This is a guest post by TheInfoPreneur, at TheInfoPreneur.net.
I joined the military when I was 16 years old. I served all over the world in a variety of roles. I have served along side some of the bravest, funniest and toughest people (men and women) in the world. Those 10 years have given me 10 lifetimes of memories. Some bad, some good and some downright scary.
Every event I have been involved in has taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes I didn’t realize that straight away, but it taught me the fundamentals of success in any walk of life.
Loyalty
Loyalty doesn’t mean supporting your favorite team whether they win or lose. It doesn’t even mean going to see them even if they are playing away. Loyalty means having some one’s back even if it means sacrificing something you want to do. Loyalty is the ability to drop everything when someone needs you.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Common sense plays a factor in this. For instance, loyalty doesn’t mean if your friend asks you for money and you don’t have it, you rob a bank. But what it does mean, if they need something, you are their first port of call and you do everything you can to do right by them. Making sure they get what’s right for them at that time is loyalty.
Are you loyal to your readers or customers? Do you give back as much as you take? Being loyal to my readers is everything to me. It creates an unbreakable bond. Loyalty is for life.
Integrity
A lot of people think about integrity in different ways. To me, it’s having the bravery to stand up for what you believe in and stick to it, no matter what the crowd is telling you to think.
I was a Physical Training Instructor in the military and I once failed the Commanding Officer of the camp in front of 1,500 soldiers on an annual fitness test. I failed other soldiers too, but the focus and heat was on me because I was the one who decided to take on the highest rank in the barracks by failing him.
Weeks went by where I was faced with jail and extra duties, even demoted because I had ‘embarrassed’ a Colonel. In those weeks, a different Physical Training Instructor re-tested him and he passed (which was a dubious pass). I stuck to my ground and in the end all the other officers, new and old, were training like mad to make sure I didn’t fail them, too. After the C.O realized I was the only one who would stand up to him and say ‘The rules are the rules, no matter who you are’, he was cool with me. He even gave me a bottle of champagne ‘for having the biggest balls in the regiment’.
Believe in what you write. Sell and promote. If you don’t believe in it, no one else will.
Dedication
Dedication comes in two different strands. Dedication to what you do and to your readers or customers. Whether it means you writing consistently so people can rely on you for content or advice or making sure you engage with your visitors, make sure you do it.
Some people are dedicated gym users. They go to the same gym at 0630hrs every day before work without fail. I’m dedicated to publishing fresh daily content to the site and to replying and helping every visitor who takes the time to read my site. They are the very people who put me in this position. So they are the very people I’m dedicated to.
Tactics
I have a military approach to everything I do. It’s no surprise, since I joined as a boy and spent 10 years doing it. Tactics are vital, but don’t have to be complicated. I’ve employed a mission statement since I started my site 10 weeks ago: ‘The route to success is write and promote, write and promote’.
I’m over the moon about where the site is at the minute in terms of popularity, but I’ve still got a long way to go. Tactics keep you on the straight path and stop you from getting distracted. I employ the same tactic today as I did on my very first day:
- Write new content for the site (every day at least once a day)
- Comment on a lot of different sites, but only if I can add value to the post.
- Help everyone I can and guest post a lot.
Simple plan’s are often the most effective. Military training or not, how do you approach it?
Guest post by TheInfoPreneur, James started his site TheInfoPreneur.net 10 weeks ago, since then it has had over 150 posts published, over 1,700 comments submitted and reached a top 1% Alexa ranking.
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