“How would the person I’d like to be, do the things I’m about to do?”

Jim Cathcart

When I went to Marine Corps boot camp, back in 1985, I was fat, weak, had never fired a weapon, and was scared out of my mind, but I knew I needed what the drill instructors were serving up.  Thirteen weeks at Paris Island had knocked 50 pounds off my frame, strengthened my muscles, turned me into an Expert Marksman, and literally ran the fear out of me.  The Marine Corps’ training method is based upon the drill instructors leading by example.  Not one thing that they trained me to do, did they just tell me to do it.  My drill instructors demonstrated everything, and I mean everything.  They didn’t tell us how to fold our skivvies, they folded skivvies, walked us through process, by the numbers, until we did it, just like they did it.  We never moved on to a new skill, until we did the things we had to do, like the person we wanted to be like, our drill instructor.

I have never forgotten my drill instructors.  I still hear their voices screaming at me in my head, whenever I’m about to do something in a manner that is not up to the standard it should be done.  I left the Corps over 22 years ago, and I still don’t want to disappoint my drill instructors.  I don’t know even know where they are anymore, I haven’t talked to them in years.  Doesn’t matter.  Those guys did everything with excellence and enthusiasm.  Not once did I hear them complain, or see them have a bad attitude, or even have a wrinkle in their uniforms.  They certainly weren’t perfect, but in this recruit’s mind, they were what I wanted to be.

I ask myself Jim Cathcart’s question every day, and I follow the same method the Corps taught me.  I look for someone who is at the top of the thing I’m about to do.  I watch their example, master each new skill before moving onto to the next one, and do it like the person I want to be like.

Boo Yah!!