Pete Blum is a United States military veteran, an entrepreneur and a professional in information technology, operations, marketing, project management, and business continuity/disaster recovery. He has been a trainer, mentor, and coach to both civilians and military personnel, nationally teaching technology, social media, and entrepreneurship. His passion, mission, and focus is helping others in business and in their personal lives.
Pete spent 11 years in the U.S. military working in logistics, operations, and information technology. After honorably completing his years of service, he transitioned into civilian life to follow his love of information technology. That first year out, he had 7 different jobs. Eventually he found a great one, but later due to the constant outsourcing, going to the cloud, and transitions that happened in the information technology industry that ended as well. His transition began again.
Situation
Another thing stemming from the military life that sticks with you even after you become a civilian is the engrained traits of sacrifice and service.
“In my case it was a desire to help future transitioning veterans have an easier time with transition than I did. I found myself facing a continuous cycle of work transitions, volunteering, and lack of a positive work-life balance. Most importantly, lack of focus, transitions, and spreading yourself too thin has a hard impact on families, the time they spend together, and finances as well.”
Desired Outcome
“My desired outcome was to either break the cycle of repeatedly transitioning as if I were still in the military by finding a great job or to start a business that fulfilled my passion of helping others while providing the stability to take care of my family and allow me to spend those precious moments with them. I missed out on those moments while in the military and deployed. I wanted to never miss those moments again.”
Actual Result
“In embracing the Personal Agility System I have found time freedom, allowing me to spend more time with the family and focus on those treasured moments.”
“I have become an entrepreneur with the ability to fulfill my passion of helping others. I can now work hard, create, shape, and guide others personally or professionally in finding their own stability and success. Being an entrepreneur has also given me the ability to be financially free.”
“The Personal Agility System absolutely helped me! Starting with what really matters and where do I spend my time, I discovered what was important to me the most was not what I was focusing on. My work-life balance was not balanced at all.”
“This ties significantly into life in the military as well. As an active duty servicemember or as an entrepreneur you’re always on a mission, a timeline, an objective that has to be completed before everything else. Sleeping, eating, family… who has time for that? Personal Agility is certainly the cure!”
“In my case family has always been a priority, however after annotating my daily life using the Personal Agility System I discovered even I could do better.”
Path to Success
“The Personal Agility Priorities Map is one of my favorite tools that helped me get things where they should be in my personal and even professional life. It helped me with prioritization, lack of focus, the fact that I was volunteering too much and spreading myself too thin. And now I always remember to use the “life is the ocean” metaphor and make those continuous course corrections.”
“I now have the ability to share what I have learned through the Personal Agility System to help transitioning military and veterans find the same personal freedom that I have achieved. Many of them start over in a new career or industry. From the “life is the ocean” metaphor and finding their path, to all the other tools that PAS offers I know from personal experience that they can have the same positive results for their lives, families, and finances as well.”
© 2021 Peter B. Stevens and Maria Matarelli. Excerpted from Personal Agility: Unlocking Higher Purpose, Alignment, and Performance