One thing I have discovered through my military transition is that it\u2019s so much more than just taking off the uniform and putting on a business suit. It requires a change in mindset. When you\u2019ve been immersed in the military culture for the vast majority of your adult life, the civilian sector looms large and intimidating. The structure you were used to is nowhere to be found, and your rank is irrelevant. You are no longer sergeant, major, colonel so-and-so; now you\u2019re Mr., Ms., or Mrs. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s talked about enough, but that can really mess with your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently attended a seminar that addresses this very thing. It was created by Annie Brock, the CEO and founder of the Leader Transition Institute. LTI\u2019s tentpole seminar is called \u201cChanging Focus: Moving from We to Me.\u201d It\u2019s a 3-day virtual seminar that forces its students to examine their purpose, their vision, their strengths and talents, and ultimately come out of the experience more aware of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had the pleasure to sit down with Annie and discuss LTI and Changing Focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leah Kilpatrick (LK): Tell me a little about your background.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Annie Brock (AB):<\/b> I\u2019ve had a military ID card my entire life, because I was a military kid. I spent nearly 10 years in the Army, active duty. Nine years and nine months on active duty. And then I spent just over two years in the Reserve, in the inactive Reserve. I was one of the first 100 enlisted women assigned to the 82nd [Airborne Division] back in 1979. I received a direct commission through the Medical Service Corps and then went to flight school and became a Medevac pilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK:<\/b> What year was it when you transitioned out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB:<\/b> 1988, I left active duty on September 30th, 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK:<\/b> I know that your starting LTI had a lot to do with the way that your transition happened for you. So can you tell me what is the Leader Transition Institute and why did you start it?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB: <\/b>The Leader Transition Institute is a 501(c)3 that is actually an umbrella under which we could put a myriad of programs. We have LTI with Changing Focus: Moving From We to Me underneath it. And the way I came to develop the program was that I was at a personal development weekend in 2016, and I was challenged to put on paper what my dream would be to create. That was the program. In a lot of respects, it\u2019s tailored after that weekend. I realized that veterans could benefit from the same kind of thought process that we were going through that weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK: What can people expect to get from Changing Focus?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB:<\/b> When I transitioned, there were no transition programs. I was a captain in the Army on the 30th of September, and I was an Air Force spouse on October 1st, and there was nothing to prepare me for it. There was absolutely zip, and it was like going off a cliff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was active in the veteran community, and I saw what the military was offering. I realized that what they were offering solved the problem that the Department of Defense had, but it didn\u2019t solve the problem that servicemembers had. DOD saw that it was paying a ton of money to the States in unemployment to replace the unemployment compensation that was paid to the servicemembers. And DOD aimed to make sure that the service members got jobs, so that DOD didn\u2019t have to pay that money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Service members were struggling to get jobs, struggling in jobs, and struggling to stay in jobs, because they really didn\u2019t understand how to change what\u2019s in their brain. I thought, \u201cOK, we need to start by getting people to understand this and by getting them to focus on who they were as human beings, because we give that up when we join the military.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would talk to people and ask \u201cwhy do you want to do that job?\u201d And they would say, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know. I just need a job, and I can do that job.\u201d But they didn\u2019t understand that it was important for a fulfilling life to know what they brought to the world. So, what I realized was that servicemembers were struggling, because they were just going after jobs because they thought they could do the job. And that caused them to struggle in job interviews because they couldn\u2019t articulate very well what they brought to the table. Some of my husband\u2019s friends were in three or four jobs in the first four years after they retired from the military because they weren\u2019t happy in life because they didn\u2019t get who they were. When I look at our alumni over these last four years from Changing Focus, I would say that very few people have cycled through jobs. I don\u2019t have exact specifics, but I\u2019ve watched and very few people have cycled through jobs because they know what they\u2019re looking for and who they are. When they go after something, they know the kind of life they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other thing where I saw people struggle, and I struggled myself because I didn\u2019t understand my purpose: We communicate based on rank and position in the military. That doesn\u2019t work necessarily in the civilian sector. And sometimes we don\u2019t communicate as well with our families, because we\u2019re coming from how we communicate at work. So I thought that was something that people could benefit from learning about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a method to the madness of what we cover in the order that we cover it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK: It really forces you to look inside yourself and find what am I good at? What are my strengths? What is my purpose? What is my vision? Where do I want to see myself? And it really forces you to really be honest with yourself.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB:<\/b> Because when you\u2019re leaving the military, in the Transition Assistance Program, nobody really forces you to do that work. You don\u2019t get asked those questions in that same way. And if you are asked the questions, it\u2019s like \u201cdid you do this?\u201d And you say yes. And there\u2019s a checklist. In Changing Focus, we ask you to do the work and then we say what did you write down? When we have to be accountable to ourselves and other people when actually doing the work, that\u2019s important. And we have to speak this stuff out loud. If we just write stuff down on a piece of paper, it doesn\u2019t bring it to the light the same way that speaking words out loud brings things to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK: Going through my transition, there\u2019s DOD\u2019s transition assistance program, right? And it does what it does. But then there are all these other organizations, like VFW and DAV and Hire Our Heroes \u2026 and all these organizations that have these various different transition programs to help servicemembers make the transition. What makes Changing Focus unique?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB:<\/b> What makes Changing Focus unique is that we are not focused on getting you a job. We don\u2019t exist to help people get jobs. We exist to help people live their best life possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LK: I got so used to being Sergeant First Class Kilpatrick that I forgot who Leah Kilpatrick was, you know? And so a program like this is absolutely necessary, and you\u2019re absolutely right that TAP is good for what it\u2019s good for. I mean, it gets you a job, it teaches you how to write a resume, all those things. But it doesn\u2019t teach you that you\u2019re more than your rank and your position.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
AB:<\/b> As I looked at the other programs, I didn\u2019t see that they did that either. They just helped you get a job, but you didn\u2019t do the work \u2014 the individual, the inside work, the head work, the hard work. It\u2019s a combination of head and heart work. And it\u2019s scary work to think about who I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To learn more about LTI and Changing Focus, go to https:\/\/www.leadertransitioninstitute.org\/<\/a> and follow LTI on LinkedIn at https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/leader-transition-institute\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Q&A with Annie Brock, CEO and founder of the Leader Transition Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":106290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,7,23,89,26,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3351],"class_list":["post-72710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-education-transition","category-home","category-middle-column","category-newsletters","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"Annie Brock draws on her own experiences to help veterans understand that there\u2019s more to the transition to civilian life than just finding a job. ","legacy_arc_id":"XM7YYMBTJJHVHDYZYVH336A64M","arc_canonical_url":"\/education-transition\/2023\/02\/17\/qa-annie-brock-ceo-and-founder-leader-transition-institute\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n