He Lost His Job at the Pentagon. He Moved to Mexico. No Regrets.

Welcome to Life Between Titles. I'm your host, Savan, and today I've got my good friend, Brett. Brett, what is up? How are you doing?

I'm doing well, how about yourself, Savannah?

Man, you know, it was like 70 degrees yesterday here and today it's just pouring rain. So pretty typical for the Pacific Northwest, man. What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in Mexico just about 30 minutes south of Guadalajara. It's it's gonna be almost 90 today. think so

Nice.

Way to rub it in, Oh, man. We're definitely going to dive into your time in Mexico and what brought you there. But before we get into that journey, man, tell me a little bit about the types of things that people that are retired do on a day-to-day basis. Like, you've recently gotten this new role of retirement. What does that look like your first? you know, a couple months your first year.

well, the last year I've spent preparing for this. mean, I I would say that while I haven't been working for a year, I've been working on my own, assets so that I can retire. so, but now, I'm here, more permanently. and it's, get up in the morning, walk over to the store.

Right.

Grab some food, come back, cook, do some work around the yard, get in the pool in the afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of work.

Yeah.

Sounds horrible. Sounds fucking horrible.

man, do you get food every morning? Is that sort of like the MO there? Is that how it works?

not, not necessarily. but, we, we don't spend a lot of, or we, we don't hoard food like we do in the States. You know, I mean, it's convenient that I can find anything within a two block radius that I need. so going to get the food is, is part of why I moved here, right. Is so I don't know, I don't have a car. I know I'm getting older.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know I need to move. So walking is important. So we go to the store every day. Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. That's awesome, man. That's like you guys are you guys are both are great cooks and great chefs. The the thing that's interesting to me about being in a location where good quality food is so accessible is that it's so rare in the world where you have that accessibility, but you also have good quality and ingredients. And but for you guys, did you pick this place specifically for that or was it like for other things?

Uh, we picked it for the climate. Um, it's, it's, um, like we, we first looked at Puerto Vallarta and we went there and stayed in the worst time with summer, um, to see if we could live through it. And the humidity just killed us. Um, and that's when we started looking elsewhere and this is at 5,000 foot elevation. So, uh, yeah, it, doesn't get too humid.

Okay.

yeah.

Mm.

I see.

It doesn't get too cold. Right. So it's, it's a really good balance. And then finding out that like, if you buy berries in the States, they were likely grown here in, in Ajijic. Yeah. And a truck drives down our street almost every morning and we'll sell you three like quart containers of berries for a hundred pesos, which is like between five and six bucks.

Really? Okay.

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, like the fresh fruit, the fresh vegetables are it's like, I feel like I'm much more healthy because of it.

I'm sure. mean, the walking and the cooking good ingredients and the accessibility, you're definitely healthier. You're probably healthier than like 99 % of the people on the planet, dude.

I don't know what Monsanto is doing to our food in the States, I think it's really screwing us up.

Really? Thanks. Yeah, I was talking to Pam the other day, shit, she talks about this every day, it seems like, with the obliteration of the quality of food and food in general in America and what that's doing to us. And comparing that to the other countries, it just makes us look horrible, like just top to bottom, you know?

Well, that's the capitalist environment that we live in, right? The fact that they're allowing, like in Mexico, they don't have high fructose corn syrup in their drinks.

Yeah, that's why their Coke is much better. God dang. Man, man. I wanna dive into a little bit about you being in Mexico and just a different country. Let's not even just put it like Mexico, but like a different country. But before we get into that, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, Brett. I've known you for many, many years, but for people that...

Yeah, 100%.

don't know you and don't know the backstory, where'd you grow up?

Well, you wouldn't know it by looking at me. I'm a quarter Filipino. I was born in the Philippines. two years... Malay-Balay. I spent two years there. I spent a short period of time in Mexico City. Then four and a half years in Brazil. Moved back to the States because my father was ill. And...

Uh-huh.

lived in Los Angeles, which is where I Danielle through high school. And then we got married and decided we didn't want to raise our kids in LA. So we moved to Seattle, which was an awesome move. If I'm to look back at it, that was a good choice for us. And then recently moved here to Mexico.

Yeah.

Dang, that's a whirlwind, man. And the thing I find so fascinating about your story is that every single one of these stops you've had are so vastly different. Like Philippines, Mexico City, Brazil, LA, Seattle, Mexico, mean, going back to Mexico sort of makes sense. But for the most part, none of it, you know, none of it really tracks in terms of a pattern. What was the through line for all these things for you? How did you like choose, you know, where eventually you would go next?

Yeah, well, in my early stages, it wasn't my choice, right? So it was my parents. But, you know, that is, I believe that is some of the experience that I had that made me much more receptive to moving outside of the country, moving to a, I wouldn't say higher, like lower income level, right? Where your neighbors aren't as wealthy as your neighbors were in the States, right?

Right.

