Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
Ben Harrow: From Special Forces to Aviation & Veteran Entrepreneurship
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In this inspiring episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Ben Harrow, a former Special Forces officer turned successful entrepreneur and aviation leader. From navigating the battlefield to building businesses, Ben shares his powerful story of military transition, embracing risk, and redefining purpose after service.
They dive into the mindset it takes to thrive in the aviation and tech industries, the role of cybersecurity and innovation, and why staying connected to the veteran community is key to long-term success. Ben also opens up about the leadership lessons he carried over from Special Forces to the civilian world—and how those principles now shape his journey in business development, podcasting, and mentorship.
Whether you're a veteran in transition, an aspiring entrepreneur, or someone seeking powerful stories of resilience, growth, and leadership—this conversation is a must-listen.
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction and Red Empire Family Connection
3:00 Special Forces Journey and Early Inspirations
10:00 Iraq Experiences and Lessons Learned
18:00 Transition to Civilian Life
25:00 Career Shift to Cybersecurity and Aviation
32:00 Building and Growing Pam Jets
40:00 Embracing New Challenges
45:00 Podcasting Insights and Storytelling
50:00 Closing Reflections and Future Plans
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LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Ben on Social media!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bharrow37/?hl=en
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-harrow-02052399/
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent, it's hosted by me, Danny.
Speaker 2:Caballero Ben Hara. How's it going, man? It's a decent, it's hosted by me, danny Caballero Ben how's it going, man?
Speaker 3:Good dude the uh great to join you here, so I'm glad that we're able to connect.
Speaker 2:Dude, absolutely, man. I I I just think to myself like how blessed I'm lucky, like I love the entirety of our, our soft community. But there's something wonderful about being able to connect with, uh, red empire family Cause uh, I, you know I'm very partial to our seventh group guys. The dudes come from everywhere, different backgrounds. It's just great to have guys that just are doing great things out there, that are going to this next chapter, uh, a hundred percent, no matter the unknowns, no matter how scary it may seem, they're just devoted into that next chapter and doing great things. So today, my man, I want to dive into your story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean talking about seventh group. We're usually the fun guys in the group. I've always heard that when you go to other schools with other SF guys you notice what groups kind of like cling together and it's always like the seventh group guys are always like the futter guys to be around Dude, absolutely Nothing against our first group or our fifth group, guys but man, you guys are super serious.
Speaker 2:I spent more time like hey man, relax. At the end of the day, it's just a school Like the worst can happen you.
Speaker 3:It's just a school, yeah.
Speaker 1:The worst can happen. You get your ass chewed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we tend to bring a lot of lightheartedness and good humor, and wherever we go, man, I think that's the Southern vibes. Yeah for sure. Yeah, man. So take us through your. How did you find yourself wanting to go special forces? I think every everybody has their own unique thing, whether it was lineage or family thing, Uh, but I think everybody has their own journey as to why they wanted to serve within, you know, special operations.
Speaker 3:Um. So I mean, I kind of always knew about special forces, uh, at West Point right, and uh knew kind of about what they did, right, like they're special guys and I didn't really understand as a young cadet the difference between, like Ranger Regiment and Green Berets, like I knew about them, um, and so my first experience special operations, I guess, was at West Point Prep, at my post-grad school prior to West Point. And you know, at West Point Prep half the kids are recruited athletes and the other half are prior service and some of the prior service gives your Ranger Regiment guys. So of course, all the regular Army folks that we were with like looked up to them and you knew that they were like these, like type a alpha guys, and coming from high school, all I knew about ranger regiment was like black hawk down. So in my mind I'm like, oh, all these guys must have been like in somalia.
