There can be many reasons why someone can find themselves falling into the victim mentality. Ashley Rodriquez and I will discuss how she overcame that victim mentality and got herself into the right, positive mental state where she can take charge of her own life. Ashley is the founder of Freelanceus.co which is an American only competitor to other worldwide freelance sites.

Guest Links:

https://freelanceus.co/

www.ashleymrodriguez.com

Transcript from Episode 18 with Ashley Rodriquez:

Keith McKeever 0:01

Hey, everybody is Keith McKeever. Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. I've got Ashley Rodriguez with me today. And we're gonna talk about the victim mentality. And some things she's got going on in her business. If you're a creative type, and you're trying to get yourself out there kind of freelance kind of role. I'm not gonna try and name the big big name company out there. But if you're that kind of creative person where you're doing digital stuff and other creative stuff and kind of freelancing, it, this is the person that you want to connect with. So without further ado, we'll get in the podcast after my intro. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast. Ashley.

Ashley Rodriquez 0:40

Hi, thank you.

Keith McKeever 0:42

Good to have you here. And go ahead and introduce yourself. What's What's your story? You know, growing up military journey and stuff like that. What brings you today?

Ashley Rodriquez 0:51

And stuff? Yeah, so I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, which is fun in itself, huge Navy town. I grew up in sort of a broken household, divorce, you know, single parent, that type of story, which all of us are, a lot of us are really used to hearing or knowing somebody that's gone through that. So we were maybe brats for a little bit. My stepdad was in the Navy. And so we were with him for about eight years, before they eventually separated. And that was early childhood into my early teens. Fast forward a little bit, move back to Jacksonville, Florida. And I ended up going to college for some time. You know, after graduating, I was in my early 20s. Or, yeah, early 20s. I was 20. So by the time I joined the military, it's kind of a funny story how this even happened, because it was totally by accident, I actually got out of a really toxic relationship. And my answer for that was to join the military. So a little bit different than what some people go through where they joined for school benefits or to serve the country. That's actually not how my story began in the military. But I did end up falling in love with the organization and what it did for me in my life. So it's always fun to talk about that. So I joined the Army, the Navy was not available, they were closed Air Force was really difficult to get ahold of,

Keith McKeever 2:17

I have to provide standards, right, I'll be biased.

Ashley Rodriquez 2:22

They have to play hard to get, you know, so high, but the Navy was closed. And that's really what I was going for. I wanted to be a corpsman, which is basically the Navy medic, for those who don't know, and no idea why I wanted to do that. But that was just what I was set on, had to be the movies or something. So the Navy was close. I popped over next door. It was one of those recruiting stations where all of the branches are right next to each other. And I popped up in the army and said, Hey, do you have any information on the guys next door. And that's how it started. So they asked me what I wanted to do when I wanted to leave and had no intentions on joining the army. But that's the route I ended up going because they got me out the quickest. And so yeah, I ended up being a combat medic for the army did four years. So from 2015 to 2019. And then two years later, here I am, you know, launching my business and making that happen. So a lot of fun getting into the details of all of that.

Keith McKeever 3:26

It's really interesting that you know, the trocar thinkin Navy and like they're not there, right, and they're closed, because you're not the first person that said it on this podcast. I should know this off the top my head, I think it was Jose elonis. If I remember right, he ended up in the Navy because the branch who was looking at was closed or something. I could be wrong on the person. But I've heard that from a few different people like they had their eyes set on this path. And the recruiters not there. Yeah. A stack against them. And, you know, there's always somebody out, you know, some recruiter out, puffing away on a cigarette, say, Hey, we got some opportunities over here.

Ashley Rodriquez 4:07

Right? That's what makes me laugh now, because I look back at it. Obviously, I was 100% civilian back then. Being raised as a military brat. I just didn't have the perspective of what it's like to actually be in the military. So now I look back and I laugh. Knowing the jobs of the recruiters knowing recruiters myself now that are friends of mine. And I'm just like, Why did I think going over to the army they were gonna give me information about the Navy. So it's funny stuff. But you know, it led me to where I am today. And, and that's why I love talking about it because it was unexpected. It ended up way better than I ever could have imagined. Obviously, I met my husband and I have a family now and we're doing great things out here. So it was all worth it in the end, but it was totally unexpected. The idea was to go Navy if I couldn't do that I was gonna try Air Force. Neither of them were available. At the time, and so I went army.

Keith McKeever 5:03

So I'm going to ask you a question and this is serious. This is one of them curveball questions I wasn't planning on this just came off the top my head. I know there's a huge rivalry and believe me, it is the second greatest football game to watch every year. Okay, I've been a fan. I've been a Buckeye fan for a long time. So obviously the game between them and that team up north. I love that's number one. Gotta watch that every year. The other one is Army Navy. Being an Air Force guy. I don't have a horse in a race. But since you grew up as a Navy brat, right Army vet yourself. Is there any like? Is there any feeling of love towards towards the Naval Academy? You know, do you still feel a little bit of joy if Navy beats army, you know?

Ashley Rodriquez 5:54

You know, honestly, honestly, yeah. And the reason is that toxic relationship I told you, I was a Navy man. My grandfather's retired Navy, my stepfather for so many years was Navy before we separated from him. Growing up in Jacksonville, we have two Navy bases. So I had only known maybe my entire life. Even when we were stationed in Virginia for a little while, I did a guy then in high school, his mother was navy. So I just everything about my life was Navy, which is why when I went to the recruiting station, and I ended up going army, I had no idea what to expect. I knew nothing about army culture, nothing about people that served in the Army. I don't even think I had seen a human being in the Army uniform before ever in my life in person. That's how foreign it was to me. I mean, it's along the same lines of when people ask you, you know, are you army? Are you in the military? I've had that question a couple of times where they don't really understand how the branches work. That was me. I had no clue what I was getting into. But yeah, I mean, not so much the Academy because, you know, I was enlisted, so I tend to be a little more biased towards the enlisted side. Of course, yeah. But it's tough. I do have a lot of love for Navy. I still love what they do and kind of the lifestyle they get to live but I found a deep love for what I did in the army and the experience I had there because I would never have gotten that in the Navy. You know, out there in the helicopters and the tanks in the field doing the some of the stuff you're doing that I just wouldn't have had in the Navy and I was stationed my first duty station was in Kansas. So again, you don't see Navy out there. They sent me to the middle of the country from Florida. So that was a huge huge shock for me. But yeah, there's still a lot of love there.

Keith McKeever 7:48

Yeah. Might be you might have better luck finding a Coastie out right you would the Navy Yeah, well that's that's a heck of a change of scenery for you to go from the coast. You know, I've never been to Jacksonville but I'm going to assume it's probably absolutely gorgeous you know beaches and all that stuff to Kansas.

Ashley Rodriquez 8:10

Kansas, you know for looking at beaches. Yeah, Jacksonville. I don't miss it. Yeah, yeah, I live in Daytona network next to Daytona rather, but really the pretty water is golf side. So you're looking at Tampa Clearwater or further south like Miami, where I lived it's not that it's ugly. It's still the beach life but it's kind of ragged sometimes. And then you have to understand to when there's military bases, sometimes immediately surrounding those bases there's a lot of lower income a lot of poverty because the military installations they need to find the cheapest land to you know, purchase to be able to build on that. So I mean, yeah, it's it's home for me, but I don't feel any more attachment to it, other than it was

Keith McKeever 8:57

the ocean and the beach.

Ashley Rodriquez 9:00

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 9:02

I've never been to Kansas. Never been to Kansas either. But being from the Midwest, I would imagine it's just about like Central Illinois here and and just, you know, cornfield, and we feel the field after another, just a lot of metal repetitively. Yeah. You know, it's funny, you never know, never know where you're gonna end up.

Ashley Rodriquez 9:20

Yeah. And that's kind of the other part of joining the army that I really wasn't expecting. I mean, I don't I don't remember even to this day, what I was expecting. I don't think I had any expectations. But I remember when I was nearing the end of training, and they're dishing out the orders of where everybody's gonna go. I remember seeing Fort Riley and I was like, Rosada, you know, that sounds like Hawaii or something. You know, I was all excited. I'm going to the beaches. No, the only thing that popped up was Kansas. And I remember I searched it multiple times. Like there has to be another base out there that has the same name. There's got to be something going on. But they sent me to Kansas and that's where I spent three years out of the four But I was in so

Keith McKeever 10:01

are we kind of campus you with that with that name, right? Yeah, they

Ashley Rodriquez 10:04

did. They sure did. And I'll be honest, though, I thought I was gonna hate it. Um, it was actually a great experience for me aside from some of the stuff that we're going to talk about that I went through, but the area itself wasn't that bad. I actually thought it was really beautiful, because I had never seen just open fields like that. Not a lot of trees. I'm used to a lot of trees in Florida, and no water. So, you know, aside from the lakes that are there, but culture shock in your own country? Yeah. There was it opened my eyes a little bit. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 10:34

I remember. It was a weird feeling. Because I was the same way. When I got out of tech school, I had no idea where I was gonna go, no clue. But being here for security forces right there. Somebody every every single base. So literally, the whole world was open. And I remember, I was probably close to 100 people or so on our team, and everybody's getting these packets handed tool, except for about, I will say it was like six or eight of us. And we're all kind of looking around. And we're like, Okay, this 20 year National Guard, they know where they're going. You know, everybody else is active duty near all gate orders. And we're all kind of standing around, like, what did we do wrong? Well, it turns out, we all had the overseas orders. Oh, yeah. The rest of them ended up at its nuke bases. And so I was the only one that went to Japan, a couple people went to England, one to Italy, a few different few different places. But it was just like, it was like the, the anticipation was building up like, okay, everybody's getting packets. And at the end, it's like not getting picked on the basketball team. And you're like, but wait a minute. I wasn't picked. Is there something? I don't know? Is there some practical joke? You know, because you don't know what the system is, you know? And, you know, I mean, sure, Doctor doc, great. You know, was there half the time with TD wise and deployments? But yeah, that anticipation was something else. So um, let's get right into the into the questions here. Because we're here to talk about victim mentality. So, you know, what, what do you see in your experience in life that really started getting you thinking about the victim mentality.

Ashley Rodriquez 12:11

Most definitely the three years that I went through, in Kansas, with certain types of leadership, I'm really excited to get into this. Because it's something I'm really, I've grown to be passionate about it. I didn't just off the bat become passionate about changing our mentality and communicating effectively. And all of that until I did some reflection on what I was going through at the time. So for me, I think it was when I kind of hit a rock bottom. So we'll start from where, where I had the realization that I was going to do this and start changing my mindset, and then I'll go back and explain kind of what led up to that. But we were on a TCS deployment rotation to South Korea. So this was 2016. This was when it was pretty hot and heavy there. He was shooting off the missiles just being angry, you know, of course, doing his thing over there in North Korea,

Keith McKeever 13:06

and he does every ball five years. Right, exactly.

