From Combat Pilot to CEO: What Most Veterans Get Wrong About Business Guest: Nate Amidon | Founder, Form 100 Consulting

From C-17 combat pilot to 7-figure entrepreneur. Nate Amidon shares the raw truth about leadership, military transition, and building a business that actually scales.
In this powerful episode of School of Wealth, Rondi Lambeth sits down with Nate Amidon, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserves turned founder of Form 100 Consulting , a company that helps veterans become elite consultants in the software development world.
They talk about:

• How military discipline translates to business leadership
• The Swiss cheese model of risk (and how to avoid business failure)
• Why Nate refused a $300K/year airline job
• Real talk about cash flow, funding, and growing a company without a business loan
• Hidden tax strategies every entrepreneur should use — especially if you’ve got kids

This one’s packed with flying stories, financial wisdom, and hard-earned lessons on building something that lasts. If you’re a vet, a founder, or a leader who’s tired of the fluff and wants the real playbook, this episode is for you.
 Get more at: Form100Consulting.com
  Connect with Nate on LinkedIn: Nate Amidon
  Start fixing your credit today for $1: creditmojo.ai/schoolofwealth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and according to
Forbes, 93% of business owners pay more than legally required
to pay an income tax. And nearly 50% of all Americans
have bad credit, but not you, atleast not anymore.
See, this is the school of wealth where you learn how to

(00:21):
maximize your credit, minimize your taxes, and multiply your
assets so you can create generational wealth.
Hi, I'm Romney Lambert, certified FICO credit
professional, author, speaker and tax strategist.
For the last 20 years, I've helped 10s of thousands of
Americans just like you take control of their money, fix

(00:42):
their credit, wipe out their debt, cut their taxes by 50% and
multiply their assets. If you're ready to break free
from the rat race and start building a life of freedom and
abundance, then you're in the right place.
Welcome to the School of Wealth.All right, welcome to the show.

(01:03):
I'm super excited for the show today.
Today in the studio, I have my friend Nate Amadon.
Did I say that right, Amadon? You nailed it.
Nailed it. This is your first podcast.
Yeah, this is my first in personin a studio podcast.
For sure. How you feeling?
Nervous. A little nervous.
That's OK. A little nervous.

(01:24):
What's funny about that is you're a little nervous.
You're sitting in the studio with me.
Yeah, yet your part time job, you've done a few things.
Tell us about that. What's your part time job now?
Yeah, so part time. I'm a Lieutenant Colon, the Air
Force Reserves and AC17 pilot. AC17 pilot, yeah.
Is that is that the biggest cargo plane?

(01:46):
It's not it's not it. It looks like it could be, but
the C5 is actually the biggest so well you can tell between
AC-5 and AC17C5 will open up at the nose.
Oh, that OK. Yeah, yeah.
And the C-17, I must say, it's like it's cooler 'cause it's in
all the Hollywood movies. So anytime like Optimus Prime

(02:07):
jumps out of a jumps out of a plane, it's out of AC17.
What was that, that video I I put on WhatsApp the other day
for a group? Yeah.
What was that video? Was that a was that a a gunship
C-17 or was it just a slow MO? Yeah, just a slow MO C-17.
So they don't have C-17 gunships, OK, You know, I asked

(02:28):
for it, but they wouldn't give it to us.
Is there? B17.
No, no, there, there isn't. But they've talked about
putting, you know, the the Moabsin the back and dropping them
off. And it may have happened, but I
didn't. I don't know about it.
How many how many missions have you done over your career?
Oh God, I don't even know to be to be quite honest.

(02:49):
You know, I've got over like 4000 hours, 1000 of that's in
Iraq, Afghanistan, flying missions.
So. But you're nervous in here,
yeah. No, it's different.
It is different well. I will say I did a there's a,
there's a discipline in the Air Force called the combat camera.
So they'll fly with crews and have a video, take video of the

(03:12):
mission. So in 2009, after the tsunami in
Japan, I flew a mission with combat camera because we were
the first plane to go into Sunday Sendai Sendai airfield.
So it got completely just destroyed by the by the tsunami.
And so they wanted us to come inas we were delivering supplies.

(03:33):
And I did an interview there on camera.
So that was new, yeah. Yeah, I remember the first time
I did a podcast. I was so nervous and that was my
very first time ever doing the first radio show I did.
I wasn't nervous at all because I wasn't the get, I wasn't the

(03:54):
host. They brought me in and they just
start asking me questions about credit and finances and taxes
and so that it's a piece of cake.
And then the first time I did myown radio show, 'cause I
actually, I started this show in2011 and it was called Your
Credit Matters Radio show. And it was in San Diego on KPR,

(04:16):
1210 AM KPRZ, the oldest radio station in San Diego.
And I started at 10 o'clock 10:50 on Saturday.
And within a month they offered me Monday through Friday, 6:30
to 7:00 during drive time. And that's how I got to know
Dave Ramsey because he was on it10:30, 9/10/30 or 930, I can't

(04:38):
remember. But he was constantly pushing
and pressuring the radio stationto give him my spot.
And they're like, this is like people's favorite show 'cause I
was talking about credit. And this was just remember this
2011, we were still in that 2008crunch, the 2012.
And so I had a basically five hours of radio a week on credit.

(05:00):
So it was pretty popular show back then, but I remember how
nervous I was. So you know what that I had my
my TV celebrity coach. I call him my celebrity coach.
His name is Clint Arthur and he told me a story of one of his
clients who she was the double mint twins, I think is what

(05:23):
they're called back like in the 70s.
I don't know if you remember that you.
Remember the Double Mint twin commercials?
Yeah. Yeah.
And so she had said that they had met Elvis Presley, and Elvis
Presley was super nice to them. And he said something like, are
you nervous? And I'm not even going to try to
do the Elvis Presley voice. My coach Clint Arthur's really

(05:45):
good at it. But he basically said if you got
butterflies, that just means you're excited and you care
about it. So it's OK to have butterflies
because you've got butterflies, it means you care.
If you didn't have butterflies, it means you wouldn't care at.
All Well, I mean, you're constantly nervous.
Yeah, I was nervous the first time I flew a plane.

(06:06):
I was nervous the first time. I'll tell you when I was the
most nervous flying the C-17 wasyou start out as a copilot,
you're always flying with someone senior and then you go
to aircraft commander school andthen you're always flying with
instructor during the school. And then you go do some check
rides to become an aircraft commander and you're flying with

(06:27):
an instructor and evaluator pilot.
But then at some point, you're off on your own.
And I remember that feeling whenI was first flying by myself,
looking over and being like, that copilot's brand new, right?
It's it's like there's no help here, right?
And so, yeah, I mean, you know, we've talked about this before,
which is I always just lean intothe discomfort, try to do things

(06:49):
that make you uncomfortable. You know, that's the saying that
a lot I it's not my saying. I say it all the time is if you
want to become successful at something, whether it's
business, employee or any skill,you need to be comfortable being
uncomfortable. And if you're not comfortable
being uncomfortable, you'll, you'll never get any better at

(07:10):
any skill, including flying, including being an entrepreneur
or anything. You know, I'm taking up one of
my goals this year is to learn how to play a guitar.
And I know I'm going to suck. I'm gonna suck so bad for a
while. You know, I played piano in high
school, so I know how to read music, but I don't know how to

(07:31):
play a guitar. I know my fingers are gonna
hurt. I'm gonna be uncomfortable.
But it's so important that you are as an entrepreneur or
anything, be comfortable being uncomfortable.
So tell me about your first solo.
It's. I'm a pilot as well.
So you've been flying. I I spent 15 years on a medevac

(07:52):
helicopter Huey and then I got my private pilot's license 12
years ago. So I love flying.
I absolutely love it. I haven't flown since my last
accident. My last flight was September
6th, 2021. I had a engine failure on take
off and hard landing where it ripped my foot off my leg and

(08:15):
shattered my right leg. So I can't wait to go back up.
So tell me about your your firstsolo.
Yeah, I mean, there's, I kind ofbreak this up into two because
the first, the first real solo. So I went to the Air Force
Academy, graduated and for a while they had training at the

(08:35):
Air Force Academy, but they theyhad some accidents.
So they, they once you graduatedand we're going to go to pilot
training, you get your private pilot license with a private
school like you went through. So my first solo in a Cessna 172
was at Centennial Airport in outside of Denver.
Now it's a super busy airport. Yeah, it's very busy.

