Develop Your Commander's Intent

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one college for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the... A lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys.

They... You also get access to The Citadel's alumni network. Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders.

It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture. They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs.

You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that. If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities.

There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to another edition of the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and this is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. Today, I wanna talk to you about an overall principle, something that you should carry yourself by no matter what you're doing. And the principle is this, play chess, not checkers.

Always play chess, don't just play checkers. Now you probably heard that expression before. It's something people say when they're trying to look badass. I'm playing chess. I'm not playing checkers, that kind of thing.

But the reality is true. You need to start thinking three to four steps ahead of the game rather than just the next step in front of you. And too often, we do that. And that's not just a function of the veteran community. It's a function of being a human being in The United States Of America today.

Far too many people are sitting there just looking at their next step. They want that car. They want that next big purchase. They they don't wanna save to to get that house that they can then refi and buy another house and then refi and then buy another house and then, you know, get... Set themselves up a little real estate empire. Right? They want that salary rather than going after a business that they could run and set up a little business empire for themselves. They want that cheeseburger rather than that healthy item that is gonna help them to get those abs they've been going after for so long.

Right? And it basically comes down to every single thing you do. Every every dream you have, every goal you have, every path you're taking, you constantly have to think of the steps in front of you. Right? How...

Not just the next step, but the the third, fourth, fifth step it's gonna take you to get to your goal. Now how do you do that? How do you decide that you're gonna do that, and then how do you technically do that? Well, it starts like this. You start from the endpoint.

You start by back planning. Right? You want to understand where your endpoint is. In in planning, we would call this the commander's intent. Right?

You need to understand what the end state, the desired end state is. If you don't know that, then you don't know where you're going. Right? You just don't. You have no idea.

But if you have an idea of the desired end state, well, there there could be multiple different ways of going there. And then once you decide what that end state is, right, and once you... You've you've made that determination, what you can then do is you can start pointing backwards from the point when you reach there. Right? You can think about what the very last step before you had to get to that goal.

What was that very last step that you had to complete? Right? And then in order to complete that, what was the step before that you had to do? And then what was the step before that? What was the step before that?

And by back planning like this, it allows you to see the chessboard. Right? But if you're just sitting there and you say, oh, I got this goal. I'm gonna go after it. I wanna climb Mount Everest, and you're standing at the foot of Mount Everest and you're looking up, that looks like a really big mountain.

And maybe you can't see some of the rock faces. Maybe you can't see some of the ice that's up there. And so you don't know the steps you gotta complete. But if you had spoken to somebody else who had done it, and then you learned the geography of of Mount Everest and you were able to map it out, you could back plan and think about each and every step that you had to make to get to the top. It's the same thing with life.

No matter what you wanna do, think about that end state, develop that commander's intent, and then plan backwards. Now as you know and I know, a good plan rarely survives the first pass. Right? And that's another reason why we gotta do some back planning. We have to have a solid commander's intent because sometimes you're gonna have to be flexible.

Sometimes you're gonna have to have multiple options in mind as to the different routes you're gonna take. Right? And, you know, life isn't neat like that. It's it's always messy. But the more you do this, the more you're going to be able to plan out what you need to do to get to those goals.

So your homework for this week is think about your desired end states in three to five areas of your life, and then create some back plans as to how you're gonna get there. Right? Think about it step by step by step, reversing from your goal. And by the end of that, you should have a solid plan, step by step plan to get to where you wanna go. Will it be perfect? Absolutely not. But don't wait for perfection.

Start now. Go after it. And as you know and I know, life is too short to wait. Right? So get on it right now and get out there and live your best lives while you can.