Yep.

that not being scary, like we're taught in this, in the States, that, people, lower income people are scary. They're going to steal from you. Right. That's, that's, that's not the case here in Mexico. I'm, I'm less afraid here than I was in my suburban Seattle.

Yeah.

You're right.

Yeah, well the suburbs of Seattle is getting pretty bad nowadays. Who are we kidding, man? It's getting pretty wild out there. Dude, yeah, mean the thing about the influence of your parents that you were talking about, you had no choice essentially when you were a kid, which we don't, but the influence that our parents have on us.

Yes.

It's so impactful. Did you remember living in Mexico and Brazil? Like, do you remember that climate? Is that sort of why you guys went back there? Was that sort of like an independent, you know, assessment altogether?

a little bit, a little bit. mostly, so Danielle's, got Latin background. Her, her, great grandmother was born in Jalisco. so she's always felt a little, connection, bigger connection to Mexico than I've felt. so that, that was the big reason why we chose Mexico that the time zone, you know,

Mhm.

the distance, if those weren't a factor, I think we might have moved to Thailand. I love the Thai. We went there, Thailand's amazing. The food is delicious, the people are great, but Mexico's a good second.

Yeah.

Yeah, mean Mexico's relatively speaking not that far. The thing about the thing about moving to Mexico versus Thailand is I feel like both of them are pretty well westernized in that there's a shitload of tourists. They're used to Americans. There's a lot there that is foreign but still feels familiar, you know. It's not like you're moving to, you know, I don't know, like Sudan or something like that, like something wild. you know, when you guys set up shop and decided to, to move there, what were some of the big things you were worried about? you know, splitting your time between America and Mexico.

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like the move was a slow progression. initially started, but we had Danielle's parents living in our home with us and they were financially, they were going negative on their financial accounts. And so we moved them originally to Puerto Vallarta

Yeah. Yeah.

because they just couldn't afford to live in Seattle. And then we tried, like I said, we tried that six months and that's when we found Ahi'ihi. We bought a place here in Ahi'ihi. They're living in the house with us, separate spaces, but in the same property. And our longer term goal was, we'll retire here someday.

Yeah.

Right?

And, you know, what happened last year around this time where I lost my job made us reconsider. Like, can we cut our finances? Can we afford to retire? There wasn't, for us, there wasn't a lot of pause in doing it. And I think, for me, I think it's

Yeah.

It's because I have that experience in other countries that it was fairly simple and didn't have to have too much pause. There was some concern, some of the usual concerns of like, is it safe? Puerto Vallarta definitely there, you know, there was a couple of tweakers walking on the streets and stuff, but overall, like very safe. And then moving here, it's just, just not much more like this is like

Yep.

Right. Is it really? Huh.

apparently like expat capital of the world yeah yeah we didn't we didn't know that coming into it but there's which is good because services is a is the thing right like if you can't find the things you want you may not might not be happy there are we don't go there much but there are stores here that cater to to expats have stuff

it.

Right.

Thanks.

Canada, I have stuff from the States, you're gonna pay more for them. That's why we don't stop there. I think the one thing we get there is Jasmine rice. can't get, like the other rice here in Mexico is just, is a little different and tastes a little different. And like, so that's the one we splurge on. But most everything else is like, we buy it locally from the people around the corner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow, dude, that's, yeah, I wonder the accessibility to like other ingredients that's not, you know, local to that area. How hard would that be to get? I mean, I'm specifically, I'm thinking like Asian food stores. Are there any Asian food stores there?

There are in Guadalajara. They're small. It's not like H Mart, which that's maybe our biggest bummer. Like sushi is a problem. Because I think you know, I've learned how to make sushi over the pandemic. I have not been able to find anything here to do that with. In Port of Bayarta, I was able to get like

Okay, okay

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I was able to get like mahi mahi and sea bass. So I'm still trying to think through how I could get fish from the ocean here close by. Haven't done too much research, but yeah, that's a challenge. I can still get like the store I was telling you about, I can get like fish sauce and rice noodles and like things to make. Danielle makes pho.

Right?

Yeah.

There's an online store called Marcato Libre, which there's Amazon as well, but we've tried to stay away from Amazon. So Marcato Libre is similar. You can get almost anything you can think of off of there. So that helps.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm

Awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome, man. Brett, I wanna circle back a little bit to the discussion of the forced retirement, because I know that's top of mind for a lot of people that listens to this show. let's rewind a little bit to our time. Most recently, we both worked at DDS at the Pentagon for many years. We both spent probably, I would say like, maybe the last part of DDS was the wildest time with the pandemic and trying to figure shit out like during the pandemic. And it was like very crazy in the days that led up to the pandemic. And then also like the change in our lives. and the livelihood and how we work and all that stuff. And then like most recently, we saw that pendulum swing back the other way to the return to office, you know, to a different administration to all these things that have sort of shifted and impacted both of our lives in terms of work. You know, the for you that last, whatever it was, maybe like the last two years since we didn't work with each other the last two years, maybe three years, like what was that like for you after you had left DDS and tell me a little bit about sort of like your journey from, you know, maybe the last part of DDS to where you are now.