(08:58):
Yeah. And so your first solo is like a
pattern solo pattern. Only in May I, I was awful and
I, I had what I now realize was,is crazy, not having flown for
so long. But I mean, I think I was like
300 feet off altitude in the pattern and there was some
Learjet that, you know, had to avoid me.
And, and I to me, I was super cocky and young and I was like,

(09:22):
oh, it was easy, you know, but not, not really knowing like how
close I came to, to something dangerous.
But I think the real solo was inpilot training.
So we'd fly this older, older jet trainer called the tweet,
it's AT 37. And and I remember my instructor
pilot on the first flight we did, we start crank the jet

(09:45):
engines, they wouldn't start. So the instructor pilot started
bouncing up and down in the seatand apparently that unstuck some
bound. Yeah.
Like bouncing up into the. Seat making the whole plane move
and then the engine started so Ialways had it on the back of my
mind when I was flying solo yeahsame thing you know pattern only
but the thing about the tweeze you can pull G's it's it's a

(10:05):
really fast G on set and so you know you can rack it up to 90°
and pull and if you've ever beenin AG situation you know it
starts to just close in on so onmy first solo I I was again kind
of cocky and I was like oh so I racked it and pulled really fast
and then that window closed pretty close and I was like and

(10:26):
then I you know pulled off the stick and I was like man I just
got really close again on my first solo to to auguring and it
so so yeah it was nerve wrackingbut.
There's that saying that says there's no such thing as old and
bold client or what? What is the saying?
There's old clients and there's bold clients, but there's not
old bold. Clients but.
Clients. I'm saying clients.

(10:47):
There's old pilots and bold pilots, but not old bold pilots.
Exactly. Yeah, and say it right 'cause I
know I'm screwing that up. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the
idea that is the, the longer you're you fly, the more you
realize things can go wrong, right, 'cause you know more
about things that you've seen orexperiences or really what
you've heard from your buddies. And so now when I fly, because

(11:10):
I'm kind of on the tail end of my Air Force career, I'm a lot
more conservative. You know, I I went and got my
pilot's license private and I hired this medically forced
retiree of the airlines and thenhe lived in Turlock, CA.

(11:32):
He was where married to a woman who was worth a couple $100
million. That's nice.
And so he was a pilot for fun and he was an airline pilot when
he met her so many years ago. And he, he never had the work,
if you will, but you know, as anairline pilot, you get really
good money. But he wanted to still fly.
So he I paid him like 2 grand orsomething in cash and then I

(11:56):
rented A Hoopty. It was like a 1967 Piper.
It wasn't an arrow. It's a four seater.
I can't remember Low wing. This thing hadn't been painted
since the 70s original engine. I mean, it was a piece of crap.
And literally every single time I flew it.

(12:19):
Every time, Nate, every time I flew it something broke every
time. And my first solo I had an
engine out on my first or my I'msorry on my first cross country,
I had an engine out on my first solo.
I lost radios. So here I am coming in first
solo with no radios. So, but the, the pilot or the

(12:43):
owner of this aircraft was namedOtis.
And Otis joined the Air Force when he was 15 years old.
He lied about his age like many,many people did back then during
World War 2 became AB7 or B9 pilot, some some bomber.

(13:03):
And he's 85 years old. He's the, he's the manager of
this airport in Turlock. And so I rent this plane from
him. And I remember saying something,
you know, I was cocky. This is 12 years ago.
I wasn't young, but I said something like old and bold
pilots or something. He goes, well, that's actually
not true because you don't become an old pilot unless

(13:26):
you're a bold pilot because otherwise you crash.
And I remember one day he showedup.
He showed up at the airport, gotout of his car and he walked, He
had a, a Walker. So he's hobbling or hobbling,
whatever, walkering over to the airplane, somehow gets up on the
wing, pulls himself up into the airplane, starts up and takes

(13:50):
off. He's 85 years old, can barely
walk. So he comes back and we're
talking and I'm like, how do youhave a medical?
Like you can barely walk. He goes medical.
I don't have a medical. He's like, no one would give me
a medical to fly a plane, which is, you know, you have to have a
medical to be certified. Just like, what are they gonna

(14:13):
do, throw me a non medical school pilot?
I'm 85, you know, years old. Yeah.
They're not gonna throw me in jail.
Yeah. So no, that generation of pilots
had to like, you know, aviation was generally new.
There weren't a ton of these regulations around and you know,
they, they kind of just operatedon their own, did whatever they

(14:35):
needed to do. I mean, the panel in there in
those old planes, if you ever goto the, the the museums and look
at the panels, it's like there'snothing there and you're flying
across the ocean, you know, in the dark and getting shot at.
And you know, the, the reason I had an engine out on my very
first cross country was because they didn't deliver gas to the

(14:58):
airport the day before. Otis knew that I had my cross
country and wanted to make sure that it didn't get postponed.
So he went to the gas station with five gallon jug a gas in
the back of his car, filled it up and brought it and then
dumped it in the airplane. So the reason that I lost the
engine on take off in Sacramento'cause he put car gas in the

(15:22):
airplane motor, it doesn't work.So it was enough for me to fly
there. But when I turned it off and
then started, it got some air bubbles or whatever.
So I got like 50 feet up in the air and it quit.
I landed, ran off the runway into the grass.
I get my shit and I'm like, I amdone.
I'm done with this plane. And they they come out, they're
like, hey, you can't leave that plane.
I'm like, it's not mine. I don't care.
And I got an Uber back from Sacramento Turlock.

(15:46):
So fun times. So you haven't always been a
pilot. You did you go to?
So you said you went to the Naval Academy.
So let's back up a little bit. Where'd you grow up at?
Yes, I grew up in Minnesota. Minnesota.
You don't even sound like you'refrom Minnesota.
Yeah, because I, I left when I was 18 to go directly to the

(16:09):
yeah, to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
So yeah. So basically I've been in the
military ever since 18, right. And so first one, so in in the
Air Force Academy, you end up leaving in June to go into basic
training. So, you know, you graduate,
you're with all your buddies, and then you're the first one
gone and you're just, you're out.

(16:31):
So yeah, so did four years at the Air Force Academy.
How'd you like Colorado Springs?Well, I you don't see it a whole
lot because you're in a militaryschool.
But I mean, it's beautiful place, right?
And they they have the campus upon them up in the foothills.
I mean, it's, it's completely gorgeous, but.
Did the wind here? We're in Boise, ID right now.
Did the wind here today remind you of Colorado Springs?

