207: Finding Your Passion At Any Age with Stephen Coonts

Welcome to the Heroic Investing Show. As first responders, we risk our lives every day. Our financial security is under attack, our pensions are in a state of emergency. A single on duty incident can alter or erase our earning potential instantly and forever. We are the heroes of society. We are self reliant and we need to take care of our own financial future. The Heroic Investing show is our toolkit of business and investing tactics on our mission to financial freedom.

Welcome to the Heroic Investing Show, a podcast for first responders, members of the military, veterans and anyone looking to improve their financial future and gain some freedom with their time. We teach America's heroes how to build passive income, build their startup business and safely grow wealth through real estate and other alternative investments. We help current and prior first responders put protections, systems and a team in place to help them build a life where they can focus on their passion, that service or product that they are uniquely gifted to share with others, making the world a better place for all of us. My name is Gary Pinkerton and I co host this show with Jason Hartman. This is episode 207. Today's guest requires no introduction, but I'll do so just in case. This is author Steven Koontz. He's the author of his most famous work being the Flight of the Intruder. It made it into a movie. Just a fantastic book about an A6 Intruder pilot during the Vietnam War. He was an A6 Intruder pilot in the Vietnam War, served two deployments there in the height of SAM attacks and very low altitude intensive combat. He's obviously a Navy officer aviator, resigned after about 10, nine years of service. And he'll talk about, you know, his way to his true passion, being an author and writing some amazing works of art, sharing some true brilliance with all of the rest of us out here in the reading world. So please enjoy author Stephen Koontz. Well, hello Roic investors. Welcome back. Today we have the incredible pleasure to have author Stephen Koontz with us. So Steve's the author. I'm sure you've heard of him with Flight of the Intruder and many other amazing novels. He's author of 14 New York Times bestsellers and some of them, you know, flightman Turtle, we just, we just talked about, but he's got a couple new books out. One of them is a nonfiction and the other one is his newest book, the Russia Account. He's also a Navy veteran, having flown and operated as a pilot in the Vietnam War. We're going to hear about his story and we're going to hear about, you know, transition out of the military and following your passion and, and how you found the passion, first and foremost. Steve, thank you so much for joining us here on the heroic investing.

It's a pleasure to be with you, Gary.

So what I didn't tell the audience, but I will admit it here, is that we had a great 20 minutes where my recorder failed. And so we practiced this. And so if we sound polished, well, now you know why. But I felt compelled to let everyone know that he. That Steve is such a compassionate individual that he's going with me for another round here. Steve, could you take us back to how you started this? How did you end up in the Navy?

Well, I wanted to get out of West Virginia. I grew up in a coal town in central West Virginia. And the Navy had a program that they would guarantee you flight school if you would enlist and completed college and completed Officer Candidate school. Obviously you had to qualify for the program to take all the tests, the physicals and all that. And I did that, and I joined the Navy Reserve when I was 19. And when I graduated from college, they sent me to the flight school. And the rest, as they say, is history. I ended up flying a six Intruders off the USS Enterprise on the last two years of the Vietnam, last two cruises Enterprise made during the Vietnam War. And anyway, stayed in for nine years active and finally got out and went to law school. And I found, Gary, that once you're out, you know, my expertise was dropping bombs, and there's not a huge call for that in the civilian job market. And so I thought maybe I better do something else. And so airlines weren't hiring right then. And so I went to law school and became an attorney and practiced for a few years specializing oil and gas law, and then got a divorce. And so I started writing about this great adventure I'd had as a naval aviator flying the Navy's hottest jets in combat during the Vietnam War. The manuscript I've got wrote at nights and weekends, which is the way all first novels are written, and started sending it out, it was rejected by 32 publishers, basically every publisher in the free world. And when I sent it to the Naval Institute, who had just done Tom Clancy's the Hunt for Red October, and they were looking for a follow up, and they said yes. And so they published Flight of the Intruder, and to my astonishment, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks. And so it did so darn well that all the publishers who had rejected Flight of the Intruder now wanted me to write another Jay Grafton story for them. And so I went with Doubleday and they did Final Flight and another big bestseller and it went pretty well. So I've been writing lies in one form or another for ever since.

