From Marine Linguist to Software Engineer: Building a Life After Service

Speaker labels and mis-heard names are corrected by hand; the words are as spoken, filler and all.

Preview clips

Mark: At the beginning of these plans, I was deciding on the Navy because my cousin was in the Navy and he kind of was like, "Yo, come come join." So, I took my ASVAB through them and then I went and talked to a Marine Corps recruiter and then like the rest was history. I didn't feel like I had tested my man card and so the Marine Corps helped me do that, too.

PJ: Who Who was Mark at that point in time,

man?

Mark: I was lost. I think I think I was I was pretty lost. I didn't really know what I wanted. I wanted chicks. My dad taught me this at a young age, right? like where he'd be like, "Try this octopus, you know, whatever it is." Like when I'm like eight, like he's like, "If you don't like it, you don't got to eat it, but try it." You go to a culture like Korea, a country like Korea, and the culture is very solidified and it's like

you go there and you're like,

you actually feel like an outsider as opposed to like what we hear speak their language and they're like, "Holy crap." Like, who are you? What I realized in software engineering, um, it's not being an engineer that I like. It's not the title per se that that I that I like having. I like having the title of software engineer. There's a deeper passion. It's that Frankenstein moment of getting things to work.

PJ: Oh my god, I know what you mean.

Mark: I didn't play sports, right? Like I didn't play football and stuff like that. So, I did when I was a kid. I play like pop pop or football, but like as I got older, as I grew into a man, like I didn't have that kind of like that kind of like gut check of like this is what it takes to be a man now, right? So,

Marine Corps was that was that choice?

PJ: I think I remember you recalling also that there was some violence present as well when you were a kid. A

Mark: little bit.

Yeah.

— Mhm.

PJ: Did that affect anything as you were going into the into the military?

Mark: I know some of these they're great people. They went on and did their did their job somewhere else, but they wasted some time that because they didn't plan. They didn't think ahead to say, "Am I going to have to take a lot of math? Is that going to be something that's going to suck for me? Do I really want to do that? Or do I want to be more like into psychology?" You know, the whole reason to me joining the Marine Corps was to change my life and to eventually have a family someday.

But you should have a plan. Uh you should plan out your goal and know at least some steps along the way. I think I was just kind of lost and the Marine Corps gave me direction which I didn't have uh 100%. Like it gave me everything that I didn't have. Uh structure, direction, um discipline. I'm still not the most discipline but more discipline than what I had for sure. Uh so I just wanted to like I wanted to go after something and I think the Marine Corps helped me to kind of go after something that was worth it. M

uh I'm getting a lot more returns on it than I think uh I would have realized at that age. Yeah, for sure.

Conversation

PJ: Hey, how's it going? Welcome to another episode of the Mastering Military Transition Series of the Prize Podcast. Today we have Mark Griego with us, former Marine. I'm gonna let you go ahead and do a bit of an intro. Does that sound good?

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: All right, man. Kick it off.

Mark: Yeah. So, um from Los Angeles originally, LA, SoCal kid. Um, grew up in the harbor area. It's kind of like San Pedro, Carson, Torrance, Wilmington. I was born in Torrance. Um, yeah, like I said, born and raised. I kind of just like grew up just like any other SoCal city kid. [snorts] Um, got out of high school, didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to study music because I had kind of played trumpet all through like elementary, middle school, high school. I wanted to start um like studying music. I wanted to be a teacher. I'm the oldest brother, so like

PJ: Nice.

Mark: Yeah. I wanted to be a music teacher. I'm the oldest brother, so it kind of was like it just made sense for me to like help, you know, kind of give back in that way. And then I got into like the band scene and was like, why am I studying music in school? Like started rebelling like the natural like rebel rockstar like who needs to study music in school? Like I don't need to do that. I just go learn. I just YouTube I just go YouTube it, right? So like why not?

Um and then that wasn't really picking up. So, you know, I I had told one of my best friends um who's in the band with me, I kind of gave him an ultimatum. I was like, "Hey, dude, like I'm going to go join I'm going to go join the military." Uh at the beginning, I was planning on at the beginning of these plans, I was deciding on the Navy because my cousin was in the Navy [snorts] and he kind of was like, "Yo, come come join." So, I took my ASVAB through them and then I went and talked to a Marine Corps recruiter. And then like the rest was history. So,

PJ: yeah.

Mark: Told my told my buddy, "Hey, man. Um, I'm joining the military or the band is picking up, one or the other." And so, now I'm here. So, the band didn't pick up. Uh, but yeah, I served five years. Third Radio Battalion uh out in Hawaii was where I was stationed.

PJ: You had a real rough.

Mark: Yeah, it was horrible. Uh, beautiful skies, you know, getting tanned all the time has sucked.

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: Uh, I was a Korean linguist, so I went [clears throat] to Monterey first, so that also sucked. Uh, it's actually the best time of my life was in Monterey. I I loved it out there.

PJ: Mhm. Oh, dude. Monterey is beautiful.

Mark: It was great.

PJ: Carmel by the Sea over there, too.

Mark: Just everything. But

volunteered for like the Big Sur marathon. I didn't run the Big Sur marathon but like volunteering for it and just like amazing conditions like these people are running in and um yeah it was a good time and after that uh I went off to like Goodfellow Air Force Base did a couple months there for like the SIG stuff signals intelligence and then went out to Hawaii. So um

PJ: and you spent all time in Hawaii.

Mark: I spent all my time in Hawaii. Uh, one MEU to Okinawa. Um, and and yeah, most most of the time was like doing sig stuff out there. I I didn't really touch Korean after

after Monterey.

Um, but you know, every now and then like I think I did one refresher course to like kind of keep the language up, but Right.

It's not the same as being immersed in the language at DLI versus going to the fleet and just like,

all right, go do collections now. So,

PJ: what language?

Mark: Korean.

PJ: Oh, Korean. Okay. Yeah. So, were you fluent in Korean?

Mark: I was at one point. I could still go and, you know, hug whatever. You know, I can so where's the bathroom? Like stuff like that. I could do little conversational stuff. If I went to like Korea, I could probably like get around and you know, language is one of those things like it comes back to you the more you're around it.

PJ: Yeah. Yeah. So, are you like all like excited that the K-pop stuff is hitting off right now?

Mark: I was never into K-pop, but that that wasn't that wasn't my thing. Like

PJ: So, you don't watch KPop Demon Hunters?

Mark: No, bro. That's not my stuff. Uh I mean, I there were a lot of buddies of mine that really got into that stuff. Like, they really got into the culture. I I got into the culture from like more of like a u like a holistic kind of approach, like respecting elders and like how you talk to people and like stuff like that. And like um you know, that was kind of my my approach, but some people Yeah. like they got really into like whatever the Korean weeboos are. Like that's what that's what these guys were.

PJ: Yeah,

I am sure. All right. Well, let's back up. I mean,

I understand, by the way, the like we're either going to make it as a band or the military.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

PJ: Um, who who was Mark at that point in time?

Mark: When I was in the B?

PJ: Yeah, that time, man.

Mark: I was lost. I think I think I was I was pretty lost. I didn't really know what I wanted. I wanted chicks.

Well, you know what I mean? I wanted Yeah. 19 20. Oh, I was 21.

I wanted to like meet chicks. I wanted to be a rock star. I wanted to be the front of the show. I wanted everybody like

coming up to me and like give me a pat on the back, which I think I still desire just in a different way. Maybe a little bit more toned down. Like everyone kind of desires that too.

PJ: Everyone has a need for significance. Absolutely.

Mark: Sure. And so that's kind of like that was like my drive which isn't enough I I don't think because it's not really fulfilling at the end of the day.

Um

so yeah I think I was just kind of lost and the Marine Corps gave me direction which I didn't have uh 100% like it gave me everything that I didn't have uh structure direction um discipline. I'm still not the most discipline but more discipline than what I had for sure. Uh, so yeah, man. I just wanted to like I wanted to go after something and I think the Marine Corps helped me to kind of go after something that was worth it.

Uh, I'm getting a lot more returns on it than I think uh I would have realized at that age. Yeah, for sure.

PJ: Okay. And and I remember when we when we talked before, you said that you grew up in um kind of neighboring like Compton, Long Beach type area.

