TRANSITION Interview #11: Chris Anthony

Getting Hired, Finding Satisfaction, and Sober Living with Chris Anthony - Tech Exec, Board Member at SEAL Future Foundation, Metallica's Within My Hands Foundation, and much more.

Chris Anthony is a mentor and someone who’s influence can be found in every corner of the veteran community. In addition to his day job as a tech executive, Chris has spent countless hours mentoring transitioning vets, as well as, coaching and advocating those pursuing a sober lifestyle.

He sits on the board of the SEAL Future Foundation, Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation, Start-Up Recovery, and the LA Sports and Entertainment Commission.

Aside from all that, Chris is a writer and a great conversationalist.

Thanks for doing this, Chris. How did you come across SEAL Future Foundation in the first place? What was the connection there?

I was at a point in my life, this was five years ago, I was working as an executive - a much higher-level executive than I am now - and I’d been traveling the world for business, and my sleep was awful. I’ve always been a real terrible sleeper, so someone recommended I check out Whoop.

So, I start wearing the Whoop Band, and somehow that led to listening to their podcast.

I heard an interview with Johnny Wilson and a guy named Robert Moeller, both SEALs. Johnny Wilson founded the SEAL Future Foundation and they were raising money for some competition - we were sponsoring it, helping them raise money.

Anyway, I thought, this is an interesting idea. Figuring out how we get talent from Special Operations and into tech.

So, I filled out the form and introduced Johnny to a few folks. That turned into helping with interviews and setting up the local FOB here in San Diego, and then I got asked to be on the board.

100 team guys later, here I am.

It's been a real gift, one of the greatest gifts.

That’s great. Those sort of things are a privilege that my current generation of vets are subject to, you know, which is sort of unique to our time. Past generations, even 10 years ago, guys didn’t have what we have today.

When you speak to a hiring manager and they say something like, "Chris, great that they were this Special Operator, help us understand why we should hire this person. What value do they bring?"

How do you go think about answering that?

Well, to your point, the objection from hiring managers is typically, "Okay, this person sounds like a good guy or gal. How does it translate to the civilian world? To my team?"

You have to do a little education. Explain a little bit about the world that a team guy is coming from. It’s my understanding after hundreds of conversations – you guys were working in highly dynamic team-based environments that require you to understand instruction, get things right the first time, and then be able to turn to your left and your right and explain that to others.

You in an environment that prioritizes risk reduction and have a very high capacity to handle adversity. You're adaptable, and most importantly, super coachable.

One thing I know from my own career is that the ability to be coached is VERY important.

So, as I'm saying this to a hiring manager, I’ll say, let’s forget for a second that this person has no tech experience. Doesn't this sound like a dream salesperson? Team thinker, highly dynamic, understands instruction, highly coachable. Sound like someone you want to work with?

We can teach the tech.

Then you get to this question: "Well, what experience do they have selling?”

And I’ll be honest, I have to work vets here.

You do have experience selling. You’ve worked for the government for 5,10, 20 years. Everything is a negotiation in the military. Partner forces in Iraq, you might have brought together tribal elders from different parts of a city to broker agreements. The list goes on.

Military members negotiate with different agencies, with lawyers, their command, all kinds of things.

So, have they sold anything? Yes. Is it traditional? What you're used to? No. But they’re coachable.

They hard part is, you have to be able to articulate these examples. Show that you’re coachable and know how to work in a team.

What could the commands, the Special Operations and the DoD in general do to better prepare its people for transition?

I’ll often work with individuals, and they say, “I’d like to do this or that, but I don’t have any experience.”

And I have to say, “Well, I disagree,” and I’ll start to break it down, “successful businesspeople know how to collaborate, they take ownership when they’re supposed to, they’re adaptable. Do you have any examples of that?”

And they’ll say, "Well, yeah, I do.”

So they do have experience. You have to demonstrate how, in fact, they do have these skills. It’s all translation.

And that’s something the military could help with. It’s something that should start long before these guys and gals are ready to get out.

Civilian work is different, and making the shift is going to be uncomfortable at times.

But vets have more in common with great businesspeople than they realize.

I know DOD has some programs like Skillbridge, and there are non-profit-type programs out there. However, most of my work is helping to unearth these examples that help them tell a good story.

Do you ever come across a vet, and after a few conversations, your advice is that perhaps a career in tech is not the right path?

Yes, that happens. Sales draws a lot of curiosity. People come to me, and they'll say, "Hey! My brother is in sales, and he’s crushing it, so that’s what I want to do."