Speaker 3:You know, and it's funny, you, you look up to them during the um, the, the basic training piece of use maps, because they know what to do, they know, they know what land nav is and how to march and all this simple stuff that you don't know yet coming from high school. Um, so they're kind of like the, the figures that you look up to, and then comes sports day and it turns out that none of them were athletes, uh, to begin with, and no one can throw a football, um. So I just thought that was funny. I like, oh, wait a second. You know, like you guys, I thought you were the studs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, a lot of yeah. I mean I played football in high school and even that, like I was just like I think the coaches were just like let this kid participate in something, and I like I didn't learn how to throw a baseball until my first deployment in Iraq, my squad actually taught me how to play catch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know, so fast forward to. I'm an infantry platoon leader in Iraq and I had the opportunity where I was at a fire base, Palo Alto, right outside of Balad Not, but there's Balad Air Base like LSA Anaconda and then about 40 minutes west is the actual city of balad, um, not, but there's balad airbase like lsa anaconda, and then about 40 minutes west is the actual city of balad, and so on that small fire base we had uh, an sf house and their own little compound. And since I was regular army and you know, I was there for what was supposed to be 12 months, which turned into 15 months I had the opportunity to work with three different odas, um, which was great because I got to experience the different culture and tribes of each group. So the first group I worked with was a 20th group team, and then the next group was a 10th group team and then the next group was a 5th group team. So across the spectrum of of of uh attitudes and just a culture right Of the different groups, Um, and, lucky enough, my platoon, we, we were able to do a lot of uh operations with them, Um, we were really like they're uh, uh outside court on for a lot of their um raids that they did on the objective. So I had the opportunity to ride on the 160th birds, you know, and to do a lot of cool stuff with them and it wasn't just like the cool action Hollywood stuff that you see like in the movies, which is part of what we do, but I got to see the full kind of mission set of all.
Speaker 3:Right, well, you know, the team leaders meeting with these shakes and I was able to be in the room sometimes just because I was working in that battle space also and the shake knew me and I knew the team leaders. So sometimes I'd be allowed to be there for some of the meetings and just to see also, like the 18 Charlie was out building up a flat range for the police force that they were working with and just all the different jobs that they were doing. Um, it just really interests me. And then, you know, you sprinkle in the cultural component too, where they they really were, uh, you know, embedding themselves and working with the police force.
Speaker 3:And once again, each group did it differently. Some were maybe more uh, open to the Iraqi, uh, culture and food and and hanging out with the Iraqis, compared to some of the other guys. Um, so it was just an interesting you know, uh, front row seat to special forces and what Green Berets do, and I was like I, I really like this and um, you know, I kind of felt like they were the varsity and I want to play in the varsity and uh, so when I was in Iraq, I put my, my packet in to go to selection and, um, when I came back, I ended up going to SFAS a couple of months afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a. That's a story that is similar to a lot of our guys in that G1 era. Like some of the best recruitment that we could ever do is just get our conventional forces near green berets when they're actually deployed, like that. That's certainly what gave me that that sense of like wow, like these guys are exactly like you said this is the varsity team. Like they go out at night and they get shit done. Everything's quiet after they leave. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you just saw like. You saw like. You saw success. Right, you saw progress and the same experience that I had as an infantry PL. I remember that. So when it came to me being the cool guy, and you know, I showed up on the FOB wearing old school DCU camo and all the infantry platoon kids are in, like in the new ACUs, and all the striker guys that we're working with. I have the beard and the baseball hat. I made sure not to be overly cool, but I was welcoming, I talked to them. I wanted to make sure that my team did the same too. So we were. We were very open and welcoming to the partner force, the infantry uplift that we worked with and brought them into the to the ODA. So we were never, never too cool for school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you can't. The um uh I. I always say this and I'm still dear friends with a lot of my my uplift dudes. I always say this and I'm still dear friends with a lot of my my uplift dudes Um, dude, there's nothing greater than being able to influence or be a positive impact to that young paratrooper, that young soldier, like, at the end of the day, the infantryman, that's the, that's the backbone of the frigging combat, that's, that's the individual. That's really truly like we. We support them as much. They're attached to us for our operations, like in conventional warfare and real nitty-gritty in our history.
Speaker 2:The infantrymen that's in. You know that we need to support and rally behind and there's nothing greater than being able to be that, that senior lsf guy that they look up to and like they, they're, they're going. Some of them will go to selection, just like you did, just just like so many of us have. So there's certainly it comes a lot of responsibility to make sure you're putting your best foot forward. I just remember, every time you're welcoming a new uplift, you're, just like you know, as a senior guy on the team, just like dear god, please make sure my seniors don't beat them up or treat them poorly, no worries, man.
Speaker 3:See, this is why I like to do everything in studio, because I also have a team helping me, because I need an 18 Echo.
Speaker 2:You're being a real 18 Alpha right now. Sir Nah, man, you got to jump into this. Who didn't?
Speaker 3:load my radio this morning, oh man. Well, that's a shit show.
Speaker 2:Bring me my kit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bring me my armor.