Sure, yeah, that was tough. Like I spent, I think three and a half years trying to convince leadership that they should figure out how to extend the terms, because I would have stuck around. I really enjoyed that work. So that was tough. I took a job at CDAO, which was the parent at the time. And I look back at it now and I feel like,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was pretty much a waste of my time.

Yeah, I mean for the people that don't know, maybe let's give the audience a little bit of background on how that all happened and what that looks like that don't know the defense space as well as we do.

Sure, yeah. Well, I guess I could go back and cover some of the other things you talked about, which is the pandemic and stuff. started basically, I started November of 19, but then took a month and went to Thailand and probably brought back the pandemic with me because we went through China. And then, you know, basically spent the month of January in

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Mm hmm.

in DC to get to know DDS. And then within like three months we were on lockdown and that was, yeah, that was a big shock. But back then DDS reported to the secretary of defense and had some pretty extraordinary powers that they could use or leverage that they use to try to get

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

technology organizations to ship, which was great. and over the, three and a half years or so that I was at DDS, we slowly lost those, lost them or gave them up. It was a combination there of the leadership shifted a little bit. and things were taken away and then towards the end,

Right.

Well, CDAO was created. and when they created CDAO, they put DDS within CDAO. I believe that was because, there was controversy. There was things that happened within DDS that, you know, caused leadership problems. And they were like, well, these are my problem children, which DDS was one along with Jake and all the.

Right.

Yep. yeah. We ruffled a lot of feathers. Like, we definitely did. You know.

Yep. Yep. And I think I personally, I enjoyed that ruffling feathers part. And I think the newer leadership didn't necessarily appreciate it as much. And so, you know, yeah, it was an interesting time.

you

Yeah, no, definitely was. mean, the evolution of the organization was both slow and fast, like relative to a typical DoD agency office. The way that DDS started to how it ended was such a dramatic decline in terms of both responsibilities, stature, uh, impact, you know, you name it across the board. And it was for people that have been there for the entire term, like, like you and I, you don't like to be, to be able to see sort of like that decline, uh, was really sad. And right now, you know, the way it stood with the absorbing of DDS into CDIO, it's, felt to me a little bit, and that's actually when I had left was it. felt like they were just like putting this like baby in the corner and just like saying to be quiet and behave. For you when that that shift happened what was your initial like thoughts of all that?

Well, for me, well, I thought it was kind of terrible. But I do think like, if I look back at it, I mean, they definitely could have done it differently. But what they were trying to achieve, I think, was to kind of make CDAO a larger, a bigger DDS. But I don't think they knew how to do that. So...

Yeah.

Yeah.

what they did didn't work. Of course, we were the rebels and trying to get the rebels to teach the people who had been around and Jake and, and Ivana and stuff how to operate like DDS. The people just weren't receptive to it. That's why, like I said, the two last two years were kind of a waste of my time. I did

Mm-hmm.

I advised them on AI projects and most of my advice was ignored. And, you know, I was pretty powerless. I was a CTA contractor. So, and if I look back at it now that I've decided that I'm retiring or that I've retired, I think it would have been great to have done it two years earlier and just leave at the top of my career instead of, you know, having those last two years be.

right.

kind of mediocre.

Yeah, so maybe a little bit of clarification for the listeners. So when Brett and I were at DDS, we both had come in from private industry at a certain level. were both GS-15 step 10, which essentially just means we're on this general schedule of Employment, full-time employment. A lot of people think that we are contractors. I hear that pretty often where I'm like, I work for the Department of Defense. They're like, are you a contractor? Well, no, we're full-time civilian employees. when we came in, it was very flat in terms of an organization. Literally everybody except for the deputy and the director were GS-15 employees. Or if you were detailed over on a military billet of some sort, then you kept whatever you had. And then when you guys switched over to CDAO, it was the same thing. Explain to the audience what a CIDA contractor is and how that's different than what you had when you were with DDS and CDAO.

Yeah, CETA contractor is basically a technical advisor. I think Congress created those right for people to come in from industry and advise the DOD. So that's what it is. That's the difference between being full time and CETA is that you are just an advisor. Whoever you're advising,

Yep.

is at least in my case was my manager. And at the end of the day, you give advice and they can listen to it or they could not. that's, and there's not much you can do about it. In DDS, we had a little bit more power. As long as we had our leadership backing us, we could do kind of whatever we wanted.

Right.

Yeah.

For me, that's where I thrive, is in that environment where my management trusts me and allows me to just go get shit done.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely, man. When did you officially transition to be a Cedar contractor from CDAO.

That was June, I guess, 23 now. Yeah, yeah.