Ashley Rodriquez 13:10

So this is 2016. I think Trump was getting elected. So President or former President Trump was getting elected into office, we didn't really have a lot to do with that. Because, you know, when you're overseas, you have to do the absentee ballots and all of that stuff. And unfortunately, it was a little bit more difficult than we thought it was going to be. So we weren't really involved in that election. At the same time, the President, I guess that's what you would call her in South Korea. She was the president at the time she was being impeached from presidency, not entirely sure why. That was something that we were trying to learn and gather about the culture because we really were in their world. We,

Keith McKeever 13:52

your status over there is is completely dependent on on who the leader is and what they want. Well enough Status of Forces Agreement and all those things. I mean, a change, massive change in philosophy could massively change our military stance.

Ashley Rodriquez 14:06

Yeah, it was it was tough. So not only did we have North Korea going on, we were about 10 miles from the border. Not only was that going on, but we also had protests at the installation that we were seeing because it was the anniversary, I guess, a child, many years ago had gotten run over by a tank and passed away. And so there's a lot of protesters that every year around the same time, they protest us being there so it can get violent. We're not allowed to leave the installation. They have been known to throw things grab people, things like that, and they're not a violent people, which is, you know, very interesting. They don't have guns, even their police force, they don't carry guns. So it's technically a very safe place, which I found kind of surprising. How safe I felt there. But there was moments where, you know, we're not wanted there. Even though we're there to protect them, it was just kind of this really tricky situation where we're trying to protect them against this big bully. You know, but then some of their people also don't want us there, there was an impeachment going on. So they were losing their leadership, there was just a lot of turmoil going on at that time, which kind of adds to the stressors that we were going through when we were trying to do training. But yeah, long story short, I had a breaking point, when we were in South Korea, I had a complete mental breakdown. My husband was there with me. So you would think that I should be happy and you know, excited that we're going through this together, we're exploring South Korea together. And there was a lot of really great moments. But my daily working life was just so brutal for me, and just getting through the bullying that I was going through. At the time. I requested to go inpatient, I was having suicidal thoughts, which is something that I hadn't gone through in many, many years. So that was a pretty shocking realization for me that okay, I think I need some help. And at

Keith McKeever 16:10

least you at least you were able to see that, you know, and realize that you need some help. Right, I guess a lot. I mean, a lot of people can't, I don't, I don't think can do that. hard for some people anyway, to realize where exactly they're at and when they need help.

Ashley Rodriquez 16:26

Yeah, and you know, and it's, it's so fortunate that I've gone through enough therapy, I mean, I started therapy fairly young, because of the door divorces that we went through as a family, my mom did what I think is the right thing and put us through therapy so that we could kind of talk through those things, figure it out, as a family, and so that my therapy started from a young age because of coming from kind of a broken household, which was great, because now that I'm at this point, as an adult, I believe I was 22 at the time. Now that I was at that point, you know, as a young adult, I kind of already knew this isn't normal. For me, I'm under a lot of stress right now, there's a lot going on, you know, I need some help, because I just knew that wasn't normal. For me, I had dealt with depression before. But the depression that I would go through was never accompanied with suicide, suicidal thoughts. It was always just a deep sadness. And it was always always, when I'm under an immense amount of pressure or stress. And so that's something else that I talk about a lot as well is the stigma around depression, and around, you know, mental health, that a lot of people see depression, as this thing that we should hate and get rid of, and do it shouldn't be a part of us, you know, let's everybody is finding a way to wage this war against depression. And what I found through going through therapy, doing a lot of self reflection is that depression is a very normal part of the human experience, and that it can actually be used as a tool. So what I've found through the therapy and, and going through a lot of the programs that I've gone through a lot of the schooling that I've gone through, I'm in a psychology degree right now, which is wonderful, is that depression doesn't have to be this ugly thing that we have to fight against. The suicidal ideations Absolutely. You know, reach out for help. If you're there, reach out for help if you know somebody that's there help them. Because that's, that's where it can become dangerous, but just depression by itself, just that deep sadness can be used as a tool. And so that is kind of the pivotal point that I went through. When I realized I was having the suicidal ideations, I realized it was a step further than what I was comfortable with in myself, that I really was like, I need to reach out for help, because it's the only way that I can get out of this. And what I found out was, because I felt stuck where I was, at work, you know how the military works, you can't just put in a two weeks notice, you can't just request damata here, right? And you can't just request to leave and go to another unit, because there's a lot of logistics that goes into that. A lot of coordination that goes into that, that involves a lot of people. It just doesn't work that way, especially during a deployment scenario, which is where we were. So I just felt stuck. I felt stuck. And I believe at the time that when I was having those suicidal thoughts, it's because I felt that there was no escape from what I was going through. And so our brains do this thing where it's like, okay, well, you know, that's a way out. And so that's what people are constantly fighting against when they're having those suicidal thoughts. It's and you can see this in any interview of people that have gone through this or attempted it. More almost always. It's not that they actually want to die. It's just that they want a way out. They are looking for a way to escape the situation that they're in.

Keith McKeever 19:57

Yes, the only option is left the only one that seems right In your mind at the time, that in, you know, in your case, you are stuck, there's nowhere you can go and without some sort of intervention. That's, you know, that could be the, you know, the only way out, unfortunately, you know, it is unfortunately, part of the military culture that a lot of things need to change in the prevention aspect of that, that's like you go into a soapbox,

Ashley Rodriquez 20:26

right? Absolutely. And it's hard, because how do you maintain the structure of what the military is supposed to be, you know, we're supposed to be this war machine that protects the country, and there absolutely has to be a structure in place, like the one that's in place for war scenarios. But where that can become dangerous is when you're back home, you know, and you're not in the middle of a war or a battle or something that requires that type of structure, it can actually become very toxic, and very, like a battle between people in your in your own team, because you're fighting against the structure that doesn't really need to be in that environment. So it just, it basically provides an easy way for people to become victims of bullying, harassment, we've seen a lot of stuff, you know, as of last year with, with the sexual assaults and things of that nature. And so they have programs in place now to prevent that, and to give people a way to pursue those avenues. But when you're stuck, and this is the difficult thing, I've read a lot of comments, I've gone through a lot of threads where people that haven't been in the military don't understand why it's so difficult to speak up about any type of toxicity that's maybe going on is just the structure, you know, and for in my case, and I bring that out, because in my case, the difficulty I was going through involved my direct bosses. So in the pyramid of things, you know, I was lower enlisted, I was bottom of the barrel. And the bullying that I was receiving was from the leadership that was directly above me. So as my platoon sergeants, and two other NCOs that were in our platoon that kind of, they kind of banded together like a group of minions. And I found it really difficult to kind of get around that, because for those who don't maybe know, you have to go through those people in order to communicate with people above them. So basically, in order to get any type of help, I had to, you know, go to the people that were abusing the situation and abusing me as a as a young soldier. So

Keith McKeever 22:41

now you got the alternative of soon, probably the same, same title in the army with the Inspector General's office or, you know, whatever. Right? That's another option. But that's like the that's like the nuclear option like this the like, Okay, I'm gonna blow this thing way. I mean, you know, because you're, you're always taught to handle things at the lowest level deal with things and stuff like that. That's, that's the total opposite direction, and sometimes it's necessary. But there's not an easy decision to make. Because, you know, at that point in time, you're bringing everything to light. Yeah. How do you mentally prepare for that? Right? I mean, you go through your own stuff anyway. And then you get to add more more fuel to the fire by you know, trying to fix it, you're gonna go through more pain and anger and depression, and potential bullying or whatever, just to potentially fix it. Keyword being potentially fix it. So that's, that's a that's a good point. You know that civilians don't understand the chain of command and there's, there's no going around it right. There's no going right into the Colonel's office. Absolutely. Not, buddy. I'm getting bullied over here. And I'll like it, if you just don't do that.

Ashley Rodriquez 23:59

Yeah. And absolutely. And just, I guess, some more background on that. I'll go ahead and back it up now and explain what I did in the army and where I was. So I was stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas. I was a combat medic at the time, it was combat medic. I think they've changed the name a couple of different times now. And so I was attached to a lightweight infantry unit. So there was hardly any females complete male dominant culture, which was fine. I did. I did great actually had a great experience. People were very respectful for the most part. Around that time, the restriction on women serving in combat arms positions, was lifted. And so as a young combat medic, I was sent to one of our infantry companies. So I was attached directly to our infantry guys. It was a company of about 250 infantry men. So the guys that you really see on the frontlines doing what they're doing. I did a lot of training with them. So they literally had me out there doing glass houses. You know, with the guns and the rifles and working as a team, because when they go in and do these breaches during missions, if we're overseas, the medic is right behind them or essentially attached to them. And so I did a lot of training with that. I mean, they really turned me for that amount of time into a medic infantry person. And I really had to get into what they were doing, I had to understand how they operated, why they did that I got chewed out endlessly, because they really treated me like one of their soldiers. As far as the way that I wore my gear, some of the habits that I had, you know, as a medic, or somebody that's not in the infantry field, you know, they train us very briefly for combat during during basic training, but it's very brief. It's very basic. That's why it's basic training. And so when I was attached to this company, I really had a rude awakening there, and it really toughened me up. So that was a great experience, a lot of those soldiers, and especially the higher leadership that was there, they had never worked with a female before ever. I mean, I'm talking like, the first surgeon of the company, which is like, what would that be not like a manager, but like, the person above the manager, right? That's kind of their position, had never worked with a female in his entire career. And so that was an interesting path to kind of navigate. For the first little bit, they kind of were all scared to associate with me or be around me, because, you know, I guess they have this stigma that every female soldier just cries, you know, assault or, and, you know, all these things they were, they were nervous that if they had said something wrong, or done something wrong, that it could be misunderstood. And, you know, I didn't really have any issues with the company. That was great. But yeah, so that's the backstory. So I was attached to an infantry unit. In a really male dominated culture, that's very traditional army, which we go back to talking about that structure. And it became difficult for me, because when I did come in face this issue that I was going through, I kind of had this mentality of like, oh, I need to suck it up. Right, like, oh, I need to suck it up. This is complaining. It's kind of what we're bred to go through is just don't think for yourself, take orders, you know, do what you're supposed to do do your job. And you know, just look ahead, look forward. And so not only was I going through this outward conflict of hates my direct leaders, which by the way, it was not through the infantry company. When I was going through all of this. The problems that I was going through was actually back with my medical platoon. So this was when I had detached from the company. And it was back with my medical platoon,

Keith McKeever 27:57

also was not he was something you could leave behind. No, no, I walked right back into the Hornet's Nest,

Ashley Rodriquez 28:04

right. I had a great experience with the infantry company, again, really respectful, you would think that I would come across some issues, there was one issue it was dealt with very quickly. And that was it. I mean, it was just a really great experience. And I learned a lot it really toughened me up. Like I said, it was when I got back to my medical platoon and I was detached from the infantry that now I kind of had this mentality from being attached to them. That, oh, I need to suck it up, or oh, they're just trying to make me a better leader. So when I realized that it was actual bullying, and actual toxic leadership, because I don't believe that all of the leadership in the military is toxic. I believe that it is a mixture of miscommunication, and traditional structure that might make it seem toxic. But in reality, a toxic leader is somebody that's defined, that has malicious intentions towards you that is seeking out to destroy your career, or destroy your reputation, or cause some type of emotional or physical harm to you. That is a toxic leader, and they use their position to do so. Not all of the leaders are toxic, some of them are just misinformed. miscommunicating. They don't know how to be leaders, because the way that the military works, people get leadership positions very, very quickly, sometimes. And so they're just not trained appropriately. It becomes this perpetual do what I say, type of mantra. So it took me about three years under this direct leadership for me to realize that it was actual toxicity, and that it was actually abusive, and very similar to a bad relationship, right. So people get into relationships and don't realize that they're being abused or mistreated or that it's a toxic situation until They look back, and it's been years and they're like, Man, I need to get out of this. This is not good for me. So again, now we fast forwarded, I'm no longer attached to the infantry. I'm back with my medical platoon. And we're in Korea. And yeah, that's when I had my mental breakdown. And it still took me several months to detach from that. And I can even go into detail about some of the scenarios that I was going through and how I kind of got through that. But it was that three year long realization at that three year mark, that I was like, Oh, my goodness, like, this is actually abusive. And how long have I been doing this and not realizing it, and look at what it's done to my mental health?

