CMSgt (ret) Bob Vásquez

Leading can be tough. It requires learning about all of the individuals who call you their leader, committing to serving them, and actually affecting them… hopefully in a positive way. Those we lead are all different, so how you meet their needs as a leader will be different. The toughest person to lead, though, is oneself. It’s almost easy to fight others’ battles as we always seem to have answers for them. But the one we usually don’t even have the right questions for is us. It all begins with learning about who we are. We often call that our identity. We all have one, but we all don’t know what it is or where it comes from. Is it God-given or choice-driven? Is it internal or is it external? What I’m about to share with you is based on a book that I’m writing titled, Finding ME! The toughest battle is the internal one….

“Know thyself.” I’m not sure who, exactly, said that, but I’ll give credit to Thales. Interestingly, when I ask participants in my identity workshops if they have a good sense of who they are, half of the group says they do. The other half acknowledges that they have no clue. Let me try to get you to the center. “Maybe” is better than “nope.”

Do you ever wonder why you do what you do the way you do it? It may be training, but deep inside, it’s because it’s who you are. Your identity. Let’s say that I’m right. Where does that identity (who you are) come from? Some of it is surely from your DNA. But do you have a choice in who you are? Life is a paradox. One of my favorites is the notion of choice, particularly of who we are. I’m convinced that we embody certain traits because we were born with them. However, we can choose some too. Which ones?  Here are some questions that might offer us some choices.

What rules us?

The foundation of who we are, our identity, is what we believe is most important, our values. Our values rule us on a daily basis, even moment by moment. Again, as I ask folks in my workshops if they know what’s important to them, half say yes, while half weren’t listening to me. Of those who know what is important to them I ask a follow up question: What are their values? There’s often a bit of stuttering when I do that, because they know that they have values but they can’t seem to recall them. My sense is that if you can’t immediately state what’s important to you, you really don’t know. Which is where most of us are most of the time. But fear not, there’s hope!

Take a piece of paper, or on your smart phone, and write down what you think the three most important things in your life are. WAIT! Before you do that. Take a few minutes to THINK about what’s important in your life, THEN write them down. WAIT! Before you do that, consider what’s MOST important in your life. Chances are when you do this you’ll see that what’s MOST important in your life isn’t things at all, it’s people. Which people? Why? Yeah, more questions. Remember what I said about questions? That’s what makes leading ourselves difficult. Gotta ask ourselves the right questions. By the way, just thinking about these values isn’t very effective. I commend you to capture them. Write them down. They really don’t exist until you do so. Most people will say that they’ll remember them. I doubt it. TMI, too much information bombards us daily, every moment. You’ll soon forget that you even thought about this. WRITE THEM DOWN! Then, you can consider them more accurately. Are they REALLY your MOST important values? WAIT! What were they? WRITE THEM DOWN! What rules us? Our VALUES! What’s MOST important to us. And you can choose those. See what I mean about life being a paradox. You may be old enough to remember comedian Flip Wilson, who did a skit about his character, Geraldine, who often proclaimed that “the devil made me do it!” When it comes to values and identity, the devil has little to do with it. YOU choose! Choose wisely!

Here are four learning points that I share in my workshops. You’ll have to attend one to get deeper into finding your identity, but I’ll tease you a little.

Who chooses your values?

Do you always do what you think is MOST important?

What happens when you DON’T choose what’s most important to you?

Where are your values?

Our values rule us because we’ll ALWAYS do what’s most important to us at the moment. ALWAYS! What do you do when you’re famished? You eat! Why? Because it’s MOST important at the moment. What do you do when you’re thirsty? You drink! Why? Because it’s MOST important at the moment. What do you do when you have to pee? You catch my drift.

What drives us?

Having discovered our values, the next step in our Identity Discovery Process is to find our purpose. My friend, Simon Sinek, wrote a book titled “Start With Why” that was a best seller about discovering our purpose. Our purpose will drive us to do what we have to do to fulfill what we should to manifest our values. Most of us believe that our family is most important to us. First, who is family? Once you identify who you consider family, why are they important? How do you show it? Not on your terms, but theirs. If they don’t believe that you think they’re important, they aren’t. You have to figure out how to show them that they are, consistently. That part, consistently, may be the most difficult. As we often say that family is most important, we more than often say that we show it by working to give them what they need most. We consider it our purpose. But what we often do is put our work first, which makes it more important than our family. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it. Ya gotta work to take care of the family. But how much? When do you take care of the family? How do you balance work and family? Balance is a choice.

