Intelligence, Entrepreneurship and Humanitarian Work: A Conversation with Daniel Hammond

Emily Bron sits down with Daniel Hammond, a man of many layers, to explore his journey shaped by diverse parental influences, military service, entrepreneurship, and humanitarian efforts.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Daniel Hammond
05:13 A Deep Dive into Daniel’s Passion for Board Games
08:47 Educational Journey and Its Impact
11:17 Military Service and Its Influence
14:01 From Army to Business Interrogation
17:27 Launching a Business After 50
22:29 Humanitarian Efforts and Impact
25:37 Addressing Immigration and Its Challenges
31:40 Personal Philosophy and Future Endeavors
39:15 Closing Thoughts and Farewell

Emily: Hello. Hello, everyone. It’s me, Emily Bron, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Hammond, who, for me, actually, Represent the best of the American spirit and person can be and just to share with you, who is Daniel Hammond. I should start from where we’re coming from, from our childhood.

I understood that your family, your parents actually influenced you from, you know, first days and how the fact that they have such different careers and actually personality types influenced who you are today.

Daniel: Yeah, thank you so much, Emily. I’m so glad to be here and, and, and with not just you, but this amazing audience that you have. And yeah, my, my mom is a, a PhD in biochemistry. So she’s very scientific in, in her thinking. She’s a great researcher. She worked at NASA and did experiments in space and cool things like that.

Emily: Fantastic. 

Daniel: Yeah, my dad has always been passionate about training and development. And I have that passion as well. And my dad is a. He cares deeply for people and I care deeply for people. And, and that has served me well, no matter what I’ve done in my life is I’m always looking for a way to provide more value.

To the people that I’m working with. And so that’s, that’s a big takeaway from that. You know, we grew up in a middle class life. You know, mom wasn’t a PhD when I was a little kid that came later, but she was a scientist and, and, we moved I moved from Miami to, Tennessee, Nashville when I was two, and lived there for eight years.

It was a great place to grow up you know, nice, safe, you know, never heard of, never heard a bad word in my first 10 years of life probably, and sheltered a little bit, but And we moved to Chicago and all those things fell away. I entered the real world and lived there for a couple of years before I moved here to the Houston area near NASA.

And it’s more or less, you know, as you know, I’ve lived abroad. I’ve also was in the army active duty. 

Emily: We will go to it. We will go to it. The question was like, how do you feel that your parents influenced you from the beginning? 

Daniel: Sure. So from dad, it’s definitely a care about people. So that’s my motivator is to add value and then for mom, it’s what’s going on in this space and how are things connected and you know, I don’t take things that are told to me at face value especially if something doesn’t feel right about it.

 I’m somebody who, if I read an article, you I’m like, what’s the source of this information? I, you know, when you let me, I’ll talk about my military background, but it was intelligence. And so pursuing truth was something that I got from my mom. What’s, you know, what’s really going on in this space.

Sometimes that makes me a conspiracy theorist, but usually one that’s pretty close to on. On target. 

Emily: It’s just deeper kind of analysis and desire to understand what is inside. I, I think I fully understand you and what I found, you know, interesting and amazing for myself. Is it you like games and you collected a lot of board games like around 700 and I believe it .

Helped you kind of to shape your strategic thinking. So tell a little bit more about it and if you have time to use these games now. 

Daniel: Sure. Yeah, that’s a fair question. So I, I guess one of the things that I like is figuring things out and figuring people out. What are the forces acting on people and systems.

And how do they influence them? And so one of the things I like about board games is every time I open a new box, I learn new rules and I see how the, the components of the game interact with each other. So it’s a puzzle to solve something to come out and I’ve done. Playtesting for games. So games before they come to market, I, I played them and then I provide feedback in, you know, how could this game be better?

Sometimes I’ve, I’ve had some pretty substantial contributions on what the final game looked like in one, I would say a component I suggested was arguably maybe a third of, of the. strategy component of the game. So that’s, that’s been an interesting part of life. And I love figuring things out. I figure things out very, very quickly.

I’ve recently realized that that’s not always a useful superpower. You know, when I was. In the army and in corporate America somebody would say, oh, we need to do this, this, and this, and I would just see what needs to happen, you know, and it, but then they’re like, we’re going to spend the next 6 hours talking about how we should do this.