Keith McKeever 30:44

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of toxic leadership. And I think you hit on just about every single cause of it is I look back on my years in, there was a few people that were toxic, not necessarily towards me, but just kind of toxic in general, you know, they just weren't good leaders were there. They didn't pick up good skills at airman leadership school, or they had some personality, or character flaws themselves, I don't know. Um, you know, or they just didn't have good NCOs to follow in the footsteps of good NCOs. And officers, you know, because, you know, for every one person that I would kind of consider toxic that I served with, there was one or two guys I served with that that would run through a wall for right now. They're just awesome people respectful, but still got the job done, or firm when they needed to be firm, but treated you as a human being valued, valued your experience. There's a lot of different things. I'm going to tell you one thing I learned, probably more from the toxic and bad leaders than I ever learned from the good ones. And I definitely learned a lot from the good ones. But the bad ones they teach, they teach you some lessons. And they're the ones that sting and hurt and but they'll last forever. You're not gonna forget some of those. So

Ashley Rodriquez 32:07

100% I do? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I hate what I went through in a lot of ways, because I just feel like oh, man, I could have had such a better time. You know what I mean? I could have done so much more. I could have enjoyed my training more enjoyed my my colleagues more, or my battle buddies battle buddy podcast. Yeah. So you know, right. So I kind of enjoyed my experience so much more, even though I had a really good experience overall. It was just really realizing I deal with some of those issues from it even to this day, and not to a point where it debilitates me, but it gets to a point where, you know, there was no justice. So there was an investigation. And again, I'll jump back and go into detail about some of the things I went through. And, you know, and how I kind of overcame that and maybe realize that it was affecting my mental health, some of the some of the cues that I was having that I didn't realize at the time that now looking back, I see. But yeah, definitely. So just just a crazy scenario to wake up three years later and be like, Okay, I've got to do something about this. What was happening at the time, so when I first got to Fort Riley, Kansas, a new soldier, right, and I had fresh out of basic training fresh out of ai t. So I have that mentality of okay, you know, we're all in this together. I need to toughen up. And again, this was before I was in the infantry, you come out of basic training or boot camp with these kinds of thoughts. Like, okay, we're a team, I'm gonna suck it up. It's not about me, it's about the unit. It's about the the mission. Right, so you're

Keith McKeever 33:48

gonna be a hard charger just you know, right, learn and go and yeah, yeah. Yeah. Reality slaps you in the face. Yeah,

Ashley Rodriquez 33:56

you're taught to just like strip away everything that you are, which again, I'm so thankful for, because like I said, I'm so much stronger today because of it. But when I got to that unit, my platoon sergeant at the time who who wasn't a platoon sergeant yet he was just we in process at the same time. So he was coming from a different duty station, I was coming from training. And literally, it got to the unit the same day, didn't have any bad experiences or anything like that. Eventually, he took over our platoon. So he moved up, he was an e6 at the time, he moved up into that platoon sergeant position. And he was one of those leaders that, you know, was really easy to learn from, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to help everybody and and really groom us to be good leaders. So if he did criticize us, it almost always came with, you know, some type of good criticism shortly after, so it kind of felt like this, okay, like he's cutting me down but he's also building the back up. And that's kind of what it felt like for me to come out of basic training. And again with that mentality, my first reaction for those, you know, few years of going through that was, Oh, he's just, he's training me to be a better leader, he's training me to, to get rid of some of the weaknesses that I have and to become stronger in other areas. So the fact that he would put me down and, and kind of publicly publicly humiliate me in front of the rest of our platoon. And he did this to other people, too. It wasn't just me. Just towards the end, I got it the worst. And that's going to be really fun to talk about, but but this whole cut you down and build you back up mentality is what I thought we were supposed to be experiencing. Right? Because that's how basically that's

Keith McKeever 35:48

what you're used to be. Yeah, exactly. Basic Training, right. That's the, that's the goal there. But after that, the goal should be to just build you up. Right? Upon your skills.

Ashley Rodriquez 35:58

Absolutely. And I agree with you. And so as a as a young soldier, naive, I just thought, Oh, well, this is how the army is, this is how it's gonna be. I just need to get used to it. So that was fine. Whatever, no big deal. It didn't, didn't hurt my feelings at that time. It wasn't until I met my husband, my now husband met him and kind of started changing, I guess, my priorities. You know, it wasn't just all about soldiering. Now Now I had other things I wanted to do, I was starting to find myself as a person within the organization, I started to see a little bit of a change. And it started out with really subtle things. Like, he would well, first of all, he made some comment about, you know, oh, you're getting married too fast. Are you sure you're not going to regret it? Like really kind of causing doubt in my personal life, which was kind of blurring the lines of, you know, like, grew me professionally. That's fine. But don't start giving? 20s? Right. Yeah, I was 22. At the time.

Keith McKeever 37:01

We all see a lot of people who get married really young, in the military, right? I mean, I had there was a lot of people I knew they get married in tech school, you know, 18 years old, getting married, like that might be a little young. But at this point, you've already had three, four years of life experience. Right? So what's you know, who's to say?

Ashley Rodriquez 37:21

Yeah, well, I think it had a lot to do to now again, that I look back. And I don't know for sure, this is me speculating, just from my experience, because he was never inappropriate with me ever. I will never claim that you never was you never crossed those lines made any kind of comments like that. But what I realized was because my priorities were changing, I wasn't as willing to volunteer to go do every little thing, like volunteer for field time, like I was doing before, I would volunteer to go out there all the time, because that was the only time that I really got to do my job, you know, and do medical stuff. So, again, my priority, my priority started changing. And I don't know if along those lines, it started giving me I guess, a bad image of my career and who I was as a professional, I'm not sure. But that is when the changes started happening. So making comments to create a lot of doubt in my personal life, my marriage. When I got married, we deployed. I want to say a few weeks later, it wasn't very long after we got married. And then I think it was a month later, we started getting ready to prepare, you know, you have to pack up all the Conexus and things like that, just this long preparation to go overseas. It's absolutely crazy, long working hours. And again, refusing to use my married name. Now my name was legally and officially changed in the military. So I no longer had my maiden name. He would cross out my married name, and write my maiden name on the papers, right? So just weird things like that. Again, never will claim

Keith McKeever 39:00

too much effort can be petty or weird or

Ashley Rodriquez 39:03

whatever. seems a little strange. And I can't pinpoint it. I could all day long speculate, you know, was there something there? I don't know. But again, he was never inappropriate with me never made any type of innuendos, nothing. So I can't really say that that's what it was. I can only say what he was doing. So scratching out my name, you know, putting my maiden name. When we got to Korea, this is where everything really amped up. And I would get put on extra duty a lot. So there was times that I got stuck on a overnight 15 hour it was a 15 hour shift, night shift at an emergency clinic on the installation. And I got put on that detail, no big deal. But when it came time for some of the free time that I had, you know, to do things in South Korea, you know, we have our weekends and things like that. It was a fairly normal life as long as Northwest was behaving, I noticed that he would make an extended effort to try to squash any plans that I had, which of course, was with my husband at the time because he was stationed with me. So, so yeah, so there was times I had plans, and I would get put on last minute duties so that I couldn't do that. When I would say something about it, like, oh, I had these plans, or oh, you know, can we find somebody else to do something? It seemed like it was always going towards me. Now, I noticed it. And here's the weird thing too. Just just for a background picture. So everybody can see kind of why I was frustrated with this, I started having these feelings. And I don't remember every situation right now that led up to it. I just know specifically what I went through in Korea, when I had my breakdown, the things that led up to that, we were actually in a different unit. So we were attached to an infantry unit. When we got to Korea. At this time, I had already been having these feelings. This was about a year and a half into my my contract into my, my duties that I was doing. And I had already started to have feelings of like, okay, like, this is getting a little too much like he's just being a little too negative, I'm getting a lot of, like duty, I'm getting a lot of sassy comments, just cutting me down. And I mean, he would push my buttons so hard that I would I would cry because not I wasn't sad. But I would get so ticked off so mad, and I couldn't do anything about it. And so it would just force me into into tears. And, and he did it all the time, like just pushing my buttons, talking about my work as if I was just like this horrible person, but then I would get put on a lot of duties because I was really responsible and never got in trouble. I was never late to work. I was a really hard worker, I still am. Because I'm I'm really big on my reputation. And that's one thing in the military is is your reputation and what's perceived as reality. And so I always tried really hard to make sure that that there was no question about my work ethic and what I did. But I think because I was so hard on myself, and he knew that he would kind of pick it up. So a year and a half in, we just get to Korea. We're in the same unit. He's my platoon sergeant, I was very fortunate enough that my husband's unit, put in a request for me to get switched over there. They gave us the choice. Do you want to stay separate and get the separation pay? Or do you want to be closer together? Because we were about three hours apart in South Korea. And so of course we chose Yeah, we'll be closer together that we will get to experience this together. No big deal. No brainer, right? And you know, no, people don't get that opportunity. So that's the biggest thing that I advocate is that we had amazing leadership at the higher level. A lot of people can't say that, or they don't get that experience. But amazing leadership at the higher level, I still keep in contact with a lot of them, especially now that I'm no longer in the military, I can do that. Just great leadership at the higher level.

So yeah, we switched unit. So I switched units. I found out that same week, that my current platoon sergeant, which is the abuser here was also making the switch to my husband's unit. And, and I found this out very last minute. It was because technically the position he held in our unit at the time, he fell into that position because there was no other option. So it wasn't really on his record. As a leader, he wasn't getting like rated for it, basically, because he wasn't slotted for that position. So in switching to this new unit, he was being awarded that position as a platoon sergeant, it was going to go on his record and be a part of his career. So career progression. And so we made the switch, same day, we're in the band together, go into our new units. And here I am, you know, I've had such an amazing opportunity to be stationed with my husband and his unit. Why on earth would I then go and complain about being stuck with this guy, you know, as my platoon sergeant, I felt at the time, the best way I can put it was that I had a really awesome opportunity to move units to be close to my husband. They had great leadership in this unit as well. So I'm just not going to complain about what I'm dealing with with this guy.

