Never Stop Learning (Curiosity as a Career Weapon)

Humility in a Rank-Based System

"I aimed for the minimum and it cost me a stripe."

I read a book called Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday that changed how I think about myself. Holiday defines ego as an unhealthy belief in your own importance. Not confidence. Not ambition. An unhealthy belief. The kind that makes you think you're above the work, above the learning, above the people around you.

When I read that definition, I saw myself in it. Not the version of me that was grinding through regulations on night shifts at Lakenheath (that version was humble because he had no choice). The version of me that came later. The version that got comfortable.

The Stripe I Lost

While I was in the Reserves after my active duty time, I knew my PT test was coming up. I'd scored high on every PT test during active duty. Push-ups were always my weakest event, but I'd always passed. So I wasn't worried. I "knew" I'd be fine.

When the day came, I started the push-ups at my usual pace. The examiner usually gave a 15-second remaining call, and I'd always pushed hard in those last 15 seconds to get a few more reps. He gave the 30-second call. I kept my slower pace, waiting for the 15-second call.

It never came. He just called time. I was short by 2 push-ups.

I passed the overall test with an 83. But because I didn't meet the minimum requirement in push-ups, I failed the event. Which meant I failed the test.

I was up for promotion to TSgt in the Reserves at the time. Because I didn't have a passing PT test, the unit passed me up and gave the stripe to someone else.

Two push-ups. Because I "knew" I would pass. Because I aimed for the minimum instead of exceeding the standard. Because my ego told me past success guaranteed future success.

Ego works like that. It's not some dramatic villain moment. It's quietly assuming you've got it handled. It's not preparing because you've always been fine before. It's the small, invisible slide from confidence to complacency.

I lost a stripe and a ding on my reputation. And the worst part? I had nobody to blame but myself.

Humility Isn't Weakness

The military is a rank-based system. Rank matters. Authority matters. There's a hierarchy, and it exists for good reasons. But what I've learned about operating inside that hierarchy is this: the people who succeed long-term are the ones who never stop being students, regardless of their rank.

If I could point to one reason I've been successful, in the Air Force, after the Air Force, in entrepreneurship, it's because I've been teachable. I never assumed I knew all the answers. I was curious. I asked questions about other people's interests, passions, hobbies, how they did things. Even when it didn't interest me directly, because I found that lessons from one industry or one field can apply in ways you'd never expect.

Being teachable means swallowing your pride and asking the question, even when you're the senior person in the room. It means listening to the A1C who might see something you missed. It means accepting feedback without getting defensive.

For people of faith, there's another layer to this. The foundation of my Christian faith tells me that no one is good, not even one. That I'm nothing without Christ. Even when the world calls me "successful," I'm still a sinner. That doesn't make me feel bad about myself. It keeps my ego in check. It reminds me that whatever I've accomplished isn't really about me.

Faith and personal growth go hand in hand for me. The call to always be improving, to work as if for God, to put others before myself: that keeps humility front and center even when worldly success shows up.

For how the Air Force's formal learning infrastructure works (PME, ALS, NCOA, and beyond), AF101 covers it in Professional Military Education.

Being Curious vs. Just Doing What You're Told

Follow Orders First, Ask Questions After

I want to be careful here, because this is a tension that can get you in trouble if you don't understand the timing.

The Air Force is built on orders. When your supervisor tells you to do something, do it. When leadership makes a decision, execute it. There's a time for questions, and that time is usually after the order has been followed, not in the middle of executing it.

But what separates the Airman who just follows orders from the Airman who becomes indispensable is curiosity about why.

Understanding why the regulation exists makes you better at following it. Understanding why the checklist is sequenced the way it is makes you better at running it under pressure. Understanding why leadership made the decision they made, even if you disagree with it, makes you a smarter operator and a better leader when it's your turn to make decisions.

There's a time and place to follow orders, and a time to ask questions. A lot of the time, you should do the thing first and be curious after, when the timing is right. But never stop being curious.

The Night Shifts That Changed Everything

I told this story in Module 1, but it's worth revisiting through a different lens.

Those night shifts at the Command Post in Lakenheath, where I ground through regulations for hours reading the same paragraphs over and over, weren't just about learning how to learn. They were about curiosity overcoming ego.

I could have read the regulation once, gotten the general idea, and moved on. Compliance looks like that. Check the box. Meet the minimum. Know enough to not get in trouble.

