Maximize Your Benefits. Optimize Your Life.

June 18, 2026

Most weeks I write to you about squeezing every last dollar out of the benefits you earned. This week is a little different, and a little more personal. This one is specific to the Enlisted community. If you’re an Officer feel free to read on and distribute to your shops, but I won’t hold it against you for skipping this one. I’ll only judge a little…

I want to tell you about the group of people who changed the trajectory of my life and who can change yours if you’re enlisted, separating soon, or even quietly wondering whether a top MBA is meant for someone like you.

They’re called Enlisted Exfil. For the last two and a half years, they’ve been my tribe.

They’re also the reason I’m in business school. I walked in dead set on a full-time MBA. It was the folks in this group who got me to actually understand the commitment a full-time program would require given my circumstances, talked me through executive programs, and helped me land where I belong: the EMBA program at NYU Stern. I listened, I learned, and I made the better call because they’d already walked it.

And then they showed me what the community really was. About two years in — during my first semester at Stern — my daughter, Marina, ended up in the NICU. When I told the group what was going on, the support rolled in. People I’d never met in person were sending unsolicited DoorDash gift cards to take some mental load off of me and make sure my wife and I were eating more than hospital food. They checked in. They made sure I knew the fight was progressing, and most of all that I wasn’t alone. That’s the thing most of us miss most about service, the people, and by then Enlisted Exfil had quietly become exactly that for me; my people.

On my own, I talk myself out of things. Together, this group talked me into the person I was supposed to become.

And on that note, Enlisted Exfil just dropped their first-ever newsletter, and I’m going to walk you through it page by page and tell you why each one matters. But first, the only thing you really need to know:

“Barracks to Boardrooms” isn’t a slogan to these folks. It’s the literal path a few hundred of us are walking right now - roughly 600 members strong. The arrow in their logo points one direction, up and out, and that’s the whole idea.

If you read one part of their newsletter twice, make it this one. Jason Rodriguez, an enlisted Air Force veteran, Stanford GSB ’27, and NYU undergrad alum, names the exact lie most of us tell ourselves: that these programs are reserved for officers and people with pedigree, so we self-select out before anyone gets the chance to say yes.

The part that stuck with me is his point that you’ve done some of the hardest jobs in the hardest conditions for the worst pay, and then talk yourself out of your next chapter before anyone’s had the chance to tell you yes. And the part that costs you nothing to test: the first conversation is free, and so is everything that comes after it. He’s right. I know, because I was the guy who almost didn’t reach out.

Jason, among others in Enlisted Exfil, has quickly become a friend I'd go to war for. He has a background in nonprofits and genuinely only cares about the success of each and every member in the community. He will take the same time to talk with old members and brand new ones all the same.

Three words: Empower, Educate, Elevate. An enlisted-only community at every stage of the journey, from someone who just enlisted to graduates working all over the world, who cut through the noise online with real templates, outlines, and honest feedback, and push each other past what they thought was possible.

And in big letters at the bottom: all for free. Free here is not a hook. There is genuinely nothing to buy. When real mentorship is free, the only thing standing between you and it is whether you raise your hand.

The Enlisted Exfil community was born in the cesspool of the r/MBA subreddit, where enlisted veterans asking for advice would get told to 'aim lower' by the absolute clowns who looked down on their work experience. The founders of Enlisted Exfil got together in the comments, started DM’ing each other on how they could help one another out, and Enlisted Exfil was born. They realized that if they had the same problem with access to education in terms of applying to top MBA programs, surely other enlisted veterans did as well. And that has rung true since their inception.

This is the page to send to anyone who tells you it can’t be done. This past season, members landed at 41% M7, 45% Top 15, and 14% Top 30 — Harvard, Wharton, Stanford GSB, Columbia, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Yale SOM, Tuck, Darden, Fuqua, and yes, NYU Stern.

And the money is real: $1.5M+ in merit scholarship offers, a $50K median offer, and a $250K largest single award. Those are scholarships, not loans. Your enlisted resume, the degree you knocked out with Tuition Assistance, the leadership you carried before you could legally rent a car; that’s not a weakness on these applications. It’s the edge. Within Enlisted Exfil are dozens of people who are willing to help you articulate all of that at a moment’s notice. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Monday morning or if it’s a random Thursday at 9pm, if someone asks for help, they will get help.

Two members say it better than I can. Zak Persing (USMC, headed to NYU Stern EMBA ’28) dropped out of high school and was convinced no business school would ever take him, until the community told him otherwise and spent countless hours on his essays. Fun fact: Zak and I spoke at length before he applied to Stern’s EMBA program since I was already enrolled in the program. He’s actually in the cohort behind me at NYU now (thanks to me) and we regularly get “two Zak’s?!?” at every university mixer.

Kyle Croll (USN, Texas McCombs ’25) was aiming far lower until a member pushed him to take a shot at McCombs; he now leads a cyber intelligence program at a Fortune 30 company and pours his time back into rebuilding other vets’ resumes. Kyle was the first person in the community to roger up when I needed my essays reviewed before submitting. He was able to go through them line by line with me to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything and I fully developed my narrative.

Persing’s line — that he’d convinced himself no business school would accept him — I believe echoes throughout the entire enlisted ranks. The difference between his story and the one that never happens is a single conversation.

You don’t need a DD-214 or an MBA to move this mission. Mentor an applicant. Open a door at your company or your alma mater. Or just forward this to one enlisted person who needs to see it. Their community grows through people exactly like you and like me. If you’re still serving and don’t know what you’re going to do when it comes time to separate, I implore you to think bigger.

You can use the MBA ROI Calculator I made for top 20 programs. Compare what you’re making now in service, what you could be making in the program, and what you would be making once you graduate from those programs.

Enlisted Exfil gave me a community when I needed one most, and a path I didn’t think was mine to take. If you’re enlisted or recently out, the application is free and takes minutes. And if it’s not for you, you’re the perfect person to forward this to someone it is for.

Talk soon,

Zak

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