One of the most difficult aspects of fulfilling our purpose is maintaining our balance between our professional life and our personal life, especially when we have a family. Then it’s between our work and our loved ones. I value my loved ones, but I have to work to take care of them. It can be difficult to maintain our purpose. Here’s the good news…we CAN do it all! Here’s the bad news…not all at once!

Whoever came up with the idea of multi-tasking has messed us up as a culture. We can’t do that! There’s plenty of research on the subject that proves that we can’t do a lot of things at once. When we try to do so, we do most, if not all, of those things less efficiently, often, badly. Sorry, but that’s the truth!

Knowing that, then, how do we balance work and family, or anything else that we discover is our purpose? First, we have to define balance. We have this vision in our minds that balance is like the scales of justice. Two parts, evenly divided, fifty-fifty. Work and family balance is almost never fifty-fifty. That is, we don’t invest fifty percent of our lives at work and fifty percent at home. Have you ever walked across a balance beam, maybe in gym class? Did you just walk across it, evenly? Or did you teeter this way and that way, until you reached the end? More the latter, right? Now, add something else to that equation. It might be tough, but you can do it!

Balancing our purpose requires that we teeter a little this way, then that way, then this way again, depending on what’s happening at the moment. The key, though, is staying focused on the moment, staying present and doing what should be done right now. It starts with knowing what’s really important to us, our values, and doing that as best we can.

Here’s an example. The boss comes into your office and asks you to stay an extra hour to complete a few tasks. What do you do? Most of us would agree to stay. But is that what you SHOULD do? You want to balance your work life with your family life? Choose wisely! Maybe you should tell the boss that you have plans to take your spouse out for dinner in an hour, to celebrate your anniversary. Maybe the boss doesn’t know that your daughter is performing her first ballet recital this evening. I’m convinced that most bosses would understand, them having been there, too, and would let you go. You have to choose wisely and help your boss choose wisely too.

Once you’ve made that right choice, focus on it. Don’t be at your anniversary dinner looking at your iPhone. In fact, leave it in the car, if you have to carry it at all. The balance in your life will come from being present with your spouse for that short period of time. The work will still be there when you get back to the office, trust me.

Balance is a choice. You choose your values and your purpose. Choose what’s most important at the moment and focus on that. But make sure that it fulfills your purpose. If it doesn’t, don’t do it. WAIT! Here’s the exception. We sometimes need to just chill. We sometimes need to not worry about anything, just do nothing. We often think that doing nothing is wasteful. Not if it’s intentional. We sometimes need to just breathe, acknowledge, and appreciate our blessings, and revive our souls. Make time for that. It’ll help you maintain your quest for fulfilling your purpose. When you choose to fulfill your purpose, be there, not half there, be completely there.

There’s something spiritual about fulfilling our purpose. It’s difficult to explain, probably because it’s OUR purpose, no one else’s, so there really are no words to express it. But we know when we’re there, for that moment, it will drive us to do it again.

What guides us?

Envision yourself being successful and you will BECOME successful!  Envision yourself a failure and you will BECOME a failure!  I think Henry Ford said it best, “Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

How we see ourselves is incredibly powerful in discovering our identity. I wrote a book a few years ago titled, The Power of SUPERvision! in which I share some thoughts on how to use our vision to empower ourselves and others.

Your power of vision requires that you have the right values and purpose. What those are is up to you, this is YOUR identity we’re talking about. You’ll have to choose what’s “right” for you.  You’ll apply those values and purpose by, first, envisioning yourself doing so. As I often say, “If you can see it, you can be it!”

The question here is, “How do I see myself?” Dr Stephen Covey taught me that everything is created twice. First, in the mind, as a thought, an idea, a vision, then in the physical sense, as a thing or a behavior.