And how many full books have you done, Stephen?

This is the 25th novel. The Russia account is the 25th novel I've done. Then I've done nine co authored novels and I've done five anthologies and two works of nonfiction. So I don't know how many that is.

That is a prolific.

It's up in the 40s, but anyway, yeah, now Jake Grafton, who was in Flight of the Intruder, he's been in 19 of these novels and the Russia account is his 19th appearance. So Jake and I go way back and he's treated me pretty well.

I would say he has. Well, let's say he has. And it was a great movie and obviously a very, very good book. So, you know, congratulations on at least the two that people are most familiar with or the one that we're most familiar with. And we're definitely blessed to have you on this show.

Grateful pleasure to be on it.

So you said a couple things that I want to go back to. One was 23 no's and you kept going. So that says 32 dyslexia, 32 rejections.

Well, you know, I didn't think the book could ever be published. And so all what I wanted was somebody to publish it and give me two free paperbacks with my name on it. You know, Stephen Coons. I thought, you know, that I didn't think I'd make any money. And so I just was sending out, you know, whatever they wanted, a copy of the manuscript, a query letter, a synopsis, whatever. And you know, I didn't think it'd ever be published. I had 32 rejections in hand whenever I saw the Hunt for Red October in a bookstore and thought, well, why aren't they on my list, this Naval Institute Press? And I looked in the book and they said, well, we only do serious naval fiction. Well, I'd scratched them off because I knew it wasn't Joseph Conrad. But anyway, I decided, what the heck, if they did a submarine tale, maybe they'll do a flying story. So, so I sent them the whole manuscript with a three paragraph cover letter and they called me a month later and, you know, dropped me, said, we want to publish it. And I shocked, I was just astounded. And a year later they actually did publish it. So it's just serendipity.

How old were you then when that first one published?

I was 40. I was 40. Yeah.

So I mean, there's a lot of great lessons here. Like you found your calling at age 40 after 32 rejections. And it's, it's been tremendous. And the other, the other thing I want to go back to was you flew real combat, you know, in Vietnam, several missions against SAM Sites. I mean that was some of the hardest low altitude flying that the Navy's ever done. I mean, I'm sure that air to air combat has been a challenge in, in World War I and 2 and, and survival rates weren't high there either. But this was some tough stuff in Vietnam and obviously it comes out in your novels.

Well, you know, it was a grand adventure and I was extremely fortunate that I got to have this adventure. And the men that I served with, I mean, I can't say enough good things about them, they were all first class guys and I was honored to be stand among them as an equal, you know, you know, a Navy carrier aviator. And so it has been the great adventure of my life and I had fun writing about it. But all my books, I urge my readers to understand that all my books are not about naval aviation. You know, I had to, you can't sit around and write about that all the rest of your life. And so I've done a lot of thrillers, as I say, anthologies, a couple of non fiction works. One of them was flying an old airplane all over the United States, an old biplane. And the one we just finished, which is Dragon's Jaw, which is I wrote, co wrote with naval aviation historian Barrett Tillman. And it's about the seven year campaign to drop the Thanh Wa bridge in North Vietnam. And we, Barrett and I thought, you know, we're not getting any younger and the people that did this, flew all these missions, aren't, so we better do this while they're still alive to talk to us. And so we did and we think we have a bang up book and it's out there in all formats. And so hopefully it's not just for the people who served in Vietnam or other wars. It's for people that have fathers, sons, brothers that are veterans. It's really the angst of war and the fog and trying to do your best in a, in a political situation that you may not agree with or is mismanaged. There's just, you know, but you still have to do the best you can.

Generally. A mess. Yeah. Wow. When you came out of the military, you'd mentioned, you know, that you'd had a couple. I wouldn't call them odd jobs, but a couple of unrelated jobs. On your way to law school, you commented that, hey, dropping bombs was not in high demand. And thank God that's a good thing, actually.