I’ll usually say, "Well, how do you feel about standing in front of a room and presenting? Is that something you're comfortable with? Or are you more the project manager? Were you the guy on training evolutions setting up all the logistics and execution?”

Sales has a lot of highs and lows, whether that's tech sales or any sales. There is so much rejection. So many people are going to reject you. Just saying sales comes with this greasy used car, mattress salesperson idea.

That’s right. The whole money part is hard to navigate. You've been in the military since your early twenties, your income is very consistent. It's time to get out and hear about these jobs where your buddies are making 3x what you're used to making. It's natural to gravitate in that direction.

For this Substack, I’ve tried to focus on “chapter two” of transition. There are so many resources and transition assistance programs for people trying to get from their last day on active duty to their first day at a W2. And thank God that's the case, but what happens after that? Six months later or two years later?

What advice do you give people to hopefully find fulfillment and satisfaction over the long term? 

I think what you're touching on is probably the most important element of the work I do. I believe this is so important.

It’s great when I work with someone, they get out, they're unsure what they're going to do, and then they get that job. They look at their family and say, “I got a job at a big company, I'm gonna make great money, and we're going to have benefits, and the road is clear ahead.”

That feels awesome.

But to your point, a year, year and a half, goes by and everything starts to catch up with you. Your life is serving a different purpose and a different community exists around that individual. Work stops being fun, you’ve become used to making more money. You're surrounded by individuals with a different sense of urgency and entitlement than you're used to. It’s a lot.

That’s not even considering if this person has had exposure to blast or TBI. Very common. Differing levels of trauma.

So my point is, you love helping someone just getting out, but what means more is when I  follow up with that person. Become someone they can talk to over the long term. Through ups and downs, career challenges, health challenges, whatever.

People need connection. I've seen it, and I know you have. I've seen awful examples of where that’s forgotten, and people struggle, and it's ugly and complicated, but you try to stay close. I don't believe transition ever ends, and you're exactly right; we have all the tuition assistance and transition foundations, all that kind of stuff. But it’s the five to ten years later that I worry about the most.

Well, whoever that is, whoever you’re keeping in contact with, I know they appreciate it.

I'm intrigued by the sobriety work you do. I’ve worked a lot on my relationship with alcohol this year. When someone says, “I want to get sober.” Where do you start? What's your reaction to that.

My reaction is to try and help them understand that controlling substance abuse requires surrendering from everything you think you need to do to get sober.

Let's forget what we know about getting sober because if that were working, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.

There are a lot of different ways to get sober. AA, outpatient clinics, apps, tons of books. I did it the hard way almost 20 years ago, read some books, and did it privately. I went to a few meetings but generally kept it all to myself. That’s not a great path.

Part of it was my own stubbornness, and it was tough. Where I’m going with this is that there's no one perfect path. How you get there is your choice?

It’s really easy to reject an idea based on a story you’re telling yourself. I'll say, "You should consider attending an AA meeting or talking with a community.” And you can tell their response is sort of hard lined. "Those aren't my people,” or “I don’t need to go that far.”

And so, people often have stories about different treatment strategies that prevent them from trying new things. No one wants to be labeled. So anyway, my advice is to open your mind to ideas beyond what's already proving not to work for you.

Shopping for different methodologies without the fear of labels? Is that the idea?

Yes. It's easier said than done, though. We're stubborn as individuals.

“I have it under control.”

For a lot of people, they can make significant process, their drinking ramps up and down, and they can drink a little less for a little while, but it's the last mile that can drag on for years.

I love the quote, "You don't need to climb the whole staircase; you just need to climb the next step." That's something I try to get people to focus on. It's terrifying to commit to the idea of never drinking again, and you don't need to. So I'll say, "Do you think you can commit to not drinking for the next 48 minutes?" and they'll say, "Oh yeah, I can do that."

Win the moment.

If they can harness those two things. Being open to new ideas and just climbing the first step. Those two seem to work with most people.

That makes sense. Monday, actually, I have to go to Las Vegas. Something about me is anxious about the whole thing. I don't want to go and when I think about why that is, I think a lot of it is this expectation of having drinks for four days.

Any interaction that’s at all uncomfortable, with a few drinks, you sort of get through it, and then you fly home just feeling awful.

Oh definitely. I’ve been in sales my entire career and sober almost 20 years. I’ve been to a million of those events like the one you’re talking about. Just there this week.

I'm not sure if you want my advice, but this is very common. So many people think their careers will be impacted if they don't drink.

