Reboot...again!

0:00I'm back again decided to change things up in the podcast and do something differently. Every summer has always been a challenge to get guests and record with kid schedules, it being busy wanting to get outside, especially for those of us in the northern tiers, where the weather is finally good and doing stuff like vacation and playing golf or just getting out being in nature, the stuff that we try to enjoy on our off time or not flying the line. I've decided that we're going to try to mix it up, kind of restart, rehack, go with the kid's school year, if you will, as my kids start school here shortly and do more of a

1:05seasoned approach or have seasons. If I have some leftover pods or stuff that needs to be re-air it in the summer, we'll do that. But for now, I think this might be better for content production actually getting material out there. But also for the listener, give you guys some downtime, give you guys a break during the summer so you can go out, fly the line, make a little extra money or do the kid's thing or enjoy your beautiful weather and go out and see the world and earn some of that free time that you have. And go listen to some of those other great pods that I know I've suggested before and also just the people in the aviation space, a lot of friends, off the TPN who produce great material, you can go out there and check there's out too. The upcoming season, we are definitely going to be changing and going a different route. Not only have I found some pretty cool guests that we're going to have on that have unique

2:08pilot stories or stories about their journeys and aviation, careers, whatnot. But also, we've started to really uncover a lot of unique and different opportunities that are out there for low time, mid time, high time pilots as well. People who aren't going the standard 121 route, even though we're going to try to get some of those folks on from the 121 world because of our relationships that we've made through TPN and TPNX, TPNX especially, but also going to places like OBAP or EAA or a lot of our other affinity groups that we're friends with that we invite to our conference and then we go out to go to their conferences and start meeting some different airlines and carriers, operators, also vendors who we find to be fascinating and who have a different perspective on the aviation industry that we do. So think of it as perspective shifts from just me or whoever the guest of the week is to getting some insights on not only career options that are out there and opportunities

3:11that are available, but also what it's like to be in that low time category and realize that if you are there, that a lot of you are going through the same thing, and that there are options available for you. Sometimes you have to look sometimes you got to earn your spurs and go the route that maybe doesn't pay the best or isn't the optimal job opportunity for you. But realizing that with what we're doing at the pilot network and creating TPN talent, you haven't checked it out yet, go to tpntallant.com. Think of it as a job facilitator. It's going to have a traditional job board, but there's some search functionality for the operators that we're trying to onboard and we're bringing out a whole host of new features and updates as we progress. It's going to be the core, the core basic function of the TPN talent of posting your resume and search by different carriers or different operators is always going to be free for the pilot. We're going to add some features that may require a payment, but that will never be mandatory

4:16to be part of TPN talent and try to job hunt or let people hunt for you, which is really what we're trying to get after here. But I want to get back to it. When I bring up talent and when I've had some of these other opportunities talking and some new people in the industry who I've not met before, not necessarily new to the industry, but folks that TPN has not had interaction with, I have realized that a lot of the recruiting departments out there are truly embracing the idea of the heart of a teacher. They want what's best for you because if what's best for you is their company, you're going to be there a lot longer and it reduces their churn. It's versa if what's best for you is not joining their outfit or operation and going somewhere else is that creates less churn and is better for the company and for you. And that is what they're really trying to get after.

5:18And a lot of conversations about that at O-BAP when I was down there and we're going to try to get some of those individuals to come on the show, talk about that. We've got some tentative dates and time set up so look forward to that as we progress through September and beyond. So that's really exciting to have that hopefully some new TPNX recruiting attendees and some different vendors that are going to possibly infiltrate the space down in Dallas. Yeah, that's right. We're going back to Dallas. In fact, there should be about the time this comes out. The official announcement that TPNX is in Dallas on May 5th and 6th at the Las Calenas Convention Center in Irvin, which is where we had it last year. We're going to try to really outdo ourselves this year or in 2027. We had a really great time. I would love to set up a golf outing if people are interested. Please email us at heyguysadipoutnetwork.com or DM me on the socials or on TPN Pro wherever

6:20you can. I know so I can start setting that up early and we have enough interest. We'll put that together. One of our golfing volunteers, Connor, will be probably taking lead on that as we talked about it last year. He'd be really interested in setting something up for TPN. Hopefully we can put it together and get a large enough group where we can actually fundraise for a charity either start off with our Jason, Jason to pew Memorial Scholarship Fund charity. If we don't have that quite set yet, we'll find something else that's aviation related and works for a good cause. That would be something that I'm really interested in. I hope a lot of you are. The fact that I can do that means that I am now going back to work for those of you who've kind of followed along. I've been on disability with some shoulder and back issues. I've finally done it after a lot of work. Really cleared them up and feel 100% put in my return to work stuff.