I guess. What breadcrumbs did you follow? What indications or inclinations did you listen to to kind of get you on the path?

Well, my father had been a lawyer, and so I growing up watching him and his practice in a small town and I thought I could do that. But anyway, I got off active duty in February 1977. The airlines weren't hiring and so my very first job was driving a yellow cab in Denver and did that for a couple of months. Got robbed and a guy cut up my hand with actually a Coke bottle they'd sharpened into a point. And then with my hand all bandaged up, I went to work for the Longmont, Colorado police Department, the city police department. And I did that for three months. They didn't send you to police academy then until you finished your six months probationary period. So I did that for three months and didn't go to police academy. But then I got admitted to law school with University of Colorado and I looked it all over and thought, well, am I going to be a police officer or would I do it better if I went to law school and became a lawyer? And I decided law school was my best bet. So they required a week's notice at the Longmont Police. So I gave notice and luckily I was working night shift. And so at night I did my police job and went straight home and did law school and then slept a little bit, went back to the police. But obviously I wasn't studying that week. And at the end of the week I was pretty whack and I spent the whole weekend sleeping and studying. It was a good choice for me anyway. And I enjoyed being a lawyer for an oil company. I did not like being in private practice and representing indigent defendants. That got old pretty quick.

I can imagine.

Yeah, I went to work for an oil company specializing in oil gas law and that was a 40 hour week job and I like that. But, you know, I got into writing nights and weekends and whenever that came through, I thought, you know, writing's a lot more fun and it pays better than being a lawyer. So I thought, I'll take one of these offers and become a full time novelist. I'm glad I did.

Yeah, I would say that you found your calling there. Yeah, anybody who focuses on it for that length of time and has that level of success, obviously you did. You had this desire to write that story. Did you know you always wanted to be a novelist or writer?

Well, not really. It just sort of, you know, serendipity. It just sort of worked out that way. After I wrote Flight of the Intruder, which is really a series of flying stories, you know, it was obvious that if I was going to continue to do this, I was going to have to become a real novelist. I couldn't write about the guys I knew and just change their name. I was going to have to learn to create fictional characters in fictional situations that I had never been in. You know, do all the things that the novelists have to do. Pacing, character setting, plot line, all of it. And so I worked and worked at it and you know, I've done very well. No false modesty, I've done very, very well. But it's been a lot of work getting here. It's never, never comes easy. Every novel is a brand new challenge. How am I going to do this at a commercially acceptable level?

Wow. Yeah. I think many of us out there who aren't, and this is probably true for any profession. Right. When you see a master at their profession, you think, wow, that's just so easy. Right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And there's so much hard work going in the background for anyone, you know, Michael Jordan, Tiger woods, whoever. Right, right.

There's so many people that, you know, they retire and they get a hold of a little computer, laptop or something. Yeah, I can do this. You know, it's just writing words. I've been reading them all my life. I can just sit here and write a novel. I'll get rich and famous. Doesn't work quite that way. It's all which keys you push.

Yeah. It's about crafting the specifics about the craft. Right.

You know, you can buy a used guitar pretty cheap, but if you think you're going to be a big sensation in the music business, you got another thing coming. You're going to take a lot of years to get to that level.

Exactly. So let's talk about your most recent work, the Russia account. Maybe tease that one out for the audience a little bit.

Yeah, well, that was suggested by a real incident that occurred. There was a little branch bank belonged to a Danish bank in Tallinn, Estonia. And the Russians had a lot of Russians had accounts there. And they ran 240 bank billion dollars through that bank in four years. That's over 50 billion a year. Over a billion a week went through that bank. And the account holders sent it on to various shell corporations all over the world. And so that's a true incident. And the actual banking authorities are still trying to sort out where the money came from, where it went and what it was for. And it looks like a giant money laundering operation, but the drug business doesn't generate that kind of profits. And so nobody really knows. But I thought, I can supply some answers. So I got busy and used just that incident to start a thriller about where the money came from, where it went, what it was for, and that's the Russia account. And I think that your readers are going to be entertained. It's as fresh as today's headlines.