(16:53):
It. Did It was like the windiest
spot, you know, imaginable because you're right at the base
of the foothills. So you get, you know, every
evening all of the wind would just like come howling down.
And then the winter, it's freezing and snow.
I think it's the windiest, one of the windiest spots in North
America. Yeah.
And that's why the the the Air Force Academy's theirs for the

(17:14):
glider schools and. All that stuff, yeah.
I I learned how to fly in Turlock and then I lived in Lake
Tahoe. Which Lake Tahoe airport is the
top 10 most deadliest airports in the world?
And very, very windy? So I bought an airplane before I
even got my pilot's license, andthe first thing after buying the
airplane is I hired another instructor for mountain

(17:36):
training. To.
Teach me how to fly in high winds.
And because it's, if you can't, if you can't land in like this
wind right now, I obviously I wouldn't go out in this.
But if I had to land in this 35 mile an hour gusts or 50 mile an
hour, whatever's happening rightnow, yeah, I'd be comfortable
with it. Cause I've done it before,
right. As long as it wasn't just like a

(17:58):
90° cross wind, which is, yeah. Otherwise we'd end up like that.
All female crew in Canada. Yeah.
Yeah. Except for that wasn't caused by
wind. Right, right.
Well, I mean flaring is important.
Yeah, flaring is important. And and it it, but it, you know,
it's, it's actually, you know, aviation happens, you know, like

(18:20):
like and it's, it's usually not mechanical errors, it's usually
pilot errors. And you know, there's processes
and procedures and and training for a reason.
Yeah, I think I was told by my instructor that 90% of general
aviation, it's their crashes, 90% of general aviation, which

(18:40):
is like, you know, you and I flying a plane up the military
or airlines. But 90% of it is caused from
engine failure and 90% of the engine failures are caused by
running out of fuel. Yeah, that's what killed John
Denver. He didn't want to stop and get
gas 'cause it was going to take time and cost too much.

(19:01):
And purposely, I think I was telling you this, that I will go
and purposely I have two tanks, then I'll put it on the low tank
and wait for me to run out of fuel while flying.
It's kind of scary. Yeah, probably, but I'll do it.
I'll be like at 15,000 feet, youknow, and so the engine starts

(19:22):
sputtering, but I just, I want that muscle memory of holy shit,
what just happened? And you, you reach down, you
switch the thing and yeah, full throttle, etcetera.
So that's kind. Of scary and I and I actually
like so I was a safety officer for a while in the, in the Air
Force and how aircraft accidentshappen, how you investigate

(19:43):
them. Really interesting, right?
And, and 'cause it's never, it'snot never, it's almost never a
one thing that happens. It's a.
It's a. Sequence of things.
Right. And so I'm a big fan of like the
Swiss, the Swiss cheese model, if you've ever heard of that
before. But the idea is you have all
these threats and imagine like 6slices of Swiss cheese and they

(20:08):
all have holes in them, right? And it's that one threat that
gets through all the holes because they're all lined up so
much right? And so from a.
Process risk mitigation fact, you know, factor and it doesn't
just apply to aviation, right? This applies to all risk
mitigation. You really want to try to do
your best to, to decrease the size of the holes and make sure

(20:30):
that there's no clear path for, for an air chain to get all the
way through. So I always found that super
interesting, right? I like that.
I think I went to. I don't.
Were you at the Matthew Dicks EOevent?
I did not make that one. So he had, he, he was talking
about how accidents happen and, and how you ignore it.

(20:51):
And that's, I went up and spoke about how my last time I flew,
how there were about 5 things ina row that I ignored.
And it ultimately almost cost memy life.
It cost me my leg. But fortunately with good
medicine, they put it all back together.
So yeah, it's, it's rarely just like one thing that happens.

(21:12):
It's it's usually a combination.So what are they called?
The Swiss cheese. Yeah.
So it's, it's the Swiss cheese risk mitigation model.
It's, you know, you can throw itup on the Googles.
It'll Google up on the interwebs, yeah.
But it, but it applies not just to aviation, right?
It can apply to, to any, you know, building a company and

(21:32):
where you, where you're going, where your company's going to
fail or you know how this clientengagements not going to work
'cause it's never really one thing.
It's usually a sequence of things and it's just a.
It's an interesting paradigm forhow you look at risk mitigation.
When did what year did you graduate the Air Force Academy?
So 2003. 2003 And then how soon after that did you go overseas?

(21:58):
Well, so I spent a year in Columbus, Ms. at pilot training.
So that's where I, you know, flew the tweet and then went
into the what they call the, thetanker cargo track.
So you end up flying like a leader jet to learn how to do
some of those things. And then you have to do another
six months in Altus. OK, Speaking of Windy, right.

(22:20):
And to learn how to fly the C-17.
And then I was first stationed at Mcchord Air Force Base, which
is outside of Seattle. And when I showed up, it was
2005. So it took about two years from
graduation to get to the unit. So we were in the in the height
of Iraq, right? And the squadron has maybe 4040
some pilots. And I showed up and there was 2

(22:44):
pilots in the entire squadron. Everyone was just out flying.
So yeah, it was. I showed up, got settled for
maybe a couple of days and then started flying missions.
And how long did you stay in Seattle?
So I was there for four years and kind of bounced between
upgrade trainings and flying missions and then got five years

(23:06):
in Hawaii, which was pretty awesome, right.
So I basically flew, flew in thePacific, resupplying, going to
Asia, all those places. I think I talked the last air
show I went to in in Reno, I talked to C-17 crew from
Honolulu. Yeah.

(23:27):
And I thought they told me this has been 10 years.
So, but I thought they told me it took them like 5 hours to get
from Honolulu to Reno and like commercial is like probably 7,
'cause it was 5 1/2 hours from LA.
Yeah. So it would be like 7 1/2 hours.
Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean. The flight path.
We generally fly about the same speed as an airliner and usually

(23:51):
on the same tracks. Sometimes we can go more direct,
but. They were telling me they were
flying at like 3035 or 40,000 feet and they, they got like a
250 mile an hour tailwind. So now on the way back I, I
don't know that I want to be on like C-17 on the way back.

(24:11):
Yeah, it's if you can catch the jet stream, yeah.
It's and that's why they said that you caught the jet stream
that way and they were just cranking.
I remember the fastest jet stream I ever got was 150 miles
an hour. My plane does almost 200.
So I was doing 350 miles an hourand I blew right past the

(24:32):
airport because I I've been flying that route from Tahoe to
San Diego to do my radio show for every week.
I'd fly it back and forth and this was years into it.
And so I was kind of on autopilot and not really paying
attention, just doing my thing. And then next thing, I'm almost
in Mexico. I'm like, oh, I missed the
airport. Got to turn around here.

(24:53):
That happens, right? And sometimes people fall asleep
and there's those two I. Used to put my my previous
spouse was known to be very prickly and known as like a
porcupine, cute and cuddly except for you didn't want to
get too close. So she would get in the airplane

(25:14):
and sometimes she would just would not stop and just
bitching. And so I would literally go and
fly up to 1215 thousand feet andwithin about 90 seconds she was
out cold because I'd put oxygen on and I wouldn't tell her what
I was doing. I'd put oxygen on.