Mark: Yep.

PJ: And this what 2000s?

Mark: Yeah.

Late 2000.

PJ: What was that like?

Mark: Uh I mean I wasn't in gangs or anything, right? Like that, right? So like I didn't get the worst of it. Uh I didn't get the worst of it, but it's still around you. Like you got, you know, some Hispanic kid in LA, you got some cousin that's in a gang. You got some friend that's in a gang. You got some friends you grew up with that sandbox days that you know you played flag football with, baseball, whatever. They get into gangs, they get into stuff. So like it's just around you. It's just like part of the culture there.

Um you know the only thing you could do is just either uh just avoid it or just like not be in it really. Even then like you can still get hit up on the streets and people asking like where are you from? Which in LA that doesn't mean like where are you from? It means like what gang are you in,

right?

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: So, you know, and you just got to like know how to navigate that. Like, oh, I don't, you know, I'm not in a gang. I don't gang bang, whatever. I don't bang.

Cool. And generally speaking, if you just give people respect, they respect you back. So, um, but it was it was definitely weird because I because I didn't join a gang and I knew people that were or like I knew people that like were involved with that, I felt like I kind of lacked some sense of uh manliness.

PJ: Interesting. Okay.

Mark: Like I didn't feel like I had tested my man card and so the Marine Corps helped me do that too, right? Um, like I didn't like avoid fights or anything. Like I didn't avoid getting into like scuffles, but like if you didn't do that where I was from, like you weren't respected in the same kind of way. Yeah. At least that's the way I felt.

I could be wrong. I could, you know what I mean? I could be my approach could be wrong, but that's how I felt.

So,

PJ: Wow. Okay. So, did that do you think had a play into you getting joining the Marine Corps?

Mark: 100%.

— Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Because I wanted to be tested, but I didn't want to be tested by getting into nefarious activity,

right? If that's what those people want to do, then go do that. I didn't want to do that, right? But at the same time, I needed to figure out a way. I didn't play sports, right? Like I didn't play football and [snorts] stuff like that. So, I did when I was a kid. I play like pop pop or football, but like as I got older, as I grew into a man, like I didn't have that kind of like that kind of like gut check of like this is what it takes to be a man now, right? So,

Marine Corps was that was that choice.

PJ: Yeah. And and I I think I remember you recalling also that there was some violence present as well when you were a kid. A

Mark: little bit. Yeah.

PJ: Did that affect anything as you were going into the into the military?

Mark: I think [snorts] Yeah. I reflect on this a lot because uh Yeah. Like when you're when you're a kid, it's weird seeing that kind of stuff. Like my dad at the time was preparing to be like a paramedic, like a EMT or he was trying to be. And uh we were at a party like a something that my parents worked together. It was a co-orker party

for his daughter.

And I guess two of them went out to go grab beer. He grabbed beer at a gas station in LA. So they went to the gas station, grabbed some beer and they came back and they had they're all stabbed up. And so my dad's like trying to, you know, he's doing his EMT thing that he's kind of training for. And he's going and trying to like, you know, plug the wounds and go do all the stuff, stop the bleeding, all that. all that stuff. And they made it all the kids go in the house.

But that not before I saw the guy all stabbed up, you know, outside. They made us go in the house. And then I look outside and I see sirens and I see my other uh my mom's other coworker like laid out on the grass, you know, so they were trying to help him out cuz he was stabbed up too. And so like I was like six or seven, I think, when I saw this. And it was like growing up with it, it just kind of became more of a reality.

And then there is that kind of like search for understanding or seek for understanding of like what violence is but not having to do it in that way. Yeah. So once again the Marine Corps, right? Like

at least if I can go fight for my country and like do something like

— be on the good team,

Mark: I I feel like if I ever engaged in that, which I never did, but if I ever could engage in that, like it would it would be something I could learn for it. And no one's going to be like, "Why were you in gangs? why did you do that kind of stuff? That's just because of how I, you know, how I viewed it at the time,

right?

PJ: Yeah. Okay. No, and I appreciate you sharing that. Um, I I do think that one, a lot of us, myself included,

understand the need to be tested

and need to prove our medal, if you will.

Mark: Sure.

PJ: And also, I think that there's a lot of us that don't understand the violence that exists just in America and and and day day in day out. And I know that a lot of it's been toned down, but also what that does for us in the rest of our life that we may not necessarily think about. Um, so you you joined the Marine Corps. Did you purposely go SIGINT? Was that like you chose that or did you just knock the ASVAB out of the park and like

Mark: Yeah. Uh I got like a 88 on the ASVAB, so not the highest compared to some of the guy I knew guys at like 98s that went infantry, you know?

PJ: Right. Sure.

Mark: Uh

but I I kind of I kind of chose it. Uh I was given kind of like a uh like a five or six little grouping of MOS's to choose from. My recruiter, why was color blind? So, uh, you know, little dots test like didn't get through those. They actually gave me a follow-on test called like a failance test or failance failance. I forget what it's called, but it's [snorts] there's two lights at MEPS and it's uh top and bottom. And they say, you know, say whatever the first color is on the top and the second color.

So, we're going to turn you around in this like little spinny chair and when you turn around, you say the colors, you turn back around, we'll change the colors and kind of repeat the process. So, I [snorts] sit in the chair. I turn around. First round, I'm like, "Oh, easy." Like, "White and green." You have the You have to choose between three colors: white, green, or red.

PJ: Right. Okay.

Mark: And so, I'm like, "White and green. Easy. Cool." Turn around. By the second round, I'm like, "Red, maybe yellow. I don't know. Like, yellow's not a color there, but that's what I'm seeing." So, and yeah, I failed that test. And so that was like the second test to the dots was like to make sure like yeah you can't really see the different like I could see color which was like people people don't understand like I see color fine but it's like when colors are very close together maybe like when they're like LED lights whatever it does to your eyes like they look the same

for a little bit.

PJ: Well red and green is the usual like mixup.

Mark: Right. Right.

PJ: And and so do you have trouble if like the red and green when they're next to each other?

Mark: Yeah. Dude and I I didn't realize that as a kid too. My mom would like be like doing laundry or whatever. She'd be like, "Pass me that brown shirt." And I give her a green shirt.

PJ: Interesting.

Mark: You know, and she'd be like, "What are you doing?" Like she thought I was like messing with her. I'm like, "You said give you the brown or the green shirt, whatever." And I'm and she's like, "That's not the color." So, and I remember as a kid doing that and just thinking like

like what? So, yeah, growing then I realized like no, there's something wrong with my eyes. So anyway, the recruiter because of that he, you know, I have a limited choice when I go to the the the Marine Corps recruiter. He gives me this stuff. And so I actually went and Googled um what these jobs were, like what is going to make the most money for me if I don't stay in the Marine Corps. I wasn't planning on not staying in the Marine Corps. I didn't know.

But I was, you know, the whole reason to me joining the Marine Corps was to change my life and to eventually have a family someday. at the time, anybody that had joined the military, I they weren't doing bad, you know, um anyone that I knew, uh I can look up to them as role models. So, I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to go eventually want to want a family and want to do all this stuff." So, um [snorts] I kind of Googled everything. I found linguist.

I found like you could be like an interpreter or you could be like a translator and like that made good money. And like I ended up not doing that, but at the time I was like that seems the most practical. So let's go do that. So choosing that I had to go take the um what's it called? Um the DAB, the defense language aptitude battery,

and I got like a 132 or 136 on it, which is fairly high. Um

not the highest. I think I met someone that got like a 150 or something on it, which is insane. But, you know, it's essentially a gibberish test like this. It's not a real language.

PJ: Oh, really?

Mark: If you're familiar with it.

PJ: No, I'm not.

Mark: They essentially will give you vocal speech patterns of just sounds and your goal is to recognize the patterns in those and then figure out like, you know, what's the vowel in the sentence? What's the noun in the sentence? They they'll they kind of give you like the legend or the key beforehand to say this is what this is the pattern of vowels and nouns and adjectives, whatever. And then they'll play you someone going like blah blah and you have to like actually be like okay the noun was first and the verb was last and

PJ: oh interesting

Mark: you actually it's a pattern recognition test really is what it is

PJ: right

Mark: so I got a high score on that and my recruiter called me in whenever I saw him next and was like started calling me 007 cuz like he had never saw anybody take that test and was like and actually like got a high score on it or passed it or whatever you know I think in the Marine Corp or we need like you need like a minimum of like 100 or 105 to even be considered to like actually be a linguist. So yeah, that was I was pretty I was pretty intentional.

