Ep32 - Boots to Boardroom: Transitioning from the military to the business world with Davin Marceau

Coming from military service of high caliber, Davin was armed with leadership skills that enabled him to capitalize on opportunities in the civilian world. Though he is no exception to the cultural shift drama, his ability to repurpose his vision in life and translate his military experiences into the business world has made him a servant leader of the world’s leading electronic forms management company and a great storyteller.

The essentials of a successful transition from the military to the business world:

• Self-awareness of where you sit
• Objectively view the skill set that you bring to the marketplace
• Combine education and networking
• Set the expectation that nobody owes you anything
• Stop leaving your life in the rear view mirror
• Constantly seek feedback

In today’s episode of the Expert(ish) Podcast, our guest, Davin Marceau will talk about mindset, leadership, and business strategies. As a veteran of the United States Army Ranger, Davin will also discuss how the leadership mindset he acquired in the military enabled him to capitalize on opportunities in the civilian world.

Davin Marceau served the US Army Ranger for more than a decade gaining combat experience in multiple deployments. Strengthening his skillset domain through education and networking, he is now the Chief Operations Officer at ACCESS EFM, a servant leader, and the co-host of the Upward Spiral Podcast where they bring an unapologetic edge to tackling tough issues that hold people, entrepreneurs, and businesses back from reaching their full potential.

Enjoy!

In This Episode

1:47 - Backstory of Davin Marceau

9:23 - One of the biggest shortfalls of the veteran community

11:49 - How Davin translates his military experience to the business world

15:16 - How Davin capitalized on opportunities in the civilian world

19:00 - His take on some entrepreneurial books

21:27 - Davin's insights about business growth and advancement

27:03 - What some companies fail to recognize when scaling their business

29:24 - How military families are affected during the transition process

32:25 - The parallels between military and civilian family relationships

38:43 - His tips on how to transition from the military to the business side

43:38 - Davin’s emotional state after leaving the military

46:18 - What people who forget what they learned and ignore feedback have in common

49:47 - Understanding the concept of a transparent leader

Favorite Quote

"Stop living life in the rear view mirror. The second that you transition, everything is in front of you. Leverage those experiences to make you better. But repurpose that mission statement, repurpose the vision that you have for your life and understand that what made you successful at what brought you through those five combat tours is exactly what's going to make you successful in the civilian career, if you can repurpose it."

"When you go through these training opportunities and you get assigned to the ranger regiment, we practice our jobs constantly 24/7. We're sharpening our tools and our tools were for war. Our practice was training and our game time was when combat started."

"Every opportunity that I got to train, every opportunity that I got to deploy, and every opportunity that I got to work with my brothers and sisters in arms made me that much more fortunate. And it shaped me for who I am today."

"People view combat and view deployments in war as this overly complex set of objectives and skills required to be able to do it. But in reality, the functional application of that is that you strip away everything that doesn't align with your purpose, that doesn't align with the mission. And there's a beautiful level of simplicity that comes with that."

"The opportunities are in abundance for the veteran community. Just kind of have to set aside those excuses. And I took a huge gamble-step in the way. But I didn't do it blindly. I didn't do it with ignorance. I did it with networking. I did it with education and back-filled that with my leadership domain experience."

"I think wisdom is the application of knowledge and experience. And that knowledge comes from reading and that knowledge comes from practical experiences in the real world. But again, it has to be back-filled by that level of experience."

"Being advanced is the flawless execution of the basics. And part of understanding the basics is being able to baseline where you sit today through quantifiable metrics, through quantifiable data. Through quantifiable data that you can bounce off of your strategic objectives."

"How you take your business to the next level is by a thorough understanding of how it runs and why it runs."

"There were people that really kind of stripped away the stuff that didn't ...