Keith McKeever 44:27

Plus, you're close to your husband. Right. So you got some support structure nearby and Exactly. Yeah, I mean, but how do you how do you start complaining in the moment you get there? That's exactly it doesn't look good? He doesn't set the stage? Well,

Ashley Rodriquez 44:36

no, absolutely not. And at this point, they had, you know, great expectations of me. And again, you know, everybody that was immediately surrounding me had good things to say about what I was doing and how it worked. So that was you know, a big reason for them advocating for us to switch because again, this is not something that happens they typically don't want spouses in a unit together. But they really made that push for us and it ends have been great. So of course, so when people say, you know, Ashley, why didn't you speak up? Why didn't you say something sooner? Why didn't you make a report? That was kind of like a reset button. When I got to that new unit, I didn't know he was going to be switching as well. I did not know that he was going to be my platoon sergeant for the next, you know, year and a half that I was in that unit, because we switched at the same time. And there, there's things that happen when you're in a military culture, that you have to decide, okay, is this situation big enough for me to make ripples in what's going on around me? Is it big enough for me to shine a spotlight on me my reputation for people to make their own opinions about what's going on. And with it being a new unit, I just felt like it wasn't a big deal for me to come in and make a scene. I just didn't want to do that. And so I kept my mouth shut, I kept quiet. You know, I had the support of my husband. I dealt with my leader during the day. But then once I, you know, went back to the barracks or did my own thing. I was gone. And so that was kind of my way of getting through that. And so yeah, that's kind of the story on how I got stuck with him and why I felt like I couldn't speak up earlier than the three year mark.

Keith McKeever 46:15

Do you think? Well, I know when I was in, I mean, I didn't have any situations where I needed to speak up. And I feel like maybe if those were, it might not have been too hard. But I know having been in security forces, right? We had, we had lots of women in the unit. But I'm very obviously very familiar as a podcaster. And a veteran of a lot of the things that women have to go through toxic leadership, and a lot of women have military sexual traumas and a lot of other things. There was misconceptions. And a lot of us I was in it women, you know, the good looking women got the back office job, they got the easy jobs and favoritism and all those different things. Do you think being a woman played a factor in not wanting to come forward, like you're not going to be taken seriously as a mail folder?

Ashley Rodriquez 47:08

Absolutely. For sure. That's a huge factor, especially so in the previous unit that I had, that I was in that infantry unit, I did have a situation I had to make report. It wasn't because I wanted to, but there was other people around me that were witnesses to it. And so I had no choice because they were friends of mine. And they basically said if you don't say something we will so like I said that was squashed. Very quickly, it was substantiated. He was moved to another unit, no big deal. I continued to be a

Keith McKeever 47:38

good battle, buddy. At least they were willing to step up and say something.

Ashley Rodriquez 47:41

Yeah, and I'm thankful for that. Because it really wasn't uncomfortable situation. I mean, my NCOs at the time, that were on the line with me, there's three of us three medics, so it was any fives and NCO, a specialist and I was a private, and it was the two medics were men, because there just wasn't a lot of females. There was three of us in our unit, three female medics, and one was sent to the clinic I was sent to infantry and the other one was sent to, I think the armored unit. We have one armored company in our unit. So I was sent infantry and I think she was sent to the, to the tankers to the armored people. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm thankful for it. It needed to be done because it was affecting my work. I mean, just every kind of crazy comment you could think of and requesting me to be his medic to tree areas around his groin area, things like that. It was just, it was a little. It was really dramatic. I mean, he was just, he really was putting himself in that position. And I was blowing it off. Because prior to the military, I was bartending, I was in the restaurant industry. So I was kind of used to people making those dumb comments, you know, certain types of personality, certain types of guys doing in saying certain things, so I just let it roll off my back, no big deal. But it did become, you know, constant. And so, again, I had that platoon sergeant when I went through that situation had to report it, you know, and so it was just one of those things where I was like, Okay, I don't want another situation. I just want to do my job. I want to have my friends I want to work with my co workers that I enjoy working with and just kind of leave it at that. So because I was a woman we come into at least I can speak for the army. I'm not sure how it works in the Air Force, because I know women are there's more women in the Air Force in our in the army. I definitely yeah, definitely higher percentage. Right. So I don't know if that changes the dynamic at all. Um, but well, you know, I don't know, I felt I felt like I wanted to do everything in my power to have a great reputation to do a good job and I just felt like complaining about things that weren't really hurting me. You know, I just decided to choose my reputation. And that's kind of a big part of the book that I'm writing I've been working on this book now for two years to tell the story of kind of what we're talking about. So, in the book, it'll be a lot cleaner. It'll be, you know, the timeline will make more sense. But, but definitely being a woman, I think I had to choose between what do I want my reputation to look like? You know, what people don't realize when you're in the military is, it's not like you go to work, and you go home. And that's it. If you're married and have kids, it can kind of be like that when you're at home station and not deployed. But we were in a deployment situation. So the people you work with, or the people you live with, they're the people that you associate with, there's no, hey, I'm gonna go hang out with my friends from back home, hey, I'm gonna go hang out my college buddies, there's none of that.

Keith McKeever 50:47

There's no talking out after eight hours of being done. Not at all, we'll hang out with you. And that's where you either develop big bonds, or you have situations like that where, you know, that causes issues that you choose cannot get away from.

Ashley Rodriquez 51:03

Right. And if you think about it, I mean, and people are shocked to hear about this, but just like, there's crappy people in the real world, in the civilian world, there's crappy people in uniform. I mean, they don't, they don't weed those people out. So it does create this weird situation of what I do. And what I say at work will have an effect on my off time, it will have an effect on who I'm hanging out with. And again, you know, this person was my leader. So they have direct access to all of my peers, all of my colleagues, all of the NCOs that are around me. And so the key turning point for me going through this situation, when I realized when I had that real like, oh switch, like, this is not a good situation. I need to get out of this. And I started having that mental breakdown was when everybody else in the platoon started seeing it. It kind of became a joke, which now looking back, you know, we can laugh Haha, it's funny. It became a joke of you know what it would have brought it they called me rod or they would call me t bone. Because my, my maiden name was terrible. So everybody would call me t bone, or they would call me rod. And what were

Keith McKeever 52:14

nicknames, right, yeah.

Ashley Rodriquez 52:18

Nobody, nobody ever called me Ashley. Right. Until, you know, I was back out here. I kind of prefer the nicknames. And so I you know, now I just want to introduce online I just say ash, and I just keep it real short and sweet. But, um, but yeah, so that was my switch was everybody around me, started realizing it, and realizing that, okay, it wasn't, it wasn't a thing anymore. Where everybody was getting treated like this. It was, I kind of felt like I was being pinpointed. But I thought, okay, am I just going crazy? Am I being dramatic? What's going on? So when people including and CEOs started validating this, Hey, T, hey, T bone, he's really coming after you. What did you do like what's going on? They would tell me about private conversations they were having with him and other NCOs about how they were going to get me in trouble. How they were going to keep me from my husband, because we were, we were stationed together, we're in the same unit. But I wasn't in his company. So for those that don't know, there's several companies in a unit, you know, several 100 people. And so I wasn't attached to his company. That was the deal was I could be in the unit, but I can't be attached to his company. So he lived a mile away from me. So we weren't, you know, living together anything. So it was very easy. When it when my colleagues and my peers started coming up to me and telling me about these private conversations they were having about things. They were overhearing. That's when it started to snowball, and I started to realize, okay, he really might be after me. So, you do go through this process, even in an abusive relationship. I mean, this can be taken anywhere. If you're just around toxic people. You do go through a process where you're like, am I being crazy? Am I being dramatic? Am I not seeing things clearly. And so it does take the people around you. And thankfully, I had a great team around me. It does take people around you that kind of help highlight, hey, you're not crazy, hey, this is what's going on. This is what we're seeing. And I had a few NCOs that were in there, not the ones that were part of the abuse, but a couple of others that were kind of the outsiders. Because they didn't tolerate that stuff. And they were the good ones. They were the good leaders that we talked about the ones that really got in and worked with us really took care of us really cared to earn the title of an NCO. Right. Absolutely. And they were the ones to kind of protect me and and keep me out of this severe trouble that you know, they were trying to make for us. So the way the army works now is everything is on paper if they can establish a pattern of behavior on paper Then they can recommend you for these articles that will cause you to lose rank or cause you to be kicked out of the military. And what my platoon sergeant at the time was doing, was trying to establish some pattern of insubordination that didn't exist. And I had several people on my behalf to vouch for that, and so I never got in trouble because there just was no proof to the pudding. But every single day, and I kid you not, this is why it became a joke in the platoon because it was so painfully obvious. And unfortunately, I felt that it was difficult to speak up. So if I felt that and I was the one going through it. Imagine how everybody else feels seeing it, they feel like they can't speak up, because it's not really happening to them. So it becomes this tricky situation of we see what's happening, we know it's wrong. But we also can't speak up, because we're gonna rock the boat. And so it was a really tough situation. We had a big meeting all of us outsiders, right, we had a big meeting, it was two of our NCOs. And the rest of us were lower enlisted. And we had a huge meeting with our upper leaders. So we bypass this leader went straight to our first surgeon, requested a meeting, and basically told him what was going on, they launched some sort of an investigation. I think he had some type of reprimand, but it didn't, you know, it was like a tiny slap on the wrist. It wasn't really anything crazy. Other people had their own stories of what they were dealing with with him. So it wasn't like it was a meeting about me or anything like that. It was just in general, like this is not a good leader. And we were highlighting that as a team. Again, nothing really happened. And it wasn't that we had a bad first sergeant, he was brand new to the unit he had just come in. So there was a lot of things that he was dealing with and

Keith McKeever 56:55

had a lot of blinders on to. I mean, if he's new, he doesn't have those relationships really hasn't talked to people fill things out. Have a good thumb on the on the pulse.

Ashley Rodriquez 57:05

Right. Absolutely. And so it, it's very difficult sometimes to explain the structure because, you know, you would think like, oh, you know what you told me, you could do something, there's a lot of social politics that are involved, like you said, those relationships that affect how something is handled. Technically, he was teetering the line. I mean, he wasn't really doing anything wrong, whether it was malicious or not, you know, one can debate. And that's how we felt it was happening, but he wasn't technically breaking any regulations. And this is something that I will always admit, I learned what I learned the most from him was to know your regulations, know your rules, know what's written in stone, so that you can either abide by it or use it, you know, in whatever circumstance you find yourself in. And so that actually is what helped me stay above what he was trying to do was I learned that from him, I learned my regulations, I learned the rules. And so each time he tried to come at me with something, some type of paperwork, some type of made up scenario, I had something to kind of counteract it and be like, Well, look, that's not really what it was, or, you know, to protect myself. And so that's a big thing that I teach as well, when I was doing the coaching is how to protect yourself in these situations. in a professional way. That's something that I learned from that situation. So like we talked about, you know, a little bit ago, there's a lot that we learned from these leaders that even though it's a hard situation, and there was a brief period where I wanted to escape, and that did result in suicidal thoughts, briefly, I really learned to protect myself, and I really learned what I could advocate for coming out of that situation. So long story short, I was still under his leadership, the rest of the time we were in Korea. I'm someone some of what this looked like was, huh. I'm trying to figure out the best way to explain it. So every day I was coming in, and I would have a piece of paper, this piece of paper said something that I had done that I had to sign. And it was tiny things. It was so tiny, like, I failed to tell somebody that I was going to be doing this or whatever. And it didn't make any sense because I always communicated with my direct NCO, my EFI that I had, and he always protected me, he was a great leader, he would tell me, you know, Rod, I have another piece of paper for you. You can put that you disagree. You can put your case on there, sign it, you know, whatever the case is, he really became a huge block for me and protecting me against him. And so it got to the point where thankfully, I didn't even have to really talk to, you know, my platoon sergeant anymore. I would just deal with my NCO. And you know, he would tell my NCO things like oh, don't don't be alone with her because she'll she'll lie about and get you in trouble. It was just really manipulative. And it was Ally's absolute lies. And so it just became so toxic because he was trying, it reminds me of this quote that I didn't I didn't notice at the time. But it reminds me of this quote that I see today where it says, like a controlling person or an or narcissistic person, if they can't control you, they'll try to control how others see you. I don't know if you've heard that quote. I think I heard something like that. Yeah. Right. So it was it was just like that. So because I was using the regulations to protect myself, and getting out of the trouble that he was trying to create. He was trying to then change how people saw me and lie about things and say these things and, and so that that was the whole battle I was going through was fighting these accusations, trying to get my colleagues to step up with me and be like, Hey, let's fight against this.

