33 Ready with Alternative Income Ideas!
b'I had an interesting just a few weeks ago, met somebody, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and it was interesting in what he was doing and how he was planning his future. I thought: \\u201cWow, this would be a great example of what other people, as they\\u2019re thinking of another career, another job, or expanding their income some other way \\u2013 they might have some ideas that they could do, too, from it, as well as they might even copy a little bit of what he did.\\u201d Let me get to that right away.\\n\\nWe are on with Greg Motes. Greg, welcome.\\n\\nGreg: Hi. Thank you.\\n\\nThomas: Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before you went in the military. I\\u2019m not thinking just in economic terms; I\\u2019m thinking in terms of you, your personality, etc.\\n\\nGreg: I grew up as a Military Brat. My dad was in the Army. We moved just a few times when I was growing up. I was lucky to be settled throughout most of my grade school and high school, which was fortunate, in the Midwest. From there, I had a typical Military Brat family lifestyle. I have two brothers, and we played sports, and we made our way through schooling.\\n\\nThomas: Okay, that\\u2019s a little different because we don\\u2019t have many people who have been in that situation, a Military Brat, but I guess you couldn\\u2019t be so much of a brat, but when you get into the military and started out on your own. Did you find the military changed you at all? I ask that because the beginning of the military literally changed my life for the future tremendously. I could not even expound on how much. What about you?\\n\\nGreg: I very much enjoyed coming into the military. I was fortunate that when I came in, I went into the Armor Branch, and from Armor, I was out at Fort Irwin, California. Fort Irwin is a place where, every month, units from around the army would come to train against the opposing forces, and I was on the side of the opposing forces. It was a great environment to be in, because every month we got to go play on tanks and essentially play laser tag at 30 miles an hour across a playing field the size of Rhode Island. We would play four to six games a month. I say games, and obviously they were training, and it was very serious training, but at the same time, there was a mentality and an attitude about going out there and fighting to win and playing to win. I found a comradery that was very similar to what I had in high school, playing football and playing for state championship football teams, and then going into college and playing in intramural sports and things like that.\\n\\nThe army, to me, I think at the onset was very much as an extension of that teamwork to be able to go there. Of course, coming in as a Lieutenant, I was put into a leadership role, and I very much enjoyed doing that. I think it was a lot of fun.\\n\\nThomas: It\\u2019s interesting. Today, kids are playing video games; you guys play the real thing, which is really exciting. For all those kids, including myself, when we were younger and played army or cops and robbers, whatever you played, you didn\\u2019t have sticks or little plastic guns; you really had some good things to play with.\\n\\nOne thing I find very interesting and it\\u2019s sometimes hard for people to know, realize, and understand is that word \\u201cteamwork.\\u201d One thing that really struck me in the military was that my friends came from some wide array of places. It turns out there was one guy whose father was the General Manager of IBM in the West Coast branch, so he had a tremendous life, all kinds of different things. Closer friends to me later on were actually one guy who was from Watts in\\xa0L.A., another guy who was from the ghetto in Houston, and lots of places like that. What happened is you didn\\u2019t realize and know that until later on when you wanted to stay in touch or something, and you would get their information. The reason you didn\\u2019t know and understand that is because everybody\\u2019s dressed alike. There are no outfits, there are no funny costumes or anything else.'