Instead, I read until I understood why the regulation said what it said. Why the checklist was in that order. Why the procedure existed. Not because someone told me to, but because I genuinely wanted to understand the system I was operating in.

That curiosity is what turned me from a kid who thought he was stupid into a Superior Performer. Not raw intelligence. Curiosity.

Cross-Industry Curiosity

Something that surprised me: the most useful things I've learned often came from outside my career field.

I was curious about other people's interests, passions, and hobbies, even when they had nothing to do with my job. I asked questions about how they did things in their world. What I found was that lessons learned in one industry can often be applied in others that are more relevant to you.

A conversation about marketing taught me about positioning myself for opportunities. A conversation about software development taught me about iterative problem-solving. A book about negotiation changed how I approached conflict. None of these were "Air Force things," but all of them made me better at Air Force things.

The guy who only reads regulations will know the regulations. The guy who reads everything (regulations, books, articles, conversations with people who think differently) will understand the context the regulations exist in. That's a different level entirely.

Read (It's the Habit, Not the List)

I can't talk about never stop learning without talking about books.

I can't remember who originally said it, but someone reframed reading for me in a way that stuck: a book is a lifetime of someone's experience, knowledge, and research, condensed into one place. Why wouldn't you read?

I noticed the pattern early. All of my best leaders read. Every successful person I met outside the Air Force read. The people who were going somewhere were the ones who never stopped learning. I average about 15 books a year through audiobooks. (I discovered in Know Yourself that I'm not a sit-down-with-a-book reader. Listening is how my brain actually works.) I re-read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho every single year.

I keep my full running list over in the Reading List, so I won't reproduce it here. The point was never any one book anyway. It's the habit. One book leads to the next, which leads to a conversation, which leads to an idea, which leads to a change. That chain only starts if you start.

If you're not a reader, try audiobooks. If you're not an audiobook person, try podcasts. If you're not a podcast person, find the one person in your shop who reads everything and buy them lunch once a month. The information is everywhere. The only excuse for not learning is choosing not to.

Want the details on how asking good questions fits into professional development? Check out Professional Military Education in AF101.

Education as Compound Interest

The Compound Effect of Learning

Everything I've described in this module, the curiosity, the reading, the night-shift studying, the asking of dumb questions, compounds. Just like money. The earlier you start investing in your brain, the bigger the payoff down the road.

For me, the chain looked like this: night shifts at Lakenheath learning how to learn, then the IG show team, then Superior Performer at Kadena, then the confidence to take on bigger roles, then college with straight A's, then a Master's, then everything I've built since. Every step was only possible because of the one before it. And the first link, the kid on night shifts who discovered he needed to read slower and take more notes, made all the others possible.

That's how learning compounds. Each thing you learn doesn't just add to what you know. It multiplies your ability to learn the next thing. The A1C who reads one book on leadership starts seeing their unit differently. That new perspective helps them decode a conversation between two SNCOs. That understanding helps them handle a conflict with a peer. That builds a reputation as someone worth investing in. On and on it goes.

The PT test failure from the start of this module is the flip side. That's what happens when you stop investing and assume your past deposits are enough. They're not. Compound interest only works if you keep making deposits.

It Compounds Everywhere, Not Just at Work

Learning doesn't only pay off in your career. It compounds in your relationships, your leadership, your problem-solving, your money. The books I read on communication made me better at conflict. The ones on finance made me better with money. The ones on leadership helped me see potential in people everyone else had written off. None of it was required reading. All of it paid returns I never saw coming.

The formal education benefits that pay for a lot of this, Tuition Assistance, CCAF, the GI Bill, are real, and you should use every one of them. I get specific about how to play them (and about the years I wasted not using them) in Invest in Future You.

If I could talk to A1C Josh, the kid standing at the paper shredder who thought he was too stupid for any of this, I'd tell him three things:

1. You're not stupid. You just learn differently. Once you figure out how you learn, you'll be unstoppable.
2. Start now. One book, one class, one honest question. The hardest part is starting. After that, the compound effect takes over.
3. Read. Or listen. One a month. Every successful person I've ever met does some version of this. It is not a coincidence.

The knowledge you build now, on night shifts, in audiobooks during your commute, in one class per semester, becomes the foundation your whole future stands on. Nobody ever regretted starting too early. Plenty of people, me included, regretted starting too late.

You'll find the full breakdown of TA, CCAF, the GI Bill, and every education benefit available to you in AF101's Education Benefits section.