One of the situations that I can say I went through is, I came off of that night shift that I had exhausted 15 hours overnight, I actually was barely brand new pregnant with my daughter. This was towards the very end of our, of our rotation. And so we were all about to pack up and go home in I think a month or so we were done with all of our training, we were just waiting to get replaced at that point. And I came off of a shift, I went into the clinic, I had to get a checkup done had to do my urine samples, all that basic stuff that you have when you have pregnancies. And the NCO that runs the clinic was one of the NCOs that was an accessory to what this platoon sergeant was doing. So there was the platoon sergeant and there was two other NCOs to his left, and to his right, that were accessories and helping him do this and creating these really difficult situations for me. And what ended up happening was, I sat there all morning, it was about two hours, sat there in the clinic, all of the walk ins for the morning, the morning walk ins, there's a period of time where you can get seen as a walk in before the appointments start. And they just let me sit there they let me sit there didn't send me back to the doctor didn't even tell him that I was there. I found out later on they didn't even know I was there. And so I guess that was kind of a like haha moment for them. They they have this power over me that you know they were going to get in the way of my medical care. And so I ended up signing out, I let the the corporal know who was a friend of mine that I was going to go get some sleep no big deal. I'll try again tomorrow. Turned into this whole situation where that NCO told my platoon sergeant, my platoon sergeant called My NCO. So here I am just trying to go to my room and go to sleep at this point because I haven't slept all night, brand new pregnant, I'm exhausted. And they ordered for me to go back to the clinic because it was disrespectful that I left even though the appointments were being seen at this point, I wasn't going to be able to get in no big deal. Right. I signed out I let them know I was leaving. I mean, I wasn't trying to create any problems here. And I get back to the clinic. The NCO looks at me and he goes, Can I help you? You know, like, like, he didn't know why he was there. He did. He knew I was there. He just was being petty. And so I was like, oh, so and so you know, Andrew, I use first names now because I'm not going to give rank or last names if I don't have to yet. Um, yeah, it was like, oh, so and so. Andrew sent me back here and told me that I needed to come get seen because it was disrespectful that I left it. It was disrespectful to the doctor apparently that I left even though he didn't know I was there. Okay. So and this is what these situations look like. And this happened over and over and over again with different situations. The next day, I come into work, I get called into work by by my MCL the one that was protecting me. And there's a piece of paper for me. No surprise, it's the counseling. Right. That's what they're called is counseling. And in this counseling, it said that the action I needed to take was to apologize to the doctor for leaving and wasting his time. And that it was insubordination. You know, because I left and I left my place of duty wasn't a place of duty. I mean, just every crazy thing. You could

Keith McKeever 1:04:21

say. You're already off duty, right? You'd already been here 15 hours. I was off

Ashley Rodriquez 1:04:25

duty. I wasn't even attached to them at this point. I was attached to a an extra duty at the clinic is

Keith McKeever 1:04:30

stretching those. Right? That's really stretching some counseling right there. Wow.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:04:35

Yeah. So that that's kind of what the situation looks like. So for somebody that doesn't know, what these counselors do or what the situation is, it could look like complaining for a long time for the first couple years that I was going through this. I thought it was complaining too. So I just really didn't say much because what am I going to say like Oh boohoo he gave me a piece of paper and you know, that's the end of it.

Keith McKeever 1:04:58

If you don't have enough rank nobody who's gonna listen to you, right? You know, the specialist or whatever, he's gonna know, just shut up. It's just what it is. Right? Exactly. Because they're not see it? I mean, was there is some aspect of that you just have to take some stuff. Like just you're gonna deal with some BS, but at some point time across the line,

Ashley Rodriquez 1:05:19

right? Well, and that's kind of where I started to realize, okay, this is not a good situation, again, everybody's starting to tell me about these private conversations where they were purposely colluding to find out how they can get me in trouble how they can get rid of some of the rank, I barely just made specialists that was still brand new to the army. And yeah, just trying to get me in trouble trying to establish a pattern of behavior that just didn't exist. And so thankfully, I had the NCOs that I had at the time, and this is all going to be a part of that book. I just can't wait to get it out. There were great leaders in place that were protecting me, I had my co workers that were vouching for me. When we got back to the States, from that deployment rotation, there was an investigation launched against him, he refused to sign the paperwork that I needed to have the maternity uniform, so I no longer could fit in my uniform. I was busting out of the buttons, basically. And he complained about it in the hire leadership meetings that he had soldiers that weren't in compliance with their uniform. So he was trying to get me in trouble. He was working on counseling to, to get me in trouble for not being in uniform, because my my belt was on done because I couldn't fit I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. And

Keith McKeever 1:06:36

yeah, he wouldn't sign the document for you to get into the maternity.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:06:40

No one signed the documents. So fortunately, for me, there was another NCO, we don't know who it was. We think that it was an NCO somebody put in a complaint against him. And basically, it was kind of weird, they sent it to the hospital on the installation, which had nothing to do with us. I think that was a way of them staying anonymous. But they sent the complaint to the hospital, which eventually worked its way down to our unit, because we were not attached to the hospital at all, eventually worked its way back down to our unit. And essentially what the complaint was saying is that there was a pregnant soldier, there was two of us, actually, that they were doing this to was me and one of my co workers, and basically saying that there were pregnant soldiers that were being abused. And the only reason we think it was an NCO was because it had to be somebody that was in that meeting with the higher ups that heard him complaining about the uniforms talked about us and talked about reprimanding us for not being in uniform or in compliance. That's the only

Keith McKeever 1:07:46

people in the room probably either flat out didn't care or just neglected to really say or do anything to him in that meeting. Try not to look the other way, whatever. So

Ashley Rodriquez 1:08:01

yeah, and I think a lot of those leaders had no idea what he was talking about. He didn't say anything about pregnancy, he didn't say anything about us. It has to be an NCO that knew that he had pregnant soldiers and knew what was going on, you know, in the situation. And so just little things like that. So yeah, refuse to allow me to have the uniforms that I needed, and then wanted to get me in trouble for not being in uniform or in compliance with my uniform, little things like that. So lo and behold, because of that, an investigation and official investigation was launched against him. We had all of our people in plays our NCOs are lower enlisted everybody that was just, like, ready and excited to finally share their stories and explain what was happening. And unfortunately, the officer that conducted the investigation did not mind his p's and q's. Instead of in the official report, instead of having me put the names of our witnesses in that official report, he had me write it on a separate piece of paper that was not in the official statement. Because those names were not in the official statement that I wrote. And again, I was a young soldier, I had no idea. He was not obligated to interview them. So basically, just being lazy, just being lazy. He had to do this investigation, because somebody put in a complaint, you know, and nobody really motion is right. He had no idea what was going on. He just had to do go through the motion. And so I had an amazing commander at the time, he used to be enlisted and eventually I forget what the term is now, but he eventually became an officer and switched over he commissioned as an officer and he gave us the opportunity to redo the investigation because he said it was done incorrectly. He explained to me that's how I know why it was messed up because he explained it to me. When you give a statement and official statement you need to have your witness names in the official statement. He said do you want to do the investigation? Again, because it was it was centered on the to pregnant women, right. That's how this whole thing launched. And at that point, a lot of our witnesses PCs, because that tends to happen after deployment rotation, people will PCs to a new duty station, or they'll ETs and get out of the military. So a lot of our witnesses were no longer there by the time the investigation was concluded. And so we did decide not to go through with it, that NCO, PCs as well. So I was no longer under his leadership. Right before he PCs, they moved me to the training room to work directly with my first sergeant, because they understood that it was an abusive situation. But again, they don't have a say in the investigation, because they don't do the investigation themselves. So like I said, I had great leadership that took care of me, they finally when they realize what was going on, removed me from the situation and brought me under their wing, essentially. And he ended up PCs being so big, long story to basically say that. That's why I'm writing my book. And I think that's why I still deal with some of the issues that came from that bullying, that experience. And that's just barely scratching the surface of the three year period. But I felt like it was unresolved, I felt like there was no justice. He's still out there as a leader possibly, you know, manipulating and being evil to other people. I don't know, I had a huge sense of relief, unfortunately. Right, exactly. And you know, the ones that that do this, the ones that are truly toxic, and manipulative, and just not good people, they tend to be the ones that some of them get caught, but they tend to be the ones that are ruthless enough that they get advancements, and they make it on to become these bigger leaders. So

Keith McKeever 1:11:52

they're also the ones that like you said, they know the regulations, they know the way things work, they know and understand the systems. And if they can manipulate you or do things to you, you know, they're doing it to other people to get their way to get the position they want, or to get people out of their way that are going to do certain things. But you mentioned something earlier. You mentioned a word and it was joke. The unit joke. And I'm my goal with my podcast is to have every every episode have something that somebody could find and take some actionable steps. And I felt like when you said that, that is the perfect opportunity. Before I say that, I will say, please write your book. I know, I know. Oh, you know, you do it for yourself. And whatever healing power comes from it. But right. I know, there's a lot of men and women that are in uniform today that are dealing with toxic leadership. I think it's always happened to some degree, it can always happen, unfortunately. And people need to be able to read something and see somebody else's perspective. Or, or maybe they watch, watch this episode and realize I'm not alone. Other people have been there. But when you said joke, it made me kind of think back. And it always seems like there was always maybe one person I don't know, I don't know if a joke is the right word. But joke or story, right? There's always that one person in unit that kind of everybody's talking about the gossip sessions are going on everybody's kind of way into their business than they ever need to be. My advice for everybody who listens to this or watches this is if you are in the military currently, or even in your civilian job, whatever. If there is somebody that's having those jokes, or their stories, or that gossip about them, that should set off the red flags in the back of your mind. Maybe something wrong is happening. Maybe it's not. But something people are talking about him or something is going on for a reason. Right? You should you know, heed those warnings. And I don't know if investigate yourself is is the right way to go about things. But look at it, maybe talk to that individual sit back and watch a lot closer and see what's going on this may take months. But watch what's going on. See who is actually what are the players in this? Is it just three people that are doing it? Or is everybody talking about it? Because like you said it was a malicious intent, right? You should at least start gathering get that picture in your mind in and be the battle buddy that that person might need and go to Air Force reference. I don't know if the army had it, but there'll be a Blue Falcon. Yeah. I know what you're probably talking about, right? They'll be the Blue Falcon battle buddy. So you know just pay attention to those red flags because that was my original thought on like, whether it was good or bad. There's always somebody being talked about in the unit. So the question is why? Why is there gossip going on about that person? Is it good or bad,