That's awesome. Pivoting just a little bit if we could, Steve, in the last few minutes here, what advice would you give your 25 year old self or anybody who's looking to transition out? Maybe they don't even, you know, maybe they're in the same situation. They don't know exactly what they, they want to do when they get out, but they just know that the lifestyle, for whatever reason, is not a fit at the time.

The first thing I would say is, you know, there's no such thing as no options. And for every door that closes, that you find close, another one opens. So, you know, this opportunity, you say, well, I, you know, I didn't open the door fast enough for this opportunity, but another door is opening at the same time. And so the life is full of opportunities and you just can't fixate on one.

That's definitely great advice. In an exercise, kind of a leadership and business efficiency exercise I went through, there's a lot of focus on choosing what to say no to, you know, not, not choosing what to say yes to. And one of the, one of the main points they were making in there is when you do say no to an option, it opens your horizons so you can see the other thing that was there. And you know, very similar as well to any setback.

Indeed, indeed. You know, I think, I think, Gary, that so many people think that they have to choose one career and stick to it all their life. And that isn't the case. That's why I suggest to so many young people they ought to consider going to the military for, you know, four, five, six years. It's a wonderful place to start. Even if you decide not to make it a career. You learn so much, you meet so many people from all over the United States and you go off and have adventures that you probably wouldn't have had staying in your hometown. But it's just a step on life's journey. Other opportunities will open up and maybe you want to take them, maybe you won't. But anyway, don't get fixated on just what you can see from right where you're standing because you go along life's path, you'll see other opportunities.

Yeah, well, very, very well said. So, Mr. Koontz, you've. Everyone knows, I think I'm going to just to assume that they know how to find your books. And I know you have a website and obviously Amazon works really well with plenty of good information about as long.

As they can spell my name right.

C O, O N T S. That's a good point. That's a good point.

They might end up at the wrong place. Are you involved at all with any kind of programs with military or anything like that? I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm just thinking like, other than how to become a writer, you know, asking you questions about your philosophy on transitioning.

Well, I have talked to a great many writer groups and I try to say yes to invitations if they fit into my schedule. But you know, between writing, I'm married, happily married. I still fly airplanes. Awesome. I like to shoot guns with my friends. We go out at least once a week with our shotguns to shoot, traps keep and sporting clays. And so between all that, you know, that's the primary focus and the other stuff just sort of has to fit in.

Yeah. What airplane, by the way?

Well, I got a Cirrus now this is my 14th airplane and so I think this one will do me out. It's a little, little single engine, four seat and it hauls my wife and I around the country. And that's just perfect for us.

Your first, our first take on this recording, you mentioned that original nonfiction about flying an older biplane around the country. You mentioned its actual name, the Stearman. And that brought back some memories for me. When I was going to graduate school, right after leaving the naval academy, I was going to flight training at University of Illinois and they had a Stearman. I called it the Red Baron plane. Right.

And I had an opportunity after getting my license to take, take one more class. And it was a kind of a stunt class. And I mean it wasn't really a stunt class, but you just got to fly that airplane. And I just wanted to get in the Steerman. It was very cool flying around inside that thing and you know, flipping it upside down. And it had gravity fed fuel, right. So it stopped running until you ride it again. So pretty cool stuff. Open cockpit that was a new plan.

Yeah. You've got to sit down and read the Cannibal Queen. You'll like that adventure.

Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. So, as always happens, the time has flown by. I again reflect on the fact that you might be the most famous guy who is yet to be on the heroic investing show. So I greatly appreciate your time, love your works of art. Any final words for the audience?

Well, keep reading not only my stuff, but everybody else's read because it's a wonderful way to expand your. Your life.

Stephen KZ it has been a true pleasure. We're honored. Thanks so much for spending some time with us.

Okay. Have a great day.

Yes, sir.

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