Words of Wisdom for Transitioning Vets

Words of Wisdom for Transitioning Vets

Brought to you by:www.GreenCollarVets.org


If you are currently serving the military and you wish to make the leap back into a successful civilian career you may be asking yourself, "what have I learned that will help me in the civilian world and what have I learned in the military that may actually hold me back in the civilian world?"

From all of our experiences in life we develop habits, some are in alignment with where we want to go and thus are considered positive, others run counter to our desires and interests and thus create friction, frustration and feelings of failure.

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One might start by redefining what we consider success and failure before we begin to lay out a path toward either one.

This is what we will discuss in this article, a mindset shift that will properly position us for success through the largest single transition we will face, moving from the military back to a civilian career.



As long as humans have been walking this Earth there have been "jobs" to be completed.

We have been hunting for this and gathering that, trading tools for food and developing new and better ways to approach the world around us.



The first shift of the mind is to understand that 100% of these efforts have been failures... yes you read that correctly, every single one of the actions aimed at getting something done were failures.

But how can that be as businesses are still running, the Earth still spins and we still progress forward?



"All failure comes from misunderstanding." ~ The Wheel of Life 500 B.C.

Thinking along these lines we must ask ourselves, what does it mean to "succeed" at something?

Most of us would say that it is when a job or task is accomplished the way you planned, because of how you executed it.



Here lies the problem... if we are honest with ourselves, truly honest, we will realize that as a society we don't really know WHY anything really works the way it does.

If you get in your car this morning you can say that you THINK it will start, but you can't say with 100% certainty that you KNOW it will start.



Even if your car was working fine the previous day it is impossible for you to say, based on past experiences, that it will start again this morning.

Thus when we make plans we are simply playing the odds, basing our decisions on the likely outcomes we can perceive from past experiences, never truly KNOWING any of the outcomes.



We think that we will drive safely to work, arrive on time and do everything we set out to that day. It is just as likely that we may get in a car accident, arrive late due to traffic or be given an unforeseen task that ties up our time instead.

There is also a chance that no matter what decisions are made today that you will simply not succeed on certain jobs you had planned.



Thus success as we have seen it defined is not in terms of what "goes the way you expected it to", but instead in how flexible and adaptable an individual, company or society is to change course when a result does not go the way we expected it to.

Hence why we consider a wise person to be one who can safely say that the only certain truth is that things will change and the nothing will go as planned.



In the military we commonly say that no plan survives the first shot and this importance placed on flexibility and adaptability has been a strong part of training and development in the armed services.

In reality we as a people still do not KNOW why things happen or how to make things happen exactly as we desire, if we did there would not be any failure at all.



Even those individuals who are considered highly successful are playing the odds, they may be playing better odds due to experience, knowledge and insight, but in the end even they cannot say with 100% certainty that the events of their day will go as planned.

Thus we are all walking around with a burden of personal anguish within us as we handle decision after decision in life, feeling that we don't KNOW what will happen, we can only hope what we are doing will work out.



I am a strong believer that we all "are exactly where we choose to be in life", thus our place and position in life is a direct reflection of the sum total of all of our choices.

Choosing to eat an extra piece of dessert or not, which school to attend and how long and hard to work are obviously tied to a physical, economic and financial result, but what about the decisions that are much smaller and less obvious?



The complexity of the interconnections of these small decisions and sometimes unconscious decisions create a headache for anyone who wishes to trace along the spider web of human interactions.

This creates a life in which the true understanding of the impact we have on ourselves, others and the world around us can seem incomprehensible.



What if we didn't have to live with the constant worry and frustration of asking whether something would or wouldn't work out the way we want it to?

What do you do if you turn the key in your car and it doesn't start? You begin to investigate the cause right? We look at things through our 2 dimensional lenses and say that "I start the car" by "turning the key".



Now if you are more mechanically inclined than this you may better understand that the turning of a key does not CAUSE the car to start, in fact it is a battery that starts the car.

This is an example of a third dimension and an underlying cause behind the cause. The key does not CAUSE the car to start, the battery CAUSES the car to start as long as the key CAUSES the battery to CAUSE the car to start.



We start to see a difference between the reality of what is happening and the perception of what we think is happening. Since all failure is misunderstanding, not understanding how a car works would lead you or me to say that the key starts the car.

The more we learn the better we understand the chain of cause and effect that produces the results we desire.



How does this relate to Veterans transitioning from the military?

How many service members look out at the civilian world and the jobs that exist and perceive a way to a successful post-military life without truly understanding that the "battery starts the car".



Green Collar Vets is dedicated to diving deeper with Veterans into understanding the underlying causes of the causes that will in turn produce for them, with a higher set of odds, the results they desire.

I have encountered many individuals who, with only a few months left in the military, present a very solid "plan" for what they will do after their EAS.



I ask myself, how many of these individuals or even the "professionals" who guide and counsel them on this plan are looking at the underlying causes instead of simply the "key turning on the car?"

Could this explain why so many Veterans find themselves in unemployed situations 3, 6, 12 months down the road despite such sound plans prior to departing the military?



Were they just "hoping" these plans would produce the results they wanted without fully understanding the causes behind the cause?

I have been involved in networking, business development and social media for almost 9 years now and one of the peculiar cause and effects I have noticed is the connection between number of business cards handed out and the number of contacts in my social network.



It has always been said that networking is a numbers game, the more connections a person has the more powerfully positioned and thus more capable of being able to have the right connection when it is needed. To do this we must distribute the most business cards to the most people and we will have the most contacts right?

How often does it seem that the number of business cards we pass out never equates to the number of good connections we possess? I think this is a great example of the "key starting the car."



The business card is your key, the medium by which a person will have your contact information, and them having that contact info should mean that they contact you (your car starts) right?

Perhaps that underlying cause of causes (battery) is the relationship that you build with that person giving them a reason and purpose to contact you.



So instead of focusing on layering everyone you meet with business cards, a focus on developing a meaningful long-term business relationship emerges, and you find that your business card actually will "start the car" and produce a connection and stronger social network.

This is a simple example and fairly well-known to most, yet I still meet people at networking events who take this strategy instead of overcoming their fear of talking with people and developing relationships.



There are many more examples like this throughout the transition process for Veterans as they seek to market themselves, network with potential employers and position themselves for a career after the military with the best odds in their favor.

We will dive into this thought shifting discussion further in future articles but take a minute to address your plan and ask yourself, "do you know enough about your car and how it runs to see the underlying causes" or do you need to enlist the advice of someone more experienced in these areas to help you produce a more sustainable result?



Do you know someone who is looking for careers for veterans?

Then don't hesitate to recommend him/her at Green Collar Vets at http://www.greencollarvets.org


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Brought to you by:www.GreenCollarVets.org

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Words of Wisdom for Transitioning Vets