Michael J. Penney

DOMINATE your business

You are here: Home / Archives for Michael J Penney

Michael J Penney

by

SuccessVets Podcast: Sea Stories, 5P and Transition Tips (2016)

On February 25, 2016, the SuccessVets podcast released “Michael Penney: Sharing Sea Stories, Business Plans, And Transition Tips With A USMC Vet.” The interview runs just under an hour. It was published about three weeks before his TEDxRaleigh talk.

SuccessVets: Michael Penney interview (February 2016)

What the episode covered

The show notes open with the question that drove the conversation:

How can you use mission planning tools from the military to plan your business or transition?

SuccessVets show notes, February 2016

The notes summarize where Michael stood at the time:

  • Eight years as a Marine Corps infantryman, with three deployments: two to Iraq and one to Afghanistan.
  • Out of the Corps in 2012 and working as an entrepreneur since.
  • Co-host of the Cigars & Sea Stories podcast and chief contributor at BloodStripes.com.
  • Building resources for veteran entrepreneurs, including what the notes call “the 5 paragraph business,” based on O-SMEAC.

O-SMEAC is the Marine Corps format for the five-paragraph order: Orientation, Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, and Command and Signal. Every Marine who has received a patrol order has heard it briefed in that sequence. The idea Michael was developing was to use the same structure to lay out a business. You state the situation and the mission, then work through how it gets done, what it needs, and who is in charge.

The show notes send listeners to SuccessVets.com for more from the interview and link to Cigars and Sea Stories. The full episode, about 59 minutes, is in the player above.

Why it mattered then

Most transition advice in 2016 focused on résumés and job searches. SuccessVets pointed listeners to the tools they already carried. A veteran who could write or follow an operations order already knew how to organize a plan. The episode covered the business side and the personal transition side, which are often the same problem for someone leaving the military.

The episode came at a busy stretch for Michael. In the same few weeks he was preparing for TEDxRaleigh, doing Doug Stewart’s video conversations, and appearing on the Military Entrepreneur Show.

Looking back

This episode is one of the earliest public references in this archive to the 5 Paragraph Business by name. The idea he was working on in early 2016 became the 5 Paragraph Business Plan, his O-SMEAC-based framework for planning a business.

Listen to the episode on SuccessVets

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live

by

TEDxRaleigh 2016 Blab: Doug Stewart Hosts Michael Penney

On February 23, 2016, Doug Stewart posted a recording to YouTube titled “#TEDxRaleigh Blab with Jason Goldberg & Michael Penney.” Stewart was one of the presenters for TEDxRaleigh 2016. Here he sat down with two of his fellow speakers about a month before the event. The recording runs just over an hour.

What it was

Blab was a live group video-chat app that was popular for a short time in 2015 and 2016. Hosts could open a live conversation with a few guests on camera while an audience watched and commented. Stewart used it to introduce some of the people his audience would see on the TEDxRaleigh stage.

His description of the video is one line long:

TEDxRaleigh coming March 19th, 2016. I had an opportunity to chat with two of my fellow presenters.

Doug Stewart, YouTube description

The video is an open conversation among three people preparing to give TEDx talks at the same event. The full recording is here for anyone who wants to hear how Michael talked about his talk and his work in the weeks before he gave it.

Why it mattered then

TEDxRaleigh 2016 was Michael’s first TEDx stage. Speakers in that position spend the weeks before rehearsing and shaping their message. Talking it through in public with other speakers is part of how the talk comes together.

It also shows the way speakers in a TEDx class often helped each other. Stewart used his own channel to build interest in his co-presenters, not just himself.

TEDx events use the TED conference format, but each one is organized independently by a local community. In Raleigh that meant local speakers like Stewart, Goldberg and Penney, and much of the promotion before the event came from the speakers themselves.

At the time Michael was best known as the co-host of the Cigars and Sea Stories podcast and a contributor to BloodStripes.com. The TEDx invitation put a Marine infantry veteran in front of a much wider audience than either of those projects had reached.

Looking back

One week later, Stewart posted a second, longer one-on-one conversation with Michael, “A conversation with an Entrepreneurial Marine.” On March 19, 2016, Michael gave his TEDxRaleigh talk, “What’s your IED? How to add value in explosive situations.” The TEDx Talks channel published it that June. “TEDxRaleigh speaker” has been part of how he is introduced ever since.

Blab itself is long gone, but this recording survives on Stewart’s YouTube channel.

Watch on YouTube

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live

by

Fuel For Warriors #19: Cigars & Sea Stories, BloodStripes (2016)

On January 4, 2016, Fuel For Warriors released episode #19, “Michael and Sebastian – Marines, Cigars & Sea Stories, BloodStripes.com.” The host was Timothy Lawson. His show featured “military veterans, athletes, and other warriors” talking about their challenges and what drives them. The episode runs about 38 minutes.

What the episode covered

Lawson brought on Michael and his Cigars and Sea Stories co-host, listed only as Sebastian. The two shows did a swap.

We did back-to-back interviews for both of our shows and had a great time talking about Marines Corps, business, and more.

Timothy Lawson, Fuel For Warriors #19 show notes

The episode title also names BloodStripes.com, the Marine professional-development site Michael wrote for. The show notes give more space to Cigars and Sea Stories, and they lay out its mission in the format of an operations order.