Speaker 2:Man. No, you got to jump in, do it indie style, man. That's what I love about this. I've had to learn how to do do everything, how to figure everything out. It's like every time I sit down looking back where I started with fucking with my zoom account and my yeti microphone, I'd be like fuck, do you like come a long way, dude, I I get it.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's why I'm the same way like and I think that just makes good sf guys right. You want to get hands-on and do it the best and learn it right. And we're what is the saying? We're a jack of all trades, master of nothing. And so yesterday I got the camera, I got the mic that apparently isn't working, the camera that apparently isn't hooked up to the computer. But this morning I did my rehearsals on my Google chat and I got it up on my computer. I launched a video on my phone. I'm like, all right, I'm talking to myself, I hear myself. And then, sure as shit, murphy, we apparently were doing it on your podcast Riverside program, and my cameras don't want to work. So it's good to have a pace plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's amazing, though, how awesome it is to like get into something and be a beginner again, like, yeah, to learn something new, like we. There's something to be said about the individual that gets relaxed and they, they think they master something and they're like I'm gonna stay in this domain, and that's why I champion and tell guys like, hey, make your next chapter something wild, crazy, go after that big dream, go after something that's completely scary, completely unknown, and you'll realize that your passion is in learning and in teaching and in mastering new skills, things that you're passionate about. You know, for me, I always thought that the military was the pinnacle. That was going to be the only thing I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life. Be those, be one of those guys.
Speaker 2:And there's nothing wrong with being a 35 year guy of you know, going going hard in the paint forever. But reflecting now, looking back at my life, I realized that, no, like that, that would never have suited me. Like that's not. Like, looking where I'm at today, all the things that I do, it's a lot of work, it's not easy, but boy is it rewarding, and I think that's something that's that's unique to um, our, our service members, I think within all of us there's a guy or gal that's an entrepreneur, that's a business owner. Um, we, we wanted to venture out into the unknown and that's what can be. That's exactly what this world is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's part of when I got out, obviously I I uh, you know, towards the end of my team leader time during my second deployment. You know we're just, we're just the summer help on the team, right, so your time is limited but I love being a team guy. You know, I love being a PL. I was always a PL. I never did any staff time, like you know, knock on wood, always a PL. I never did any staff time, like you know, knock on wood. I I loved being a team leader and um. Towards the end of my second deployment to Afghan, my second deployment on the T, on a, on a team, um, you know, my time was kind of coming up and trying to figure out what's next and that was something I I did. I understand it. You know the career progression and as a, as an officer in the army, um, but I just love being on a team and trying to, you know, play, figure out like the game right Of, like all right, I have this job. If I want to stay in, I need to get this job and the politics of it. I didn't really like that and I didn't want to be. I saw what a AOB commander did and I didn't want to do that and I didn't want to do that and I didn't want to do the desk thing. So I, you know, was either going to put my packet into JSOC and go further down the rabbit hole of special operations or I was going to get out completely and, you know, go to grad school and figure that out. And obviously I stepped on a bomb. So the decision was made for me.
Speaker 3:But fast forward to the transition piece. You know talking about doing things that make us uncomfortable or unknown. Um, you know, I that like everyone getting out of the military, trying to figure out like what's next. I did, uh, an internship at a, uh, intelligence agency up in Northern Virginia and, um, and it was cool because I was around a lot of other soft people from the community, but for me it just felt like I was on the bench right, I'm not in the field playing, and I just realized that if I'm going to do something, I want to do something completely new and take all my skill set and what made me a great SF guy or a great soldier or a great officer, and I want to apply that to something else and go be successful. I just don't know what that something else is.
Speaker 3:And that was the biggest challenge for me was trying to figure out, like all right, what is that? I used my time at Walter Reed when I wasn't rehabbing and learning how to walk again, doing different apprenticeships and just tasting different things. I was a law major in college. I did an internship at a law firm for like a week and I realized, you know what I don't want to do homework for the rest of my life? I don't want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 3:I ended up doing an internship at a wealth management firm in Potomac, maryland, and I was like Alright, I kind of like this. It's something new and different and I'm not really a finance or a number guy, but I like building relationships with people, I like helping people, I like figuring out how to be a service to them. So I just took little things that I like to figure out like all right, what's going to be the next chapter and my first job out of the army? I actually got asked to do something completely new and different and help start up a. I got asked to help start up government operations for a cybersecurity company that was based out of San Diego. So since I was in the DC area. I had all my security clearances still Not an IT guy but they gave me the opportunity and I said this is something totally new and different, totally ambiguous I'm in.
Speaker 3:And it reminded me of 2010, our mission to afghanistan, where I was like go. Your mission statement was go conduct special operations in aruzgan province. And it's like okay, but like what does that mean? Like what, what does that really mean? Because special operations is a wide spectrum of things, right, but it's like know, just go be successful. Uh, okay, but like what does that mean? Like what's six? Like give me, give me success? Like what does that mean? Um, so I, that was my first job out of the army. Uh, I was there for about two years. Um, a lot of good lessons learned about business. Um, a lot of, uh, bad experiences, which are also good lessons learned about business and the real world outside of the Army, and a lot of your successes are on you.