Uh which is a theme kind of throughout my whole choice is from Marine Corps to now is like I've been pretty intentional about what it is that I kind of put myself into,

you know.

PJ: I love that actually. Um I don't think most people do that

at all actually. That's very uncommon. this it's I so I actually just the other day made a post on uh on Facebook and it was talking about you know us not having really a lot of the tools nest when we get out or being able to translate what we did in the military to what we get out and and my stepdad actually commented something to the effect of well the military should

give us something in on the beginning side of things that was like hey well maybe we should build a path that that extends outside of the military but I know For instance, when I was the OIC for um uh ALSS at the in um the squadron, I was given classes on like, you know, finances and and schooling outside of it. But what was wild to me was that like the Gunny and the staff sergeants and stuff had had no idea of any of this stuff, like any of the benefits or or like how to plan outside of the military. And to me, it was kind of wild at that time. It's very eye opening

that we treat it as if that's going to be our life forever.

Mark: Mhm. Yeah.

PJ: So I think

— you're in Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Right. I mean we get sold this idea of like once a marine always a marine and it's like a well this is forever.

I'm never going to do anything other than this. Right.

And I think it's great for the people that stay in like and like more power to the guys that want to stay in and do that. Right. like yeah I you know like someone's got to do it and if they want to stay in and do it cool go stay in and do it but you get the other guys that are like they kind of look down on you because you're getting out or something. I had a gunny one time that walked up to that asked me hey

like are you going to

are you going to get out? I'm like yeah you know I'm getting out. He's like

well what do you want to get out for? I was like you know education. I'm going to go get a degree and blah blah blah. He's like well you know you could get a degree when you stay in. And like you're trying to get me to stay in and I'm like

like I could but like you know that's not really the same like it's it's not the same

kind of you know degree and he's like you can get a m like and to some of these guys it's like well just you're just getting a master's degree and fair point nowadays like an MBA is not worth what it was 15 years ago.

PJ: No it's not.

Mark: So, like I kind of understand where they're coming from. But yeah, I mean getting back to your point. Yeah. Like you kind of feel when you're in like people they treat they treat it as like yeah, so you're going to be in this with us forever and you're like probably not,

you know,

— but even the lifers, man, they get out, you know, like at some point 20 years and there's still more to do.

— Yeah.

— Um especially at this day and age, like we're we're going to be living longer and longer.

— Yeah.

PJ: Um so how were you intentional? How did you go about that?

Mark: Yeah, I mean I chose that. Um I get to DLI to DLI and they're asking me about languages and I start looking at languages. Like I and this is a personality thing probably. I I I really kind of do some pre-planning before I decide to make a decision. I want to make sure the decision I'm making is going to be worth it. So whether it's we talked about guitars, whether it's choosing a guitar, like well what guitar works for whatever kind of music that I want to play and like what makes more sense in that regard, you know?

I got into records a few years back and like collecting records and stuff. What record player do I want to choose? Why? Like so I I I like to do some research and planning before I actually make a decision. So that's just kind of all I guess always how I've been. I don't know if No, it's always how I've been as pre Marine Corps. Maybe the Marine Corps kind of helped uh emphasize that a little bit more in me and and it's more, you know, solidified and crystallized in my character now.

But I'm I'm I'm just I make sure that the choice that I make moving forward is the right choice for me. The the rightest choice, whatever the best choice is for me.

PJ: And how do you know if it's the right choice?

Mark: Um you don't always, you know, sometimes it kind of comes up naturally, right? Because there's a balance of being intentional and and kind of letting things flow. Also, you can't, you know, if you're trying to be too intentional, like you try, sometimes you try to force things and that doesn't work out either,

right? Okay. Um, so it's a balance of like either like kind of letting it kind of play out naturally and fall into your lap. Um, it it really is situational, right? If it's a guitar, right? Like I might want to go prioritize you know about as a software engineer another fellow software engineer you know about illities, right? So you kind of prioritize like the illities of whatever it is that you're working on. So if you have like a project like reliability might be your priority or testability or maintainability might be your priority.

So those three things are what you focus on. So when you're choosing a guitar or when you're choosing a career like is what's your priority? Is it money? Is it security? Is it family? Like not family but like that kind of is it culture? Right? Like what are your priorities when entering something? Um, and then you choose based on that,

you know, and that stuff es and flows. So that's why I say it's it's not always like perfect, but

PJ: Right. I I would normally guess call those values, but I totally I totally see what you're what you're saying. Like what's most important to you at any given time?

Has there ever been a time when they didn't work out for you? [snorts]

Or is there a way where this

Mark: Well, I'm divorced.

PJ: Divorced Marine.

Mark: Okay. Okay. So, there's one um which I don't really carry too much shame about. You know, it happens to a lot of us. I think the divorce rates like close to 60%. So, like at this point, like, you know, but yeah, I'm I'm divorced, so like that, you know, that was a mistake. Um maybe not a mistake, but you know, because we ended on a mutual terms, but it you know, she's a great person, but you know, that was a choice I made that didn't work out. So, um yeah, I mean I'm sure there's others, but that's the first one that comes to mind.

PJ: Yeah. Is there ever a time that the process um doesn't like maybe it holds you back?

Mark: Uh h that's a good question actually. I don't know. I don't know that it's ever held me back because I do I do so much uh I make so much so many of my decisions are made with that process. So, I can't say that it's it's held me back because um I I just, you know, the the the the resistance I get when doing that kind of process just feels like natural, like, yeah, I just got to go figure this out, you know. Um I chose I chose like, you know, I chose the university I went to.

It was kind of expensive and at the time the GI Bill didn't fully cover it. Like the whole Yellow Ribbon Program at the time like wasn't covering. So, I chose to go to a community college first. Right.

PJ: Right.

Mark: Hindsight, you know, maybe I wouldn't have chosen a community college. Maybe I wasn't wouldn't have chose chosen that school. I probably would have chose uh another university that maybe is just as prestigious or something, you know, especially with like the DLI background. Like that would have played into my favor, but I chose a community college first, which in the long run, I ran out of GI Bill. I had to like

do Voc Rehab or I had to like do like an extension. And so yeah, maybe that didn't work out the best. It still worked out.

PJ: It still worked out.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: Oh, I asked that question because I know people who who are analyzers. I guess is what I would probably name that as an analyzer or or someone who plans ahead.

Um

but there, you know, I know you know people like this too, I'm sure. Like people that overanalyze and then it winds up paralyzing them because they're like, I have I need to know everything and then I'm not taking action, you know?

Mark: Yeah, I work with a lot of them.

PJ: Do you?

Mark: you know, uh, I work with software engineers that that they're they're aware of it, too. So, it's not like they're they're like

just they ramble on, but we get into these conversations and we got I have good managers and stuff that that balance that out well like, "All right, let's get back on point, you know." But, um, yeah, I mean, it's it's some people are Yeah, they over analyze. they just like you know software engineers they just like

they want to uncover every unturned stone and you're like

we look can we just decide on whatever the plan of action is now so that's you know I think the

yeah like the pract the practical rational like brain in me kind of like does put that in check a little bit

I don't I don't tend to overanalyze but yes some people can get paralyzed for sure to your point

PJ: just to just to stick with it for another second here

Mark: sure

PJ: I'm curious if there was ever a time in your life where you did maybe go too far in that direction

and you have learned to find more of a balance between like action 70% you know knowledge as opposed to like I need to know everything and and it just doesn't work out because I'm I'm maybe paralyzed a little bit.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, there's there's probably times where I haven't pulled the trigger on some things because or like actually like gone and purchased the thing or haven't gone and moved forward with whatever it is because I'm like I just don't I've analyzed it and I don't feel like I've anal like I understand it enough to like actually move forward with the decision. It's pretty vague, but like there's definitely been times like that where I'm like, "Oh, I want to do this thing. All right. Well, like what about this?" I start doing the the pre-planning and then I'm and then I never really make the decision like like I was kind of saying like I never really go and say, "All right, let's just go do it." Um,

you know, and more power to the people that are just like, "Yes, man." Like Jim Carrey, "Yes, man." Like, "Yeah, let's just go."