You don't owe anybody any explanation for making a healthy choice, and most of the time, if people are pressing you on it, it's because they're thinking about the impact of alcohol on their own lives.

That’s right. It feels like people today are less surprised than what would be the case five years ago. I think, you know, when I was growing up if I went over to someone’s house and my parents told me, “You know your aunt such and such don’t drink.” You’d sort of think there was a problem. What’s wrong with that person almost?

Oh totally. There are two things happening. One, it's a generational thing. For the younger generation, drinking is not as interesting for them. They seem apathetic to the idea of it. I'm not sure really why that is.

The other thing is that the truth about what alcohol does from a physiological standpoint is much more widespread. You find guys like Andrew Huberman who uniquely have the ear of a lot of young people. And these aren't "alcohol is the boogeyman" type messages, which was sort of how it was when we grew up. It's more, "Here is what the science says, and it's not good."

Absolutely. I think the message when I was growing up was always, in moderation, there’s nothing to worry about. Which now, you know, I think you can shoot holes in that logic.

You wrote an article called 15 Lessons from 15 Years of Sobriety. That was about four years ago. What have you learned since then?

Well, I’ll give you a quick backstory and then I’ll answer your question.

Putting that article out there was really scary for me. Remember, I had done a lot of my sobriety work in private. I had a ton of shame tied to my sobriety. A ton of shame.

Anyway, I released the article because I'd made it 15 years and it seemed it was time to stop hiding. It bothered me that so many people, close friends, were unaware of that side of my life. So anyway, I hit publish, and I was terrified.

Within one hour, people were reaching out to me. LinkedIn, at work, all kinds of things saying, "I had no idea you were sober, and that's something I want in my life."

People sent messages saying, "Can you help right now? I may not make it through the rest of the day."

So, it really hit me hard. You know? You can't keep this locked up. Not only are people accepting of my sobriety, but people are interested in it.

Wow. That’s amazing. Good for you.

The other thing that I didn’t see coming was that all these execs reached out to me and said, "Way to go. I'm sober also." And from that, we had a connection, which turned into an ERO-type deal, which overnight had 400 members.

So anyway, all this shame I was carrying was sort of a story I was telling myself that was never true.

You mentioned you quit the hard way. Can you go into that?

Sure. My life was sort of coming to a head in 2005. To the point where my wife was saying, "You have to get your shit together, or this is going to end."

I wasn’t drinking every day, but when I did, it was like lighting a fuse. My mom was dying of cancer at this time.

So, one day, I just came up with this line. I thought it would sort of make people happy, make my wife happy. I just said, "I'm going to take the summer off of drinking."

I never believed that. Deep down, I didn't trust myself, but I set this arbitrary date in the fall and thought maybe I could get there.

It was hard. Lot of temptation. The way your brain works, you get a lot of "one won't hurt" type of talk. And at this time, there really weren't podcasts and apps and all this. I sort of just fought internally to get through that summer.

Anyway, life just started getting more and more awesome. I mean, some real changes started happening, and so I knew. I knew I was done.

And how many weeks did that take? How long till you started realizing benefits?

Oh man, I would say, a few weeks. Very fast.

I wasn’t showing up drunk to stuff. I wasn’t’ making my wife upset. It was really fast.

The thing is, you have to put that energy into something. I was putting it into fitness. You sort of get bored when you stop drinking. So, I started putting all of that into fitness. That really steamrolled.

At the end of that summer, I was not only behaving better, but I was physically in a better spot. So I looked at my wife and said, "You know, I think I have to be done."

Good for you.

The reality, though Ben. The hard part, you know, drinking allows you to sort of delay or postpone the process of dealing with shit. Be it a fucked up childhood, or divorce, or whatever the case may be.

When you stop drinking like I did. Whatever you were avoiding is right in your face. You don’t have an escape anymore.

You have to face the music. Twenty-four hours a day.

Right. It would have been so much easier if I had the foresight to say, "I'm drinking more and more because my mom is dying (and a bunch of other things); I want to stop drinking AND work through this issue I'm having."

That's really smart and inspiring. Yeah. Part of me wants to do it. I think part of me wants to do it. My wife has a really healthy relationship with alcohol, and I think that's been a challenge for me. I see how in control she is. She rarely has a second glass of wine, and I tell myself that's what I can do.

My wife is the same way, totally in control.

For me (laughter), as Ozzy says, “One’s too many, ten is not enough.”

Chris, thanks for doing this, and thank you for the work you do. In the vet space and in addiction. It's really admirable, having so much success professionally and choosing to give so much of your time away for free.

It’s been my pleasure.