Speaker 3:But it led to other things to where I am now at Pam Jets and running an aircraft management company, because the guy that I worked with every day over there, who ran the commercial side of the house, and I ran all government operations and we just became best friends and I helped him with a lot of the commercial stuff. I brought him into a lot of government stuff. He came from aviation and he was a pilot his entire life and decided to do the cybersecurity thing just to try something new, like myself. And he turned to me one day and said hey, I'm leaving the company. I'm going to go start this aircraft management company that I've always been tinkering with the idea, and if I don't do it now, I never will. And so my first thought was like man, you know, damn it, you're leaving me, right, like I'm stuck here by myself now.
Speaker 3:And he said would you be interested in coming and being employee number one with me helping me start this company up? And I said absolutely, I'm in. I just got to let you know I don't know anything about private jets. All I know about planes is how to jump from them and how to drop bombs from them. And he's like listen, he's like you. You probably already know. Half of you know, you know all the lingo, all the lingo, uh, aviation wise, because the aviation military world are so similar.
Speaker 3:And uh, you know, all I need is somebody to help me grow the business and run the business Like you've learned and done here and I've seen you do for the past two years. I need you to do that for me over here. But now, instead of cybersecurity, it's airplanes, and I was like all right done. And that's what I think makes us so valuable as a good SF guy is you're just an operational problem solver. It's so broad and I hate to be so generic about it, but that's what we do. You give us an ambiguous problem set and tell us to go be successful, and I can go be successful. I'll figure it out, whether it's cybersecurity, whether it's aircraft management, whether it was trying to figure out how to get myself up and walking again. I just I'm here to solve the problem up and walking again.
Speaker 2:I just I. I'm here to solve the problem. Yeah, our guys forget how much we thrive in ambiguity. You've been trained for it in your entire career. Even even our conventional brothers and sisters like you've done well with shitty problems that are ill-defined. And now, when you go into your transition, when you look into the civilian world, you want something that's easy and cookie cutter. But then you complain about the fact that those easy and cookie cutter jobs either don't pay well or leave you feeling unsatisfied. Well, you got to dig down deep, you got to find your courage and go into something that seems unknown, that seems a little scarier. No-transcript.
Speaker 3:You know, not really. I got to be honest. It's a world I knew nothing about. It's the 1% that have these planes and these toys. Our clients are just high net worth individuals or Fortune 500 companies that have these jets for business and personal use. Personal use and, um, it's very similar, you know, to what we were doing. It's just a the. The plane is really just a tool for them to achieve mission success. Right, it's for for for them to get from New York to LA for work, just like we would get from, you know, the fire base to here on a helicopter for work, which, because I'm not, uh, a pilot and I don't have a lot of I guess I'm not fanboying over being a pilot Like in my eyes, they're just, you know, you're the Uber driver that's going to take me from the fob to the objective. It's the same thing, you know. So the plane is a tool for them to achieve whatever mission is that they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and how's Pam Jets grown over the years?
Speaker 3:Slowly but surely we joke that we're in the get rich slow business. So, but good, we've been around for eight years, started from zero, and we're able to have, uh, you know, one plane turned into three, three turned into five, five went back to three, three jumped up to six, six went to nine, nine went back down to seven. And it's not that we were doing anything wrong, just uh, you know, people have their planes, businesses have their planes, they sell their planes, right, it's that's just the nature of the business. So, you know, fast forward to now, we have, you know, looking at my, my map, 16 aircraft under management. So you know, I'm, I'm, I am responsible for almost $300 million worth of equipment that gets these people around that they use, still using that same bullet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, you got it motherfucker, yeah I gotta get, I gotta get my promotion.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, it's fucking hilarious oh man, yeah it's, it's, um. It's gotta be pretty freaking cool to be able to look at that and see where it started, having been there from the very beginning.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I mean the startup days of it was myself and Dave and Tony. Who's the other founder? Dave and Tony the founders I'm really employee one with them, but in the beginning we're all employees. So it's not like someone comes in and Dave or Tony is sipping their coffee, watching me slug it out, trying to figure out who to call that has a plane. The three of us, sometimes four, with the other guy that was working with us at the time in this little office just trying to figure out who's got a plane, who do we need to go meet with? And it was just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 3:We tried to figure out a lot of different. We're trying to be very creative with revenue streams, right, like, once again, creativity and problem solving. Um, so I mean, we had, we, we had conversations with, I mean there's some funny ones out there. Um, just through the aviation network, uh, oh, there's this guy that knows I kid you, not you, you know the president of some african country and that has some jets. You know, you think it's almost like, um, like a spam letter, like one of those things of, like the deposed prince of nigeria trying to call you know, send me your bank account right.