PJ: Oh, what a great movie.

Mark: Let's go. Yeah, let's go skydiving. Like, let's just do it, you know. Um, but I've I've never like I I most of my time I think I put myself in check, but but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I've definitely overanalyzed to like not do something to pull back from doing something or delayed the decision because I didn't really

PJ: Okay. Yeah. Well, no, I appreciate it and thanks for sticking with it. Um, the point I'm actually I'm trying to get at here is like

I I think that that's cool. Like I I love that you have that sort of a like a um I don't know you're you're predisposed to that sort of like a way of acting or or thinking. I know people all across the spectrum and I think it's something that the military does a good job of if we recognize it and go into it is acting without full context.

Mark: Mh.

PJ: You know what I mean? Like you get the 80% the 80%'s good enough. Now go execute.

Mark: Sure.

PJ: And and I think that that's something that's been

like we we're trained into that a bit,

right? Um, so I was curious to know if maybe the military helped refine that a little bit for you or not. Um, and also if you were to be like talking to someone who where wherever they are in their career, maybe it is early, maybe it isn't like how one could go about developing that sort of a mindset where like I will plan ahead. I will be intentional but not so much so that it paralyzes me.

Mark: Right.

PJ: Yeah. Don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Mark: Yeah. I mean, I think um the military has helped me to like that military training definitely helped to like overcome I guess you would say instead of them being obstructions more obstacles. Yeah. Right.

However, however varying in difficulty those obstacles are, I've been able to overcome all the ones that have been in my way. And really, you just treat them as obstacles. you just treat it as like okay there's this wall so now how do I get through this and being resourceful because you don't have all the context right especially in software engineering you don't get all the context all the time there's some code left over from two three years ago that

the person doesn't work here anymore and you're like

does anyone know how this work okay I guess I got to figure out what's going on here and start you know kind of pulling apart all the tangled wires and figuring out why it was designed this way and sometimes it's not that it was designed bad it was just like why did they do it this way? Because if I knew why they did it this way, I would I can traverse it better. But

PJ: yeah,

Mark: I have no idea why they're doing it. So, um

so yeah, lack of context and just understanding like the challenge of having to break through whatever that obstacle is in front of you. something that for sure the military has helped me kind of kind of uh navigate understand you know because you you asked earlier like what what was who was Mark before the military who was Mark in the band days like yeah I was I was giving up easy quitting easy or not finishing the job or whatever because nah that's too hard or no that's not my flavor today you know might be my flavor Monday but I don't know that in the moment it's Wednesday and we're not at next Monday yet. And that's not my flavor. So, I'm not going to do that.

Whereas, you know, you kind of learn more to like kind of complete whatever's in front of you when you're when you're in the military. Those skills definitely uh transfer,

PJ: right?

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: All right. We'll we'll circle back on that when we get back into like uh transitioning out at some point. But

so, so you you you go into linguistics um or or SIGINT, right?

Mark: A little both, but yeah, mostly sig.

PJ: And and what was like your time in the military like?

Mark: It was it was good, man. I mean, I I didn't really My units morale, I think, was pretty low.

PJ: Really?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of those people the attrition rate at that at those types of units are pretty low. Maybe because we're there's geniuses there, dude. They were all pretty smart. So, like we're probably like like I don't want to stick around and do this. I can go make more money in the civilian sector as a civilian counterpart doing what I do here. Maybe even doing more because there's less red tape than the than Marine Corps. Um, and the Marine Corps has its red tape for a reason. But I can go make more money and do more stuff,

you know,

but for the most part, my time was was was great. I mean, I got to I got all of the stuff out of the military that I wanted to get out of it. Um, out of the Marine Corps specifically. So, like, you know, I can't there's not really any complaints in the grand scheme of things. You know, I I went to super cool school at DLI. I think the worst time I spent was at Goodfellow, but I was only there for like three or four months. That's cuz Goodfellow's in San Angelo. It's like I call it the butthole of Texas. Like, it's the butthole.

It's just not fun. But you know, you you go to Hawaii, like I was when I was in Hawaii, like the first like 2, three months, I was just like fangirling like dude, look at this. Like green and like everywhere and it's just like sunny and like this is insane. Like I'm in Hawaii. Like and I'm a big reggae head. So like playing reggae in Hawaii, I felt at home.

PJ: Yeah, I'm sure.

Mark: Um I mean I did take I think I took the beach and stuff for granted because I'm from Southern California, so we got beaches everywhere. So, you got guys from the Midwest.

PJ: Different beach.

Mark: It's a very different beach.

— Very different. Water water's clear. Uh,

— and it's warm.

— And it's warm. Wild stuff. Yeah. Even in Southern California, the water's cold, but

— No, it's freezing.

Mark: You got guys from the Midwest that like come out and they're like, I want to go to the beach every day. And you're like, and I I'm like I mean, you got to get sand everywhere. It's like, I grew up near the beach, dude. Like, beach is cool, but I'm not, you know, I'm not like super like hype about it. at least at that time. But overall, yeah, the experience was great. I did get to go to Korea a little bit and use the language when I was on the MEU.

They flew us off off the MEU to land at like Camp Mujuk, which is like a little tiny small base in Korea, Marine Corps base. It's I think it's it's our base. Uh I think I don't know if it's the ROK Marines or like US Marines, but we land there and they just like we're sleeping in cans and then we get off get out of the cans. to take a train across the peninsula to actually one of our detachments from from Hawaii from Third Radio and they're there in the SCIF and we're working in a SCIF and but at the time we didn't have like all of our like we had our clearances but we didn't have like the our account set up for like the [snorts] the TS stuff, the TS networks and whatever. So, we couldn't really work. So, we were just sitting next to them. So, our sergeant would be like,

"All right, it's 11:30. let's cut and we just like go hit the town in Korea for like four or five days while we were there cuz we couldn't really we couldn't really work and like we were kind of just under his supervision. So, um so I got to go there. I got to walk around and talk to people in Korean and trip Koreans out and Koreans are it's it's one thing to see an American like in Korea. It's another them thing for them to like

see Americans speaking their language. They just take so much pride in it. It's we take it for granted here in the US for sure to see so many different people you know this homogeneous culture of all these different people walking even speaking lang different languages and you know dressing different and different religions and then you go to a culture like Korea a country like Korea and the culture is very solidified and it's like

you go there and you're like you actually feel like an outsider as opposed to like what we hear right

— and you speak their language and culture is very different.

Mark: You speak their language and they're like, "Holy crap." Like, "Who are you?" Like, "This is cool." Like, they they their faces light up. It's it's it was a cool experience. So, I think that was very fulfilling because it felt like I learned Korean for a reason. Even though I just talked to shop owners, it still felt like I learned it for a reason.

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: And then, yeah, towards the end of my towards the end of my contract is when I was like, "All right, I think I don't want to do this anymore. Like, I think I'm kind of done with this.

PJ: that switch.

Mark: I mean, a lot of things a lot of things did. Uh, I think everyone has their their moment and for me it was like kind of like a gut punch moment.

More like a nut kick moment. Like it wasn't a gut punch. It was harder than that. It was like we got back from deployment and I was like, I want to do this. And someone else was like, yeah, I want to do this. And they swapped us and they're like, no, you're doing this, you're doing this. And we were both like, but we said we wanted to do Yeah, well, you know, I heard a lot of politics came into it. Well, I heard a lot about you.

I haven't really heard about you. And I'm like, so that's it. You haven't heard about me, so now just just watch throw everything that we want out the window because you haven't heard. All right, whatever. Good to go, Top. Let's go.

Yeah. So,

and but it wasn't anything personal because like I knew that Masarn was super cool, dude. But it was just like a decision that he made that I was like, that sucks. And luckily I had a buddy of mine that was going on another deployment and he was like, "All right, I'm going to I'm going to go on this deployment. They asked me to go on this deployment. I was supposed to be a cadre instructor, so now you're going to be the cadre instructor cuz I'm leading." So he I had a buddy that like looked out for me and he actually came up and he like he was a good friend of mine, but he actually came up to me and was like, "Hey,

like I heard what happened about blah blah blah."