7:25Still working through some of those wickets. If you're ever going through that prep yourself, there is a little bit of pain that you need to go through and organize yourself so you can get back quickly. I was ready for it so it hasn't been as bad. I talked to one of my union reps prior to that who'd been through something similar. So it was a little bit easier of a transition. But still, it does require some back and forth. Even with as easy as my company has it set up, there's still some back and forth because of just materials that they need that aren't really necessarily on a checklist. No matter what, just kind of mentally prepare yourself if you're in that position. The last thing I want to leave you with because it's just an intro to the whole season. What TPN is going to be all about on the TPN podcast for 2026, 2027 is taking a step back.

8:26I talk about opening your aperture at TPNX. If you remember last year when we had a very dedicated monthly theme months as it were. We might bring that back in the past, but it wasn't really tripping my trigger. It wasn't really doing anything for me. I think it's still good to have themes in your life or goals, like monthly goals to meet. I don't necessarily live by that 100%. It's kind of day to day, especially when you have younger kids and trying to just get through it. You wish you could wake up at 430, meditate, and then you're off to do your workout. Then you have your whole regiment of health stuff that you do. You have work time and study time for work stuff or you've dedicated hobby time and it's blocked out. I don't get to live my life like that.

9:26I wish maybe I was more organized and could. I'm pretty happy with the way things are. We're not going to shift it too much. We're slowly trying to drive to that point. Now with two kids in full-time school, maybe I'll get to do a little bit more of that, have a little bit more of a directed laser focus on certain things. One of the things is working off of that aperture opening is realizing, like I talked about with this kind of organizational thing, is realizing that just because there's up somebody who did something one way doesn't necessarily mean that that path is exactly right for you. That can be an aviation or otherwise. I have come to terms with the fact that there were some things that I wanted to do in my aviation crew that I missed out on because maybe I didn't work hard enough and didn't get to be a fighter pilot or maybe I chose one route of staying in the KC-135 the whole time

10:28I was in the military moving on to a legacy carrier, pretty early in my career and only getting to play around in some other spaces for a little bit to see how they fit me. I'm glad I got to do the things that I did get to do, but now that I've gotten a lot more information and knowledge to the great big world of aviation and see what else is out there, there's a lot of things that I wish I could have done when I was younger, had more free time, not necessarily the money, but the time to put forth the effort to try to get those things done and I'll give you an example. I am really interested in flying in L39. I don't know why I think maybe it's my tweet back when I was flying tweets and pilot training and maybe I miss going up, say, down, I might even miss pulling G's. I don't know. We'll see if I ever do it again, we'll know if I miss pulling G's or not. But I saw them at Aschgosh when I took my family up there. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm always been more of a Warbirds guy and not a general aviation

11:29guy in the for the EA, which is amazing. I love what the EA does. I've been going there since I was a kid for used to be the fly in now, air venture. But for some reason, the L39 kind of jumps out at me. I just like the idea of going to fly it. One thing I would have done when I was younger and had the knowledge that I have now would be to find somebody who operates in L39 and volunteer my time for them. In any way, with no expectation of getting a ride or learning anything about the L39, more than what I would have been taught by helping them out, whether that's sweeping up their hanger or handling whatever miscellaneous crap they need done in their little life of performing, if that's a side job or just owning an L39, whatever I could do to learn more about it just by being around the people and the airplane itself would have been ample for me. But I didn't realize

