dot org.
Speaker 10 (51:27):
At Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, we're fighting against childhood
cancer every day. At the heart of this battle are
our donors.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Most of us.
Speaker 10 (51:37):
Want to make some type of difference in the lives
of others. Saint Jude does miraculous work.
Speaker 11 (51:43):
The fact that no one has to pay. It's a
place where everyone is treated as an equal.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
Everybody is welcome here, and it doesn't matter your religion
or what part of the world you're from.
Speaker 11 (51:55):
All that is taken away. It just gives you some hope, just.
Speaker 5 (52:00):
A nice feeling to put your energy into something that
really does genuinely make a difference in a child's life.
Speaker 7 (52:09):
There's just no greater gift. If we have the ability
to help, then we have a responsibility.
Speaker 10 (52:14):
To help finding cures saving children. Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Find out how you can help at sinjud dot org.
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