Almost three years in, huh?

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. Did your four-year billet end exactly then? Is that when you transitioned? Or what that look like?

No, I knew the end was coming. And so the opportunity came up. I forget how, I know Joe at the time was leading the organization. wasn't CDAO yet. Joe Larsen, yeah, yeah. And somehow I think I did some.

Yeah.

It's Joe Larson. Yeah.

And as DDS some initial, we did an initial discovery for one of the projects I ended up supporting. We did a discovery on it. And then I reached out to him. was like, hey, you know, my time is about to end. you know, if you guys have a spot for me, I'd be open to continuing to work. I'd like to stick around the DOD. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Did that, did that work out when you reached out?

Yeah, it did. I mean, he almost immediately was like, yeah, let's find a place for him. And, and, and hooked me up with the company, seated contractor, contacting company at the time. And it was pretty quick. Yeah, they hired me on.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Interesting. You know, I would have thought and like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would have thought that they could have somehow shifted you into another another civilian full time civilian role versus the contractor role. But I don't know how many billets they had open or things like that terms of headcount. Like, was that something that you were interested in doing?

I would have been, except for what I knew was that I couldn't work for Mexico, which is so weird to me. Like the DOD has installations all over the world. Why is Mexico a forbidden place to work from is beyond me. So I knew that was the case and I knew that I wanted to be able to work here. My initial plan was part-time, be here to support Danielle's parents, and then part-time in Seattle. So I knew that wouldn't work from a full-time perspective. So I specifically told them that I was interested in a CETA contract role.

Yeah.

okay, okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, I don't know why we have some of these rules that we have and they're very, it seems like they're very random at times. And especially the way that we were working, like don't think there was anything that would have impacted the security of the work, because we were all over the world, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, we traveled everywhere and we did anything that the job required. And I'm wondering like for, for Mexico, there were certain things that had happened in the past. It wasn't like you working from Iran, right? Or some bullshit like that. shit, I didn't know that that was the case, man. I actually just thought that you preferred to be a contractor versus a full-time employee continuing it out. Huh.

No, I would have continued though. It would have been nice to actually get the retirement. Another year and a half and I would have qualified I think five years in you get something. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, our, buddy Jeff was able to finagle that by, by moving over to, what is it? he did, he was over with transportation. feel like Jeff Clark, transcom. That's right. Yeah. He was able to finagle some drug deal to get him over there so he could retire, which I thought was like, exceptionally smart.

Transcom. Mm-hmm.

because he was right on that line as well. Huh, interesting.

yeah.

Yeah, it's weird. Like, go look at the State Department. What's the State Department has to say about Mexico? it's all fear. I wonder if they're just trying to prevent people from wanting to move to Mexico. They're trying to keep the dollars in the States because like,

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck that's all about because you would think that one, Americans being in Mexico, whether they're moving there or just traveling there would be a great thing because they're spending money in a place that probably like what's the population of of or percentage of tourism dollars in Mexico? Like, is it a pretty huge?

it's yeah, I mean, that's that's I haven't looked up the details, but it's got to be significant because that's that's the majority of their where their income comes from. Right. Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, all of the big ones. Yeah.

Right.

Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it's funny how the Department of State is communicating that. And I wonder if that's intentional or not.

Maybe they've not been here to experience it themselves, so they're just as afraid as, like, you hear the cartel stuff and it's like, well, I grew up in LA, there was crypts and bloods, like, that wasn't safe either. Don't go through Watts. You know, just be smart. I think it's the same here. Just don't go to the places that are more scary.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. mean, don't go to scary places. Don't buy random drugs from random people in the streets. Like, pretty basic.

Yeah, yeah, just just common sense stuff. It's not really that difficult. Or scary.

Right, right, right. Right. Fuck man. That's hilarious. Brett, when you were a CETA contractor, tell me about that, because that sounds like that was maybe the decline of your experience with the DOD. What was that working relationship like? How many hours did you work? what were some of the most painful things about it, what were some of the good things about it?

Yeah, it was. I mean, it wasn't all bad. There was, I mean, we made a few trips out to Florida. The person that I was working directly with, well, they changed people multiple times. similar to like at Microsoft, like the contractors are the constant and the FTEs move around a lot. Yeah, so that happened, which, you know,

Yeah.

It's the same thing where you got to educate your management kind of thing. All in all, it was good. I I felt like we did some good work. We got connected with the customer and we're working towards. But the decisions that were made much earlier on before any of the people I worked with were there, that's some of the stuff I advise. Like we should change.

Mm-hmm.

who we're working with and how this is being done, because it was all being done custom and costing more money than it should cost, that kind of thing. I advised them to like, there's cost products that we could be using that could make more sense. And the customer ended up rejecting the work because of that. Because the...

