From the Field  |  Andrey Ivanov

Your Second Phase of Service

This one is for the veterans. And the first responders. And everyone who gave the best years of their life to a mission, and then one day walked out the door into the civilian world.

You know exactly what happened next.

You walked out, and all of a sudden, you became nothing. Not to yourself at first, but to everyone around you. All that value ingrained into you. Everything you learned, everything you figured out on your own, everything you created and became under pressure most people will never experience.

And the civilian side looked at all of that and said: show up, turn this wrench, make this widget, answer these phone calls. And get paid almost nothing for all of who you are.

I’ve had this conversation with more veterans than I can count. And almost every one of them, without me even prying, says the same thing:

Good. Because I want to talk to you about your second phase of service. The greater one.

A Nation’s Strength Isn’t What You Think

In your first phase of service, you protected this country from the outside.

But a nation’s real strength has never only been its weapons. Any serious assessment of a nation’s strength looks at its people. Are the youth healthy, educated, and capable? Can the people adapt, think at a high level, create, and become more?

And by that measure, we are bleeding.

We tolerate families being ripped apart. We let the veteran come home with wounds nobody can see and figure it out alone. We let the young mom navigate trauma with no one equipping her. We watch boys grow up with no one building them, and then act surprised at what they become.

Every one of those kids is going to be something. The next entrepreneur, the next inventor, the next healthy father, the next community leader. Or the next disaster. The difference, in a shocking number of cases, is whether anyone showed up to build them.

The Kids Are Hungry for What You Have

Here’s what I tell veterans, and I mean every word:

You have no idea how big of a deal you are, and how significantly you have been placed. There is a generation of young people who are hungry, who are dying for exactly what you carry. The discipline. The standards. The calm under pressure. The brotherhood. The refusal to quit.

Nobody on the civilian side ever told you that what you carry is rare. It is. And there are kids who will be changed for the rest of their lives because you decided your service wasn’t over.

When veterans see this, something lights up in them that nothing else has touched since they took off the uniform. Because this gives them the one thing the wrench and the widget never could: purpose.

Where You Fit, Starting at Your Capacity

Now, I know the vision sounds enormous. It is. So let me break it down into doors you can actually walk through, right at your current capacity.

Become an instructor. We have the program material for the Spartan Challenge, the Spartan Executive Course, and Junior Warrior training. Based on your skills, qualifications, and availability, we invite people into instructing future courses. There is more work in this country than there are people to do it. We could run for the next ten years and not fill the gap, which is why we train leaders and send them right back into where they already live.

Launch where you are. You don’t need to move. The vision is to bring the training to your community, and back you properly while you do it. That includes a dedicated team pursuing national, state, and local grants to fund programs right where they start. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, and here’s a truth nobody says out loud: you’re either a great grant writer or a great instructor. It is seldom anyone is both. So we’re building it so you don’t have to be.

Keep building yourself. This is not a volunteer treadmill. As you pour into others, you’re part of a tribe that’s equipping you toward your own aspirations too: professional growth, launching a business, instructing in your own craft, whether that’s tactical training, driving, climbing, boating, or something else entirely. Independent, not dependent. On your own time, earning your own dime.

Stay sharpened. Leaders gather quarterly. Annually, everyone comes together for something bigger. You’ll have accountability and a community of people who want to see your best self and look out for your best interests. The one thing you are not allowed to do here is stop growing.

The Only Requirement

Notice what’s not on that list: a rank, a resume, or a bank account.

The requirement is that you’re a builder. That you want to see your team win, not just yourself. That you haven’t “arrived” and you’re not done growing. Everything else, we can work with.

Your first phase of service ended. It was never supposed to be your last.

The kids are waiting. Your tribe is waiting. And honestly, so is the version of you that’s been sitting on the sidelines wondering if that was it.

— Andrey Ivanov