Speaker 2:One of those emails I have a plane for you, sir yeah, but I shit you not.
Speaker 3:You know we did take that phone call and you know we tried that. Um, we even thought about, uh, buying aircraft to lease um to to potential owners. Um, but in the early days of anything you're just, you're just trying to throw it. You know you're throwing stuff up on the wall and you see what works and by doing that you you also start to realize what works and like, what's your foundation and base and for us, after about two years of wins and losses I was very good at keeping data. We had this meeting. This worked. They're a client. We had this meeting. This didn't work, they're not a client.
Speaker 3:So after about two years I was able to pull up all this data and I sat down with Dave and I said it's actually really interesting because we're batting a thousand with people that we meet with and they become clients that come from a service industry where they understand and they're looking for the service piece and not so much a commodity industry. So if we were going to take a meeting with somebody and say they come from a car dealership and they just want to know, hey, can I get fuel $0.10 cheaper from you than the other guy? You're probably not our client, because what we realize what we sell is a high-op, tempo, high-level of service product. Right, it's a white glove, 24-7 concierge type service for accounts and aircraft that are flying all the time, right? So our first client they had a G650. It's a really big plane. They flew 1300 hours a year annually. And just to put that in the reference for someone that doesn't know it, in the aviation space planes normally fly on average, that type of aircraft like 300 hours a year annually. So it's flying four times what it normally flies.
Speaker 3:And they would do trips. They'd launch out of New York, they go straight overnight to China, they do three days in China, they'd head over to Russia, then they go to Turkey, then they go back to China, then maybe they hit somewhere, they go to Milan and then they come back to, uh, new York and our pilots, uh, because they flew around the world so much we didn't care that they were all based in New York. We had a guy that lived in Europe, you know so four crew members where the plane was going. We would, um, you know, hop the crew around and make sure that they were there to relieve the other guys. So just really high up-tempo stuff for a very important guy that had to make all these meetings for his billion-dollar business. If I said the name you would know it, but it's super important.
Speaker 2:I was going to guess Taylor Swift. Yeah, no, tay-tay is not one of my clients.
Speaker 3:yet my daughter would love that, though, if I got her.
Speaker 2:That's wow, holy shit.
Speaker 3:But that's. But we realized, you know, so sorry, just to circle back. So I had realized that that's our client right. So when we go and sit down with somebody that I already know is going to say, no, it's wasting my time, which means that we can be spending that time going after people that we know do want our service, are willing to pay for that level of service. So it was just I realized that and then I started to do simple analysis from our world of like, alright, if that's the objective, what are the avenues of approach? How do I get to the guy?
Speaker 3:And I realized that there's certain gatekeepers and certain obstacles. So I realized that we actually have three main avenues of approach to get to the client, like the X right, and that's through the wealth managers, the family offices, the aviation attorneys, and then also, every now and then, just through the aviation world themselves, where maybe there's a guy that has a plane, he has a pilot. They're not happy with their current management company. On the operation side or billing side or whatever it may be, there's a problem. Just through the word of mouth and who we are and reputations, like the pilot or maybe the mechanic will know about us and be able to get us in front of them. But if we're able to make contact with one of those three, that's kind of the way to get to the client to win the deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's mission analysis all day, every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Luckily I paid attention during the 18 Alpha course.
Speaker 2:Damn, you beat me to it. Yeah, oh, mdmp for the win? Yeah, exactly, but it's like these little tools and things that we've utilized over and, over and over again and, yes, we complain about it ad nauseum all the time. You'll be surprised where you put it into into practice and in my own same here, building a business managing multiple shows never in a million years that I think I had to sit down and lean into like all, all of my warrior off my warrant officer tactics and manage time management, long-range calendar planning and I'm sitting here like doing literally long, long-range planning for podcasts and I'm like why?
Speaker 1:am I such a piece of shit?
Speaker 3:damn you damn you, chief montez oh, you're not just really taking a nap in the intel room doing warrant stuff? I don't have a skiff here if I did, I would yeah uh, no, it's true though I.