And I was like, "Yeah." He was like, "Yeah." He said it looked like you got kicked in the nuts. And I was like, I did get kicked in the nuts pretty much. Like, you know, I want to be a team leader. But I ended up being a cadre instructor, going back to the teaching, getting back things, the giving back, the whole giving back thing. And I was like, let's let's do that. That that sounds like fun. So, for the rest of my time at battalion, I essentially was just a cadre instructor, teaching Marines how to collect and how to use the gear and stuff like that because I was pretty hands-on and and techy and I learned pretty quick with that. So,

PJ: Well, okay. So that's really interesting because you you had said before you went into the military you tal about you thought about being a teacher.

So in some way you're fulfilling this idea or desire.

Um that's pretty cool. Like did it kind of bring that full circle?

Mark: It definitely did. I felt like a natural up there just showing people how to do stuff. I didn't it didn't feel like work.

Um it just felt like yo this is how you do thing and like here's all the information. Here's all the information that I like absorbed. So now let me just like not fire not like fire hose blast you but like let me show you now like this this this this and when they have questions it just like yeah let me get you that answer right.

PJ: No that's really cool. So all right at that point did you were you like I'm already out like I've already said I'm going to be out and I'm just writing out the rest of my contract. Like how did that work?

Mark: Pretty much I mean that was it like and it was like planning to get out like what do I do to get out now? And

like I knew I knew what I liked to do. I knew kind of like what I already was kind of good at and um so I was like I have a small selection of things that I can get into and so I'm going to see which one kind of gives me some like some more has some more traction under it. And so one of them was music. Uh right before I got out, I bought like a guitar and started getting into like uh like music production, audio production, recording and like trying to understand that.

Um, and then the other one was like video games, you know, and you know, when I was in high school into like kind of when I was doing the music thing before the Marine Corps, I played a lot of video games and like I was doing it competitively and so this was before people were getting paid like we were talking about this like millions of dollars to play a video game. Yeah. You know, it was like

$25,000 or something if you won a tournament, you know, and that was like whoa, like 25K like to win a tournament. And now it's like insane. Um, but that was like something that I enjoyed doing. It was fun. And then I and then streaming became a thing while I was in the Marine Corps. Like it blew up. And so I was like maybe I could do that. And I did try that for a little bit. But nothing really stuck and gained traction. And uh, you know, I I understood the sacrifices that were going to have to happen to do that kind of stuff, like having no money for a while until you do.

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: But I just didn't want to I didn't want to do that. that even though the grind was still there for studying engineering um it just seemed more fulfilling and more worthwhile to go and do that and I found a passion in that too. So um so deciding you know between those things I didn't choose engineering at first I chose like you know I was like tech like I'll go into tech because I'm working in SIG and so it's kind of a natural transition. So, it was music, video games, or like I guess you'd call it corporate, but it was like those three avenues were my kind of uh on my radar when I got out.

PJ: Thank you for the segue, actually.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: You you were saying that you have the the tendency to be very intentional

and to do your research ahead of time. walk me through that decision while you're navigating transitioning out of the military.

Like how how did you choose those three options?

How did you settle on the one that you ultimately settled on and then how did you pursue it?

Mark: Yeah, it's a combination of the intentional planning and also kind of like where life takes you. So like I was in I was married and so she was from out here in Pennsylvania. Like that's how an LA kid ends up in

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: Pennsylvania. Uh

PJ: and you're still here.

Mark: And I'm still here. Yeah. But so combination of life kind of just like letting life happen the way it happens and also like then taking like you take what you got, right? Like that's that's the Marine Corps. That's the military, right? You you adapt to whatever it is you got in front of you. Okay, this is where I am now. So what school am I going to? What am I doing? How am I doing it? Uh because the original plan was to go to like school and like my dream school was you know Southern Cal USC and they had like an audio production degree. I was like that's cool like kind of lines up but then we ended up not doing that and we moved out here

and so now what like there's not really that same kind of like LA Hollywood music vibe here. Like I could try to do it but would have been way easier out there probably to make some connections than than out here. There's still a little scene here, but it's not the same. So, it's like, well, what do I do? Um, so I just played the cards that were dealt to me and then figured it out from there and then was intentional about what was dealt dealt to me here.

So, um, the planning process like to ultimately decide on tech. While I was going to school, I was playing video games, trying to stream at the same time. So, I kind of did both things at the same time. music is music kind of fell off as an as an ultimate goal. Uh because I ran into the same issues that I had before the Marine Corps, which was like it's really hard to keep a team together. You take that for granted in the military because you're kind of forced to keep the team together.

Sometimes you don't want to be with the team. Well,

you like, you know what I mean? But like you have to and you learn how to deal with it. But like you take for granted the fact that you can get wake up, walk outside, knock on your buddy's door and be like, "Let's go grab chow." And they're like, "Cool." There's no questions. Like you have your buddy, he's going to go grab chow with you. That's it. There's no there was no like ah, you know, like, "Yeah, I'll see what's up." Most of the time it's like, "Yeah, let's grab chow. It's time to eat chow." Like there's no there's no friction there.

Whereas trying to do the band thing, it's like you have to get so many other parts and people together. So that's kind of why that that fell off is because that that friction was like I have to rely on too many people that don't have that same passion or whatever. So let me just try to do the streaming thing. Let me try to do the tech thing. Let me see how that how that plays out. And I just kind of stuck with the degree thing. I I I every semester I looked to see what classes am I taking so I knew what I was getting myself into.

Um and and and that was it. I kind of I kind of put that three to five year plan of like of like I know I want to be here when I'm done. I want my degree. I want to be a software engineer. So like let's go with that. Um video games kind of stuck. They kind of hung around. I did the streaming thing on the side like while I was in school because I had time. But [snorts] um then I was like, "No, I think I'll just do this music thing because or not music thing, sorry, the engineering thing cuz it just was was more fulfilling in the end than video games." Video games that just got annoying.

It's just like you can't keep up. There's like all these games now and you're just like I'm I sound like a boomer at 35, but like there's just all this stuff now that I'm like how do I like I don't Yeah, let's play that game, I guess. Like now I find myself playing like the greatest hits. Like I'll hop back on like Assassin's Creed and like the old stuff now. It's just not the same.

PJ: Dude, I know exactly what you mean. I mean I like I relate to my kid. My kid's 12 and it's like

for me when I think of video games back in the day I had what like six

I had six games and they were on the cartridges and like you play it until you got bored with it and then it was like well I guess I'm going to go outside.

Yeah. But now it's like I'm gonna go on Roblox. And just in Roblox in general, there's hundreds of games and there's no end. And it's like

Mark: doesn't stop, man.

PJ: Man, it's just such a different way. It's just such a different way of being.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: Um I think it's really cool though that you

you picked three things that you were interested in

and you didn't say no to any of them,

right?

It almost seems like your research was actually doing them and then kind of weeding them out as you were doing them. Is that accurate to say?

Mark: It's a buffet, man. Life's a buffet. I don't know if that's a quote from someone. I think it is, right? But it's like, my dad taught me this at a young age, right? Like where he'd be like, "Try this octopus, you know, whatever it is, like when I'm like eight." Like he's like, "If you don't like it, you don't got to eat it, but try it." Okay. And so like the same kind of approach with these with these like career field or career paths, right? Like I don't know.

I think I like those. They sound good to me. So, let me go see how that plays out and if it doesn't, it doesn't. So, there's like there's, you know, that can get paralyzing at some point if you just keep trying stuff, you know, but you have to choose and make a decision at some point. It goes back to the over anal that could be like a kind of a more abstracted version of like that overanalysis kind of thing where you just keep trying things until you find something like

but yeah, I was, you know, I I wanted to go try that out and see if it worked out.

PJ: Well, I think there's a a balance. It's there's always a balance of some people are very narrow and I just want to do one thing and then there's there there is the opposite perspective. I had a dude named Josh Zabler on this episode at one point where he was like I literally had like nine different majors and I was like jumping around from major to major major major and at some point it was like five or six years in college and they were like all right you have to graduate.