Ashley Rodriquez 1:15:06

because nobody has anything better to do. I mean, we're all stuck together, we work together, we live together, it's like high school, but you know, magnified, it magnified, magnified on a bigger level. Everything is, is under the spotlight all the time. And

Keith McKeever 1:15:23

you're together more often, I mean, you're always together, eight hours, 12 or 15 hours or whatever, you're sleeping the same. Sometimes big open bay area, but you know, maybe you're in it, or something like de force reference there. But, you know, you're, you're, you're on duty time is with them, you're off duty time was with them, when you're in someplace like Korea, or, you know, like Iraq, right? Where I was, there's no going off the base, you just find the people you connect with the most. And that's what you spend all your time with. Yeah, you don't get away from nothing. So you just got to pay attention that be a battle buddy with some situational awareness.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:16:00

Right. And so again, like, you know, people, and this is why I try to explain it the best way I can, that it's like a toxic relationship where you don't realize that you're in this situation until way down the road, he was really good at teetering the line. So doing things that that didn't technically break the regulation, he didn't really technically break the rules. So it wasn't just outright malicious to us at first, right. So he was always teetering this line, because he was teetering that line between abusive behavior and then trying to build us up with, you know, good criticism, or whatever it was. We just didn't realize it. So it wasn't until now. I've been with him for three years now going through this dealing with this teetering back and forth, thinking that he was grooming me to be a better leader, thinking that he had good intentions, you know, for his soldiers. To now everybody is starting to realize it, right. And because he was like this a little bit with other soldiers, eventually they left or he gave up on them, or whatever the case was, but I really had the heat, I was in the hot seat for a while. And because it was such a fine line that he was walking, nobody's going to talk to each other about it. We're not going to pay a man or hey, you know, you did you see what was going on, we all just kind of suck it up and just blow it off. Because Oh, it's no big deal. It wasn't until it happens so often. And he got really sloppy with it, where he was just being super blatant about it super obvious having these private conversations, like I talked about, because we were deployed, people lose kind of a sense of reality in that in that setting, even though it was in a combat related deployment. Everybody's away from their family. It's not a normal situation whatsoever. And so he started having conversations with the wrong people that knew I was a good person that knew I worked hard. And so they would tell me. And so that's kind of when this started coming to light was when he got a little bit sloppy with it. Started talking to the wrong people started being very obvious about his malicious intents. And then two other people around me started realizing that so now we start talking now we start having conversations with each other about, hey, like, is it just me? Or is he really like coming after me? Like, this is an everyday thing now at this point, and work every

Keith McKeever 1:18:25

day you're doing the extra duty? I mean, a lot of people that law after a while to realize that some you know what's what's up with this? You know, right, right? Where's those red flags?

Ashley Rodriquez 1:18:39

Mm hmm. Yeah, it does take it does take some time. And unfortunately, he was really smart about it for a long time. And that's why it went on for as long as it did. And it was just really controlling behavior. I was a young soldier naive, you know, and I just really didn't see the red flags. You know, I just thought that this was how I was supposed to be, and this is how I'm going to learn. And so yeah, it was, it was really tough. And like I said, that's just scratching the surface. You know, I don't know, it was just a tough situation. But it was even tougher, me being in that situation. And then me trying to rally other people to speak up on my behalf. So just because they were talking to me and telling me what was going on, and having my back silently doesn't mean that they were necessarily ready to make the jump on an official statement or report, or in the investigation even which most of them weren't interviewed, because of what I said before. A lot of them weren't publicly willing to speak up and rock the boat, because that puts a target on their back then. And it just becomes this really sick, toxic environment, again, with the structure that we talked about. So I was really fortunate, you know, to get through that and to have therapy early enough in my life that I realized when I needed hope and I know not everybody has that situation. So if somebody is Hearing this or seeing this or hears the story that, you know, eventually I'm going to be able to publish, that they know that it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to have that sadness, that's a normal part of being a human being talk to somebody get through that sadness. But if you're having those suicidal thoughts, you don't really want to do it. It's it's really, something's going on. And usually people are just looking for an escape from that situation, and they feel stuck. And so that's what I learned from that really tough situation and, you know, trying to find out, am I complaining? Am I being soft about this, you know, and think about this, like mental. It's a twisted mental thing, because in the military, there's customs and courtesies which you and are familiar with, there's certain positions that you have to stand in when you're talking to certain people that have rank. And so it became this really sick situation where every time I talk to him, I have to have my hands behind my back. Right. So parade rest? I don't do you guys have that in Air Force? Did you have that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, I'm not sure how much of that is similar, like the across all? Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so every time I talk to this individual that was coming after me trying to ruin my career, saying really horrible things to me, trying to get into my personal life and caused out there, every time I talked to this individual, I have to stand with my hands behind my back and address him, as with respect, which I always did, because like I said, I wasn't going to be that person. And that's why I would end up in tears. By the time I would leave these meetings, because I wanted to make sure that even if he was doing wrong, that I was doing what I could to, to stay in my lane and do the right thing. That way, nobody could question what I was doing. So yeah, it just became this sick thing where I know this person is mistreating me, I know this person is, is looking for ways to ruin my life right now. And I have to stand here and talk to him with my hands behind my back. And it just became this very twisted scenario where I just felt powerless, completely powerless. You know, it's, it's crazy. But it goes back to that structure, we were talking about that it creates a scenario when you're at home and not in war, it creates this toxic scenario for if a leader becomes a leader and takes a position of leadership, and they're toxic, or they're just not a good person, it can become very easy to abuse that system.

Keith McKeever 1:22:29

You know, but eventually, you get to a point you realize what was going on? Right? And, you know, at that point time you realize, you know, you've been a victim of this bullying, and whatever other words you could use to describe it for all these years. You know, and you get an opportunity to kind of tell your story, your statements, stuff like that. So what? Because we're like this how, what would be your advice to somebody, you know, when when they get that, to push through, to have the right mentality, and not be a victim anymore? To go tell their story? Go do whatever, what would you tell them, to push them to go make their, you know, attempt to make their situation better? We know, you know, can't always fix the situation. But

Ashley Rodriquez 1:23:16

yeah, this is my favorite part about this, and what I learned from the situation. So there's two things I learned how to protect myself. So when you want to protect yourself as much as you can, what I started doing was, if you're in a situation, you can't get out of this civilian world or military, it doesn't matter all across the board. You want to find ways to protect yourself. So what I did was, because I couldn't leave the situation I couldn't put in my two weeks notice. There's some people in the civilian world that feel like they can't leave because they have a family they have to provide for they don't leave their job. Take a notepad, this is what I started doing. And this is where he really turned up the heat on me because he realized what I was doing. He got to the point where I had a notepad. And anytime a situation happen that I felt was mistreatment, not a good situation, something that could come up later, when I started realizing these behaviors, I would pull up my notepad. I would write what he was doing, what was being said, who was around so witnesses, the date of when it happened. And there was some times where we would be in these meetings with him myself and my NCO. And I would pull out my notepad right then and there and write it down real quick. Put it back in my pocket, go back to the position of prayed rest with my hands behind my back. And I started doing that on purpose that I was still being respectful, but I was also documenting what was going on. From there, I could then put together a report of everything that was happening. And again, this works for civilian world or military because now I have a timeline of documented events with witnesses, dates and times of what was happening. You can't dispute that when you have an entire portfolio of things that you're experiencing and you can put that into a an organised report, which for us was a memorandum, then you can't really dispute that. Now you can use that you can take it to a lawyer, you can take it to court, you can take it wherever, you know, it needs to go. So resolve the situation if you can't leave. So that was number one. Document everything and document the witnesses.

Keith McKeever 1:25:19

When you I, I didn't see that comment notebook. That's that's a good one. Right? It should take notice of that.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:25:26

Yes. So if you feel like you are stuck, and you cannot get document everything, and this doesn't even have to go for professional I mean, this can go for personal life, anything. Because now you have a documented timeline of events that happened, witnesses that were there, because you're not going to remember everything. And I thought I would, I thought I would remember it. Remember everything. I didn't start doing this until like way the the end of our career rotation, right is when I finally started doing this writing everything down. I had the officer that I was working for at that clinic on that extra duty. She's the one because I was confiding in her a lot, I, you know, would cry. And I was just breaking down because I didn't, I felt stuck. Like I could not get away from this. I knew every day I came to work, I was going to have some piece of paper, telling me what wrong I did and coming after my career. And she's the one that suggests that I start doing this. So that's what I learned from that. So protect yourself. Number two, to change my victim mentality that I had, because I did get to a point there. I was like, Why me? Like, why when I finally had the opportunity to switch units, he switched with me and it and he didn't do that on purpose. It just so happened to be how that worked out. It was just a really ironic situation. So I did for a period of time have that why me mentality, I went to see the chaplain, you know, I was all over the place just trying to like, grab every stone I could to get some mental toughness there. And it was really hard. What I realized, and this is what I was teaching in some of my coaching programs that I was doing, was when you're born, when you come into this world, you know you're a brand new human being, you don't have any thoughts, you know, that we know of, you don't have any beliefs, any opinions, any views, nothing, you're just this brand new baby, you don't have anything, you're an empty vessel, right? As you grow up, and you go through life, and you start being challenged, you start going through the cognitive dissonance and, and challenging the way that you're thinking and learning new things, asking questions. You're adding all of these pieces to the wholeness of who you are. So the way that I look at this, there's like a puzzle. There's there's two different visualizations that I use for this depending on who the person is. But if you look at a box of puzzle pieces, you don't buy a box of puzzle pieces that's already put together and done for you. Right, it comes jumbled up. It's a huge mess in the box, and you got

Keith McKeever 1:28:00

to point out so that's my kind of puzzle there. Right? I'm like that.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:28:06

Right? Here? Uh huh. So yeah, then you take it apart, and you have to do it again and just reach me. Look what I did. But yeah, so when you buy a puzzle, it's this jumbled mess in a box, you got to put it together, the way that I was teaching this, and it really resonated with people and it helped validate it for myself as well was that were this human being that is essentially a put together puzzle. But to get to this person of who I am today, I had to add pieces, right? My experiences, were adding pieces of this puzzle that makes up the whole of who I am. So when you go through a traumatic experience in life, when you're challenged when you go through something that really breaks you down. Even if it's an assault, even if it's bullying, it doesn't matter what it is this can apply, you're not actually losing an innocence or a piece of you, right, because when you're a baby, you don't know anything. You're not this the whole person, you don't have ideas, you don't have beliefs, you don't have thoughts yet. So mentally, mentally, you're empty. It's as you go through life and you grow up and you have these experiences you're adding to the puzzle of who you are. And the catch is you get to determine what that puzzle is going to look like in the end. Right so here I have this puzzle, this puzzle that is bullying. That is my military experience. That is the pain that I went through in the suffering that I went through, and I get to choose how that puzzle piece fits into who I am. Now am I going to be this jacked up puzzle, you know, that's flaking and peeling apart and maybe got rained on, you know, where am I going to be this complete picture of who I was supposed to be and let that situation be a part of me but not necessarily in a in a negative way. So, as you go through life, you're not broken, you're not you haven't lost a piece of innocence, you haven't lost a piece of yourself. Instead, you are experiencing everything that's making up the entire picture of who you are. And you get to determine what that picture looks like. And so when I talk to people about that, it does kind of change the mentality of what was me, I lost the piece of myself, I lost my innocence, you know, I'm broken, it takes that mentality and throws it away. And now we're empowered to say, Okay, I went through this experience, it was incredibly difficult. It really challenged me, I really hated myself, you know, but this is what I learned from it. This is how it's gonna fit into my life. And this is what I'm going to do with it. For me, that looks like I started a coaching brand, implementing a lot of what I went through and how I got through it. But for young professionals in the workplace, I started a degree in communications, because that's what I realized was, I became really obsessive, almost and passionate about communicating in the workplace, and how, how there's a lack of that in the military. Just a little bit, just a little bit.