Speaker 3:I mean there's, there's so many things that you know tools of the trade that we, that made us successful. Right, and what we did is SF guys that I use. Now I hardly ever go into a client meeting without a ranger, buddy. Right, sounds stupid, sounds lame, cliche, but it's true. Because you, you know, you never walk into a room, uh, doing CD, uh, cqb, by yourself. You always want someone there to to cover you to, to watch your back, to watch his back, and you know, when you're having a client meeting with either the client, the attorneys, the wealth managers, whoever you know you're, you're, you need to be on, uh, engaged. So it's good to have somebody there that's another set of ears that can pick up on stuff and then that way, when you know you need to to pause or take a break, he can kind of pick up the rate of fire, continue the conversation, and then you're able to listen and pause and put stuff together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's man like these, these little bits of knowledge you're dropping right now, like, if you're listening, please just take a few things, take a few notes, like the book will be coming out one day.
Speaker 2:These are the mini, like officer development or NCO development. Like we don't. We don't often get that on the outside. That's why I always tell people take advantage of the honor foundation, take, take advantage of any program for transition, because lessons and and and tips like this life experience, like this this is the real gem, this is the real valuable stuff. Like you may not go into managing an aircraft business, you might not be anywhere near this, but if you listen to this it might resonate with you when you do start your business, when you do go into you know, planning for your next opportunity in the civilian world. Like this stuff is important. Like this is valuable insight that you know we don't get the PDSS on the outside unless you sit down and have a virtual cup of coffee with somebody who's doing it. Man, and that's what we need to remember.
Speaker 2:I always tell people that the brotherhood and the team room is larger on the outside because, even though we didn't serve together, like we can connect and like just a short email, say, hey, I'm, I'm a former SF dude from seventh group, you're a former chef and seventh group guy. Can we sit down and talk about running a business? Like how'd you go and approach going into the entrepreneurial space. This like how'd you go and approach going into the entrepreneurial space? That stuff's important, man. We we tend to forget how easy it is to connect with another human being and ask for information like it's. It's vital for your planning and going into the civilian world. Be willing to reach out to people linkedin super easy, like in in. In your experience, have you been able to give back and sit down with other young officers or any like soft guy that's coming out and talk to them about their next step?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, definitely. Um, I mean not in a formal setting or anything where I'm like I'm giving classes, uh, but I've had people reach out to me on linkedin. Um, I I always take the time to to chat with them about transition and, uh, helping them figure out what's next. Um, that's on. Obviously we'll talk about this too, but on the team Harrow uh podcast, uh, which this doesn't count as one, you have to come in studio for for you to be a guest on the team Harrow podcast. You have to come in studio for you to be a guest on the Team Harrow podcast. But I always talk about transition and pick people's brain about what helped them to find success during their transition. You know pitfalls of their transition, but it's something that's very personal, right? The transition process and my biggest tip that I've given to people and my friend, alex Hooper, who was just on my podcast, uh talks about it too Um, you know everything that you found enjoyment with, with being in the military you'll.
Speaker 3:You will probably never find something that fits. You know this. This, the round peg in the round hole, perfectly going from military to civilian but what you can do is find pieces of what you enjoyed in the military, um in in like your day-to-day life, right. So I loved being a team guy. I love being with the boys. I love the uh travel, I love the adventure of it, I love the just dealing, you know, learning another language, being in another culture, all of it Right. And then obviously that's not the same running an aircraft management company where you know, like this morning I'm dealing with trip sheets, like a time on a trip sheet was wrong and you know all right well why. You know it wasn't really our fault, you know it's. It's like it's stupid little putting out the fire things that you know, trying to find some sort of sense of purpose, yeah, but what you can do to take that same you know round shape that you, you enjoy everything that you enjoyed with being in the military and that sense of purpose. You can fill that up with other things outside of it, right.
Speaker 3:So, like my job is one of it. I do enjoy connecting with new people. I do enjoy solving problems. There are things in my job that I do enjoy, you know, building a company, just the problem overcoming those problems. Um, the, the uh the. Just the problem overcoming those problems.
Speaker 3:Um, my family, I enjoy my family. I enjoy watching my son become a little soccer player. I enjoy watching my daughter become a dance star. I love spending time with my wife. Um, I've become big into, you know, I've always been an athlete, so I'm still in the gym. Um, I got a bigger into, just you know, meditation in my day to day, like my faith, so like there's now all these things that you know equal the same amount of enjoyment, if not more, probably more, than I did when I was in the army, right? So you learn to find things that like fill that gap and void and realize it's not just from your nine to five, where in the army, you know, we, just everything we enjoyed was in our nine to five. And now that's not the case, but that's fine. You'll find other things to find, you know to, to find a sense of purpose and enjoyment in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, tell me about the podcast man. How'd you find yourself in this space? Well, tell me about the podcast man.