(25:35):
And so I'd fly up to like 15,000feet and she was out.
And then I would descend back down to 12,000, fly the rest of
the waves out of never, not a single word out of her.
She never knew what was going on.
She's always, just like I'm always so tired when I get in
the plane. I don't know why I felt good
last night. I don't either.
So Speaking of that, you married.

(25:57):
I am yeah. Been married for 15 years, 3
kids. You know, my pilot friend used
to say it felt like 15 minutes underwater. 15 years felt like
15 minutes underwater with no oxygen.
Yeah. So 15 years?

(26:17):
15 years, Yeah. How many kids you got?
3/3. Yeah.
So 13 year old daughter and twin, 12 year, twin 10 year old
boys. Fun.
Yeah, kind of like the Double Mint twins.
Yeah, yeah, I can't wait for theSo they're filling up my lake
right now. But when I got back from Hawaii,
I sent you that picture. When I got back, I had like 1516

(26:38):
kids in my backyard fishing in my pond.
Yeah, Yeah. And it was literally every cast.
They were catching 2 and 3 LB bass.
Yeah. That was a big bass.
Because it it, you know, got super warm so it woke them all
up. They've been hibernating all
winter. Technically that's the term for.
So all you fact checkers don't Fact Check me online 'cause I
don't know if they hibernate or not, but I think they sleep.

(26:59):
But they woke up and they were just, it looked like a hot tub
on the pond. They were just going crazy.
But now that the they're draining, not draining, but
they're letting water out of Lucky peak cause the snowmelt,
they're filling my pond now. So I have a four acre pond.
So they're not biting right now,but probably in two weeks from
now, three weeks from now, once everything kind of stabilizes

(27:23):
the temperature and stuff, we'llhave the kids come over for
some. Fishing, yeah, that'd be great.
Think it'll be fun? Get your daughter.
Yeah, get her out. Yeah, have her taste.
Your chickens around. And then we'll, we'll, I'll
charge the kids for the worms. They got to clean out the
chicken coop. So you married 15 years, You got
3 kids, a 10/20, a 10 year old twin boys and then a 13 year old

(27:47):
daughter and you're part time inthe Air Force Reserve.
So what do you do full time then?
What's your full time gig? Yeah.
So I run Form 100 consulting andso we're a, we're agile
consulting firm. And yeah, I mean, might make

(28:08):
sense to to kind of go through the history of of how this
'cause I didn't come out to be an entrepreneur.
Yeah, 'cause like, why aren't you a pilot?
Right. You know.
Yeah. I mean, why aren't you A, that's
a great question. Commercial pilot right now for
FedEx or UPS making 3400 grand ayear.
So every single one, not every single one.
Almost all of my peers that flewC seventeens are in the airline

(28:30):
track, right. I could walk across the street
and and fly for Alaska or Delta.In fact, my old, my old squadron
commander is one of the chief pilots at Alaska.
So he's always like, what are you doing?
Like literally you could send a text message or an e-mail and
tomorrow have a $300,000 job. Well.
Pretty much. Pretty much.
I mean, I mean, eventually, right?

(28:52):
And. But you you wouldn't have to go
through what someone like me that just went and got a pilot's
license. You wouldn't have to go through
the regional jets and then you could just go fast track.
Yep, 'cause I mean, I have about2000 hours in command, multi
engine jet flying international like it's, it's the perfect

(29:12):
training ground for the airlines, right.
And so, yeah, I, I sometimes felt like, like, remember the
claymation Rudolph movie? You remember the claymation?
What claymation? It's like the classic Rudolph
movie. Oh, OK, like Rudolph the.
Red Nose reindeer, Yeah. OK was supposed to be a male but

(29:33):
really it was a female cause allthe reindeers are females that
one. That one, Yeah.
OK, well, there's a scene in that movie, if you haven't
watched it, where there's an elfand and elfs make toys and the
elf wants to be a dentist. And so he says I'm going to be a
dentist. And everyone just goes like,
what? How do you want to be like?
I feel like that guy because they were like, well, you're

(29:53):
going to be an airline pilot, right?
And I was like, I don't think I want to.
And the reason I'm not is because I love flying, but I'm
not that passionate about it. I feel like I've done it.
And you know, I also, when I gotout of the active duty, we were
pregnant with twins and I've been gone a lot already flying,
ton of missions. I just didn't want to be gone
anymore. So yeah, so I got out and I was

(30:16):
like, well, I guess I'll just get a job somewhere.
And I thought it would be reallyeasy.
Like I went to the Air Force Academy, had an MBA, bunch of
experience, but man, it was not easy.
It was, it was actually really hard.
I spent about six months tellingme, listening to people tell me,
Hey, you don't have the right experience.
You don't have enough experiencebecause they look at my resume

(30:39):
and they see pilot, right? But I was a pilot, but also like
an officer in the military. So I ran, I ran crews when I
would go fly missions, right? I mean, I'd go out for 2-3 weeks
at a time with a crew and we would, you know, you have to
lead them through the mission. I'd run shops in the military
and, and all that experience, itjust never resonated.

(31:01):
So, so eventually, so Long storyshort, I eventually ended up
getting a job as a, as a contractor at Microsoft.
And when I got there, I thought there was going to be something
I was missing some like secret sauce.
And there was nothing. I, I actually, what I realized
was, you know, my experience in the military as an officer, like

(31:23):
prepared me better than most of my private sector peers, right?
Like, I was doing a lot better. And I, I realized there wasn't
anything I was missing. So I was super excited about it.
I ended up reaching out to my other buddies that were getting
out. I was like, hey, I'm doing great
at this. Your experience would apply.
You should come and do it too. But the firm I was working for

(31:45):
wouldn't hire them because they didn't have enough experience.
So, yeah, so I just got kind of pissed off about it and started
a Form 100 consulting to to really do that, to take like to
take the this untapped talent pool of of veterans that are
getting out leaders, senior Ncos, officers, people that have
experienced leading teams. And then also in the private

(32:07):
sectors, specifically in the software development realm where
there's just a lack of team level leadership and connect
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dot AI forward slash school of wealth.
You know we're both in entrepreneurs organization,
which is a very, what's the word, a very elite group of
entrepreneurs. It really is because you got to
make over $1,000,000 a year to qualify.

(33:13):
You got to you got to agree to the core values, which one is,
which is confidentiality. Can't talk about anything that
happens at Fight Club Forum and no solicitation, which wipes out
the majority of business owners because you can't try to sell
each other stuff. But it's less than 3% of
entrepreneurs in America make over $1,000,000 a year.

(33:33):
So it's a very small group of us, but we're in 80 countries,
22,000 members. And last week I was in Hawaii,
in Waikiki, Honolulu for the global leadership committee or
conference, global leadership Conference, GLC.
And it's just fun to meet all these people.
And there was one guy there, very, very successful business,

(33:58):
almost $100 million a year in revenue.
He got a fell into it. And he said when they when they
asked him to join EO, he's like,what do I know?
Like, I don't know anything. It's like this imposter syndrome
that we have, like I don't know anything.
And he, he goes, you guys are super successful and it's all
flashy. And he said after he joined, he

(34:19):
realized that they're not that smart.
His four mates, they're not thatsmart.
They just have a different vocabulary than most people
because we're not that smart. You and I, there are things that
we are really good at that we'resmart at, but there's a lot of
things we're not. And I, after meeting with
entrepreneurs all from all over the world, a lot of them just
fall into it, right? They just, they see a problem.