Let me ask you that critical question again. How do you see yourself?  Do you see yourself as a successful, good person?  In my profession as a teacher, I used to deal with very young, impressionable, very intelligent men and women who came to the Air Force Academy with a dream, a purpose, in their hearts. They saw themselves flying fast jets or heavy airplanes, leading people into battle. Those young men and women were often referred to as the best of the best. Most of them, however, would tell me, “I’m only a cadet.”  ONLY a cadet?!  Indeed!  I’d remind them that some 14,000 other young folks their age would have given anything to be ONLY a cadet, but we didn’t select THEM! Through constant daily affirmations, I helped them regain their vision of being great.

The power of vision, especially in discovering, developing, and maintaining our identity starts with seeing ourselves as successful people. It begins with instilling our values and purpose into our vision so that we can be what we see ourselves being…us.

What moves us?

This question may seem a little awkward, but it’s not. We are moved by many forces that we’re usually not aware of. They’re often subliminal. Ever notice how you receive bundles of emails and texts regarding a product that you searched for online. You just wondered about that snowblower. Now every company that has anything to do with snow is your friend! What’s more interesting is when you DIDN’T do a search, you just thought of it, and now amazon has that great deal for you. The business term is marketing. It’s almost more like brainwashing. The truth is that it’s influencing. There are even people who are experts at this sort of manipulation and actually call themselves influencers.

So, what moves us? Influence! Here’s how it works and how that force affects your identity. This is really where the rubber meets the road. Two parts: Are you influenced? Do you influence others? Now, I’m moving from the internal, the identity discovery, to the application of your identity.

Again, we’re all influenced even unknowingly. Now, I’m old so that I may have an excuse, but I often wonder where I heard about that product that I now know I MUST have. And who told me that I must have it? Although we all know that Jeff Bezos and friends are constantly listening to us via the devices we bought for a great price, I’m convinced that those devices send subliminal messages to us while was sleep too. “Get the Toro snow blower….” I wake up in the morning, half asleep and I order the Toro 3300 on amazon. The way we’re influenced most is visually. What we see is what we often become. If we’re serious about developing our identity, we have to be aware of what we’re watching and observing. Remember when your mom and dad used to tell you to hang out with the right kids? If you’re now a parent, you know why. Experts tell us that we become the five people we hang out with. That’s why I don’t hang out with ANYONE! But it’s true. Check out your peeps who attend a seminar for a week. They return to work speaking like the folks who presented the seminar. And they won’t realize it unless you point it out. We are influenced in so many ways. And those influencing forces move us in the direction that they intend for us to go. Be aware. Be selective.

Now, for the application part. Do we influence others? All the time. I used to tell audiences that it begins when we meet someone. That’s Old School. Now, we influence others without ever being near them. In fact, I’m influencing you from very far away. And it started as soon as you opened up this article to peruse it. You’re likely to influence those you live and work with by your attitude. I’m hoping that these thoughts have helped you create a positive attitude that you’ll pass on to folks you touch today. Attitude is contagious and can be addictive. Make it a positive one.

What moves us? Influence. Seek the right influences and influencers that will help you empower yourself to find yourself.

Whoever we are, we are. We may not know it, maybe not yet, but we are. And the way to discover ourselves is through questions. The right ones. The value in discovering our identity is that once we know who we are, we can be more intentional about sharing ourselves. We cannot give what we do not have. And we cannot give it until we know we have it. I’m convinced that your identity exists within you, you just have to discover it. The more you think on these four questions, the closer you’ll get to finding you. Keep seeking….

About the Author

Bob Vásquez is a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant who served our country for fifty years. He served on active duty for 31 years and at the Air Force Academy for 19 before retiring from government service in February 2022. At the Academy, Chief served as a Program Director for the Center for Character and Leadership Development’s Freshman Character and Leadership Seminar, as Course Co-Director for Officership 100, as well as a curriculum developer for the Commissioning Education program.

He’s written and published 15 books, including; HEIRPOWER! Eight Basic Habits of Exceptionally Powerful Lieutenants!, So Ya Wanna Be THE Chief?!, S.S.G.T., A College Freshman’s Beyond Survival Guide, What I Learned from Dad Made Me a Better Man, and The Power of SUPERvision! Leading ME!, Leading OTHERS!, and W.A.R. Stories.

Next to his faith and love of family, Chief Vásquez’ purpose is to share his extensive knowledge with as many people as he can. He calls it HEIRPOWER!

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government.