Keith McKeever 1:31:15

I mean, he's communication. But you know, it's, it's, it's good and bad. And we're not talking about the radios,

Ashley Rodriquez 1:31:20

right. And it's sometimes one sided. And so I really, that kind of highlighted the workplace for me. So when I got out of the military, I started a degree in communications. Then I discovered workplace psychology, which is industrial organizational psychology. So it's IO psychology. That's where I'm at now. And so I took that experience, and even though it sucked, and it's hard for me, and I still deal with some of some of those feelings every once in a while, that just reminded me of why I'm doing what I'm doing today. It really led me down this path of choosing what I wanted that situation to do for me in my life. We don't go through experiences just because, right, we're not here, just happening and accidentally living, we go through experiences, and we get to use every experience, whether it's good or bad, to determine what our picture is going to look like. And so that's what I started doing. And that's what I did through my coaching. And that was just one example of how we can start changing our mindset to go from a victim mentality that you're not broken, you're not you haven't lost your innocence. But you have extra puzzle pieces that you get to put into your picture. And what is that going to look like for you?

Keith McKeever 1:32:34

Yeah, well, you don't throw the puzzle pieces away. Right, put them together, right? You know, whether you start in the middle, or you do the framework first don't matter. You know, which way to eat your pie, or what came first chicken or the egg, but right, um, you know, you put them together. And at the end, when you gained you're getting the picture, exactly the whole, the whole view of everything so so you got to continue gaining. And that's, that's a great way of looking at things. Yeah, those experiences, while they may be rough, they may stick with you for the rest of your life, they may cause you a little some issues every now and then they are part of the puzzle. And it definitely makes you a stronger person, you know, a more resilient person. And that helps keep you from being a victim of it, maybe maybe keep you for me being a victim in the future. So

Ashley Rodriquez 1:33:21

definitely. And now I get to share with other people how to protect themselves and how to not become a victim. And if they do become a victim, how they can get out of it and so much good, so much good that comes out of it.

Keith McKeever 1:33:32

I think this this resonates with a lot of people, not just the military veteran community, which, you know, it's everybody. I think every human being walking this earth at some point in time is going to be a victim of something, right? It's relatable in some way, shape, or form to everybody. But you know, after after all this, you went on career. Now you have you have two children now, and you recently started another business which I wanted to ask. So I wasn't gonna drop the name, but it starts with an F runner is an Earth is a very well known company for people that want to get whatever done graphics, logos, podcasting, editing, whatever, all kinds of crazy stuff. You decided to create the first US based for us people, company. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about your company and what you're trying to do there.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:34:29

For sure. So like I said, I was doing the coaching for some time when the pandemic hit, I realized coaching was a luxury for small business owners and not something I felt comfortable charging anymore during that time when nobody knew it was happening. So I didn't make a pivot. I folded that my slob on my podcast from it and again, the teachings I bring with me into what I'm doing now and pivoted to this freelance platform. So I did freelance work before the military I've done some freelance work after when I had my coach In business, I used these international platforms to help me do logo design to do things for my business so that I didn't have to do them. And it was very affordable. What I realized when I was using those platforms was there were three issues that I ran into that just were not convenient for a business owner, especially small business owner, where every penny matters where we put it, and one was the huge timezone gap. There are some US expats that you know, there will be timezone gaps, if they use the platform, and they're traveling, that's fine. But dominantly, an overwhelming amount of the freelance professionals that I use from the International platforms were from other countries, mostly India. And what happened was, I would be asleep while they're working on my project, and vice versa. So they're asleep while I'm awake, trying to get work done for my project. And it just was this huge misstep, where you're just missing a lot of communication, the projects are taking a lot longer than they need to. And that was problem number one. Problem number two, was the communication issue again, now you all know that I'm really big on communication. So that was a huge, uncomfortable situation for me to be dealing with somebody in regards to my business that didn't really understand what I needed done. They didn't understand the English language very well, it wasn't their first language, which is totally fine. My husband and his first language is Spanish. So I'm not biased against that. But in a business setting, when I need my content in my writing, to maintain the integrity of how I speak, and what I'm trying to portray, it's not very good to have somebody like me that speaks fluent English, and has a good understanding of the English language, to then push out content that is not very good English. So that was another problem that I had. And the third problem that I had was a difference in business culture. So when you're working with different countries, everybody in these countries have different perceptions on the structure of business, how business operates. In America, you know, we're very corporate style. And I think in most of the western modern world, we are very corporate styled. But in some countries, it's not like that. There's no real understanding of the business culture, who we're targeting, how we're targeting them, etc. It just can create a lot of inconsistencies for business owners, small business owners. So I looked around, I said, How can I find people that are us only? How can I support our economy? Again, remember, this is coming out of the pandemic now, or So kind of going through it, but on the back end of it. And now I'm in this mission mode, where I'm where I'm like, we need to pour into our economy. We're struggling right now as a nation, pumping out trillions, you know, in stimulus checks and relief packages, and things of that nature that are supposed to help people, how can we get it back into our economy? My I guess, what's the word I'm looking for? Here? I go, my

Keith McKeever 1:38:08

mind sorry. I'll try and help you best I can't,

Ashley Rodriquez 1:38:14

I don't know where to start. Goodness gracious my solution. There we go. My solution to that was to create a platform, a freelance platform, everybody's using these international platforms, because they're some of the only ones that exist, and make it us exclusive. Nothing wrong with that I'm not against the international platforms. I think it's great what they're doing. But I want to focus on the US. Not only that, I want to focus on the military community, because we have military spouses that are severely underemployed. We have veterans that are underemployed. We have veteran owned businesses and military spouse owned businesses that face a lot of the same issues I faced when I use the international platforms. So now how can I create the solution to fix all of that, and that was this freelance platform. So I launched this platform, it's us exclusive. Of course, you can travel and use it. As long as you're eligible to work in the US and you own a business in the US or nonprofit, you can use the platform. And the idea behind that was several things. It's going to create job opportunities for military spouses, people that want to work remote, so just US citizens in general that want to work remote. It's really great for college students that need part time positions or need gig work. It's really great for individuals that are not 18 years old, yet you do not have to be 18 years old to do gig work, which is great. I believe one of the International platforms lets individuals as young as 13 do gig work. So that's great there. It's not a full time employees. So that's how you get around some of those age laws. It's a contract worker. And so

Keith McKeever 1:39:54

they'll be there'll be all over it. They'll make

Ashley Rodriquez 1:39:56

their own money, they make money and you know You don't have allowances anymore, and you can mark your

Keith McKeever 1:40:03

losses in the first place. After that

Ashley Rodriquez 1:40:08

date, and I didn't get allowances either. So

Keith McKeever 1:40:11

I give it to

Ashley Rodriquez 1:40:13

the trash and, um, but yeah, so I created this platform to give up job opportunities to people that want to work remote or are underemployed and also to give the support to our nation small businesses. And by pairing those two together, now we're feeding our US economy, we're putting money into our friends into our neighbors into our US nation, by hiring us only. And it's very similar to my concept of taking manufacturing out of China and bringing it back home. That's what I did with the freelance industry, which is growing so fast. And that's why I created this platform. So

Keith McKeever 1:40:51

yeah, the first time we talked about this, and I looked at it, and I was like, well, that's really cool, because I've used some of those, as you put it, international platforms. And, you know, some things don't necessarily bother me the fact that they're working on things when I when I'm asleep, but it does force you to kind of check your emails, you know, first thing when you wake up or right before you go to bed. And for me, that's not when I I'm not, I'm not a creative person that all very logically brain not creative brain. So last thing I want to do is wake up first thing in the morning and look at some pieces, piece of artwork or a logo or something and try and determine if I like it, or if I want tweaks and stuff like that, you know, you're not going to have a couple of cups of coffee in me and get my get my creative juices flowing, what what creative juices there are in my brain. And so it's just, you know, it's different if it's during your basic business hours, you know, when it's US based, you might be a couple of hours off, but you're not going to be total opposites. Right. So I could send something off at nine o'clock in the morning or 10 o'clock in the morning, and it could be on the West Coast, and they're going to have it ready when they wake up. Right. And so there's there's a lot of benefit to that. And there are certain things that I have refrained from having somebody do because of the language barriers, when you're talking about translating. A thought about it for the podcast, you're having somebody translate the audio into a transcript. Well, if there's if it's not your first language, then I'm feeling I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna have to go back and read through the whole text and tweak some things here and there just to make it flow, right, because it's our native language. So there's a lot of benefits to it. And I know I've seen some things on there you get a lot of variety of different things people offer and all kinds of different things. So if somebody's you know, listening or watching and, and they have some special skills of some sort, exotic audio, video, whatever you get, imagine gig work that you want to make a couple extra bucks on, I highly encourage you to check it out. Especially like you said to military spouses or even military members, right, who has a special skill they've developed and they want to make you know if they want to make their beer money for this week, I don't know. Yeah, however, that looks like you know,

Ashley Rodriquez 1:43:18

we have somebody on there now that her name is Michaela. She's really great. She freelances with writing and stuff. And she's on there as well. And she actually was deployed, I had a meeting with her and she was deployed in I believe it was Iraq at the time that I talked to her so and she's normally National Guard, but was active duty on a deployment. So anybody can do it. I mean, it's extra income. That's another thing when I was active duty, we had soldiers that had additional jobs outside of that when we were home, when they got special approval, they would bartend at night, or they would do security, a lot of them did security for the bars, the local college bars. Because they're all beefed up anyways, from working out so much, though it just worked out in their favor. And so this is a great way to bring in extra income, but also provide support to our small businesses or nonprofits and also feed our nation money and just keep that really at home. You know where it needs to be right now so that we can grow and go through this. And the great thing about the platform too, is you can search on there and find people that are in your, what you need for your business, find people that offer that if there isn't somebody on there, because we're community building, we have a huge network, just shoot me an email, I have it on the platform. And I could pair you with somebody, or people in general, a team of people that you can kind of dig through and get what you need done. But more specifically what we really need. And this has been the challenging part of building the marketplace is getting small businesses and convincing them to hire through the platform. We have about 70 people. Last time I checked 70 users signed up on the platform. Our goal is 1000 by this time next year, so we're really starting to pick up the momentum there, but what we really need is our business owners and our nonprofits to use this platform to hire our US based freelancers. Because the Freelancer is there ready and willing, and they're able to work they're on there. We just need our businesses to seek them out and hire them and start feeding our economy.