(34:43):
Entrepreneurs, that's how their brain works.
They see a problem, they see a solution, they fix it, and then,
oh, I'm going to sell this. Yep.
So that's what you did. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, and I thought it would be easy and it's not.
I mean, it's not because. What being a business owner is
not easy. Doing payroll and sales and

(35:03):
marketing and wearing 15 different, That's not easy.
Yeah, no, it's not. And it's, it's, but it's been a
ton of fun, right. And and that's, you know, doing
the EO, for example, has been like just the, the amount of
stuff I've learned in the last year or so haven't been a part
of the group, right? It's been, there's just so much
out there. You don't, you don't know.

(35:25):
Yeah. And and it's.
You don't know what you don't know 'cause if you knew what you
didn't know, you would know it, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
It's I, I, I had a friend. I had a friend.
I know a guy. His name is Larry.
Larry Yats, Navy SEAL, 20 plus years, ran the largest operation
in Iraq and now he's a business consultant, helps Fortune 500

(35:49):
companies. Not in the same business as you,
but basically he helps Fortune 500 companies.
And I heard him do a speech onceand he had all the stats and it
was with PTSD. You know, we hear about PTSD and
here's the thing with PTSD, it'sPTS post traumatic stress.
And then if you have the disorder, it's it's just worse.

(36:13):
PTS, everybody has PTS everybody.
That's how our brain works. If you touch the hot stove when
you're a kid, you get PTS Don't ever do that again.
It's when you can't control youroutside environment that it, it
creates issues in your brain. But everybody thinks of PTS as

(36:34):
first responders, military. And he was going through the
stats entrepreneurs. The average entrepreneur has a
much higher level of PTSD and a much higher level of dysfunction
because we thrive on uncertainty.

(36:54):
We we thrive on chaos. And I think that's why so many
veterans go into entrepreneurship is because one,
they come back. I know for me when I got in the
military, fortunately I was partof the fire department.
So it's very controlled, a lot like very militarish, but a lot
of my friends get out just like with a lot of your employees get

(37:17):
out and they go into the Microsofts or HPS or just
corporate America and they can'thandle it.
It's it's frustrating. So they just start their own
companies. Are are you seeing that like?
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a different culture, right?
And, you know, I, I brief everybody and I have a training

(37:39):
program when I bring people on for, for, you know, how to kind
of succeed in the, in the corporate world, let's say.
And one of those sections is you're not in the military
anymore. And so some of the things you
take for granted that that you would get in the military don't
exist in the private sector. People don't always show up to

(37:59):
meetings on time, right? And it sounds like a small
thing, but you're like always onmeetings and everyone's always
late that you can trust in the military that people are going
to do what they say they're going to do, right?
And, and so, you know, for the most part, that can become
frustrating. And, and you, you're moving from

(38:19):
a like a career and lifestyle inthe military to a job.
And so people may not be as passionate about the work that
they're, that they're doing, right?
It's a job that, that's what they do, but it's not their,
it's not their lifestyle. So the transition can be really
tough for those reasons. And then I, I think the
leadership aspect too is a, is a, a big deal.

(38:43):
There were, there were things I,I, I still see in the private
sector that just wouldn't fly inthe military, right, because
they, they don't, not all organizations, but a lot of
organizations don't focus on it,right.
But in the military, especially in an, in an officer or senior
NCO track, you, you get a lot ofdedicated training, right?
You get a lot of and, and there's just a culture of

(39:04):
leadership mentorship. You get, you get rated on it
every year and then performance reports.
And so I think we, we take that for granted.
Sometimes when you get into the private sector, people, it's not
their fault. They're doing things that most
leaders wouldn't do, but it's because they don't know, you
know? Yeah, I say that in the military
and then the fire department. If if you don't do what you said

(39:27):
you were going to do, somebody dies.
Yep. You know, and that's one of the
things that Larry, he did a little bit of coaching with me
and he's like, 'cause I at at one point I was very frustrated
with my staff where I would tellthem to do something, yeah, I'll
do it. And then they wouldn't do it.
And he said what you need to change is instead of getting

(39:49):
your staff to say yes, I will doit, it's do you commit to this
and make them commit to booking the hotel room for you?
Commit to the airline, commit tothe Facebook post or whatever,
and change that vocabulary that they're committing to it versus
Oh yeah, I'll do that. Because they're just like

(40:11):
something came up, you know? And there's some things that,
you know, if they're not done today, they could be done
tomorrow. Nobody's going to die over it.
But then there's some things that the company will die, you
know, the company will die, probably not anybody in your
company, you know, if you're running software or whatever.
So now with Form 100 Consulting,tell us about that.

(40:35):
Tell me about that. Like, what is Form 100
Consulting that you fell into this business?
Yeah. It, and at first it was, it was
really about like, like there's this, there's untapped talent
pool, there's a need in the private sector.
And we, we, I learned that you, you know, the more you niche,
the better and started to learn.I kind of fell into the software

(41:00):
development space. OK, so and that's really
software engineers building and solving really technical
problems and there's processes around that on how they operate.
And I found that, you know, our experiences as military leaders
fit really well into that space.So what we do specifically is

(41:21):
provide consulting and staffing for the support around software
engineers. So we'll staff positions like
scrum master, which is a real position, product owners,
technical project managers, all the, all the roles where they
need support and, and help just getting aligned.

(41:41):
And then we'll do consulting on with, with organizations and
programs on like how do you actually structure your program
so you can, you know, so you canexecute.
And a lot of it's based off of really what we did in the
military, right? Because in the military you're
in a very complex domain, right?There's a lot of, there's a lot
of things happening and it's complicated and that's a lot

(42:03):
like software development. So.
One of my employees is, he's in the military.
He's actually, he's no longer employed with me because he is
in Pebble Beach, Monterey now learning Chinese.
So he's going to spy school. And but he, he was here at

(42:26):
Gowen, which is the Army, Army base here in Boise, ID and he
was running not a tank, but the personnel carriers, I don't know
what they're called. They look like square boxes with
tank tracks on them. And he was running that.
And I was asking him, he's like,oh, that's all I do.
I said, there is no just do in the military in, in any

(42:49):
business, doesn't matter if you're the janitor all the way
to the CEO. That job is important.
And if that job doesn't get done, the next job can't do it
because if it wasn't important, you wouldn't have the job, you
wouldn't have it. But a lot of people don't run
their companies that way. They think, oh, that person's
not important. Like with COVID, the essential

(43:10):
businesses got to stay in business.
The non essential. There's no such thing as a non
essential business or non essential employee.
No, I'll back up a little bit. Is there such thing as a non
essential employee? Yes, there are employees in
corporate America that are non essential.

(43:32):
The DEI department heads I don'tthink are essential.
That's my opinion. It's very essential for their,
their cult and their movement, you know, but so that's cool.
So you bring in, you basically bring in in officers that are
highly trained, highly qualified, motivated, driven.

(43:57):
You bring those into your company and then you go to
Microsoft and say, here's some people, I train them up for you.
And then you sell them, not sellthem.
But I mean, what do you do with them at that point?
Yeah. And so, you know, there's
there's. Well, yeah, let me back.
I'll back up for a second here. So software's really built by

(44:17):
people, OK, So technology is built by by people and teams of
people and those teams of peopleare working together with all
other teams of people. And, and so software development
is just in itself is super complex, OK.
So if you're not familiar with with the software world, like

(44:37):
you've got databases and then you've got all the front end
like websites, apps, things thatyou're used to.
And then there's a whole bunch of logic in the middle because
if you click something on your phone, that's got to go get data
from a database somewhere, and then it's got to be configured.
We have to know which data it is, how to, how to present it.

