Don’t forget about you

I was inspired to write this after teaching a class on resume building to our student veterans this past week. The inspiration was further sparked when I ran into a colleague who told me she and her family and friends missed my cooking show that I used to do. I laughed and she said she was serious and that her family and friends started making watching my show a get together in their COVID bubble on Saturdays. She told me I should really start that back up because it was special to them. Pictured above was my attempt at branding myself for Slow Cooking with Shawn.

During my class we spoke of the keys to successfully producing a solid resume is to make sure you have your own personal brand. This statement in itself can be a daunting one but what if you spent multiple years fully enveloped in the team life. A place where your personal brand is not separate and distinct from your team brand. You are part of a team, a squad, a platoon, a company and battalion, a regiment, a brigade, a division and a corps. You are not just you, but we.

Then you decide it is time to separate from the military and someone sitting in front of a classroom says to you, you need to create your personal brand in order to get the career you want! The military is effective, to say the least, in making you forget about you. It is purposeful and a necessity for mission accomplishment so I don’t fault them for it, it saves lives on the battlefield for sure. But what about the lives after we hobble off of that same battlefield?

So friend if you are reading this and are still on active duty or just joined our armed forces in any branch, listen to me now for your future, Don’t Forget About You! Yes be a part of the team and do what you need to do get home, but don’t forget that you are unique and special. That you alone bring amazing qualities to any organization. You are valuable and have specific skills that someone else doesn’t. You have a brand, you are your brand and don’t be ashamed of that. If you are a veteran and have been out for quite some time and have struggled to find that career field that fits you or perhaps you have been quasi unemployable, take a minute to remind yourself of who you are as a individual apart from the team. You will see that all you have gone through in life has created you and that YOU DO HAVE PURPOSE AND VALUE as that individual.

I hope today you won’t forget about yourselves. You mean a great deal to me, to others around you and to that career waiting in the wings for you to remember how amazing you are.