Yeah. Yeah.

because the vendor was basically locked in. And that's classic DDS stuff that we fought against, And unfortunately, we were not able to, I wasn't able to, it was just me at that point. I was not able to convince them to make the change. And the problem was that, and I understand why they didn't do it to some extent. The problem was is I worked for the company that was, as a CETA contractor that I was pitching we could use their product. So they saw it as a conflict of interest for me that I would never do that. I actually believed it was a good product that would have worked and not cost a lot of money. But I understand. I think they don't.

Right, right.

Yeah.

understand or they didn't understand the relationship a CETA contractor has with the company they work for. Right. For me, I had no connection to the company other than they were passing through money from the government to me. So I kind of get why they they decided no, but it's unfortunate.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that that that's gotta be frustrating. I mean, especially going from going from being in an organization in a position where you do have influence, sometimes maybe one could argue a little too much influence. Where we're like, hey, the sect have signed this letter or this memo, like we're coming in there, right? Like, some sometimes that backfired. But other times, you know, It worked out very well. So going from that to then the CEDA position as a contractor, just from a mindset perspective, how did that affect you? Did you take anything away from the experience of that transition between this influential position to now somebody who just gives advice and they can take it or they can leave it?

Um, for me, it wasn't, it wasn't a big surprise. Um, and that, and that's because I, so my, my, came from Microsoft before going to DDS, me. And, um, and I was, uh, I was a contractor often there. In fact, uh, more, more often than I spent my 20 years at Microsoft, but, uh, 15 of those were probably contract.

Mm-hmm.

I didn't know you were a contractor there that long. I thought it was only like five or six years.

So I've been in that position.

No, I first like four years and then my last year were full time. And then everything else in between was contract work. Yeah, which for me worked out. I loved the contract work, especially when I got the most recent. Well, most recently I worked on like Xbox dot com stuff and that was

Right?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I got to build a team. got to like do some really fun things, compete with offshore vendors and actually win because we had better processes and things like that. So I've enjoyed being a contractor at least most of the time. And so I knew what I was getting into. So it wasn't a big surprise. But yes, you're right. Like it to go from having

Yeah.

to be able to basically make my own decisions in DDS, you know, with the support of my leadership to just advising was interesting. And it was much more of a consulting role versus the contract jobs I had at Microsoft were contracted to do something, to deliver a thing. And this was more like

Right.

.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. mean, it's, it's one of those things where if I were in your position, I don't know how I would handle that. I don't know if I would be disgruntled or if I would just be happy as fuck because like after

I guess I worked for a consulting company or something.

you know, running uphill for years and now all sudden you're just like, all right, I'm here just to advise. I don't know how I would feel. Generally, how were you taking it? Like were you, cause you'd said those last two years were somewhat of waste. But generally, how'd you take it? Yeah.

Yeah, it was frustrating. It was frustrating for sure. But it was a little bit of both. was a little bit of like, okay, it's not it's, you know, it's not on my shoulders, the success of this, right. So if you guys want to not listen and, and just continue to do what you're doing. I felt like it's gonna fail, which it did. So

Yes.

Right. Right.

and it's not my fault, I tried. But it's unfortunate, like the amount of money that was spent on these projects is not insignificant. But that's the reason that the customer, because the ultimate goal was to transition it over to the customer and the customer was like, well, you can transition it to me, but I'm not going to do it. Because the way you guys did it, it's too expensive.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah, I remember that. I remember that. What was the last six months of that like? actually, before you answer that question, were you on a time limit for the contract or was it like a long-term thing?

I, it was, it was there to support the project I was working on. and then when that project ended and they decided not to keep it, I reached out to one of the people with CDA. sorry. I can't remember. I think it was, I was working through who my manager was at the time. I was like, I'm interested in still sticking around. and.

Yeah.

different leadership at the time. They ended up putting me on Advana, which I thought could have been interesting. But then they decided to put me under somebody new coming in from the private sector. And that was just a nightmare.

Yeah.

that was like micro telling me what to do. I'm like, sorry, I'm a CETA contractor. I'm here to advise not to be your personal employee.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had so many changes over the last six years at the DOD in so many different ways. with the administration change, that was, that was huge, but also just the, the organization. I mean, we're looking at another change or it did happen, right? Like we went from DDS. reporting the sec-def to then DDS, a part of CDAO who did report to the sec-def, they reported to the deputy, which by the way, I actually very much respect Dr. Hicks as a deputy. I've had a ton of deputies that we worked under. I think she's probably one, if not the best. But then you had now CDAO under R &E. So DDS is like now, three tiers behind or three steps behind reporting to the deputy. And at some point you start to think about the value of the talent that's there and the experience and expertise of these people that raise their hand from industry and say, I wanna sign up and serve the country in the way that I do. For you like, how did you approach your time in the Department of Defense? Maybe not as a contractor, because that's probably, you know, maybe a big shift, but like when you came in and signed up and started working there, what was like your general approach to the work that you signed up for?

well, that's interesting because like my I came in and I was kind of in awe. was like, it's that whole imposter syndrome thing, right? Like I'm like, dude, there's some crazy people in this organization.

yeah.