(44:58):
So it's a really dynamic and complex environment.
And these teams are operating, trying to solve these really
challenging problems. And they're also doing that with
a bunch of other teams who are trying to solve problems and
they're all interconnected somehow.
And they're all trying to do this towards a business goal.
And when you really kind of lay out how software works in that

(45:21):
kind of in that picture, that's almost exactly like how military
operations work, right? Like to your point, the person
that that is just doing the the troop carriers, right?
But that's a super critical point of the bigger machine.
And so as officers and leaders in the military, we're
accustomed to thinking about that.
We want to know like, what's themission?

(45:42):
What's the plan? Like how do we get everybody
aligned? How do we communicate
effectively, right? And then how do we set up
processes? So we back to the, you know,
back to the Swiss cheese example, how do we set up the
right processes? So we're doing this without
crashing the whole system, for example.
And so, yeah, So what we do is we, we, we work with clients who

(46:05):
who are maybe filling that position anyway, but they want
to have someone with that skill set and leadership ability on
their team and to really try to maximize performance for their
organization. So you, you kind of have a, a
highly leaked, lack of better words, special forces team that

(46:25):
a lot of people don't realize what Green Berets actually do in
the military. Green Berets aren't the guys
that go down and kick down doors.
They're the guys the our military sends in to train other
people how to kick down doors. They're really consultants.
So essentially you have a team of Green Berets, software Green

(46:46):
Berets that you will go and bring into Microsoft and HP and
help them develop their software.
And then they what, they sign a contract for a year, 2 years
with you. How's that work?
Yeah. So though it depends, right,
they can. So if if we're coming in to
consult, if we're coming in to say like, OK, let's look through

(47:08):
your entire processes and programs and how you're
structured. You know, those can be short
term contracts. But then if you want to embed
that leadership in your program and really get the, you know,
get the the value over a period of time, then usually 612 month
contracts will sign. How do you keep them from
stealing your your people? Yeah, Yeah.

(47:30):
So I mean, you can do some of that in the agreements, right?
There's usually some sort of clause that says, hey, if you
hire somebody that we brought in, there's a, there's a
finder's fee attached to it. But for the most part, it that
happens a lot. And and we're OK with that in
some regards, right? Because I mean, ultimately we
want to also help the, the veteran that's that's on our
team, if they're like, hey, thisis a great fit company for me

(47:53):
and I want to stay long term. You know, we don't want to
restrict their ability to do that.
And a lot of times though, people on our team really like
working with a team of veterans doing this type of stuff.
And so, you know, they, they make the choice to stay.
Yeah, yeah. I can see that, that, you know,
if you brought them in and they really clicked and yeah, because
I'm assuming that these folks have to travel.

(48:16):
It is it all. Most of the time I don't do
that. I don't like to do travelling,
so it's going to be mostly Co located if they're in the
office. And then I mean, a lot of the
technology world's still remote.OK, so it's remote.
So it's not like they have to golive in Seattle for six months
or 12 months and their families in North Carolina then.
Yeah. We don't do that type of
consultant, OK. Very cool.

(48:38):
So how long you been doing that now?
So just about 8 years, eight years, eight years.
That's a big deal. Like 8 minutes underwater,
right? Yeah, 8 minutes underwater with
no scuba. Yeah, I remember I had a mentor
once that said, hey, your only goal is to stay in business five
years. If you can do that, then
everything will get easier. And so I I had five years and I

(49:02):
realized that it didn't get easier.
You just get better after five years.
So it feels a little easier. Yeah, it's my friend Andy
Farcella says this all the time that you set the goal and before
you even get close to reaching the goal, you move it and you
keep moving it and moving it. And you know, that's actually a

(49:24):
problem. It, it actually is a big problem
because you never accomplish it and you're always, you're always
trying to get the next thing instead of just Michael Jordan
said it best in the last dance. And it was when he'd won like
the 5th or the 6th championship.And the reporter and he's

(49:44):
literally just walking in off ofthe, the floor into the lock
room or the hallway. And they're like, what about
next year? And he's like, how about we just
celebrate today's win before we think about next year?
Cause a lot of entrepreneurs will do that.
They set the goals and then they, they set a new one and a
new one. They never take the time to just

(50:07):
like this is really cool. You know, today I had a heart, a
massive heart attack in November2023 and my whole life has
changed. My work schedules change, my
family, everything's changed except for my surprisingly
except for my eating, my diet, 'cause my heart attack had

(50:28):
nothing to do with my diet, so or exercise.
So that's the cool part is that part.
I didn't have to like change that part of my life.
But today I was walking my dog and the rivers now and the
canals are all full of water. And I love walking next to the
canals because all the wildlife I see deer almost every day and

(50:49):
fox and coyotes and rabbits and Hawks and eagles and owls and
ducks and geese. And then here in about 8 weeks,
the canal will be full of littlebaby ducks.
And there's very few things in the world that are cuter than a
baby duck. They're so cute.
So I love walking that with my dog and I was walking at today

(51:10):
house like life is so good. It is 10:30 in the morning, it's
sunny, it's windy, but I'm just having it.
I'm just cruising along this little canal with my dog.
It's so good. So, but that was my goal after
my heart attack, I sat down. I was like, what?
I read, I sat down and I'd literally laid out what I want

(51:31):
my day to look like, my week, mymonth, my year.
And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs, one of the
mistakes is they're so busy being busy and trying to get the
next thing they missed along thejourney.
And then I can't remember the name of the guy, but he says
that there is no winning the game.

(51:53):
When you're an entrepreneur there, there is no end.
Like you're not trying to win, you're just playing.
And if you can really turn your business into just playing and
having a good time, it does makeit easier.
Yeah, it does make it. Easier.
I think that's Simon Sinek. It is Simon.
Sinek And it's the, you know, it's the infinite game idea and
I and I, I really try to aspire to that, which is just stay in

(52:18):
business. Yeah, well, you're 8 years.
I mean, if you make it, when youmake it to 10, which I know you
will because you're an EO and our forum is one of the greatest
forums on the planet. Yeah, it's good.
It's great. So our forum is what is there
six of us in there now? Six of us.
We all do over a million a year and we all have completely
different lives, completely different businesses.

(52:40):
And the cool thing about an EO forum is Nate will never for the
rest of his life of being in ourforum ever have a problem he has
to figure out on your own. I will never have to figure out
any of my problems. I don't need to try anymore.
Like if I literally have something, I'll write it down,
put a note in my phone. I'm like, oh, that's something
we're going to talk about for him because I don't need to
figure it out. And now I don't have to use any

(53:02):
of my energy, my brain power, trying to figure out this
problem that you guys have already solved a dozen times.
And so and not only that, you get to hear other problems that
you don't even know exist. And, and so you know, that
that's been so infinitely valuable to, to have the ability
to go, OK, I don't, it's like I haven't even thought about what

(53:25):
you're struggling with. And I I'll probably struggle
with that really soon and I can get ahead of it.
Yeah, you can get that is another big benefit.
One of our four mates I think isone of the only business owners
that I've ever met that was in corporate America.
And then he's like, I think I'm going to be a business owner now
and and is he smart? Yeah, he's so freaking smart in

(53:48):
in the numbers and but he's running it like a true Warren
Buffett like business, like it is all numbers.
And his business is one of the most sexiest businesses out
there. Guys, he owns Take 5 franchises.
He changes people's oil. What do you do for a living?

