Michael J. Penney

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Military Entrepreneur Show: Infantry Marine Turned Podcaster

On March 3, 2016, Dan Evans released “Michael Penney | Infantry Marine Turned Podcaster & Military Entrepreneur” on the Military Entrepreneur Show. The interview runs 49 minutes. Two days later Evans posted a short promo clip from it to YouTube.

Promo clip from the Military Entrepreneur Show, March 2016

About the show

Evans pitched the Military Entrepreneur Show to a specific listener:

a go-to inspiration resource for military veterans who are entrepreneurial, but don’t know where to begin.

Military Entrepreneur Show description

The format was stories from veterans who had made the transition and built something, along with practical tips on personal branding, education and networking.

What the episode covered

The show notes give the military background Michael brought into the conversation:

  • He started his service at Twentynine Palms, California, with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, Weapons Company.
  • He deployed twice to Ramadi, Iraq.
  • He re-enlisted in 2007 and was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
  • At Quantico he qualified as a Combat Marksmanship Instructor, a Foreign Weapons Instructor, and a security-forces-trained Designated Marksman.

The episode title points to the second half of the story: going from infantry Marine and weapons instructor to podcaster and entrepreneur. The written notes stop at the military background. The full conversation is where he talks about the move into podcasting and business.

The promo clip above runs about a minute. Its YouTube description points viewers to more on the episode on Dan Evans’s site, danevansonline.com.

Why it mattered then

Early 2016 was a busy stretch for Michael. In about four weeks he appeared on SuccessVets, recorded two video conversations with fellow TEDxRaleigh presenter Doug Stewart, and gave his TEDxRaleigh talk on March 19. This episode belongs to that run.

It is also one of the more detailed public records of his instructor qualifications. Those years of teaching Marines to shoot, and to know foreign and threat weapons, are part of what he brought to the stage and the microphone.

Looking back

The Marine planning discipline from those years sits under his later work. The 5 Paragraph Business Plan builds on the same O-SMEAC order format every Marine learns.

The full-episode audio file at its original address no longer loads. The episode listing and the promo clip are still available.

Listen to the episode on Podcast.app

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.

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Doug Stewart: A Conversation with an Entrepreneurial Marine

On March 1, 2016, Doug Stewart posted “A conversation with an Entrepreneurial Marine” to his YouTube channel. Stewart was one of Michael’s co-presenters for TEDxRaleigh 2016, set for March 19. A week earlier he had hosted a group Blab with Michael and another speaker. This time it was a one-on-one, and it runs about an hour and fourteen minutes.

What they covered

Stewart’s description lists the ground they covered:

We talked about TEDx, Public Speaking, Passion, bad teachers, learning disabilities and a lot of awesomeness about entrepreneurial veterans.

Doug Stewart, YouTube description

In plain terms, the topics were:

  • TEDx and public speaking: two speakers on the same lineup, a few weeks out from the event.
  • Passion: what drives the work.
  • Bad teachers and learning disabilities: school experiences and learning differences, and how they shape a person.
  • Entrepreneurial veterans: veterans starting and building businesses.

Stewart closed his description by pointing viewers to three places they could find Michael at the time:

  • Cigars and Sea Stories, the podcast he co-founded (cigarsandseastories.com)
  • BloodStripes.com, the Marine professional-development site he wrote for
  • Bunker Labs, the national nonprofit for veteran entrepreneurs

Why it mattered then

The long-form format gave Michael room that a 12-minute talk does not. A TEDx talk is cut down to one idea. A relaxed hour with another speaker leaves time for the background behind that idea: how he learned, what frustrated him in school, and why he cared about veterans in business.

At about 74 minutes, it is the longest recorded conversation from the weeks before his TEDx talk. For anyone who only knows the 12-minute talk, it gives a fuller picture of the man who gave it.

The Bunker Labs link matters too. In early 2016 Michael was already connected to the organization’s Raleigh-Durham effort. His TEDx talk description, published that June, invited people to link up with him at Bunker Labs RDU, “where he spends most of his time connecting and working with fellow veterans.”

Looking back

Less than three weeks after this conversation, Michael gave his TEDxRaleigh talk, “What’s your IED? How to add value in explosive situations.” By October 2016 the Veteran On the Move podcast reported that he had taken over as director of the Bunker in Raleigh-Durham. The topics from this conversation, speaking, learning and veteran business, stayed at the center of his work.

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
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Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
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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
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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
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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