And it’s like, but I already know. I already know what we need to do. 

Emily: What kind of games? Like, because you know, these days there’s a lot of computer games, so I believe it should be some special games. If you can name, maybe our listeners, followers will do the same, at least for their children, because. 

Daniel: Yeah, I like I like games with a certain amount of chance, but not too much chance.

So if it’s completely random, that’s no fun. There has to be some sort of strategy component where being good rewards you. You might not win every time, but for families. And I play this game very often with my wife and my parents. I like a game called Ticket to Ride. And it’s it’s connect the, you’re, you, you like run train companies and you’re trying to connect a bunch of cities on these tickets that you have.

And if you connect them by your railroad, railway by the end of the game, you score points for the tickets. But if you don’t, you lose points for the tickets. So. There’s only limited numbers of tracks though. And so sometimes somebody blocks you and then you have to try to build around to try to make your connections.

And so it’s, it’s fun because it’s interactive. You have to kind of weigh, you know, should I, should I build this area here? Even though that’s not super important to me because it might get clogged up later and I might not get to. Make my my ticket in that area. So I play war games. So I I’ve played games that have recreated the Napoleonic wars.

I’ve played games and their diplomatic, strategic, economic. All those, I mean, that game takes about 200 hours to play with seven players. So you’re playing 

Emily: today. It’s an online games, like the same topics, but no, it’s still 

Daniel: as a board game. Yeah. Board game. And then and then I played a world war two games, like the entire world war two, the politics, everything leading up the things leading up to war. And that. Took about 300 hours to play. We played four to six hours a week every week for 18 months. That’s how long. 

Emily: When you say we, you mean your family or? 

Daniel: Played with friends while I was in college. So while I, while I was going to the University of Texas in Austin. 

Emily: So it looks like a lot of your education coming from the game. Actually

Daniel: I learned a lot more games, probably, than from formal education. 

Emily: Yes, because as far as I understood from your biography, there were some kind of hiccups in your educational journey. I mean, you started and you changed, which kind of normal, maybe. But what you would say, how this educational path, which is kind of not straightforward, like, you know, We wish for our children, at least how it shaped you.

Daniel: Yeah. School has always, because I learned so fast school. Is, is, has typically been just boring for me, you know, I, I, I used to read books in class while they’re teaching. I, you know, pay enough attention to get the, the concept and then I just start reading books and sometimes I get caught and then they take my book away.

So then I have to bring a magazine for when they took my book away. So that I still had something to read. But yeah, I, I, you know, yeah. My sister was a straight A student. She’s very, very smart. And she had one of my teachers, she, she was three years behind me in school. And you know, all of her peers know that she’s a straight A, super smarty pants, and she said, one of, she asked. One of the teachers asked, Oh, is your, because of our last names she goes Oh, is your brother Daniel? And she said yeah, that that’s my brother. And she goes, oh, yeah, yeah, I had him. And one of the students go, oh, and was he a straight a student too? And the teacher said. Let’s just say Daniel was one of the smartest students I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching.

And, and I had, I got a D like a D- in her class, you know, very, very bad grade. But, you know, she acknowledged that I was 

Emily: So it was public school, I understand, yes? 

Daniel: I did go to public school. 

Emily: Yeah. So, I believe that actually games and strategies that you learn from games and Even strategy sometimes to avoid formal education.

We’re kind of good preparation. I believe for your army service. So please tell a little bit about this part of your life, which I understand shaped your kind of even what you are now. Yes. 

Daniel: Yeah. Every, everything I learn is, is foundational to who I am today. You know, I don’t. I, I would be hard pressed to meet someone that I had nothing in common with because I’ve done so many things across so many industries.

Yeah, it’s just, you know, that’s, that’s the nature of my curiosity. It takes me in a lot of different directions, especially when I reach a level of expertise or mastery in it in something I have to. I have to grow, continue growing. And so once I feel stuck, I’ve got to change what I do. So I, that was where I was.

I was 2 3 years old. I was managing a pizza place working 60 plus hours a week. I was already a certified training manager. So certified to train managers. And, you know, the next step up was district supervisor. And I’m like, they’re not going to promote a 23 year old to a district supervisor running, you know, and so I saw myself at a dead end.