(54:11):
Oh, I change oil. Oh, really?
You're a mechanic? No, I run.
I have 500 franchises, you know.But he doesn't.
I'm just saying that as an example.
So Speaking of, I got off track a little bit with that, with
goal setting. Do you do goal setting?
Yeah. How do you?
What's your favorite way of doing that?
Well, see, you mentioned Andy Frisella and I've listened to a

(54:35):
lot of his stuff. So I do, I try to do micro goals
and he had this great idea and some podcasts I listened to
where it's like, Hey, write downyour top five things you know
on. The power list.
A power list. So my daughter last last
Christmas got me an annual planner, kind of like one of

(54:56):
those we need to buy dad a Christmas gift, right?
Because it'd be awkward if we didn't.
So she picks up this random thing and I was like, I'm going
to use this everyday, OK. And, and so I've been doing that
every day. I write down my top five things
and then that's the goal, right?And then, you know, I'll, I'll
also set quarterly goals And I, I definitely do a try to do a

(55:18):
full day every year of annual goals.
What do I want to get accomplished this year, both
with the business but also personal and physical and
financial and all that? Yeah, I do that.
I might do something a little different.
I mean, I, I do the power list, you know, and then I have this.
I don't know if I've ever showedyou my screenshot.
Let's see if it pops up here on my phone.

(55:39):
But if you look on my phone, I had my team, I, I had my goals.
So I this year, I want to buy a new motorcycle.
I want to buy a house, a condo on the beach.
I want to buy a, a classic car and a classic truck.
I want to go elk hunting, sailing, get back down to 10%
body fat, get a new airplane andlearn to play the guitar.

(56:01):
So I have it on my phone and every time I pick up my phone, I
see my goals every single time. So I think it was Napoleon, Hill
says if you write it down, make sure you look at it every day.
I think Grant Cardone says that he looks at it every night and
every morning. Well, then that that becomes a
problem. Like there's benefits just to
writing it down. Like that's the great first

(56:23):
step, right? You usually thought about it,
but then if you don't look at itagain until the end of the year,
you know, then you start, you start to lose it.
And so, yeah, I think that I tryto at least monthly go through
my annual plan. But I love the idea of the
pitchers. Yeah, I I like it because it
just, it's just constant reminder of.
What's your picture for 10% bodyfat do you have?

(56:44):
It is ripped out on there. Yeah, it's I can't pronounce his
name, but he played Tarzan. OK.
And he's the only 6 foot three. He's one of the only 6 foot
three actors. I don't know if you know this
about Hollywood. They're all short.
Like if they say they're 5/8, they're really 5455.
So there's not very many tall actors.

(57:06):
So it's a, a picture of him as Tarzan and he's probably like 3%
body fat. I will not do that because I, I
don't want it that bad. Committed to it.
So I want to ask you a question on starting your business.
Did you just bootstrap it or didyou go get an SBA loan?
I mean, yeah, it's really hard to get an SBA loan with an idea.

(57:29):
Right. And So what I started out with
the idea that I can make this work because, and I still
believe this to my core, right, which is that there is an
untapped talent pool of amazing leaders getting out of the
military who would be super successful in these roles.
And so I started out by myself being the first employee, OK, so

(57:51):
I went as. Most businesses do.
Yeah. And so I went in and and in this
business, you know, doing the work, you learn all this stuff
as you're running business over 8 years.
Doing the work is one thing, butthen actually getting the
ability to get contracts with these larger organizations is
another thing. So I started out subcontracting
into positions with clients and then from there I was able to

(58:16):
hire one or two. And then I stayed in the
business till and for probably 5or 6 years working directly with
clients until we got to a point where I could take a step back,
focus more on marketing and, andsales and, and trying to refine
our, our delivery. But what's, what's interesting
is you said, how did you, you know, did you get a loan for

(58:36):
this? How, how the business works is
you'll deliver, you'll, you'll have somebody and say, you know,
hey, you're going to be with this, this, this client for six
months. Well, you have to pay them to
work for you, right? It's pretty common sense
business stuff. But then you don't get paid for
them until after the end of the month and you submit an invoice

(58:58):
and then their terms can be net 30 to net 60 to net 120, right?
Which means how long they have from when they get the invoice
to actually pay you. And sometimes it may not pay you
at all. So I got a crash course in cash
flow at that point because I realized, you know, I got AI

(59:19):
have to pay some. I have to pay these people well
before I even get paid at all. So yeah, we we injected, you
know, maybe 50 grand into the company at at one point.
Personal savings, Credit card? Just personal savings.
Have you ever used your personalcredit for your business?
I haven't. You haven't.
Nope. Have you ever built business
credit at all? Nope.

(59:41):
You know what, recently I just got a line of credit and because
I realized like, so that that scared me, all right.
And I've always been, you know what you say older pilots aren't
bold, right? I've always been a little bit
conservative when when it comes to making sure you know we have
enough. Cushion in the company in case

(01:00:02):
contracts go away, right? Maybe there's a bunch of new
tariffs that come out or something random like the things
can happen. And so you want to make sure you
have a a cushion to absorb that.But I was just losing so much
money on just just having that just sit there.
And so I reduce that margin withthe business line of credit and

(01:00:22):
you know, try to increase revenue other ways.
You know, I say that credit is, in my opinion, probably the best
way to build wealth. And it makes it so much easier
if you can, if you understand itand manage it.
And there's a lot of people thatdon't really understand it, so

(01:00:43):
they're scared to use it. And that it's probably smart
that they don't use it because they recognize that I probably
shouldn't be doing this. But if you can leverage it, but
it can make a huge difference. I'm not the kind of person that
says you should go get an SBA loan so you can start a business
because 1. I don't know of any banks that
will loan you money for an idea.Now banks will loan you money

(01:01:06):
for an established business, which is a booming market right
now by being buying baby boomer businesses because these baby
boomers, their kids don't want it and they have no way out.
I have friends that are just buying businesses left and right
and if if I wanted to do something, that's probably what
I would do is buy a bunch of plumbers, H vax, any welding,

(01:01:28):
etcetera. So leveraging your credit is
extremely important and very valuable if you do it.
The next biggest thing that I see most entrepreneurs making
mistakes on is their taxes. So I'll put you on the spot
here. What what do you do?
What's your favorite tax strategy if you have one?
Or are you like 93% of business owners that rely on their CPA to

(01:01:52):
handle their taxes? I'm on, I'm in the 93, the 93,
and my biggest mantra is don't go to jail.
One of them is like, I always stay this in the military a lot.
I'd be like, hey, let's make sure no one dies and let's stay
out of let's stay out of prison.Yeah, You know, and I, I bring
that up and I, I knew you were going to get a little nervous

(01:02:15):
with that question because I've been pushing you to to stop
paying so much in taxes. Forbes.
Forbes did a study and they found that 93% of business
owners paid more than they were legally required to pay in
taxes. And I know I've been pushing
you, and I'm just going to use this as an example.
And a lot of business owners areafraid to do this.