Speaker 3:How'd you find yourself in this space? Um, you know, so a lot of people had told me before, uh, a couple of things you know. They said you have an amazing story. And I I get that, I understand that, you know, from just being a an SF guy. Uh, you know, a college athlete in the military, um, getting injured, learning how to walk again, my recovery process, everything that I've kind of done up until this point and they said like, hey, you should really build your own brand. And I was like, yeah, but what does that mean? I'm not making sneakers? I don't get that, I don't get that Right. Um, I don't have like a clothing line, like what's my brand?
Speaker 3:And so I did a lot of, uh, thinking about it and I just thought that the best way to to market my brand, to to my story, um, but, but to do it in a uh, a meaningful way that also, like that I felt would also help other people and allow my story to help other people, was to create a podcast and just to do something as simple as all right, I know I was a college athlete, I know I was in the military, I was an SF guy, I know my resiliency story, I know my business, my entrepreneur, my, like the business side Um, let me bring other people on that either. Come from one of those worlds and then we'll have a conversation, because there's a lot of people out there that come from those worlds that also have gone through some really cool stuff, um, some tough stuff, you know, figured, figured it out, and I would love to hear their story as well, and I just thought it'd be beneficial, and so that's really what the idea behind the podcast was. I didn't want to narrow it and just be a veteran podcast which great veteran podcasts out there? I didn't want to just be like an aviation podcast. So I feel like I've done so much and I come from such a you know, uh, uh, a wide collective world, right From the athlete side to to where I am now and everything that I've done in between. I just I could bring someone on and just have a meaningful conversation with them and talk about some cool stuff. And, um it, the biggest, I think, success story to me doing the podcast so far is I've gotten emails from people that I know and from like total randos that I don't know, and they've all said the same thing of like, hey, I love what you're doing with the podcast, keep it up. It's. You know it was great that you had this person on, or I didn't know this, or that's so interesting. You know you're doing great stuff, and so for me, even if it's just one person that gets something out of the podcast, then it's like all right, then I, I must be doing something right. I'll just continue to kind of like march down this way, um and like develop this podcast and kind of see where it goes. So that's, that's where I'm at now and and I'll tell you this too, like, I guess, selfishly the podcast has helped me personally in two ways.
Speaker 3:First, uh, professionally, it's allowed me to become a better listener where it forces me to sit there in the beginning of the podcast. I, my episode one actually it's funny, the very first episode that I did with podcast. My episode one actually it's funny, the very first episode that I did with my friend Cam we actually cut it because it was so bad where I felt so gimmicky of like hey, what's going on. Like Denny, tell me your story. Man, like this is awesome, you know, like a radio DJ jock guy, right. So I learned from that. I've become a better listener.
Speaker 3:And then the other thing too, with doing the podcast. I would imagine you feel the same way. Having your podcast is. I learned so much from the people that I talked to on the show, where it's it's like reading a book, where it's it's you. You get such insight from these people, what they've overcome, what they've done, and there's these little nuggets of knowledge that I gain from them so selfishly. I enjoy the podcast. For that reason I haven't monetized it yet. It's still costing me money to do the podcast, but I view it as just professional development. It's great to be able to sit down and learn from these people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's um. It's amazing how people attack the medium. Like I recently had somebody posted uh, we need to, we need to. It's like it's satirical posts or we're joking, but still it's like we need to make podcasting equipment more expensive and some, for some people, illegal. I'm like like what, what's wrong with people sharing some good? Again, there's a lot of bad content out there, but if people want to get on there and put something positive out in this space, like, do it, we need more of it, not less of it. We need encouragement of it.
Speaker 3:Um you want to it. I've always said this you want to, you want to be the change that you want to see right, and so you want to be that example and that's just why I've done it and getting into it. It was intimidating at first because, all right, I want it to look good, I want it to feel right. I realized too, it's like the first time I went into the gym I had no idea what I was doing in the gym. You know like now, at 44 years old, I can walk into a gym, I know where everything is, I can look at people. I can see if they you know, I, you can tell, like, what they do, um, if they're in shape. You, you just know, right, being in a gym environment.