And so I looked at the military and joined, joined the army. I said, what’s the hardest thing to qualify for? And they said signal intelligence analyst and so I said, all right, I’ll do that. And I had the scores. I had the gray, you know, the, you take a test and, and I, I maxed the test. So I literally could have had pretty much any job that I wanted in the army.

I had to take a second, a second test to test my language proficiency. And I scored high enough on that to qualify for any language, although. I didn’t max that by any means. I have a best friend who did. So he’s very smart in languages. And that’s honestly just memorizing new things like languages is one of the bigger challenges for my learning.

The details, I guess. But 

Emily: how many languages, you know, speak 

Daniel: really just English and Spanish. I understand Portuguese fairly well, but I don’t, I can’t speak it. I’d say I understand about 80 percent of what’s spoken in Portuguese, probably 60 percent in Italian, maybe, but you know, enough to get a gist.

Of what’s, of what’s going on. 

Emily:Speaking about your army experience like briefly, I’m not asking about military secrets. No. But I understand it was actually based to your today business interrogation. Type of business. How all this interrogation started probably from some courses you, you’ve had back in army. 

Daniel: yep, so I started off joined the army when I was 23 became a paratrooper, Spanish linguist.

And went, I was in the 82nd Airborne Division and that was mostly fun. And but I, I had a wife and then I didn’t have a wife. I had a kid in between there. And so I wasn’t seeing my kid enough and he was in Texas and I was in North Carolina. So I got out of the army and joined the army reserves, moved back to Texas.

And when I got into the army reserves I had the opportunity to become an interrogator. And so I went to interrogation school and did very well. And they said, really, you should be teaching this stuff. And so I transferred to the school and I started teaching interrogation. I had a deployment where I actually did real world interrogations in that way.

And came back and started teaching as a contract instructor. And then I also joined a well, they were pushing a bunch of people through, it was after nine 11 trying to get a lot of interrogators trained and the standards started dropping and I, I’m not somebody who likes to compromise on, on, Things that are important.

I think you know, the job of an interrogator is to get critical information that can save lives. And so if you can’t do the job, you shouldn’t be an interrogator. So I knew it was going to be bad for me cause I was going to start failing people. And so I transferred and, they were building an advanced interrogation and analysis course.

So that’s, you know, getting all the information and putting together all the pieces. And so I helped create that course. I built a lot of the scenarios to test the students with, you know, give them the challenge of this is the kind of approaches that you would have to. Run to make this, to get this person to cooperate with you.

And these are the pieces of information you could get. So sort of like building your own game, go back to my gaming practices. So that’s my, and then I’m really, I use a lot of those skills today. And 

Emily: what kind of people you interrogated? Can I ask what kind of people? 

Daniel: Sure, I had a very wide variety. I, I, I don’t, I don’t know very many people that interrogated on as many, you know, I talked to bankers you know, like the highest level bankers weapons of mass destruction type scientists.

So, you know, biological weapons, chemical weapons, not so much nuclear, but delivery systems like rockets and things like that. Intelligence people military people, politicians cabinet, cabinet.

Emily: It’s a part of the judiciary process. I’m trying to understand how this came to you. 

Daniel: It’s intelligence collecting. So you know. The, the commanders set the guidelines and in my case our commanders were like very, we, we had a political and, and uh, uh, mission, I guess, more or less. And, and so we were collect, finding out what was going on here. Well, whatever the, the priorities of whoever you’re working for, that’s sort of how business interrogation works.

You know, I, the CEO. is my commander and I’m interrogating their business to get them the information that they need to make better decisions in their business. 

Emily: Oh, okay. I see. I see this type of yes. So it’s so when you get to this idea of starting your own business as interrogator, I would say, like being after 50 and why I’m asking, because, you know, one of the kind of points of my show actually to show people after 50 is that many things is, is not still possible, but it’s actually realistic to, to, to do with your life.