  • The show: a place for Marines and FMF corpsmen “to act out and speak their minds,” with relevant topics, interviews with prominent veterans, and war stories. Any Marine or FMF corpsman could be a guest.
  • Intent: “Our goal is to empower veterans to act as a whole.” The notes spell that out as creating positive change, voting on issues that matter, raising awareness for worthy causes, and speaking out against injustice.
  • Desired end state: “a network of veterans that can accomplish any task and, an America that can actually police itself.”

Listeners were asked to join in on Twitter with #FFW19. The show was sponsored by Lock-N-Load Java at the time.

Why it mattered then

In early 2016 veteran podcasting was a small world, and shows grew by trading guests. A back-to-back swap like this one put Cigars and Sea Stories in front of Fuel For Warriors listeners, and the other way around.

The notes also show how Michael and his team framed the project. They did not pitch it as entertainment. They wrote it the way Marines brief a mission, with an intent and a desired end state. The goal was a veteran network that could get things done.

Looking back

Writing a civilian project in operations-order terms became his signature. A few weeks after this episode, the SuccessVets podcast described him building “the 5 paragraph business” on the Marine O-SMEAC format. That framework grew into the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. The episode is also an early public record of Cigars and Sea Stories and BloodStripes.com together, the two projects he was known for before TEDxRaleigh.

The episode’s original audio file is no longer served from its first host. The listing remains on Apple Podcasts.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live

by

Funniest Thing! Veterans Day Reading: Honor (2015)

In November 2015 Michael Penney made his second appearance on Funniest Thing! with Darrell & Ed, the Unity Online Radio show hosted by Darrell Fusaro and Edward Biagiotti. The episode was titled “It’s an Honor to Be of Service, Sir!” It was built around the Daily Word for Wednesday, November 11, 2015, which was Veterans Day. The show script was posted November 17.

What the episode covered

The hour centered on service and giving. The idea was that helping other people succeed comes back to you as success, joy and security. The hosts drew on Florence Scovel Shinn, Emmet Fox and Eric Butterworth for readings on selfless love, seeing yourself as a giver, and honest salesmanship based on the Golden Rule.

The script introduced Michael as a “United States Marine Corps combat veteran and a producer of the Cigars and Sea Stories podcast.” As on his first visit, he handled the Daily Word segment.

Michael Penney … drops in to read and discuss today’s Daily Word®, “Honor.”

Funniest Thing! show script, November 2015

That day’s reading carried the affirmation “I honor and thank those who serve.” It gives thanks for people who serve, protect and care for others, and it closes with Romans 13:7.

The episode also included the show’s regular pieces:

  • Listener mail
  • A joke of the day

Why it mattered then

Veterans Day week puts a lot of “thank you for your service” into the air. This appearance had a combat veteran on the other side of that, reading a passage about honoring people who serve. The reading points beyond the military, to anyone who protects or cares for others.

The episode’s wider theme, that you get ahead by helping others get ahead, also lined up with what he was doing at the time. Cigars and Sea Stories existed to put other veterans’ stories in front of an audience.

Looking back

The service-first theme of this hour runs through his later work. When he took the TEDxRaleigh stage in March 2016, his talk was titled “What’s your IED? How to add value in explosive situations.” The talk’s own description says his goal was to help fellow veterans achieve greatness after leaving the military.

The original Unity Online Radio audio page for this episode is no longer online. The hosts’ show script, with the full rundown, is still up.

Read the show notes on Funniest Thing!

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live

by

Funniest Thing! on Unity Online Radio: Let Go, Let God (2015)

In August 2015 Michael Penney sat in as a guest on Funniest Thing! with Darrell & Ed, a weekly show on Unity Online Radio hosted by Darrell Fusaro and Ed Biagiotti. The episode was titled “Let Go, and Let God Do It.” The hosts’ show script was posted on August 23, 2015. The episode listing runs just over an hour.

What the episode covered

Funniest Thing! mixes humor with spiritual readings. This episode was built around one idea: trusting that God is working on your behalf, and the relief that comes from putting down worry. The hosts called that “the greatest freedom.”

The show script introduces Michael this way:

Michael Penney, United States Marine Corps combat veteran and a creator of the Cigars and Sea Stories podcast

Funniest Thing! show script, August 2015

His part of the hour was the Daily Word segment. He read and discussed that day’s Daily Word entry, “Let Go, Let God,” dated Wednesday, August 19, 2015. The reading’s affirmation was “I let go of expectations and trust God.”

The rest of the episode followed the show’s usual format. That included:

  • Opening quotes from Florence Scovel Shinn
  • A “God Box” segment on writing down a worry and handing it over
  • Readings from Doreen Virtue, Ernest Holmes and Abraham
  • Listener mail
  • A joke of the day

The script page does not tie Michael to any segment other than the Daily Word reading.

Why it mattered then

This was not a veterans show or a business show. It was a faith-and-humor program with a general audience. A Marine combat veteran reading a passage about letting go of expectations was a different kind of appearance for him. It also put Cigars and Sea Stories in front of listeners who would likely never have found a Marine podcast on their own. The show script linked to the Cigars and Sea Stories website.

For a veteran a few years out of the Corps, the message of the reading also fit the season of life many were in: plans changing, and learning to trust the process instead of forcing it.

Looking back

Fusaro and Biagiotti brought Michael back that November for the Veterans Day reading, “Honor.” Both appearances came before his TEDxRaleigh talk in March 2016, back when Cigars and Sea Stories was still the main thing people knew him for.

Listen to the episode on ListenNotes

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live