Speaker 3:But if I was to see Ben Harrow at, you know, 14 years old, walking to a gym, I'd be like I would see how lost I would look right, like you're just trying to figure things out and it's the same. You just you just got to get in there and start. And I got in and I started and you know the first go around was a huge F up. But I realized what I did wrong and what, how I needed to to act or say and um, it's just. I feel like it's been improving. You know every episode. Hopefully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's. It's something that you're passionate about it and you're pouring and it's in your heart's in the right place. It's not about, like I always tell people when they get into this. It's like, look, if you're looking to make fast money and you don't have notoriety, you don't have the name, brand recognition with a book deal or a huge YouTube following, like you know, bring the expectations down a little bit. Like, yeah, really, truly figure out, like you're, if you're passionate about it and what your mission is going to be with it.
Speaker 2:And if there is a mission, there is something passionate within you that you want to share, then go after it, get after it and then don't stop, keep throttling, keep doing it, keep going after it, because our veteran space is filled with negativity. I can go on YouTube and find 15 channels and all they do is destroy somebody or something. Monday quarterback this operation is destroy somebody or something. Monday quarterback this operation 15 reasons why this guy's a piece of shit, and I'm like all 15 are valid and I'm in agreeance, but let's do 15 reasons why you should get out of bed today and be a better person.
Speaker 3:like let's, let's focus on some good because, it's interesting how we're so quick to kind of eat our own. Yeah, the veteran community can sometimes be its own worst enemy at times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like I said, some are absolutely valid, some are 100% valid, but I don't need to add more fuel to the fire. My opinion is not that important when it comes to a certain person. It's not. It's really not. We all have our opinions and, at the end of the day, if somebody else has done the work and really done a really thorough job of exposing something, let them get the credibility, let them be highlighted and supported for doing the work. We don't need another. We don't need, like the youtube recaps of the recap, of the recap of the episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's too much. Where do you see?
Speaker 2:the show going. What's that? Where do you see the show going and evolving as we move forward?
Speaker 3:it's a good question. You know I, I'm I'm still kind of figuring it out. You know I, I, in my mind it's like this big bowl of clay that I'm I'm kind of molding into something. Um, I, I'd like to do, I'd like to continue to do more of them. Um, I like to get to focus Hopefully I'd like to be able to focus more on on the podcast itself. Um, but I just like to bring you know a wide range of people in and continue to kind of see where it goes. Um, I'm not looking, I don't think I'm looking to turn it into anything more than that. Um, you know, I don't know yet, but we'll, we'll see where it goes.
Speaker 2:Heck yeah, no dude, where can we find the show?
Speaker 3:Uh, so it's up on YouTube and Spotifyify and, uh, the channel is called team harrow and then my instagram uh, I've got a team harrow instagram. Um, as well, as you know, when I started the podcast, I had to start a team harrow tiktok, so I put stuff up on there also, which I think I told you. I think I threw up on my mouth a little bit when I had to start a tiktok all of us did, every last one of us are in this space.
Speaker 2:We're like fuck, I gotta start a tiktok. All of us did every last one of us are in this space.
Speaker 3:We're like fuck, I gotta start a tiktok yeah but, yeah, I just put stuff, uh shorts, uh up all the time, uh from the long version of the podcast and just trying to put stuff out that I find. I think that people find entertaining and interesting and get something out of it, whether it's like a smile and a chuckle or like a deep thought yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:We need more of that stuff. Uh and uh. How often are you dropping episodes you're doing weekly?
Speaker 3:uh, I'm doing, I record two episodes, uh, a month. I try to. So it's about two episodes a month come out, but I put content out like almost every single day, except the weekend, sometimes, just if I have life, you know.
Speaker 1:I also have a day job.
Speaker 3:I've got a family, I also like to work out, so it just it's priorities, right.
Speaker 2:You gotta live, man, you gotta live. Yeah, if you were listening right now, do me a favor ahead and hit pause on the episode. Scroll down the episode description. You'll see the links to uh team harrow's podcast. Give it a click. Give it a like, share a follow. Leave some words in there, leave a few comments, support his show, support us. Ask you to do the same thing for me. Go to the episode description, click all those links. Leave some uh nice reviews for us on apple podcast and spotify, because that's important. I never realized that until I went to Apple podcast. I'm like I've got like seven seasons and two frigging comments on here. Come on, people, help a brother out. Leave some back for me. I really appreciate it, man. I can't thank you enough for being here today. Man, thank you so much for what you're doing. Can't wait to come on your show. We have to make that happen. Um, yeah, dude, it's been a pleasure To everybody listening. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you all next time. Until then, take care.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform If you want to support us head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash SecHawk podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhallcom for exclusive content resources and updates and remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week. Thank you.
