You are the One Percent

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, guys, one of the things I've heard people constantly lament is how few of us have chosen to go into military service. Right? I think it's something like less than 1%. And usually, that's put in context with the World War two generation. Right?

Because in World War two, it was like the entire country went to war. We had a really a large military force. And if you weren't in the military, you were supporting the war effort. And over the past two decades, things haven't been like that. There've been very few people who've actually gone into the military.

And for a lot of us who came back after serving abroad, come back, and it's like there wasn't a war going on at all. Right? People didn't even seem to be thinking about it. And, normally, when we think about that, we think about that as one particular reason why veteran suicide is so high and why we're seeing such a a a strong presence of things like PTS and depression and veteran homelessness and the high suicide rates and and all these different bad things that happen in our community and that our communities kind of become known for. And one of the things I wanna say to you, if if you're thinking in this way, is that, yeah, I I could definitely see where you're coming from.

At the same time, I also wanna point this out to you. You are different. You're different from the average person. You're different from the the the the others. You you think differently than most people.

And in a lot of ways, that's a a really good thing. Right? Yes. It might separate you from other people, and, yes, it it might make your transition into civilian life a little little bit more awkward. But think about that.

You think differently than everybody else around you. You have done things that that most other people will never do. You've been places that that most people here in this country will never go. And because of that, you also have the ability to do things that they can't. You have it within you to create things that they can't.

You have it within you to to to accomplish things that they could never hope to accomplish. And all you have to do is harness that. Right? And it's it's really a simple switch in psychology. You gotta go from saying, hey, I'm I'm the awkward outsider who who doesn't fit in well at this college or at my workplace, to saying, you know what?

What are they not thinking of right now? And how can I use the way that I think to help? What problems can I solve that they could never solve? What things could I do that they'd never tried to do? What difficult feat should I go out there and and try to accomplish that nobody else would ever try to accomplish?

You see, when you're able to think of those things in our society, yes, I know our society doesn't look kindly upon outsiders and people who think differently, but at the same time, it's it's those same outsiders, those same people who think differently that have also accomplished great things. You know, people like Steve Jobs starting Apple. Right? Everybody thought that this kid who who started this company in his garage with this other weird kid, Steve Wozniak, who who who was putting together these motherboards, everybody thought that, you know, they were gonna fail and that their their products was gonna go nowhere. But at the end of the day, their their product kinda took over the world.

Right? You know, and you can think about that in so many different contexts. Right? Because you think differently, yes, you know, you're gonna face some hard times. But amidst those hard times, there's also a lot of opportunity, an opportunity to build, an opportunity to create, an opportunity to change society.

You know, society doesn't change from the interior, it changes from the fringes. And right now, for one of the first times in in in our history as a country, we're the fringes. Those of us who've served, those of us who've dedicated to ourselves to a higher a cause higher than ourselves, we're on the fringes. We have a real opportunity here, an opportunity to change this country for the better, to change society for the better, to change the world for the better. And I know this sounds like just a bunch of motivational crap, but it's the truth.

Right? You think differently. Great. That's awesome. Stop seeing it as a weakness.

Start seeing it as an advantage. And the second you do that is the second you're gonna open yourself up to doing something great. And that's all I really have for you today. You know, I wanna I wanna kinda open your thoughts up here. And, you know, over the next few weeks, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get people on this show to help you to understand that.

Just had a great conversation with doctor Benson Munyan. He's a clinical psychologist. He kinda talks about this. I'm also working on some things to try to get some other veteran entrepreneurs on here. And if if you know of a veteran entrepreneur, if you know of somebody who who'd be great for the show, feel free to point them out to me.

I'm I'm I'm always happy to take some ideas. My recording times are a little bit limited now because I do have a full time job. But, you know, we're gonna keep this show going. We're gonna keep it happening, and I'm gonna continue on my mission to help the veteran community become the best that it could possibly be. Alright?

So get out there. Live your best life while you can. Think differently. Embrace it. And I'll be back at you later on this week with some more awesome content.