Daniel: Sure. Yeah. I would so just to run down the things I’ve done after 50 at, at age 50 I taught myself how to play bass guitar. So that’s, that’s one thing. I never played maybe practice on the piano a little bit when I was very, very, very young. And then I became an entrepreneur when I was 51, and I had a cyber consulting business called Ethereal Rodent Cyber Consulting, and I used to design disasters for businesses.

to help them practice response. So I would like, you know, ransomware, right? It encrypts your computers and then you don’t have access. You can’t help your customers. They ask for money. Will you pay to get your information back or not? And so I would simulate that and ask leadership teams, you know, would you pay ransom?

And I would challenge their thinking, you know, lots of them would be like, no, I’d never pay. And I’m like, what if it were 1? And if you didn’t pay. You’re done as a business and all of your client data gets leaked on the internet and all of your employees. 

Emily: I think it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s what many businesses needs is this actually, like it’s not joke and not game. It’s a reality of our 2024. Life. And so I believe your business should prosper and at least like clients know about you and, and we are speaking about what kind of businesses it related or any kind, 

Daniel: any kind of, any kind of business that does leadership. So you know, I mean, any business I, I would say.

That’s probably medium sized businesses and bigger. So, you know, 100 employees or more because, you know, I mean, if you’ve, and it’s not that smaller businesses wouldn’t benefit. It’s just probably not where their priorities are. You know, I think as you’re building a business, you get to a point where, now, if you lose the momentum that you have as you grow, you know, you’ve got a reputation behind you, you’ve got momentum, you’ve got market success. And if, if, if that were to be stopped, like your reputation gets destroyed by your client data being leaked out or something like that, you’re going to crash and burn and then.

You would have to start back from scratch to re to rebuild your reputation under a new name, probably right? As long as you’re small enough where, okay, you know, my business is destroyed, but I could restart it at not not a huge cost, you know, maybe you just restart it. But my goal is to ask questions to get people to think about what can they do to be more resilient.

When trouble comes and so I, I used to call it and some sometimes still do call it pre crisis response, right? How do you think about how I would react to it? It’s like a fire drill, right? Do you know how to get out of the skyscraper? You’re in when the buildings on fire. If you haven’t practiced it and the buildings on fire, everybody’s going to be running around panicked.

But if you practice every week or every month, how to exit the business, the building orderly. Lives get saved and I think it’s the same thing with cyber unfortunate for me. Effectively, my business model was to sell a simulated disaster and then COVID came and everybody had an actual disaster for their business and they didn’t need to practice another disaster on top of the disaster they had.

So I had to pivot again and I, I did some leadership training first. I joined the John Maxwell leadership company and as a speaker, trainer, coach, and I, refined out. I already did all those things, but I refined and practice and hone those skills. I work. I did some project work for for training.

I did some training work. I got to work with some cool. Cool clients. And then I I got hired by a fortune 500 company to design a cyber exercise program. And so I built out an entire program for them. I then started, started I guess my wife and I had committed to building a nursing school.

And as you, as you read, I have a passion for I lived in Honduras. I have a passion for serving in central America. And so my My wife and I had agreed in 2015 to help this priest and nurse build a nursing school. And so we had a team together and that got finished in 2021. And We came together as a team and we were working with three bishops Episcopal bishops from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Emily: Can you tell a little bit more about this phase, which you already transferred? I mean, I’ve had special questions about your humanitarian, I would say mission. So I understand it’s mission and work. How, how it started and what state it’s now in, what places this projects exactly in Honduras and El Salvador and how many people now.

Local people kind of around these places of working and benefiting. 

Daniel: Sure. So the nursing school when we started off you know, it was already there. But they were just teaching out of the church. And so it wasn’t, they didn’t have a school. They weren’t, they didn’t meet the requirements from the Department of, or Ministry of Education for Honduras.

And so they needed a building. And so my wife and I said yes to this. Thinking, how are we going to raise $50,000 to help them build a building? And over five years with the right partners, we raised $235,000 and built them a modern building that has doubled their capacity that they now can do 40 students a year instead of.

Maybe 12 to 16. And, and it really is changing the entire environment. It’s in central Honduras, this town called Siguatepeque. And it’s yeah, it’s, it’s really been a blessing. We’ve met amazing people all over Honduras. And one of the things that we did at the dedication is we have these bishops there and we asked them, what’s, what’s your biggest challenge?