Yeah. Um there's there's a balance to be had I think and you know it's it's cool to hear what you're saying that you picked three because I think three is a good number. Y

I think us humans tend to go one two three many right and the hard part is is

like me for instance I I find a lot of things interesting.

Mark: Sure.

PJ: You know what I mean? like I I that's cool. I I'll go and do it. But if I'm not careful, I'll have the tendency to really split my focus. And now all of a sudden, I'm not doing anything well. I'm like the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none.

Mark: Right.

PJ: And you seem to have done a really good job of picking like just three things. I'm going to go explore these three things and we'll narrow them down from there.

Has like how how do you how do you balance that? How do you think about that?

Mark: How do I think about it? Well, we'll start the three things I think were kind of natural for me. So, I didn't just narrow it down to three things. I That just happened to be three things for me.

PJ: But these were things that you you enjoyed before the military, too, right?

Mark: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I was I wasn't like a super techy kind of guy, but I messed around on the computer, you know what I mean? Like we I did that, you know? Um I had some experience doing like Photoshop and whatever and Illustrator when I was in high school. I messed around with that stuff. So, like I kind of knew how to work a computer. Um the military kind of added to that, but before the military, yeah, video games and music, like those were the two things.

Um so you can, you know, like I was kind of just able to naturally fall into it. The third thing being tech was a was kind of that enigma at the time of like what does that mean? Does it mean like

I go into networking? Does it mean I go into satellite communication? Like what does that mean? Right? So that was that was kind of the enigma kind of uh free agent like what is what does this look like over here? I know what these two cats look like. This one is kind of like uh and that's the one I ended up choosing. Funny enough.

PJ: And why why what was it that you were just like that's the one

Mark: uh challenge? Yeah. Challenge that I was able to uh digest. Like I said, I wasn't a I didn't want to work with people that didn't want to work or that didn't want to put in the work for like the band stuff cuz I'm like intentional. I want to start this band. I want to grow. I want to go do stuff. Like we don't have to be We don't have to be the Rolling Stones, but like I wanna tour. I want to play shows. I want to go do that stuff.

I want to like play music. Yeah. You know, um and you people want to do that. They don't want to do that. You know what I mean? Like I know exactly what you're

You know what I mean? Like there's that there's a kind of like a deeper layers to that and [snorts]

and you see that by their actions. you know, the 30 the 30 days or the month that I gave my buddy to be like, "Let's get a practice in." We got not one practice in in a month. Yeah. How you not practiced in one month?

PJ: Yeah.

Mark: You know what I mean? Like, and that's nothing on him, you know? But that's just what it takes to be in a band. You have to deal with that kind of crap. And so, like,

didn't want to digest that challenge. The video game thing, like, it turned into not a challenge. I'm sitting here playing video games. That's not a challenge. Like, even playing competitively, that's another thing. playing competitively, having to find teammates that you can build a team with to play competitive, like not digestible challenge to get people to put in the time and effort to like understand the game, understand the mechanics. It's like playing chess with teammates or whatever. They don't want to put in that time. Okay, I don't want to do that.

So, can I stream? Yeah, I can stream, but now there's no challenge. So I think what ultimately came up was some type of challenge again kind of like the military like kind of like the Marine Corps for me was like if I can get through this and I can like work through this hard these hard problems uh I will feel better about myself knowing that I worked through these hard problems and succeeded. And so there was more fulfillment in that I think.

PJ: Yeah.

So I really like the the quote and I can't remember who said it. Um, it's gonna I'm probably gonna butcher it, but of you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse,

right?

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: And I I' I've seen plenty of people operate on the excuse side of things.

And one of the things that I think the military, especially the Marine Corps, and and I I don't know that I can intelligently speak to the other branches on this one, but there are no excuses. There's no excuses. you're you're either going to do it or you don't and that's it.

And I think that this is something that a lot of us can really leverage coming out of the military because it's it just beat into you,

you know, um and while it sucked at the time. [sighs]

Yeah, man. the things that you will get out of it, the the fruit that you will reap on the backside because you did not give up or you were not willing to accept an excuse. It may hurt at the time being, but man, the fruit is worth it in my opinion. Um, I want to I want to ask something because we we kind of glossed over it in the beginning and I'm curious to know your thoughts on this one. So, you had said that one of the reasons you joined the the Marine Corps was to kind of test your metal to um to, you know, prove that you're a man, you know, like step up, right? And I think that that's very common. What did that for you?

Mark: What did that for me?

PJ: Did you ever scratch that itch?

Mark: Yeah, I think it built confidence in me. I pushed myself physically. Like I wasn't like a track star, football star, soccer stud, crazy in shape. And so physically I was able to push myself. Boot camp was physically hard for me. Some for some guys it's not. It's a breeze. For me it was because I just like I was my height now I'm like 5'11 at like 130 pounds

soaking wet. I was a twig. I had no muscle on me. You know what I mean? So

I weighed in I weighed in at MEPS on my first time at MEPS. I made weighed in at 131. By the time I left, I put on 10 lbs cuz I was working out. And so, uh, 140 when I went to boot camp, but I left boot camp 20 pounds heavier than that at 165. So, like even more muscle and I was eating good. So, like I I pushed myself physically in boot camp. That that crucible was not easy for me. Some guys it was. I couldn't swim very well.

Still not the best swimmer, you know what I mean? I can like survive. But I didn't know how to swim before I joined the Marine Corps. Before I joined the Marine Corps, I went to the YMCA and signed up for lessons and learned how to swim. Then I went and joined the Marine Corps, which is not the same.

PJ: I love that though.

Mark: Not the same. But I

that I almost I almost that way. That was the first time I almost actually like at 21 years old like got emotional in in like a happy way was when I jumped into that pool, came out, sat next to everyone that passed and was like, I just passed the Marine Corps swim qual legitimately like it was a huge moment for me. Like no one else knew that but me. So like and then and then pushing back, you know, past all the other physical stuff. So, I think that just in myself was enough to build some confidence.

I didn't have to get violent. I didn't have to do all that other. Yeah, you get in barracks, brawls, and scuffles or whatever. Like, that happens like we're dudes. But, and I got in that stuff a little bit when I was a kid, too. But that wasn't enough for me to really test like am I man enough, right? The man enough thing came from like just understanding, you know, for some guys it's like, I got to be a seal. That's how I know I'm man enough.

For me, I don't think I was that extreme. It was more like can I just get the job done? Like can I just do what I said I was going to do, be reliable, right? Or have some integrity. Like that was th those were like things that I values that I didn't learn as a kid, you know? I didn't learn understanding like accountability and integrity and reliability. I just learned like from everybody around me like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do it Sunday." And then you're like, "Hey, bro, it's Sunday." like, oh yeah, I can't because and it's just like why not? Like I didn't realize how much that stuff irritated me. The Marine Corps didn't make it better. Uh

PJ: yeah, right.

Mark: You know.

PJ: Yep.

Mark: But you know, I didn't realize how much that stuff irritated me until I joined the Marine Corps. And that's kind of why I resonated, I think, with a lot of it was because people just when they say they're going to do something, they do it. And when you say, "Hey, I'm going to go I'm going to go climb that mountain." We're climbing the mountain, right? So, and it's going to suck and we don't have enough water and food, but we said we're going to climb it, so let's go climb the thing, right?

You know, um it's just stuff like that.

PJ: Well, that by the way is a freaking awesome message just saying because

I think what's beautiful about what you just illustrated is it wasn't a measure against anything external. And that is something I see people do so often is that they need to justify themselves or they need to, you know, rationalize their their their measuring stick is out there.

Mark: Mhm.

PJ: And while I think that having a maybe a um an inspiration can be helpful and useful even if it comes from out there but the measuring stick should come from within here

Mark: right

PJ: and I know exactly what you mean by the way when you say the swimming thing and it wasn't about what anyone else said it was about you because you dude we just quoted this right you found a way

you didn't give an excuse you found a way and you said screw it I'm going to put in work and I'm going to go find a way and it doesn't matter what anyone else can do. I just overcame something that I was having trouble with.

Full stop.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: I think that that is really truly where fulfillment actually comes from, where purpose actually comes from

because you were clear on your values and you're still clear on your values. Clearly you're talking about integrity, honesty, you know, whatever resourcefulness. That in my opinion is what really really helps when it comes to overcoming anxiety or overcoming uh I don't know a lot of the things that plague us when we get out because

Mark: depression.

