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.
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.