Do you remember the first time we talked about it?

Yeah, I do. do. man.

man. And did it live up to those expectations or what? Like what did that look like?

It did. And I feel bad for the people that came in during COVID and then kind of even after that, like I was at least fortunate enough to like get that experience of like in the office with like 20 people in the office and like just the energy in there was awesome. The camaraderie was just was great. And then, you know, just like we were fighting the system together. right? And it was so yeah, my initial like I came in very, just I wanted to observe because I just yeah, that that imposter syndrome of like, I'm not even sure I feel like I belong here. Which which was crazy. And you know, I get it, like, a lot of people have said it right that that it's it is kind of overwhelming to come in and like these people have done

yeah. yeah.

At least you feel like they've done great things, right? And so am I going to be able to, to, you know, measure up to, to what they've, what they've been done or what their leadership might expect of me. so that was, that was kind of crazy. and, interesting at the same time, like to come in and see that it was, it was pretty awesome. I feel bad for the people that started later and didn't actually get to have that experience.

Yeah.

Um, and, that might've been, I mean, part of COVID might've been the start of the decline of DDS. I mean, other than the, you know, the, things that DDS got investigated for.

Right

Yeah.

There's a lot of it. That's a lot of things. Yeah, I I interviewed, I interviewed Katie Savage, our good friend Katie Savage yesterday and we were one of the things we talked about was the this shock that that you have walking into an organization like the D.O.D. and the culture that's embedded there and it's not like

Yeah, yeah.

you know, you walk into work in an Airbnb or fuck even take like a Google or some massive company where there's there's there's a culture that people know about, like you're talking about the military that is essentially representative of the entirety of America and that culture that's been there for, you know, the entirety of the country pretty much. And And then trying to figure out what the fuck you're going to do when you show up and make sure you don't make any mistakes. And I feel like that was probably the hardest thing for me, even to the very end. You know, how you address people, right? Where do you sort of push the boundaries of that versus respecting, you know, the culture that and traditions has been there? How do you write? How do you communicate in general? Like it's very, very different than coming from industry. And That was like to me the biggest shock of all the things is how that all works. Like there was one meeting I was in, I can't remember where it was, maybe Afghanistan with Sky DeMiller, General Miller. And I didn't know the etiquette and you know, there's a table and I just go there and we all sit down. Literally I know you had to still stand up until, you know, like he sits down and then you're like, okay, I can sit down too, but that. It's just simple shit like that was so fucking foreign, man. And I feel like for us having that and knowing and experiencing that was probably the thing that had kept me there the longest. And you can't do that over COVID and over remote. Like it's impossible. It's impossible.

Yeah. Very much so. Those in-person meetings, were, yeah, interesting. I was working on a project at DCSA and wore my DDS sweatshirt and I had had him boarded on the side, get shit done. And the deputy at DCSA was...

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

And Scooter went with me at that time and he dropped the F-bomb at one point. And it was clear that this guy was a little more clean cut. Yeah, that was an interesting meeting.

you

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

man. Brett, I want to talk a little bit about maybe the forward-facing things. Things that you're excited about. Things that you're doing right now that gives you little bit of hope. As you are now in this retirement mode and you're thinking about how you want to spend your days. Were there things that had happened over the last year and a half or two years as you were prepping for retirement that either gave you anxiety or stress that puts you in a position now to be more prepared? Like were there instances, projects, conversations that you were just like, fuck, I don't know if I could be ready for retirement or I don't know if this is going to fuck me up. You know, when I do want to retire and that you'd worked on. that is making you as successful as you are now that you're sort of over that hump.

Yeah, I mean I think the choice of Mexico was was the biggest worry for me Just because I knew we could you know, it would be a challenge working from well, I wouldn't be able to as a full-time Government employee and I knew it was up to Whoever my manager was on whether it would be okay to come here and you know every time I had to

Yeah.

Every time I traveled to Mexico, I had to report it to my security manager, but that was the security manager at the company I worked for, not the government security manager. And I think that's where, like I reported everything. I did everything I was supposed to do. And I think there was miscommunication somehow somewhere there, which is probably how I ended up losing my job, which fine. Like, again, I'm happy.

Yeah, what a pain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right? That all of it was was kind of scary, like just just to lose the job in general, right? To be like, I wasn't planning on retiring. You know, so it was it was like, Danielle and I sat down and it's like, holy crap, what are we going to do? Right? And, and we're like, okay, we're going to cut all of our expenses as much as we can, we're going to see what we can live off of. Fortunately, I was able to

Yeah.

collect unemployment. So I had six months of unemployment that I collected, which got us far enough. And so, you know, it's been a slow progression to get here. And it wasn't like we just decided overnight. It just happened to be that like moving Daniel's parents here kind of lined us up to be able to do this. When we move them here, we got our

Right.

we started the process for getting our, residency. we figured, yeah, we figured that we did it for them. So let's do it for us too, which actually timing was perfect because the qualifications to get in at my age, because I'm not old enough to retire in their eyes. I had to have an income. And then, and then of course, after I got my, my one year temporary residency,

All in Mexico.

