Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:00]
A
When you join the military, you are honed into a very well crafted system. But when you get to the civilian world, the world didn't change. You have to do a lot of introspection and readjustment to make sure that you are relevant in the civilian world. And that's, that's the tough part. Terrence Lackey is an entrepreneur, veteran and the founder of White Glove Medical Logistics. Through his work, he provides trusted healthcare logistics solutions while inspiring others to build businesses rooted in service, discipline and excellence. In my case, the healthcare technology field. I have run into so many scenarios where you ask the question and nobody has the answer. There's a super opportunity for someone to step in there who has a solution, who has the right answer for it. It's kind of what I did with my business.
- [00:44]
B
If you could give one piece of advice to an entrepreneur out there that might be brand new or a veteran that might be in the middle of their transition back to the civilization alien world, what advice would you give them?
- [00:56]
A
I will say that it spans the globe like a super high cold Internet Elvis. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win the Living your Legacy podcast. For those who live to leave a legacy that's extraordinary. The impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Jordan, open Chicago with the lead. You said Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dreams.
- [01:34]
B
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Living youg Legacy podcast. Today I am joined by Terrence Lackey of White Glove Medical Logistics. Terrance, how you feeling today?
- [01:44]
A
Yeah, I'm feeling great. Thanks for having me.
- [01:46]
B
A pleasure. Pleasure having you on the show. So you just finished filming your episode of Operation CEO. Tell me a little bit about what the audience can expect to learn about you in your episode.
- [01:58]
A
Well, I mean, I just got done finishing the episode. It was a great experience. The audience is going to be able to get an insight into my business, insight into the mind of a veteran who's who. Who actually utilized some of the skills and experience that he gained while on active duty and in the Reserves and National Guard to actually build a business. And I'm super excited to share the story because I think it might be an inspiration to others.
- [02:28]
B
So talk to me a little bit about your experience with the military. I've interviewed a couple of different business owners through Operation CEO, and you guys represent a unique part of the veteran population that they come home and they're able to start up a business and be successful with the lessons that they learned through active duty. Talk to Me a little bit about some of what those lessons were.
- [02:53]
A
Yeah, you know, I don't. I'm not sure, you know, how special the subset is. I'm sure, you know, not everybody does it, but certainly everybody can. And so I went into the military and I was a combat engineer. So I started out blowing things up, blowing up bridges, blowing up roads.
- [03:13]
B
That was an easy sell for the recruiter. Hey, you want to go blow stuff up?
- [03:16]
A
Yeah. That's the thing with. With that job. My specialty was destroying things. And I eventually got to a point where I got a chance to cross train into fixing things. So I became a medical equipment technician, a biomedical equipment technician in hospital. So repairing stuff in hospital, repairing, maintaining medical equipment. So I went from destroying things to being able to repair and maintain things. So I got the whole spectrum there. But the transition from taking those skills and getting going into the civilian world and actually starting an entrepreneur journey or path and opening and starting a business, yeah, that's a little tricky. And I can't tell you it was an easy thing. It was something that I grew into and made several mistakes and learned along the way. But it's very rewarding and compliments the military background quite a bit. There's a lot of aspects to it that will make you a lot more successful.
- [04:17]
B
Got it. And, you know, that's a. That's kind of like a unanimous experience that I've heard from other veterans. Is that that sort of transition from being in the service to going into civilian life, that transition can be. There's a little period there that's a little tricky. Talk to me a little bit about your transition back into the civilian world.
- [04:36]
A
Yeah, sure. Well, I'll tell you, I kind of think. If you want to visualize it, I kind of think of it as I went whitewater rafting one time on the Chattahoochee river in Tennessee. And you start out, you're nice, calm waters, and I mean, it's kind of rough. When you join the military, there's a point of adjustment where you learn how to be in the military. You learn chain of command, you learn how to follow orders and get the job done, accomplish the mission. And these things are drilled into you to where you are honed into a. A very well crafted system or machine or a unit where you can get something done, whatever that may be.
- [05:17]
B
A lot of structure.
- [05:18]
A
Yeah. Super structured. And so when you get out, you actually get through that hurdle. Go through the basic training, all the other training, and all the deployments and everything, and you're on Calm waters, you know, from, from a military perspective. But when you get out, you're on the calm river and then you hit the whitewater rapids of the civilian world and things get tossed up and down left and right, and you really, it kind of rocks your reality and you have to do a lot of introspection and readjustment to make sure that you are relevant in the civilian world. And so that transition, you know, they've done a lot better over the, over the years, most recent years, as far as helping people transition into the civilian life, but is regardless of what they try to do, it's still a huge approach because you have to, it has to dawn on you that you, not everybody changed, you changed you and you did what you did. But when you get to the civilian world, the world didn't change. And so you got to fit back into it. And that's, that's the tough part.