And they said, it’s, it’s people leaving our countries, you know, they’re, they’re leaving their families and they’re mostly coming to the U S you know, the U S mindset is these people are coming here. And causing problems for us, but really you know, they see it as opportunity. And the situation is bad in a lot of these countries.

And so you know, as long as the situation there is so bad that it’s worth the risk to come to the U S they’re going to make that decision dependent upon how easy it is. For them to come here and stay here, right? But the harder it is for them to get into the country and to be able to remain in the country, the less likely they are to come.

And so that’s one of the shifts that’s happened over the last few years is, you know, we had a place where, you know, and I, I can tell stories because, you know, I’ve talked to people, who you know, when we started. Trying to help the bishops. I went down to the border and I interviewed people on both sides.

People who had come across and asked them, why did you come? And it’s, it’s almost always. economic or security. You know, gangs, gangs are targeting them. You know, and we, we even worked with a prominent figure who, you know, would be somebody who’s deeply respected and one of his Children was targeted by gangs.

And you know, Had had no choice, but to leave the country because their life was in danger. So, you know, there’s so many things that push and pull, but 

Emily: I’m very sorry for these people. I feel that majority of them will be, I’m sorry to say second class, if not in United States they already risking their life and saving on the road.

to the border and yes, they’re not good informed about what expects them. So I hope that this place is that you help to arrange, I mean, to create nursery and hospital. In Honduras and other places, people see a reason to work and be around their families, rather than really be divided from the family.

I mean and to go to, I would say, not the best place for life now, as I see United States, from the perspective of people who just coming without language, without money, without required skills. To leave a new place. 

Daniel: Well, and not, not, not only, and very well said, Emily, I think you summed it up beautifully.

I, I, I believe that you’ve effectively our policy is inviting them in. right now it’s so, it’s so weak. We are letting them come in. Even the legislation that just failed in the U. S. was ridiculous. It was like, as long as we’re getting 5, 000 or less illegal people crossing our border per day, we’re going to do nothing.

Emily: That’s no, no, no. It’s just damaging, damaging psychology here. 

Daniel: It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. And so you, and then they come here, but they don’t have legal status. You said second class citizen. I agree completely. It’s, you know, it’s, maybe it’s not slavery, but some of these people, they come, they owe cartels, and 

Emily: they will be slaves.

Look, I’m an immigrant. I’ve had several immigrations, and I come, at least I was prepared, I come with education, with, Language, which I still should have learned I changed my profession in every country I lived, but I’ve had some background about what to expect. And still, still I consider myself immigrant after 27 years living in Canada and all of that, all of us.

We were professional immigrants. We, we, we came legally, and I’m speaking in my kind of business only about legal. Because I can imagine what kind of troubles and dangers people coming through when they coming illegal. Even state kind of invited them, but they already hated by local Americans, which I understand working the source life to, to, to make you know, to meet the ends and suddenly people are coming and they get more attention than locals.

It’s all against any logic and I wish that more people will see as you were trying to do opportunities in there. Countries and I know that Bukele now trying to do something in El Salvador trying and some other Latin and Central American countries are trying to keep their best citizens because who is going up?

up north, young and kind of skillful. Yes. So leaving the old and children without attention. So it’s kind of disaster for, for the local community. 

So what, 

what should be done? I understand that. And I’m really sorry for these people. And I’m sorry for America because it’s, it’s really breaking the fabric of society.

Daniel: It’s, it’s, you know, the numbers don’t get quoted often enough on the media, but it’s almost 10 million people in three years. That’s, 

Emily: that’s more than more. I’m following it and I’m following even sorry, we kind of going off track. What’s happening in the Texas border. It’s, it’s it’s kind of a troubling and okay.

So my next question would be, where do you see America and Texas in particular is going? Like what, what your future vision? 

Daniel: Yeah, so you know Politically you know, there’s I mean, from my heart, you know, I want what’s best for people and having a bunch of people. And you’re absolutely right. What we’re doing is we’re stealing the most entrepreneurial people out of these countries and leaving them with the people who are not ready to take that country up.

Right. You know, and and so and then. what we’re also doing is instead of those people becoming the best and brightest and most talented and most entrepreneurial and hardest working in their own countries, we’re having them work here in a system where they’re, they’re highly limited.