Hmm.

I lost my job and didn't have that income. So I wouldn't have qualified after that. timing was, I, we just got lucky on some things from a timing perspective. Um, it's all been, it's been a stressful last year of, of dealing with that. We, uh, a year ago, no more than a year ago, year ago, January, um, we took all of our money out of, out of our stocks and

Right?

Yep.

took that money, put it into a self-directed IRA and bought a rental property with it. and at 59 and a half, I can start collecting, distributions from that. So that, think that I, like the decision to do that was just like, I don't know where this is, how this administration is going to affect my, my 401k. And what am I going to do? Like.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

All of the advice is, as you're getting close to retirement, put it in something more secure and more stable. was like, I could put it in a more stable bonds or whatever, but you're going to get crap for that. Barely the cost of living. And this, least, I felt like the property value in Seattle will stay the same or go up and we'll get a

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

constant income out of the rental property. it's like, and if I can live off of that income, which I can in Mexico, that made sense for us. it all just things kind of lined up for us, which is fortunate. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's funny like the way that dominoes fall on things and how things essentially play out because you don't really plan for taking your money out of the 401k and then putting it into this investment. I mean, even like five, 10 years ago, this is probably not in your head. Okay, yeah.

Sorry, I got a plug in, hold on just a second. You can go ahead and talk. I'm listening.

yeah. Yeah. You know, the the plan that you had Brett like to do all these things. What was that conversation like or that those conversations like with Danielle and how did you guys sort of embrace those moments? Because I think one of the one of the things about this podcast that people are truddling into is how individuals react to stressful situations that they're not prepared for. And to be able to do the things that you've done and be where you are now has probably been a bunch of challenges over years. How did you guys have those types of conversations? What did they look like? What were some of the things that scared you the most? eventually how do you get the courage to pull the trigger on these things? All of them are pretty radical moving somewhere else, taking your money at 401k, investing in a property, very radical and very risky, depending on who you ask, but very risky relative to keeping it in bonds and stuff. How do you guys deal with that?

Well, I'm fortunate that Danielle is an awesome partner. So our conversations generally are good. But not to say that we didn't have tough conversations because we definitely did. I think for me, mean, my work as a product manager, like on the financial side of things, I felt pretty confident in at least putting together a scenario.

Yeah.

it.

of how that could work, right? So the fact that we cut our expenses, we figured out what we could live off of if this house was paid off, which it wasn't at the time. So we figured out, we figured we could live off of like a thousand dollars a month.

Bye.

and

while and

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what that's if this house was paid off, right? So what we knew was, is we had our home in Seattle. We knew if we sold it and we got what our neighbor got there for their house, when they sold theirs, that we'd be able to pay off this house, we'd come out with some extra money. And we could live off of that for a while. The interest rates here, like on a CD, we just put some money in, 9%.

Yeah.

Yeah, we were talking about this, that's crazy.

Yeah, yeah. mostly it was putting together a plan, running the numbers to make sure that like, can we afford to live off of it? And, know, thousand bucks a month isn't what we want to live off of, but we could. You know, we want to be able to travel in retirement and do things. you know, but the rental property

Right.

probably give us three to $4,000 a month. Plenty to put away for trips and to live off.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you don't want to live off of your baseline. Ideally, you'd be making more, but just from a prudent planning perspective, you know, to have that as I figure that you know what that is helps you plan better. And, you know, I'd imagine both of us are pretty restless men, always like either trying to figure out how to fix shit or learn something new or build a business or broker deals or whatever, that this won't be where you sit for the next 30 years, 40 years of your life, right? What are you looking forward to doing as you split time between Seattle and your home there? Are there things that you're really excited about, things that you wanna learn?

I'm figuring that out. I'm excited about traveling. I wanna go back to Thailand. I love Thailand. I wanna go back to the Philippines. I haven't been back since I was born there. I wanna go check that out. Basically, I wanna do a Pacific countries kind of tour. And then we have some friends that moved to Portugal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

would love to go do something similar in Europe. plan some big trips over the next few years, I think would be great. I mean, to your point, I'm getting used to being OK with not working. that was part of what all of this, that was the big lie, right? This whole lie that we've been told our whole lives, climb the ladder.

Mm-hmm.

When you meet somebody new at a party or whatever, they ask you, what do you do? They're not asking you, what do you do for fun? They're asking you, what do you do for a living? And half the time I'm like, well, why do you ask this question? What are you trying to get from me? Because it always feels like you're trying to leverage your next relationship for you to grow.