- [06:20]
B
And someone brought up an interesting point in, you know, one of these podcasts that I did, and they said that, you know, you go from this very structured reality where you have a lot, there's a lot of the questions that you might have are easily answered because you can just go up chain of command to get those questions answered. But then when you get back out into the civilian world, you, it feels like you've lost that structure. Everything is chaos. You don't really know what's going on. But then you have the opportunity to build your own structure set around what it is that you want to do. Would you say that that's pretty accurate?
- [06:54]
A
Super accurate. Super. I think that's right on. Hits a nail on the head. Literally. There's no question if you're in the military, there's people in the military at your various levels of leadership that their whole job is to have all the answers. So you literally just have to ask the right person or send it up the chain of command. If you might have heard that phrase before, send it up the flagpole and you'll get an answer of some type. Being in the civilian world, being in my case, the healthcare technology field or other fields that I've been encountered as I've been out of the military, I have run into so many scenarios where you ask the question and nobody has the answer, and there's crickets and no one knows and there's a super opportunity for someone to step in there who has a solution, who has the right answer for it, who has real world results that they can show and fill that void. And this kind of what I did with my Business that's kind of, I stepped in, into a spot where I saw opportunity, I saw where I can provide answers, were where my background could lead into, you know, fulfilling a need. And so, yeah, that's, that's kind of how it, how it worked and kind of the transition that this made, you
- [08:12]
B
know, situation in the entrepreneurial world. I feel like a lot of the time what you're do, what an entrepreneur is usually doing is filling gaps. There's gaps in either information, there's gaps in services, there's gaps in technology. So you, as an entrepreneur, you go in and you fill those gaps in whatever way that you can with your business. Talk to me a little bit about White Glove Medical and how you're filling in the gaps and getting services out or, you know, helping hospitals with their technology.
- [08:46]
A
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So, you know, our specialty at White Glove Medical Logistics is to that last mile of medical equipment logistics, this is not having it shipped across the country, across the world. This is where the equipment has been ordered, been delivered, and is pending deployment into a medical facility. Prior to that, all of the architecture has been done, all of the planning of that medical equipment's been done, transition planning has been done, patient moves have been planned out. But you have that last piece where thousands and thousands of pieces of medical equipment will sit in a warehouse and they just completed construction of a building. And those thousands of pieces need to be inventoried and need to be assessed whether they're correct, they have the right accessories, may be assembled, they need to be staged and then moved and placed in the exact right places in that entire facility to make sure that each department set up the way it was designed to be set up. And that's not something that you can do on a normal basis. It's not an experience that most people ever even have. Even that warehouse facility will not have that kind of experience in dealing with something like that. They might deal with a normal move or normal delivery of something, one or two items, but where something on that kind of scale is kind of a once in a long time, once in a career, twice in a career type of thing for someone who works at a hospital system. But for someone like me or my company, White Glove Medical Logistics, we deal with that exclusively so our clients trust us because we, we can actually step in and handle that part and deliver the end result with predictability and be able to anticipate the problems and the needs. So providing those real solutions, real, tangible solutions to a need, a risk that's out there, it really takes you from being in the room, being in the room, wondering if your value is appreciated in that room to being in a room on your own. Right. Where everybody in the room understands the value you bring to the table. And that's kind of where we got now with my business. Everybody understands the value that we bring to the table and it's unquestionable. And that gives you a lot of confidence. But you don't have that confidence to begin with. So I've grown through the stages where we've gotten now to that point where there is no boardroom, there's no CEO, there's no hospital system that we're afraid to speak to because we could demonstrate how exactly we will help them out and do it better than a lot of times they could do it themselves.
- [11:22]
B
We talked about this a little bit off camera, but you mentioned that there's kind of a fine line. There's a period for most hospitals where they might be in renovation, they might be in building out a new hospital and you kind of find that gap, that period where they're going to need your services and you're able to target right in the middle of that gap.
- [11:45]
A
Right, exactly. You're right. There's a very finite window. There's a period of time where if it's a replacement hospital, for example, and there's an existing hospital that's functioning, operating with patients and they're doing their day job. So there's a design team that has designed a new hospital and that's being constructed. So there's that little window where all those clinicians will go from that hospital already running to their brand new workplace.
