The Number One Thing That I Learned from My Military Service

The lesson I learned early on after leaving the Marine Corps and going into the corporate world was how easy it was to compete against and win against my contemporaries. Too often, they were complaining about the work, the hours, how hard the job was etc. I was thinking, hey, this is a walk in the park. I kept my head down and tried to produce results. Results that helped the company and also me. Performance is something we talk about less and less these days but companies value it even especially as you move up the structure.

The one overarching lesson is that things are never really that bad at work or in life. Reading a lot about real adversity as well as falling back on your own experience is key to this. When you read about men that put it all on the line in very difficult circumstances (Guadalcanal, Iwo, Khe Sanh, Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, Chosin, POW's in WWII or Vietnam and thousands of others) you really know how good you have it every single day.

I can be heard telling folks that work for me or around me, when things get challenging something like, let's stay focused on the problem/issue/opportunity. We will all go home at the end of the day, we will get through this, It is not as bad/challenging as it seems. Perspective about your situation, situational awareness and being able to keep people calm, focused and working toward a solution is something I think I took away from my time in the Marines.

How to talk to and work with all kinds of people

Great article. What I learned was to get the job done. It’s amazing to me how folks half ass their work or don’t do it at all. Just doing your job, doing it right and on time seems to be a rare commodity these days.