Managing Leadership^®

When I joined the US Marine Corps, it wasn’t to become a Marine, but a lawyer. I had finally decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I didn’t have the financial resources to get there. So, I enlisted in order to qualify for the GI Bill benefits, which help military members pursue a college education. I figured I would serve my country, see a bit of the world, save a little money into the bargain, and then get out, finish my degree, and go to law school. That was the plan, and off to the recruiting station I went.

Approximately one year later I was sitting in a two-man fighting hole filled with me, another Marine, and water from both the constant rain and the rising water table we seem to have tapped when we dug the hole. Periodically a corpsman would come by and order us out of the hole so we didn’t get hypothermia. Shortly later, the lieutenant, checking the lines, would order us back in so we didn’t break combat training discipline. Both the corpsmen and the lieutenant made regular rounds, so the hilarity was only bound to ensue.

The weather continued steadily wet and miserable, as it had for quite literally every hour of the 5 days we had been in the field. We marched, dug, drilled, and, after a fashion, slept in it. It never relented, and neither did we.

Sharing this experience with me in our fighting hole was an irrepressibly even-tempered and ingeniously funny fellow from Ponchatoula, Louisiana. We bantered with each other, the Marines in adjacent water-drenched positions, and with our good-natured tormentors as they rotated by with their conflicting guidance.

And that’s when I realized: this was it for me. I was in one of the most impossibly miserable and ridiculous situations I had yet experienced or could imagine (that would change), among people from parts of the country (even, actually, the world) and from cultural backgrounds I had hardly known before. Nevertheless, not only were spirits marvelously high, but morale was incredibly strong and resilient.

I knew I had found a home, a career. I spent my adult life among these Marines, and never looked back.

That’s probably pretty much how it happened for you too, right?

No? How did it happen? What brought you to the career you find yourself in now? Why do you continue to pursue it, to advance in it?

We’ll look a bit more at questions like these, tomorrow. Please do join in with your own – and with any answers that come to mind as well. See you then.

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This post is a part of a series. You can learn about and link to the other articles here: Managing life, work, and life at work

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Today’s tip: Speaking of competitive morale, did you know that the US has lost its ranking as the most competitive economy in the world? Why is that? Is it true? Is it meaningful, given the size of the economy that has supplanted us? If not, was it meaningful before they surpassed us? What’s more, is it inevitable – an omen of the oft-remarked re-ordering of the world? What do you think?

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