PJ: Depression. Yeah, dude.

— There's like separation anxiety almost like I want to get back now. A lot of guys go back in. A lot of guys go back in and and a lot of it is is because we're often externally validating.

PJ: We're looking externally for something to prove who we are when I think the real work is finding it in here.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: You know.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: Dude, that that was awesome. Powerful. Thank you. Um so you got into software engineering. I want to know like were there any benefits that you used any resources that you used to help you get there?

Mark: Yeah, GI Bill, obviously, Yellow Ribbon. Um, those are like the first two. I did Voc Rehab. I didn't get Voc Rehab right when I got out. I had to like put some work in, you know. I went through the your kind of cliche typical like that's not service related battle. So, I had to go to VA and do all this stuff. And um I ended up getting a rating and so that was enough to give me some Voc Rehab to kind of finish out my degree.

So, that was that was all the benefits that I used. I mean, it's every it's it's all the same that's available to most veterans that I know that use it and they're out there doing the thing. So,

PJ: and and how did you discover those? Was it just

Mark: I mean, my own research, there's definitely people you can reach out to if you don't know where to look. Just go to a VA clinic. Just Google, you know, MAPS VA clinic and go ask um or call and ask and they're going to give you the tool that, you know, the information.

Um yeah, there's I mean, we talked about this. this is what you're doing with Prize. All these different nonprofits out there like there's so many of them out there. Even if they don't even if they're not in the vein of what it is you're doing, they're going to give you some information. They're trying to help you. Yeah. So,

PJ: absolutely.

Mark: Just like, "Hey, I don't really know about where to talk to so and so about my GI Bill. Like, can you give me a number or someone that they're going to know someone that specializes in like the GI Bill stuff?" So, if you don't know how to navigate that,

they someone will be there. Like, there's a lot of people trying to help veterans out, you know? So, usually it's other veterans, but not always.

PJ: Not always. Yeah. I've been pleasantly surprised by that.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: So, all right. You and you did four years um just engineering degree.

Mark: Uh it was

PJ: Did you bounce around?

Mark: It was about five. The I only bounced and pivoted once. The first thing I started studying technically was computer networking. Um but that was only a semester. Then I was like, no, I want to be a software engineer. So, I just went straight into computer science. I got the associates first and I transferred in to the university and got uh computer engineering my computer engineering degree. So that was kind of you know that wasn't really my choice per se although this kind of what I was saying like the balance of like kind of playing with what cards are dealt to you. um the the representative at the school for for the the veterans kind of was like, "Yeah, you get into the engineering program." And it was computer engineering and I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'll just go and do that kind of thing, right?" Um not realizing that computer science, computer engineering are different. They're not like way different, but they're different enough to where you're like,

"This is a little harder than computer science." It's nothing against computer science grads. There's plenty of computer science grads and boot campers like yourself that go on and have great careers. So, it's nothing against that. But

the yeah, the path was a little bit a little bit more of a challenge than like your traditional computer science degree

versus engineering, which I think in the end paid off because, you know, now I'm a better engineer for it.

PJ: Absolutely.

So, well, I like I told you, man, like I thought that boot camp was great in helping me learn how to code.

It did not teach me how to be an engineer,

right? That was a whole different discipline that I had to figure out on my own.

Mark: Right.

PJ: Um, how did you get your first job then?

Mark: I actually got this kind of like a cold outreach. Um, one of our C-suite guys now reached out to me at the time when the company was still small and I was just looking for an internship. So, I had an internship already doing software developer work at another company. It was a little more corporate that company. Um, it was like an insurance company. And my manager, my first manager there was a 20-year software engineer. She was amazing. She was great. She I could talk code with her. I could chat. But she retired. And so who they replaced her with was more of like this HR

kind of like Yeah. flavor of a a real manager like and she wasn't just my manager. She was a manager of like other people. and maybe she had some experience like kind of with tech at some point, but she she didn't have the same chops as my previous manager. And that's where it started to feel like not genuine that communication and stuff. And so I get reached out to while I'm doing this internship

by ZeroEyes and they asked me, "Hey man, like we're a bunch of vets here. You kind of fit the mold of like what we want. you're marine vet and you're starting engineering and maybe you can talk to our engineering team and see where things go.

Cool. Let's do it. So, like I'm not gonna say no to that. Like,

PJ: yeah, absolutely.

Mark: I I was taught by a mentor like never say no to an interview. Like

PJ: yes,

Mark: never say no to an interview.

Like if someone offers you something, say yes. Even if you don't end up taking it, like that's fine because you get the interviewing experience. You get those jitters out if you're not really familiar with it or

you get the opportunity potentially. Maybe it's something that lines up to you. If you say no, you just cut out all of your potential opportunity that could have been that you would have you will never know, you know.

Um, so go talk to them. And it just kind of like the Marine Corps when I first signed up for the Marine Corps, like it just we just it just like vibed. I was like, this is what I Yeah. This culture is cool. Like everyone's cool here. It was still a small company. It was like 40 people, I think, when I joined.

When I started interning, what are they now? Now we're like 200.

PJ: Oh wow. You guys are growing a lot.

Mark: We're growing a lot. And so um now it actually feels like a company. Uh before it felt like kind of like like that we had our office, but like it felt more like everyone was like your buddy and now it's like your buddies that were your buddies or like they're still your buddies if you go out and have a beer every now and again, but like now you try to talk to them, they're like they're so they're busy and you're like, "All right, I gotta like leave them alone.

I gotta let them do their job." Uh but yeah, that was I mean that was I got lucky, but there are tons of startups that look for for veterans that are started by veterans. There are tons of startups that are like willing to hire you just because like you were also stationed in Noki or something, right? If you have the skills and you show them you're willing to put in the work, like they're going to just be like, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's let's figure something out here." So,

— yeah.

— Yeah.

PJ: I love that you said that, too. One of the things that we've said on this podcast a few times that I I very deeply believe is is showing that you will do the job and and a lot of times that that is more important than even if you can do the job,

you know, um like just do a project like go start a project and just show that you're willing to put in the work and learn something,

— right?

PJ: It's so so important,

— right?

PJ: And uh and and yeah, that yeah, it sounds like you were in the right place at the right time.

Mark: I was. Yeah. I mean it found me like I was pretty much Philly like I was in Philly at the right time and that's what's kind of kept me even though most of our company is remote it's kept me here ZeroEyes so

PJ: so if you had like a piece of advice that you would maybe give someone who's transitioning out and and let's just back this up a little bit and like they don't know what to do like what what would you say to them?

Mark: Don't know what to do in regards of like what like a career or like their next step or

PJ: Yes. Yeah. their next step.

Mark: Uh you don't have to be the overanalyzing like weirdo like I am and like plan everything. Like you don't have to do that, but you should have a plan. Uh you should plan out your goal and know at least some steps along the way. So that way you kind of remove uh you manage your expectations that way. you kind of remove some of the opaque uh obstacles that might be out there and you at least are prepared like I know this is going to come up.

It's going to suck when it comes up, but I'll get to that when I get there. As opposed to like being slapped in the face with it, had no idea and now you're like I don't want to do this. You know what I mean? Like it's it's I [snorts] mean you can prepare to be punched in the face. It's still going to suck when you get punched in the face, but like at least you knew it was coming. I I think right. Uh but yeah, I mean plan a little bit.

I I've met so many people that maybe in the computer science realm or engineering realm. Um I met it's not it's like it's more than a few like where they get kind of midway through a couple semesters they're using GI Bill by the way. they're utilizing their benefits and those are all going that that's all getting thrown away that you're not getting back because in the middle of your engineering or computer science or you know finance statistics degree you're like ah [sighs] that's actually a lot of math it's like yeah dude what did you think you were getting yourself into you know what I mean like what what did like it's an engineering degree it's a lot of math like did you not you know so [snorts]

and you know it's not to say that they failed like they went on and had their careers I know some of these, they're great people. They went on and did their did their job somewhere else, but they wasted some time that because they didn't plan. They didn't think ahead to say, "Am I going to have to take a lot of math? Is that going to be something that's going to suck for me? Do I really want to do that? Or do I want to be more like into psychology? Do I want to help people? Do I want to be a nurse?" Like

really like think just think about like you you brought up values. Think about what is important to you and and take some time to understand the steps and if it doesn't align with what whatever it is is important to you to to you then go somewhere else. Yeah.