Yeah. Yeah.

and

career, like we've been trained to do all this crap that like doesn't, at least not to the extent in the States, it doesn't feel like it exists here in Mexico. Like people work to live. It's not their whole existence. And I feel like that's the big lie for us is we've been told that it should be the number one thing you do, right, is to climb this ladder.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you.

become something more and like dedicate your life to a company that doesn't give a shit about you. and, and so, you know, this, this is a fairly new revelation for me, right. To be like, shit, I just spent 30 plus years of my life doing what they trained me to do. And wow. Well, what a dumb ass I am. I mean, it's worked out well for me.

Yep.

Yeah, I think that same thing all the time.

But yeah, yeah, it's like what, okay. And then I have a friend whose son is mid 20s maybe, went to college, got a degree in computer science, got a job at Amazon. He's putting most of his money into his retirement and planning on retiring at who knows.

Yeah.

who knows 35 or something maybe, which is completely feasible if you do it. But I think we were all trained that like, can't retire at 35. But why not? Why not just go come to Mexico and live a nice life. You don't have to fill your time with work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's such an interesting perspective of how you approach life. And we put ourselves, we put ourselves in these hamster wheels intentionally sometimes, and we get stuck in the cycle of things. it's whether it's like our relationships. And that was just a video I posted yesterday about you, you put yourself in this box yourself where you feel like you can't communicate to people because You haven't done it in years and they may hate you or they may think you're ignoring them, but they're not, right? You're telling yourself that. Same thing with work. It's like you go and do these jobs because everybody else is doing them. And then you end up buying a bunch of shit or having a big family. And then you have to find that next job that sort of affords you the baseline of your current lifestyle. And all of a sudden you're in this other hamster wheel of things.

Mm-hmm.

And the most powerful thing that I think like from our conversation today that I'm taking away is like, you don't necessarily have to do that. You know, you could take a different approach to it. And for many people, that's a very scary thing because it is bucking against the trend of what people expect, you know.

Mm hmm. Yeah. And the whole consumerism part of it is is is what puts us there, right? I mean, we went from we spent the last probably five or more between five and 10 years, like reducing like we had two cars, we went down to one car. It was a car that's paid for so we don't have a bill. Just getting crap out of that. So much stuff that we've bought over the years, getting it out of our house. All of that stuff was, it was a lot of work, but it made me realize like, wow, how much we buy, right? And do we need it? So like, those are the things that we've had to do over the last year is be like, do we really need that? Right? We have to survive at least until we can start getting until 59 and a half and I can start collecting.

Yeah.

or distributions, right? So that consumerism, I think is part of the problem, which makes us have to go after more money so that we can afford more things, right? It's just the whole thing that we've been trained to do.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, I love that, man. You know, and it's if somebody out there has the answer to how to break those cycles, give me a call because Lord knows we all need to. We need hear those tips. All right, Brett, last two questions, my friend. And this is more forward-facing, but if you could pick a single word that scares the shit out of you right now, what would that word be?

War.

Yeah, give me your why for that.

the fact that we're in this war and The people making these decisions don't understand the mentality, the mindset of the people we're at war with scares the shit out of me. Cause this, doesn't feel like it's going to end anytime soon. And the one thing that DDS, one of the things that DDS did for me was it gave me a lot of respect for the people in the military. Those people, join because they want to serve their country and for us to go after a holy war, which is what this feels like, is all the things I'm against. Like I've always been against all of the evil that has happened in the name of God. It's just, it's not right.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know how you're a religious person and can do the evil things that you do. And that's both sides. But that scares me. And not for me, because I'm in a place where nobody's dropping a nuke on Ihe Mexico. But it just scares me for the people that have signed up to serve their country and now are forced into

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Right, right.

into this mess.

On the other end of the spectrum, Brett, what word gives you the most hope right now?

Freedom, freedom, my freedom, my freedom to, I'm fortunate, very fortunate enough to be able to retire right now and to have the freedom to do that. I do worry about the people that like they're 10 years, you know, away from that. But, you know, to be honest, I mean, you know, we were in after the great recession, we were,

Yeah.

We were in a similar situation, right? So, and that was very scary, losing everything. But it also, think coming out of that prepared us for my retirement now. And I had no idea. I planned on working until I died.

Mm-hmm.

I know. And like, you look at that right now. And the perspective of that is so bleak, because that's what you know, our parents parents did. And I mean, as far back as you go, the thought of living a life to to

you

better your life versus to be a part of a society that perpetuates consumerism, that perpetuates, you know, capitalism, at least in America, is so crazy. It's so crazy to think that. And in my 20s, was the idea, this idea of that is so far off. But now that, you know, we're middle aged men, and the reality of death is coming. closer than it was in our 20s. Like, yeah, it changes your perspective and your mindset for sure.

man, well Brett this has been a fantastic conversation my friend. I appreciate you man. Put on some sunscreen, don't get sunburned out there, and I'll talk to you later. All right. See ya.