Category: Self Leadership
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Dealing with Changes in the Air Force: Where’s My Cheese?
I remember as a young Airman being told, “The only thing constant in the Air Force is change.” The things and processes that have changed over the years is something I couldn’t quantify if I tried. However, I don’t recall ever seeing the scope of changes with which we are dealing with right now. I…
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After Reading this, You Might Want to Unfollow Me
Over the past year, we have all seen a post on social media that starts off like this or with a “I am ready to clean up my friends list soon.” I see statements like this as pure buffoonery. Nothing more than the childhood version of ‘play my game or I am going home.’ I…
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Don’t Miss The Moment
I’ve always been a fan of a good story; that is probably why I’ve always loved to watch and collect movies. A movie with a good story creates a sense of nostalgia in us that makes us turn to our own lives and begin to look introspectively at our life’s course. What makes the story…
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Incremental Daily Growth
I remember being an Airman in the dorms and being broke. I wasn’t frivolous with my money; I just didn’t make much as an E-1. I would list out my wants and my needs in a little journal and spend accordingly on the 1st and 15th. I also had a change jar in my wall…
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Just a Pawn?
Every one on a team must fill a unique role if it is to succeed. One of the most difficult problems of being on a team is filling a different role than what we think we deserve. It is extremely difficult to lead a team that has members conflicting over their roles. Unfortunately, this is…
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Are Leaders Required to be Technical Experts?
As we are coming up in the ranks, we strive to become technically sound in our profession. We learn the ins and outs of our job and continue to hone these skills. Eventually, we make rank and gain some supervisory roles. If we are quasi effective in these new roles, we gain even more rank…
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Service Before Self?
“My EPR is coming due! I need to get some base/community service in so I can get a bullet.” Sound familiar? I wish I could say that I have never said a version of this, but I think all of us have at one point. Although serving is ultimately a good thing, we carry this…
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You can’t make a hole in water
“Why don’t you take some time off? You’ve been working hard.” “If I’m not here, who else is going to make sure this place is running?” This is a fallacy that many of us find ourselves believing. Not only is it unhealthy because it can become a source of ‘bad stress’, but because at the…
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Are you a Pinger?
“We are working for a real pinger today,” were the first words out of the mouth of my Senior Airman trainer on my very first day on the flightline. He went on to explain a pinger is a person that freaks out and is bouncing from one thing to the next like a ping pong…
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Fail Forward
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat.” These are the words from the former Naval Aviator and best selling author, Denis Waitley. Often times we all look at failure as the end of the road and when we fall down, we do not want to get back up again.…
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