- [12:12]
B
Right.
- [12:13]
A
But before that happens, there's a slice of time where the, the contractors finish the building and all that equipment needs to be deployed to the end location. And that's the part that we handle, that's the part that we, we handle some other little pieces up, up, up, up, prior to that. But that's, that's our, that's our, that's our zone right there. And that's where we own it. And we make sure that.
- [12:33]
B
That's the pocket.
- [12:33]
A
Yeah, that's the pocket. And you know, there's a lot of different fields. It does their thing where they come in and set up the computers or the furniture. Folks will set up the furniture. But we are medical equipment and we deal with life saving equipment, high dollar value, high risk equipment and we make sure that it all gets positioned correctly for clinical care. It's very rewarding because we know we're doing at the end of the day we're contributing to the health and to the prosperity of the community because we're helping get that new medical facility up and running.
- [13:06]
B
And it's high precision equipment too. I think for anybody watching, you know, at this point in the, in the show, the, the equipment that his company is dealing with has very few touch points, right. And each one of those touch points needs to be handled with a lot of care because the smallest, you're talking about medical equipment that's going to be saving somebody's life. So the smallest little mishandling of a piece of equipment, these are six, sometimes seven figure pieces of equipment. The smallest little bit, bit of mishandling can ruin a piece of equipment and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars for these hospitals, for clients and lose out on life saving care for people. So like it's, it's no small task that you guys are taking on. You know I, for me working in production, I work with a lot of yes, high precision equipment. But at the end of the day, if a camera breaks, ain't nobody going to die. Nobody's going to die. But like this is, you're handling something that is so important with such a degree of care that it shows in your expertise and in the way that you're, you know, handling that aspect of your business. So I don't want to, I don't want to like gloss over that part because I think it's important.
- [14:16]
A
You're absolutely correct. I mean it is. You know, because my background is in biomedical engineering as a military trained me as a biomedical equipment technician. Later on I actually taught at the military biomed school, the tri service school where we taught Army, Air Force and Navy biomeds how to do their job. So a part of that process, part of it becoming that thing and it's one of the things we bring to us. A lot of our members are a lot of people on our team are ex military and biomedical background. And I can tell you when I was training to be a biomed and I worked on a piece of equipment, it was at one point it was like you're fixing a piece of equipment. But it takes an entirely new dimension on when you go to the NICU and you see an infant, a premature infant baby inside the infant incubator that you just worked on. And that baby's alive because that piece of machinery equipment works because it's at the right place at the right time and providing the right service for that child and you had something to do with it. And the same thing with every piece of equipment in the facility. So you're right, a lot of it is really expensive. Really rather a lot of it has a high acuity. A lot of it has a very critical to any kind of mishandling. So yeah, that's part of it and that's the reason why it's all we need. That little slice of the process is where we make such a big contribution. White glove.
- [15:43]
B
I want to ask a question on you mentioned that a lot of the guys that you work with are veterans as well. For the guys that you bring in to your company that are coming out of the military as well, you're sort of provide. You're providing not only a safe space for them to have, you know, gainful employment, but how are you sort of helping them with their transition having gone through it yourself?
- [16:09]
A
We first of all, we have a general preference for anybody that's ever been in any branch of the military. Just because we, regardless of the branch, regardless of what your job was in the military, you have a, I don't know, it's underlying connection. You know some of the things that they went through. They know some of the things you went through and you have a mutual respect and you understand that to be of any level of success to be in the military, period, and to have finished a tour of duty especially, you know that there's a certain reliability that that person will have that they will. You're in the fight together and no matter what it is, you'll achieve it together. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is I offer opportunity outside of. So because you might have people that are maybe not available to work full time or maybe there's a hospital project that's not in their vicinity of their town. So we bring them on either as a W2 employee, as a full time salary person, or on a contract basis. So they say there's a big project and quite often you might have disabled veterans or veterans that have retired or veterans that are in the reserve and they have time available to contribute to a project. Or we'll bring them on as a 1099 contractor and they will go in and they will. We will all work together on a project for a limited duration of time. So that's. That's really good. The structure really works there. And then what I also like to do, I've done always since the time that I was teaching at the biomed school is I like to try to mentor as much as possible and counsel veterans who are transitioning. That that is is really key because it is a rocky time. And when you're talking to someone who wants to go along the same aspect as you or you have some, some knowledge you can contribute to them, you try to do it. And I, I found it, it's more rewarding, I think, to me than to them because I find it immensely satisfying for me to help them on their journey because a lot of times in my, my journey I haven't had help. And yet you learned the hard way. And they call the school Hard Knocks. Right.