(01:02:35):
But under the tax code, you're allowed to hire employees.
So your business can go out and hire employees to scale, right?
Yeah, There's also another part of the tax code that says that
if your children work for a homeor not home base, a family based
business, which it's you and your wife and your other

(01:02:57):
employees. So it's a family based business
that you can hire your children to help with, with stuff like
your daughter could be running your LinkedIn page, your kids,
your boys, you, you have a Home Office, I assume they could
vacuum. They can empty the trash, wash
the car. So there's things that you are

(01:03:19):
doing today that you could pay your children to do.
And you can pay your children $15,000 as of 2020.
Five, $15,000 each. So that's $45,000 that you can
make under Form 100 Consulting. Literally take it out of your
business bank account and transfer it to your children
through it. There's a way to do it so you

(01:03:41):
don't have to pay payroll taxes and then your kids don't have to
pay. They don't have to file a tax
return, and they don't have to pay taxes.
So that's 45 grand that Form 100could be paying for children's
expenses, their clothes, their camps.
I'm assuming your boys living inIdaho are going to want to do
some outdoor stuff. So instead of you and your wife

(01:04:02):
paying for it out of your pocket, the kids would pay for
it out of their own bank accounts.
So it's just one of many things you can do.
And I'm going to keep pushing you and pushing you.
Like think about this, if you did that this year, that would
pay your EO dues for the next three years.
So there's a way to think about it.

(01:04:23):
That's one way if I just go and listen, Rondi, and do it.
So what do you got going on? What do you got going on next?
What's the plan for the business?
Scaling, Growing. Hiring.
What's? Yeah.
I mean, you know, so we're in a,I mean it's pretty dynamic out

(01:04:43):
there right now and. How are how are they with with
all the tariffs and what's goingon with what Doge is doing and
the Trump administration's doing?
Like, what's the feeling that you're getting from some of
these Fortune 500 companies you're working with?
Excited, depressed, anxious, scared.
What's the? Yeah, all of those, right?
Yeah. Well, it's a daily.

(01:05:05):
It's, it's like an entrepreneur.I sleep like a baby.
I wake up every 15 minutes crying and I shit my pants in
the middle of the night. That's awesome.
Yeah. I'm a yeah, well, it's having an
impact for sure, right. And so there's a few things that

(01:05:25):
I'm seeing with one. Obviously there's been a lot of
layoffs in the government sector, but but also in the
consulting and staffing industryattached to the government.
And so there's been a ton of contracts that have been cut.
You know, you'll, you'll hear the Department of Transportation
say, oh, hey, we just, we just cut $4 billion contract or a
$500 million contract, you know,And so I think a lot of the

(01:05:49):
bigger companies are, are hurting all the sudden because
they're these steady government contracts are now under
scrutiny, right? And, and so there's a lot more
people in the market too, right,especially in the tech
consulting, in tech consulting world.
And so, you know, from a staffing perspective, like

(01:06:11):
really what I'm focused on now is differentiating the value we
can bring. And, and I feel super confident
that what we deliver is just as good as any of those high end,
super high expensive consultancies.
In fact, I think it's a lot better because of that unique
experience skill set that we bring.
And so doing things like this, trying to get out more and

(01:06:33):
really hone in on, on showing the value that we bring.
And a lot of times in our space,processes around software
development can get kind of fuzzy and it can get, you know,
not really concrete on the ROI that you'll, you'll receive.
And so between that and AI coming out, I mean, there's a

(01:06:55):
lot of dynamic change in in the industry for sure.
Do you, you, you're saying earlier, before we started that
you got a, a big speech or a talk.
You're going to be doing a couple.
Yeah. So there's a West Point
entrepreneur event that Microsoft is hosting.
So I'm going to go and and give a talk about, you know, how you
actually scale your software development programs, right.

(01:07:17):
So if if you're a start up and you and you start out and you
have one team of couple engineers, right, you're in your
garage building like Ubers for toasters or whatever.
Your idea is if that catches, you're going to scale rapidly
and you're going to go from one team to three teams to six teams
and things are going to get complex really fast.

(01:07:38):
And so one of the areas we really specialize in is, is how
do you keep your team and program aligned so you can
actually deliver value? Because software development is
super expensive. Engineers are expensive,
technology is expensive. So if you don't do that right,
the software development programs can can literally stop

(01:07:59):
functioning and they can be not you can be spending here.
Let me give some numbers like a software development team costs
on average $2,000,000 a year foran organization.
So if you were to go out and sayI want to build a school wealth
app and I wanted to hire all my engineers to do it, it cost you
about $2,000,000. Now you wouldn't do that, you

(01:08:20):
would outsource it because that's more expensive.
But a lot of these big companieskeep it in house because of they
want to keep the data privacy, security, liability, there's a
lot of reasons. And so they're spend and they,
they can have dozens to hundredsof software development teams.
So we're 2050, I mean, huge budgets.
And if those, if those teams aren't communicating with each

(01:08:42):
other and they aren't actually aligned on what they're supposed
to be delivering, just like a very complicated military
operation, I mean, it could, it could, it could stop functioning
completely. It could look like the
withdrawal from Afghanistan. Right.
No, I mean, I think that that's,it's a great example because
there's, there's so many things that we do well as military

(01:09:03):
leaders and how to operate in these complex domains that
software development programs benefit from like a lot because,
because if if not they're, they're just flushing the money
down the toilet almost. So you're going to do it
signature talk or something there?
Yeah, we're going to do a talk on that of, of really how we

(01:09:23):
approach that, how we how we identify where the problem
points are. And, and having done it now for
eight years, there's a lot of commonalities and patterns and
things that we see. So we're we're able to easily
assess where the problems are sowe can fix them fast.
Very cool. You know, Speaking of credit in
Microsoft, Microsoft has, I don't know if you know of this,

(01:09:45):
many people don't. Microsoft has a $500,000 loan
program at 0% interest for startups and established
software companies. So we got approved for Fortress
University, it's our online education and we got approved
for $500,000. It's a 10 year loan at 0%

(01:10:06):
interest and Microsoft makes thepayment.
It's a grant. I had to personally guarantee
it, but as long as I continue touse Microsoft as our cloud base
for our servers and stuff, Microsoft makes the monthly
payment, no interest, and they eventually pay it off.
It's almost like in the militarywith your GI Bill, you get the
student loan and then as long asyou stay in the military, they

(01:10:29):
pay off the loan, right? So I'll get you the information
on that 'cause I think you probably qualified for it.
Yeah. That'd be great.
Yeah, it's 500. It's free, You know, it's free
money. So Nate, it's been great to have
you on the show. I'm glad you you.
I was your first. Yeah.
I appreciate it. So welcome to the podcast world.
If someone want to look you up, if they run a software company

(01:10:51):
or any any type of company and they want a consultant to come
in, where would they find you? Yeah.
So you can go to our website, which I'm sure will be in the in
the show notes, but it's Form 100 consulting.com and you
follow me on LinkedIn. That's where I'm the most
active. And what's your LinkedIn?
Is it LinkedIn forward? Slash yeah, Nate dot amadon, I
think. Nate dot amadon AM IDON.

(01:11:12):
AM IDON. Am I done?
Am I done? Am I done without the E?
Of course. Yes, awesome.
Well, thanks so much for being on.
Yeah, thanks for having me so. It's been fun.
Super fun.