So, we have a worksheet actually that I'll I'll drop into uh a link to in the show notes that that is to help you figure out some things that you value specifically for for this uh this purpose here. Um, yeah, I I totally agree with you. And and how let's make this actionable, right? Like I'm about to start a degree. How do I figure out like what that's going to entail or what I'm going to be doing in that degree?

Yeah. I mean, I think you choose your degree based on what you want to be after the degree, not during the degree. I know plenty of psychology majors that are software engineers now. I know plenty of uh software engineers that are in business and finance now because they you know what I mean? So choose choose what's after the degree not don't choose the degree. That's that's a kind of a very it's a very lowresolution way of thinking just like I want this degree. Like that's that's 17 18 year old coming out of high school going to college for the first time like yeah I'm studying masscoms or no no offense to the mass comms majors but you know what I mean like I'm studying this degree but you have no idea what you're going to do when you get out of college and you have that degree. If you do great

then and that's what you want to do. You want to do masscoms you know you're going to do that then great. But if you don't what are you doing right?

What are you doing with your time? You're wasting your own time and you don't even realize it. So know what you want to do after. That's how you choose your degree. If you want to be in business and finance, go get your MBA or go go study business. Maybe you don't get your MBA. Maybe wait till you're in business and have a company pay for it or something, but you know, do that. Um, so I knew I wanted to be a software engineer. So that's why I chose engineering.

That's why I chose computer science and computer engineering. Um, that's how you choose your degree for sure. and and make sure that whatever it is that you want to do uh kind of strikes a chord below below that external thing. So like what I realized in software engineering um it's not being an engineer that I like. It's not the title per se that that I that I like having. I like having the title of software engineer. There's a deeper passion. It's that Frankenstein moment of getting things to work.

PJ: Oh my god, I know what you mean,

dude.

Mark: Like that's a dopamine fix that like every engineer like real engineer knows like dude it works. It's it's a lie. That is it's like that's what it is. It's it's not it's I could be and there's some autonomy there that the freedom that I have to do that also, right? Like I really enjoyed being I bartended for a little bit. I really enjoyed being a bartender. Kind of the same thing. Like I made the drink and they're satisfied and

this is my bar right now and like I could I'm owning everything. Engineering is kind of that for me is that same way. So, make sure whatever it is you're doing strikes that chord for you underneath.

PJ: Yeah. Values.

Mark: Values.

— Yeah.

PJ: Um, cool, man. Hey, what's what's uh your favorite book?

Mark: You know, I don't really have a lot of favorites in general because I like so much stuff. My favorite book, I'll tell you one that I think has been the most helpful and I haven't even read all of it. Uh, Dale Carnegie, how to win influence people. That one

PJ: great.

Mark: Some of that stuff was already inherent to me that I didn't even realize.

Like remembering someone's name.

PJ: I know.

Mark: Crazy how far that goes.

PJ: Oh, to play on that, how many of us tell ourselves constantly, "Oh, I'm bad with names." I hear this all the time. Oh, I'm bad with names. I'm bad with names.

If you keep telling yourself you're bad with names, I promise you, you're going to be bad with names.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: How about this? I'm working on getting better at names.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: And here's a little tip on that one, right?

Just repeat it.

Hey, what's your name? Oh, Mark. Mark. Hey, Mark. Great. I just said it three times. Yeah.

Great to meet you.

Mark: Yeah.

PJ: And then at the end of the conversation, say it again.

Mark: Yep.

PJ: It's It's not You don't have to remain bad at names.

Mark: No. No, you don't have to. You don't have to remain bad at names. It a lot of it. And there's the other part of that book, too, is being intentional with what it is. Like

like there's so many times where people you could tell people aren't listening to you. You can tell people aren't really paying attention. We all do it. I tone I zone, you know. I I I zone out a little bit, too. But there's a you have to be intentional with it. Don't go in just to say, uh, what's your name? My name's so and so. Your name's so and so. Okay, so like don't be so robotic about it. Really be intentional so that way it's more fluid. Really, like I keep saying intentional, but it's kind of the theme of this, right? Like really

like have some purpose behind what it is that you're doing and and do it for a reason. Don't just do it because someone said go remember names. Like what's your name? Oh, my cousin's name. And now, you know, that might help. You know, my cousin's name is so and so. That's crazy. Do you also like and then get to know them, right? You have to

you have to really try to like you don't have to be their best friend. You don't have to grow your circle. You can have your private circle, but like

you need to treat interactions the same way that you treat kind of your intimate inter interactions. Like you care about what your brother, sister, mom, spouse, you know, you care about what they say. So care about whatever it is that an individual is talking to you about in that moment. at least for that moment, right? So,

PJ: yeah, it's the listening to understand verse listening to respond.

Um, and and really caring. Yeah, that book, you know, it's it's funny. I read that book when I was at OCS. Okay. And I remember being made fun of because the name of the book. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like it's it's not a book that you just read and like look at the cover and you're like, "Oh, this looks like it's going to be a

It is a fantastic book. There's a reason why it's one of the best, you know, self-improvement books written of all time." And it was like written back in the 20s. Yep. Um, it's a fantastic book.

Mark: It It's a great book and it it's one of those books, too, that's funny because it'll lead you down like a YouTube rabbit hole of like dark psychology and you're like you you don't got to do all that, but just read the book.

PJ: What about a podcast? Your favorite podcast. [sighs]

Mark: Um, Prize podcast, dude.

Prize podcast is the best because I it's the first one that I'm on.

Uh, no. I I like I said, there's so many of them, right? I I like I like so many of them. I like like the Diary of a CEO. That's a great one. But some of them I'm like, God, I don't want to watch this one. I don't like the guest maybe. You know,

um

like the Danny Jones guy, like Mark Gagnon, like that little kind of like new new wave of like conspiracy and stuff like that. Like I think that stuff's cool. I like watching it. Um, you know, I know I know Rogan kind of opened the door for all of that, you know, but that the kind of these new age guys are are kind of keeping with that and they're keeping it very general, you know, but they're very intelligent. I like the way they ask their questions and you do a good job also, dude.

PJ: Thank you.

Mark: Keep it up. Um, but yeah, like I like the way they ask their questions and they ask like they really try to get to the core, which is important. Like

they they they care about what it is they're asking. They're not just asking for the sake of asking. kind of going back to what we just talked about. So, yeah.

PJ: Yeah. Cool, man. How can people get a hold of you?

Mark: Uh, find me on LinkedIn. Um,

yeah, find me on LinkedIn. I also I also volunteer with uh VetsinTech. It's a local Philly chapter that I volunteer with. So, you can look up like VetsinTech uh.com or.co or whatever it is, but Google it, you'll find it. Um,

I'm a [snorts] chapter leader of the local Philly chapter. So, I help veterans transition into technology. Uh it doesn't necessarily have to be software engineering, computer engineering, or anything like that. It could be I want to be a project manager. I want to be in finance but at a tech company, right? Like it could be something like that. Uh veterans, military spouses, we help them out. We help them just network. We help them um maybe introduce them to a potential job. I've helped a couple already kind of connect to to get jobs. So uh yeah, we're just we're big on that.

PJ: Yeah. I I well, and I think we've illustrated this a few times on on a lot of these podcasts is just how many things there are out there for you. So, here's another great option actually. I went to just my first couple actually just in a what was that two weeks ago?

Mark: Yep.

PJ: Um and and it was it was fantastic. I mean, the people you meet just that alone honestly is to me worth it in so many ways. You know, we you I met you just like two weeks ago, man. Um, it's really really cool how you can get in front of these these communities and find that, oh yeah, I have actually a lot in common with with some of these people that I meet and and maybe I'm not so alone in my plight. Um, anyhow, thank you. I appreciate you.

Mark: Thanks for having me, man.

PJ: Yeah, appreciate it, dude.

You all know the drill. Like, subscribe. Please drop any comments below. Uh, we'd love to hear your feedback and we would love to hear if you have anyone else that you think should be on the show or any questions that you think we should ask. Till next time, we'll see you then.