- [18:13]
B
So I've been to that school. I'm an alumni.
- [18:15]
A
Yeah. Got honors there. Yeah, yeah. But, but definitely prefer to work with veterans. And then a company's based on that, so doesn't matter. I mean, gentlemen worked. I'm working with a gentleman that I used to teach with at the spoiled school. 20 some odd years. The first sergeant in the Air Force retired and now he has time to pursue some other things. But he also wants to be part of a team and so he's been immensely helpful. I have a lady that works with us who's a naval officer from the academy graduate, and she helps us with our finance. And so there are other people in the team that are prior service military and we really pride ourselves on being owned and mostly run, you know, by veteran population. And then I pride myself on providing any kind of contribution to up and coming entrepreneurs or veterans that are looking to become entrepreneurs.
- [19:12]
B
So as we kind of wind down here and guys, if you're still watching at this point, I want to make sure that you stay tuned for Terence's episode of Operation CEO, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode drops. You'll get a much deeper dive into his story, the story of his business and, and how he's been able to achieve success through this business. Here at Inside Success, obviously we like to celebrate the successes of the entrepreneurs that come through these doors. If you could give one piece of advice to an entrepreneur out there that might be brand new or a veteran that might be in the middle of their transition back to the civilian world, what advice would you give them?
- [19:55]
A
That's a good one. What one piece of advice? I got several. So I have a, I'm going to be releasing, around the time that the, the episode airs, I'll be releasing a book called Legendary Productivity where I'll break down some of the recommendations that I have. Very simple, only three, and kind of how they would definitely help someone. So check that out. And I allude to it in, in the episode that I just shot. But I will, I will Say that, I mean true success, success where you thrive in what you're doing and it doesn't feel like work and it doesn't feel like you have to prove yourself. That's a very small area and it's an intersection of three things. It's intersection one of your, of your passion, you know, what is it that you care about? I mean, you know, it could be you never touched it before, but it's something that you're passionate about, your passion. Number two, it's going to be your experience. And like I said, a lot of veterans bring a lot of traits and characteristics or entrepreneurs have traits and characteristics, not necessarily veterans. Because it could be, you know, you could have developed a lot of discipline through sports, you could have developed discipline through trials that life has put you through. So what has your experience bring to the table? And then you, the final thing is your talents. So where your talents overlie your experience overlies your inspiration. Where that Venn diagram, that little middle part there, that's the sweet spot. And so if you can find something, a calling, a business where you can niche down into that sweet spot, that's going to really, I know I'm making big general characterizations, but that's as simple as it is. Take a look at what you've done, take a look at what you're feeling passionate about and take a look at what trainings and skills that you have. That mirror that and you'll find a sweet spot. And that sweet spot is like the center of archery target and that's what you're shooting for. Or when you're at the range, take a look, do a little self, self reflection and introspection and do an inventory of what, what you have in those aspects and then what that would lead you to. And you know, that's, that's going to, that's going to take you to a place where you can thrive.
- [22:02]
B
And for those of you guys that are listening to that advice, also, write it down. I can't stress how important. I mean, you mentioned that you're right, you've written a book, it's going to be coming out shortly after, you know, this episode airs. But write it down if you're able to when you're doing that introspection. You know, my dad's a, he's a sports psychologist, right. So he works with athletes to help them with their mental strength development. And the biggest thing that I've learned amongst people who are highly successful is that they don't just create a plan and think about it. They Write it down. Like, if you can make it tangible and you can look at a thing that you wrote down and say, all right, I can work towards this goal, it makes it all the more achievable. It's such a simple step, but it's a step that people overlook, and I don't want you guys to overlook that. So identify your goals. Identify what you want to achieve, identify what you're good at, identify what you're passionate about, and write it all down. This has been an amazing episode, brother. I appreciate you for coming on the show with us. Final words, anything that you want to leave the people with.
- [23:12]
A
I just want to echo what you just said when you said write it down. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, if you don't write it down, it's a wish, it's a dream. If you write it down, that's when it becomes a goal. And so definitely, definitely write it down. I look forward to meeting anyone that sees this. I hope you see the episode, watch the episode. I hope you get something from it. And I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much.
- [23:36]
B
Of course. Of course. Guys, this has been another episode of the Living youg Legacy podcast. Again, I am your host, Jason Tyler, and we will catch you guys in the next one.