You know, they, they can’t get a good job. They can’t get, you know, obviously for me. Yeah. And so that’s a problem that, and again, the, the fulcrum for that, whether they come or whether they don’t come is how easy is it for them to come and, and, you know, Again, there are people who need, who are refugees and they need a place, but if we’re flooding in millions of people who just want more economic opportunity, first of all.

We don’t have 10 million extra jobs in the U. S. And so, and then if they don’t have the legal right to work, that means we’re incentivizing businesses to pay people illegally. You know, I, I know of a, of a, a young man that was here. He, he, he was in construction. He, he was invited to go work on a project for a week.

He went across state lines to another state. He helped build a house and then they didn’t pay him. And what’s he going to do? You can’t go to the police because you’re not legal. 

Emily: Yeah, it’s slavery, slavery of different kind. I, I see we both became passionate about this one. No, no, because it’s painful to see and observe what’s going on.

And I still hope We all hope that somehow common sense or people will prevail and even in, in such situation in I’m just thinking how your life philosophy changed over the years going through, you know, different phases of your life, living in different countries, working for army and observing what is going now in United States and. In your state of Texas. 

Daniel: Yeah, I would say, and you know, if it, I hope I hope this honors you, but one of the things that I’m always doing is as I evolve, I’m looking for a way to better serve people to better to add more value to the world to help other people add more value to the world. That’s been my focus.

You know, after After working for another company, I wrote a book called Customer Driven Leadership with my partner. 

Emily: Yes, congratulations. . I’m afraid we will not have time to discuss all your books. 

Daniel: No, that’s because I wrote too many. I went from no books to five books in a year and a half.

That’s that was pretty crazy. I’ve got book six where I’m working it right now, and each book is completely different. They have nothing to do with each other.

Emily: And again, you started it being after 50. I mean, you didn’t have previous experience of writing and it just kind of all. Like wisdom, experience, maybe time get together for you to, to find something new in, in your, in your life.

Yes. 

Daniel: Yeah. Trying to continue to keep growing. I think that’s one of the things that’s a super important to me. That’s the third book. I push for if you’re not doing something in your life to grow you and make you a little uncomfortable, maybe, maybe you’re living a life a little bit too comfortable and maybe you should just at least take up a hobby where you’re learning something new, bowling or scuba diving or something, something you’ve never done before.

Emily: And you, you touching here, the points that I was thinking about many years, there are some people who are really good. They get to the, some, you know career, I would say to some level in their education or prosperity, and they settled. Yeah. And they settle, and they have family, they have some hobby, free time.

But there are another category of people who are unsettled, and, and other settled people do not understand them, like, what, what you are missing, why, why are you doing this kind of crazy stuff, why are you starting from zero, or you moving to different place, what, what kind of, you know, bug sitting in you.

And, and, and digging inside. So how you would understand what is this internal, I don’t know, flame or internal engine, which makes some people to, to be different. 

Daniel: Yeah, I think. I think some people are very entrepreneurial in, in, in nature and other people specialize. And so it’s, it’s general knowledge in a lot of cases versus specialized knowledge.

If you’re a generalist like I am, and you know, I’m a generalist to mastery in some areas, but still it’s, it’s the breadth of what I know. That helps me add the most value to people, you know, I can answer anything, any question on cyber exercises in the world. But how often does that serve the people I’m with?

Whereas, you know, just the problems that I’ve run across in my life and how fast I can understand where other people’s problems are. And I invest in coaching too. I mean, I, I want people to pull new things out of me. So for example, this week you know, I, I Dan Sullivan is one of my coaches and he, he was talking about if, if he goes, if you can be good at a lot of things, but you can only be great.

At one thing and you have to, you have to know what your one thing is that can propel you to greatness and that, that convicted me, Emily. I was like, wow, what, what, how would I boil what I do to one thing? And so I was like, maybe it’s that I focus and multiply the genius of others. You know, I take what other people, the great ideas of other people, and I see how to make it better and how to take some risk out of it and how to get some extra opportunity packed into it.

And, and, and I do that really only for people who are trying to make the world a better place. And so in the end, I settled with, I think my one thing is that I focus and multiply the genius of others for the betterment of the world. And that kind of clarity is not something I could have ever generated on my own

I needed a coach. I needed somebody to ask me a question I’d never thought of before. Somebody asked me this week. Hey, can you interrogate yourself? Yes. 

Emily: Yes. It’s what I’m trying to do now. But I need to learn from you. Probably. 

Well, you’re doing great. 

I’m a good professional. You’re doing so you’re doing such a great, great job.

Daniel: And it is. It’s asking insightful questions to get people to think about things in ways that they’ve never thought of them before. And so, you know, that’s, that’s really, I would encourage people to continue to grow to think about even if you’re a specialist, right? If you’re a specialist, you keep growing until you get to the peak of something.

And then usually at some point, Okay. You retire, right? But that means now you don’t do the thing that you spent your whole life getting good at. So 

Emily: you might retire from your old work or all the old you. For me, retirement, actually, it’s a time of reinvention, like not for every. person it might work.

Actually starting your new life chapter when you have experience you have probably family and children grew up and you kind of have more time for yourself for your passion for to develop your interest and you should have interest. Actually, to develop, to start from, and you probably have, I mean, somebody more or less finances which can help you to, to go because, you know, many projects required finances, let’s be honest.

So you know, in, in, in this regard, I will ask you this question. What do you think and what age? Person became old in your opinion, because I’m not speaking about biological age, which is, you know, one point, but what helped people to be active and young for the longer years? What is your recipe? How you see for yourself and what you propose for others?

Yeah, I think 

being after 50. 

Daniel: Sure. Sure. I think, I think you need to have a purpose bigger than yourself. And, and that can be. You know a community that you’re part of you know my, my dad is got a, a voting community that he’s part of. I have international communities that I’m part of and that somehow I kept to write some of these books, but I think really the moment that you no longer are the person that you’ve been like, you know, at that point of retirement, wherever that happens.

That’s a pivot. That’s a pivotal point in who you’re going to become because you’re no longer going to be the person that you’ve been for maybe 30, 40, 50 years. And so now you should, before you. You know, clock out for that last day of work. You should be thinking for a year before that, well, what do I want to be doing?

Maybe I should start growing to that now. So I don’t fall off a cliff and maybe I just take a step in the direction of something I’m already thinking about and preparing for, right? I mean, I know a lot of people are 

Emily: speaking about legacy, legacy, how to leave a legacy. Maybe people, many people don’t think about it, but.

Subconsciously, do you have some recipes or advices for people how to keep young, active uh, rather than, you know, healthy, healthy eating exercises like it’s by default, we’re not speaking about, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, what you would say? 

Daniel: Yeah, I love you know, finding faith based things that are adding value to the world.

That’s super important in my life. And then the other thing is you know, look around and see what needs to be done and get involved with a group that’s trying to make a difference there. That’s my, that’s my 2 cents is, is continue to add value to the world until it’s over, right? I mean, you know, if you live for retirement, I think you’re going to find that’s a cliff that once you, once you’re living without purpose. What’s the point, right? I mean, at some level so continue to find ways to add value into the world until you’re not capable of doing it anymore. That’s my thought. 

Emily: Thank you very much, Daniel. God bless you and God bless America. I really wish for this year and years to come, and it was my pleasure to speak with you again today, and I hope it will be the not last time.

Thank you, Daniel. 

Thank you.

Daniel Hammond

Author · Cyber Exerciser · Innovator · Collaborator · Disruptor · Investigator · Business Consultant · Dragon-slayer (Strategic Big Problem Solver)

Daniel Hammond’s Unique Ability™ is to quickly adapt and build trust, absorb knowledge, discern connections, optimize strategies, overcome problems, and positively influence outcomes to maximize success, to protect against risk, to oppose evil and injustice, and fight for what is right and true.

Daniel helps leaders and organizations identify their “unknown, unknowns” (what they don’t know that they don’t know) in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world so that they can take positive action to unlock new opportunities and solve and/or avoid problems by deeply understanding and processing the risk. He interrogates surface issues or unmapped disruptions in businesses to their root causes and provides tangible strategies for solving them, not just at a symptom layer but at a deeper process level.

Daniel’s Cyber Exercise experience is unparalleled, having delivered an industry-level exercise in front of a member of the U.S. Cabinet, led 60+ exercises, including cyber-range exercises at a top-10 global bank, developed a Cyber Exercise Program for a Fortune 500 Fintech company, and worked with over dozens of other organizations across 5+ other industries.

Customer Driven Leadership is a 10x organizational operating system created by Dr. Ted Anders in the mid-1990s that is delivered as a done for you service focusing on the organization you aspire to be, empowering your workforce and culture to help you become that, while measuring and scaling all that matters to your overall success and delivering excellence that your customers cannot help but appreciate (according to their needs and wants).

Daniel Hammond’s Inspiring evolutionary journey: Army Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, and Humanitarian work

In a world where change is the only constant, few stories are as inspiring and multifaceted as Daniel Hammond’s. A former Army Intelligence officer turned entrepreneur and humanitarian, Daniel’s journey is a testament to the power of curiosity, adaptability, and the relentless pursuit to make a meaningful impact in the world.

Starting Young, Growing Fast:
Daniel’s early years laid the groundwork for a life characterized by service and exploration. Significantly influenced by his parents, a scientist mother and a culturally minded father, Daniel developed a unique blend of curiosity and empathy from a young age. His upbringing in a middle-class family, transitioning from Miami to Nashville to the bustling city of Chicago, equipped him with the resilience and adaptability that would become hallmarks of his career and life philosophy.

A Life of Service – The Military Chapter:
A significant part of the discussion revolves around the transformative power of digital communities and technology. George sheds light on the evolution from solopreneurships to micropreneurships, emphasizing the potential for small teams to achieve outsized impacts thanks to digital tools. This mirrors the narratives of ancient micro-empires, which, despite their geographical constraints, wielded considerable influence. George’s insights into the role of technology in enabling similar feats today offer a hopeful vision for aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide.

The Game of Strategy – Board Games as a Metaphor for Life:
Daniel, an avid collector of board games, sees life as a strategic game where understanding the dynamics between different elements can lead to successful outcomes. This passion for games, especially those requiring critical thinking and foresight, reflects Daniel’s approach to dealing with complex scenarios in business and life. His ability to quickly decipher and navigate intricate situations stems from countless hours spent unraveling the mechanisms of board games, from historical war simulations to strategic economic models.

Transitioning Skills – From Interrogator to Entrepreneur:
Post-military, Daniel ventured into entrepreneurship, leveraging his interrogation skills to delve into the business world. He founded Ethereal Rodent Cyber Consulting, focusing on designing simulations to prepare businesses for potential crises. His unique approach to business interrogation—drawing from his intelligence background—allowed him to unearth valuable insights that help organizations navigate uncertainties with greater resilience.

A Heart for Humanity – Building a Better Future:
Perhaps the most impactful chapter of Daniel’s journey is his humanitarian work in Central America. Driven by a deep-seated desire to contribute to a better world, Daniel and his wife played a pivotal role in establishing a modern nursing school in Honduras. This initiative provides quality education and opportunities for local students and addresses the broader issue of migration by offering an alternative to leaving home in search of better prospects.

The Unending Quest for Growth:
At the core of Daniel’s endeavors lies an unquenchable thirst for personal growth and a commitment to leveraging his talents for the greater good. Daniel embodies the ethos of continuous learning and improvement, whether teaching himself to play the bass guitar at 50, writing multiple books on leadership and business strategy, or leading cyber exercises for Fortune 500 companies. His life is a powerful reminder that there is always time to start anew, pursue your passions, and make a lasting impact on the world.

Looking Ahead: Vision for a Better Tomorrow:
As we gaze into the future, with challenges and opportunities abound, stories like Daniel Hammond’s offer hope and inspiration. They remind us of the remarkable human capacity to adapt, serve, and inspire change. Daniel’s journey encourages us to confront life’s complexities with courage and a strategic mindset, continually seeking ways to contribute positively to our communities and beyond.

Daniel Hammond’s inspiring evolutionary journey from Army Intelligence to entrepreneurship and humanitarian work exemplifies a life dedicated to service, growth, and making a meaningful difference in the world. His story underscores the importance of adaptability, strategic thinking, and the indomitable human spirit in navigating life’s myriad challenges and opportunities.