12:32this until I was older where and now I don't have the free time like I used to to be able to volunteer myself to go say, hey, I don't want anything in return. I just want to be around the airplane and the people who know about this stuff and see where it lands me and see what kind of road I get to go down by doing that kind of thing. And why I tell you that is for those of you out there who are looking for an in and certain aspects of aviation, when we talk about networking, this is one really good way to do that. If that means you know you're out in FBO and you're CFIing and you know somebody across the way has a P51. Now maybe you're not going to get a ride in P51 or anything like that. But to go out and introduce yourself and say, hey, if there's anything I can ever do or I'd like to stop by and volunteer or whatever and it doesn't have to even be that forward or hosting maybe a all airport wide hanger burger burn or something for a charity of somebody's interest

13:33sponsored by the FBO. However, it works anything. I mean, these are kind of a sound like outlandish ideas, but just giving of yourself and your time is so valuable and people recognize that that it might give you a foot in the door to do something else or at least open your mind up to other ideas within aviation. You never know where that will lead you and you'll never know who that will allow you to meet and be introduced to. And when you do that kind of thing, that can propel the career a lot further a lot faster than just kind of sitting back and going, well, I'm building hours as fast as I can and I'm filling out my applications. There's more to the application than what's on the paper. The resume, you know, should speak for itself, but if the resume only reads hours and nothing else, doesn't say that you've gone above and beyond. That can be really almost damaging in a way. I have this conversation with several people to include recruiters

14:36at OBAAP specifically. And the one thing that we talked about was how chasing hours can be a fool's errand because while you try to chase hours, chase hours, chase hours, no mind you, I'm going to caveat this. There's a time and a place for that. But while you chase hours, you're missing out on these other opportunities that could help build your career in your resume so meaningfully that that could be the difference between getting a job a couple years earlier than you otherwise could or meeting somebody could help you get there and kind of being sidelined doing what you're doing now, especially if you don't enjoy that position that you're currently in or it's not getting you to where you want to be. So that's that's that opening that aperture and trying on new things for size just to see how it fits. Now that doesn't mean to quit your job and go out there and say, okay, I'm gonna, you know, try something crazy for those of you that can do that and want to do that fantastic go for it. For those of you out there who aren't ready for that big jump, what I mean by opportunity is to go out there and kind of put yourself forward. If you feel embarrassed

15:39or a little like dorky in a way to do that, that's probably a good thing. It probably means you're doing it right. I remember the first podcast that we ever did. I was I recorded it. I was super embarrassed to release it. I don't even know if it's still out there. Anybody can listen to it and it was horrible not to say that this one's much better at this point. I hope it is, but back then it sure wasn't. And having that willingness to be embarrassed or at least try something, put me in a space that allow me to get get into voice acting and making a little bit of money off of actually talking to a microphone, which is something I enjoy doing. If you don't have that skill set yet, this is something to work on. Oh, by the way, this is really good for your interview cycles that will come up in the future. If you feel comfortable with being a little embarrassed, if you feel comfortable with being uncomfortable with certain in certain aspects and environments, that will go so far in your interview prep for, especially for those of you going into like those

16:45big part 121 legacy interviews or beyond that. So take it as by by broadening the scope at which you are looking and doing things, you can achieve so much more than you think you can just by putting yourself out there. Even if there's nothing comes of that directly, you'll be surprised at what can come of it down the road. Anyways, that's my take for today. I look forward to way more of this stuff going throughout the year. There'll be some solo episodes in here as well, maybe more stuff like this. If you enjoy it, hit the side and hit the side at Hey Guys at the Pilot Network.com. Let me know what you think. If you have a suggestion for the show or you have a guest that you really want to hear from, let me know. I'd love to try to go get them, get them on the show and get a different perspective of pilots perspective of who they are, what they're all about. Anyways, if again, if you have questions, Hey Guys at the Pilot Network.com, make sure to check out everything TPN by going to the Pilot Network.com and you can branch off from all our socials there.

17:46With TPNX landing page, it'll be coming out soon. You can check updates. We're going to have lots of releases on there when we get different recruiters, vendors, people like that who show up and sign up for TPNX plus announcements. We're hoping for some really big and fun stuff, different and hopefully better experience than we've ever had before. I don't know how we're going to top last year, but we're going to try our best. And as always, keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down. Fly safe, everybody.