Keith McKeever 1:45:19

Absolutely. And for all those reasons that you mentioned, you know, timeframes, communication, all those things, there's plenty of reasons to do it. And, you know, I think, what's what's really good as military spouses, we both already mentioned that, but I know when I was in, lease last couple of years that I was in when I was married, and your husband probably noticed this too, with other people in your units that were married and their spouse was a civilian. A lot of them, I don't know why. But a lot of them seem to get into multi level marketing. Yeah, all kinds of companies like that. I don't know why. I don't think it's changed much, no, but this is an opportunity to make some actual money without throwing a whole lot of money. You know, whatever, whatever project it is, and I'm not, I'm not trying to bad mouth, those companies, because a lot of these companies have good products, but it's a doggy dog world, it is to kind of do that. And this is an opportunity where your stuff is on a platform, and your work will speak for itself. Absolutely. Put it out there as your portfolio, go get it.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:46:24

Exactly. And we also provide the support, you know, with how to get started things like that I have, like I said, connections, I am good online friends now with a woman that has made a million dollars on one of those international platforms. She's been very transparent. She's very well known and connected with her, she has a great community of like, 10,000 people on Facebook, there's a lot of people that we have. Now again, she also has a lot of international following because of these platforms. So I do have to be careful about how I market it, I can't just go out there and, and market, it's everybody because I really want to maintain that integrity of a US only platform. But absolutely. So with the MLMs. They target our military community, because they know a lot of the spouses need income. But then what happens I mean, the military spouses gathered there other military spouses, and it just perpetuates it in the system. And some people have great experiences, and some people don't, because they're all doing the same thing. They're all selling the same thing. They're all doing Sensi. They're all doing, you know, Mary Kay. And Mary Kay is not bad. Again, I do like their products. But it's the it's the networking system. And it works for some people. And for some people, it totally puts them off. So this is an opportunity to make money that is free and clear, you're contracted, you determine who your clients are. And we're feeding the economy, you know, it's complete gig work. So people that legitimately quit their corporate jobs and freelance full time. And again, that's what my friend that I follow and deal with she did a few years ago, and she's made a million dollars through one of those international platforms. So it's possible,

Keith McKeever 1:48:03

I think you're, you're much more likely to make a consistent income, through doing gig work than you are through some of the multi level marketing. Because there you got to just connect with so many people, and somebody has to go to your website or your website through that company. Well, this gives me an opportunity to be on your particular website, freelance us know, how we can all that's all tied. But here's an opportunity to be at one place where people can specifically search whatever skills and services they're providing. So

Ashley Rodriquez 1:48:35

absolutely, yeah, and we want to do in person events. I mean, we're looking at doing annual conferences, I know that's one of the other platforms does that as well. They're California based, but again, they're international, they don't focus on the US only. And they're not affiliated with the military community, which is where I think is a huge piece to this as well, that I'm really focused on the military community first, and then we'll expand out into the US from that. But um, yeah, we're gonna do annual conferences. We have an rld program, that I'm going to launch sometime next year when we're done community building. And that is basically leaders in each region or state that can facilitate in person connections and networking events and things like that, that are under the umbrella of the company. And we just, I mean, we have huge plans. We don't know what this year is going to look like. But we know that at least if if COVID does continue, or if the workplace dynamic has changed so much that people don't want to go back to that corporate life, because that's what's happening. People really enjoyed spending time with their family. And so there's kind of a silent revolt against the corporate lifestyle right now. And so yeah, the freelance community is growing. It's really a great way to make money and to get support for your business or nonprofit and so we have a lot of plans. This is just the beginning. For marketplaces, it can take anywhere from two to three years to really build a solid foundation. For example, Airbnb took about four years but before they actually blew up. So we do have a long road ahead of us. But that's why I really just focus on sharing it with people. And eventually we'll get there I have high hopes.

Keith McKeever 1:50:09

Well, I'm looking forward to it, see where it goes, you know, we're connected in a couple online groups. So to kind of see the, kind of see the ride, kind of close and personal. But we're gonna wrap this up with my final three questions for sure. This can be off the slightly off the first two topics. So the first one is, what advice would you have for somebody who's looking to join the military today?

Ashley Rodriquez 1:50:34

Oh, that's a good one, because it's changing. I mean, it changed a lot while I was in just for four years, and I've seen it change a lot now where, you know, we have entire recruiters and military people on Tik Tok and generals and sergeants of the Army Sergeant Major of the Army on Instagram. So it's an interesting picture to see it change, I would just say, maybe to talk with somebody who's in the military. That's something I didn't do. Don't just talk to recruiters, I had great recruiters, I will say that they really bent over backwards for me, I was hospitalized before and they before I shipped off to basic and they came and picked me up, I mean, really, really took care of me to make sure that I was going to join the army. And so recruiters are great, but don't talk to them. If you don't have to, I really suggest talking to somebody that is in the military, maybe doing what you're doing. If you can get online, it's very easy to search and find people that are in the military, possible jobs, that they're doing things like that everybody's online now. So definitely talk to somebody to get some retrospect on what you should be doing and what it's going to be like, I just had no clue on what I was doing. And then now you know how you can protect yourself. So there are regulations that are finalized, we have to walk, you are going to have to have some tough skin. Because it's just not always going to be you know, this pretty scenario, we don't get what we want in the military all the time, because that structure, so protect yourself, especially if you find yourself in a in a bad situation. If you are having thoughts that, you know, maybe you're being pinpointed or, or abused or something's going on, you know, just start documenting everything so that if something does come to light, you have everything documented, and that's just really my biggest thing. Number three for that, just enjoy it enjoy experience, if I didn't have my kids, I would probably still be active duty. So I really did have a good experience. Despite what I went through. I enjoyed what I learned and what it did for me.

Keith McKeever 1:52:37

Very well, life takes different terms, right worth it. You know, I will kind of flip the script a little bit in for those that are in now and looking to get out of the military, whether it's retirement or, you know, just the end of their contract. What advice would you have for them?

Ashley Rodriquez 1:52:52

Don't be scared. Um, yeah, this was the biggest thing. So fortunately for me, I joined a little bit late, not not too late. There's some people that join right at the cut off there. But I was 20, I turned 21 in basic training. So I had been working already since 15 years old in the restaurant industry. And then I had a more corporate job before I actually joined the military. So I knew that it's not hard to make money. Outside of the military, it's not hard to get a job. I was young with hardly any experience. And I never had to worry about money. I had two jobs at one point just because I guess I was doing nothing better but working. And so I don't know. Yeah, just just working, working or making money. And so yeah, just don't be scared. I mean, the military is is 1% of the nation, there is not 99% of the nation that's poor, broke and homeless. So we really get to dictate that. Use the skills that you have, from the military, a lot of those leadership skills, learn communication skills, that's a big one. Because it is an art, but just don't be scared. I mean, there's plenty of money out there, you just have to find it and, and follow your dreams and make it happen. And if it doesn't work, then we've had a lot of resiliency training in the military. So implement that. And it's really not that scary. So just follow your passions, follow your dreams in and make it happen.

Keith McKeever 1:54:14

Don't be scared, right? Don't be scared. You know, the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but sometimes it is. Right. So final question before we wrap up is more allow kind of you to have a statement. Any any veteran organizations that you'd like to give a shout out to, that you think are doing some good things? nationally, locally, whatever, whatever the case may be.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:54:37

Yeah, that's, that's awesome. So veterans specifically. Obviously, I found you through the veterinary tribe, which is awesome. And through warrior council. So I'm definitely going to be getting into that a little bit more. Following that a little bit more.

Keith McKeever 1:54:51

We've missed you, you know, having the baby and everything, you know, no, and I actually

Ashley Rodriquez 1:54:55

had to I actually had to unsubscribe for a second so that I could focus on this and everything. going on, but I am going to be coming back full force and just kind of regrouping. So definitely about printer tribe, I was really shocked about that. There's a lot of connections out there, bunker labs, oh my goodness. I'm actually surprised by bunker labs because I thought they were like a really small organization that wasn't doing too much just like a thing, a thing that helped veterans, start their businesses. But what I'm realizing is that it's a really strongly connected and intimate community of veterans and veteran entrepreneurs specifically. So I just got accepted to the 2021 cohort that they're having. It's a six month program. There's about 10 of us out of hundreds, probably 1000s that applied all over the nation. There's a couple of local cohorts that are going on in person. I'm part of the virtual one. So that's a little bit. Yeah, thank you. So that's where we're going to be bringing the freelance platform through bunker Labs is amazing. And they're partnered with we work so if you're a veteran, and you want your own business, or you just want some help with a, you have an idea, bunker Labs is awesome, that printer tribe, a lot of good information on Facebook, and you know, Steven and Layne and that's probably like my two biggest resources that I go to right now.

Keith McKeever 1:56:15

Those are some good ones. And actually, were counseled entrepreneur, tribe and bunker labs, all three on the battle buddy podcast website, business resources, because I wholeheartedly agree. So great stuff. So that's, that's, that's some good, good resources there. So, you know, with that, we'll go ahead and wrap up once again, Ashley, I appreciate your sharing your story. I think that was really powerful. And I really think a lot of people are gonna really connect that to their own personal lives in one way or another, it would be helpful. And once again, write that darn book.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:56:47

I know. It's really hard to smush three years and make it make sense, you know, in a two hour conversation, so I mean, feel free if anybody wants me. You guys know where to find me? I'm an open book.

Keith McKeever 1:57:02

website. I'll put that at the bottom. Yeah. Calm and I was just gonna say I, you know, get a microphone and and read here. You know, read your story. Say it out loud. Get yourself a ghostwriter. No matter what, however you want to do it.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:57:15

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at. Actually, there's that's what I was looking at. I started writing it, I had some issues with, you know, I want to tell it perfectly. But I think I'm going to let go of the control there and just share my story and let somebody write it with me. That's kind of what I'm leaning towards. Because I

Keith McKeever 1:57:30

can get more emotions out if you've got the microphone. That's where I'm planning on doing. And I'm looking at writing a couple of books. And that's one thing I want to do is just kind of share my story, just kind of organize the chapters. Yeah, just talk through things and let them kind of start writing something because I'm not the best writer in the world. That's why I started the podcast on a blog.

Ashley Rodriquez 1:57:46

Right? Right. No, and I love writing, but it's something about sharing your story and trying to remember and go back and put yourself there so that it makes sense, because, you know, I'm coming from a place now where I've mostly healed from it. And I have a different mindset. So it's hard to put myself back there. So I'm really looking forward to working with somebody and it's nearing the completion of a draft at least like a portion of it a manuscript portion that I can send off to publishers, but um, it's called down to the core and I have it on my social media and stuff because it's in the works for sure. It's just, I've had a lot of pauses, trying to work through how I wanted to tell the story.

Keith McKeever 1:58:25

As always, you make a little progress here and there. So I look forward to it. Once you get it done. I want to read it on my book list. Yeah. So alright, I'm gonna drop dropping back in. We're gonna play here the little outro once again, you can catch Ashley, Ashley and Rodriguez calm to connect with her. She's all over social media too. I think we follow each other on five different places. everywhere, everywhere. Thanks, Ashley. I'll catch up with you in a minute.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai