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BY Maddie Reese

E245: How Stoicism Can Help Your Military Transition (with Geoff Fries)

How Stoicism Can Help Your Military Transition: A 4-Step Guide for Officers

If you’re a current or former military officer, there is a strong chance you have a copy of Meditations, The Enchiridion, or Admiral Stockdale’s writings on your bookshelf. Stoicism has many applications to life as a military officer.

But how can it help you with your military transition? Stoicism helps your military transition by separating what you control from what you do not. You cannot control the hiring market or whether an interviewer nods along while you answer. You can control your preparation, your mindset, and the quality of your work, and that is where every productive decision in a career search gets made.

Geoff Fries joined Cameron-Brooks as a transition coach in August 2025 after ten years as a Navy pilot. He read his way through the stoics during his own transition. In episode 245, Geoff sits down with Maddie Reese to discuss how stoicism can help officers during their military transitions. Below you’ll find a 4 step-guide to how stoicism can help your military transition and can impact your timeline.

Step 1: Decide what you want, ideally 18 to 24 months out

Preparation beats reaction. Begin before you need to.

Roger Cameron, our founder, told officers to go sit on a rock and think. That wisdom still holds.

Decide what matters to you and your family before anyone asks you to rank companies or cities. Write it down. The goal is not a perfect plan. The goal is a clear one.

This is also where you sort what you control from what you do not.

Epictetus called this the dichotomy of control. He used dice to explain it. You cannot control the numbers that come up. You play the hand you rolled. He could not control being born into slavery. He controlled what he read, what he wrote, and how he responded.

Make two lists.

Things you do not control: the economy, which companies are hiring for which roles, whether an interviewer is having a good day.

Things you control: your preparation, what you read, the questions you ask.

Spend your energy on the second list. The first list will take care of itself. Officers who skip this step spend the next year reacting to opportunities instead of choosing between them.

Step 2: Build the courage to be a beginner, then the discipline to keep going

Courage in the stoic sense is not the version from the movies.

It is the willingness to become a beginner again. To walk into a new field in front of people who haven’t seen your leadership in action and be a sponge.

Marcus Aurelius wrote that the impediment to action advances action. The obstacle in the way becomes the way.

At the 12 month mark, that means choosing the harder path on purpose. Take the assignment that stretches you. Learn the function you do not know. Do not optimize your last year in uniform for comfort.

Courage starts it. Discipline carries it.

Geoff keeps a passage from Meditations in his gym. It is about rising unwillingly in the morning and remembering you were made for action, not for staying warm under the covers. He says it still lands like a slap in the face.

Discipline is consistent, repeatable action toward a result you have defined. Set a weekly cadence and hold it for a year:

• One hour a week on your resume and your stories
• One conversation a month with someone who made this transition
• One book a quarter in the business function you are targeting

Over time, this steady work will compound. We have designed our preparation program with this steady and repeated work and coaching in mind. So that when you enter the interview room, you aren’t just ready, but you flourish.

Step 3: Interview with wisdom, and decide now how you will handle a bad room

Wisdom is not necessarily knowing a lot. It’s sorting what matters from what does not.

In an interview, that means one thing. Find the problem the hiring manager actually has.

Read the job description for the problem behind it. Ask questions that get at the real issue. Then show how you solve it.

Then there is the room itself.

Geoff tells a story about a candidate who interviewed before joining the military. The hiring manager wrote NO in large block letters on a sheet of paper, in full view, while the candidate was still answering.

That candidate’s takeaway: after that, nothing in an interview could rattle him.

You might come across a disengaged interviewer. Someone might step away from the camera. Someone might play devil’s advocate about your lack of industry experience. Someone might try a negative sell about your hometown.

None of that is yours to control. Your answer is.

Geoff calls it excellence for excellence’s sake. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Set the temperature in the room rather than reflecting back what you find there.

Step 4: Work the process, not the result

The Cameron-Brooks Career Conference runs four and a half days and is scheduled 45 to 60 days before you start transition leave. You will do roughly eight to twelve interviews across two of those days.

Do not carry the whole thing at once.

Geoff breaks it into three-interview chunks. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. By the time you finish lunch you are halfway through and you never had to hold the full event in your head.

This is compartmentalization. You already know how to do it. You did it every time you stepped into an aircraft and left everything else on the ground.

The same principle applies to the whole search.

Geoff brought up something Sam Presti said when a reporter asked how a team repeats as NBA champions. He mentioned that it’s not about chasing a result, but repeating the process that produced it.

It can be all too easy to fixate on the end state. Which company. Which city. What the offer looks like. Those matter. They are also the part you control least.

Control the process. Excellence becomes a habit, and the result follows from the habit.

Frequently Asked Questions About Military Transition

Is stoicism just about suppressing emotion?

No. While people today often associate stoicism with suppressed emotions, classical stoicism is actually about regulating emotion, not eliminating it.

Stoicism in an interview can look like regulating your emotions to deal with nerves, bringing your best self to the interview and focusing on building a genuine connection with the interviewer.

When should I start preparing for my transition?

Ideally, start 18 to 24 months before your separation date.

The first six months are for deciding what you want. The next twelve are for building skills, stories, and a clear picture of the business world. The final 45 to 60 days are the Career Conference and the follow-up process.

We have worked with officers who start three months out who have found great success, but their timeline is more condensed, there is more pressure, and less time for preparation.

What do I do if the interviewer seems disengaged?

Give the best answer you can give and let their behavior be theirs.

You do not know what is happening on their side of the screen. A disengaged interviewer may be distracted, may be testing you, or may be assigned to play the skeptic.

Your job is to raise the level of the room, not to mirror it.

Do I need to read Meditations to use any of this?

No. The lessons from the podcast and this blog will help, even without studying stoicism yourself.

That said, most officers who pick it up find it familiar immediately. Marcus Aurelius wrote it as a private notebook and never expected anyone else to read it. It reads like a leader working through the same problems you are working through, two thousand years earlier.

Thinking about your own career transition?

At Cameron-Brooks, we help junior military officers transition from the military into rewarding business careers.

See what career fields our candidates move into.

If you’re a company-grade or field-grade officer exploring what’s next, Geoff, the entire Cameron-Brooks team, and I are here to help. Feel free to reach out below. We’re here to help and listen and see if this path could be right for you.

Email: candidates@cameron-brooks.com 
Call: 210-874-1500
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