Standing Out (For the Right Reasons)

Doing Hard Things When Nobody's Watching

"I'll be what you need me to be."

A friend told me once that the best answer he ever heard, when someone was asked what they bring to the organization, was: "I'll be what you need me to be."

That has echoed in my head for 20-plus years. It isn't about being a doormat. It's about being so useful, so adaptable, so willing to serve that the team knows they can count on you for whatever needs doing. The glamorous stuff, the invisible stuff, the stuff nobody thanks you for. If an Airman walked into my office and said, "I'll do whatever helps the organization," my mind would be blown, because almost nobody says it, and even fewer mean it.

It Was Never About Being Seen

Let me be clear about something up front, because it's the whole point: doing the right thing when no one is looking is not about getting rewarded for it. That's the opposite of the point.

Here's how it actually works. You take the trash out and nobody sees you do it. The next morning, maybe one person notices the cans are empty. They don't know who did it, but the organization is a little better for it. Maybe, eventually, someone figures out it was you. There's a benefit there, sure. But that was never why you did it. The reputation builds slowly and quietly, through consistency over time. It is a byproduct. It is never the reason.

The Deep Clean

When I retrained into the Fire Department as a new SSgt, I wanted to make something clear to everyone around me from day one: I wasn't above anything.

I didn't just clean the kitchen. I deep cleaned it. I didn't just wipe down the bathrooms. I scrubbed them. I didn't rush through washing the fire trucks. I took my time and did it right. The stalls, the floors, the gear, I gave every laborious, unglamorous, nobody-gives-you-a-medal task the same effort I'd give a briefing to the Wing Commander. Not because anyone was going to notice. Because I wanted to look myself in the mirror and know I did an excellent job. That was my standard, not anyone else's.

Stall Number 1

Now let me tell you about the worst one. And I mean the worst.

I knew something had happened before I even walked into the bathroom. It was the most awful smell I have ever encountered. Normally when someone goes number two, it's not that bad. This was different. I opened the door to stall number one and it was destroyed. Feces all over the toilet, the floor, the walls. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you it was at eye level. My gag reflex kicked in immediately.

Once I got myself together, my heart sank. Somebody had clearly had a next-level emergency and lost the fight. And I immediately thought about the cleaning lady who'd have to deal with it. She was getting paid pennies, she wasn't coming until the next day, and that smell was not going to wait. It was too much to leave for someone in her position.

So I knew what I had to do. I went to the supply closet, grabbed the rubber gloves, and started cleaning it up. Did I mention how awful this was?

The smell kept most people out, but one guy walked in and his face went white. He looked at me and asked if I was okay. I laughed and told him it wasn't me, somebody was just having a worse day than I was. He didn't leave. He grabbed gloves and started helping. When I told him he didn't have to, that I had it handled, he said, "No one should have to clean this alone." So we knocked it out together, cracking jokes the whole time, laughing at our own misery.

I never told a soul what happened. But people talk. Over the next while, folks came up and asked if I was the one who cleaned up that mess. I said yeah, but that I couldn't have done it without Dan. If this was going to get out, I wanted to make sure Dan got painted as the hero he was, because I genuinely couldn't have done it without him.

Here's the part I didn't know at the time. I was only two months into that job. Dan, it turned out, was a manager over a different team I'd end up working with constantly, a team of former special forces, a lot of them Tier 1 guys. To this day there's a respect and a camaraderie between us that other offices just don't have. Maybe that mess in stall number one seeded it. Maybe it didn't. I'll never know for sure.

And that's exactly the point. I didn't clean it for Dan. I didn't clean it for the relationship or the reputation or any of what came later. I cleaned it because someone needed it done and I was the one standing there. It is never about the opportunity or the recognition. It's about serving with no expectation in mind. The rest takes care of itself, or it doesn't. Either way, you did the right thing, and you can live with yourself.

Quiet Execution

That mentality doesn't need to be announced. In quiet execution, it looks like:

• Taking the trash out when it's full. If it's contracted, helping carry the bags out anyway.
• Offering a word of encouragement to your supervisor, not just your peers.
• Taking the hard task nobody else volunteered for, because it needs to get done.
• Working the holiday so someone else can be with their family.
• Staying quiet when everyone else is gossiping.

None of those make the highlight reel. None of them show up on an award package. But they add up into something money can't buy and shortcuts can't fake. Their problem became my problem. If someone asked me a question, I stopped what I was doing and gave them my full attention. That isn't heroic. It's decency, applied consistently. And it stands out, because most people don't bother.

For how "Integrity First" plays out in the day-to-day, especially when nobody's watching, see Professional Conduct in AF101.

Drive and Determination as Daily Choices

The Random Tuesday

I want to walk you through what "drive" actually looks like on a normal day. Not a deployment. Not an inspection. Not a crisis. A regular Tuesday when nothing special is happening.

Show Up

You show up early. Not five minutes early, but actually early. Looking prepared. Uniform sharp. Hair combed. If you take care of yourself and look the part, you're already ahead of half the people around you.

This starts before you even leave for work. If your room is a mess, you are a mess. Your living space is a reflection of your internal state. Keep it tight. Not because someone's inspecting it. Because it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Get After It

If you know what needs to be done, do it without being asked. Don't wait for your supervisor to tell you. Don't stand around.

If you don't know what to do, find out the night before. If that's not possible (some organizations work day by day and task by task), then make yourself busy and useful while you're waiting. Clean the kitchen. Sweep the floor. Read a regulation. Whatever it takes to be useful. Idle hands in a military environment look like laziness, even if you're technically waiting for guidance.

Then when you're carrying out your duties, do them with excellence. Not "good enough." Excellence. Every task. Every time. Even the boring ones. Especially the boring ones.

Don't Sneak Out

After your day is over, never sneak out. Don't just disappear. Make your departure known to your superiors and ask if there's anything else that needs to get done before you leave.

Most of the time they'll say, "Nope, enjoy your night." But when they do have something, do that last task with the same effort you gave the first task of the day. The Airman who dips out at 1659 without telling anyone looks very different from the Airman who walks up and says, "Anything else before I head out?"

Be the Positive Light

On your way out, give someone a fist bump. Say good night. Offer a word of encouragement, especially if the organization is in a morale slump. Be the person who leaves the room a little brighter than you found it.

Drive on a random Tuesday looks like that. No heroics. No big moments. Just consistency.

Standing Out for the Wrong Reasons

I also want to talk about the other side of standing out, because a lot of young Airmen stand out for exactly the wrong reasons.

• They don't stand up when a superior walks in.
• They don't make eye contact during conversations.
• They use first names at the wrong time.
• They get way too comfortable and can't flip the professional switch when it matters.
• They forget everything BMT and tech school taught them about customs and courtesies.
• They walk into a building when the national anthem is playing at the end of the day.
• Their uniform looks like they pulled it out of the dirty clothes pile.
• They don't get haircuts.
• They show up 3 minutes late and think nobody notices.

People notice. Especially your leadership.

When someone sees you for the first time, they judge. That becomes their truth about you. If you can't hold a conversation or you give one-word answers with no follow-up questions, leaders will assume you can't give the big speech. If you keep showing up late, even just 3 minutes, people notice and draw conclusions about your reliability.

First impressions are unfair. They shouldn't carry the weight they carry. But they do. And the small stuff (haircut, posture, customs, eye contact, showing up on time) is what builds the foundation of how people perceive you.

AF101's Enlisted Performance Reports goes deeper on how standing out gets documented in your permanent record and affects promotions.

Don't Come This Far Just to Come This Far

The Marathon, Not the Sprint

I love this saying because it captures something most people miss: the end isn't the end. You don't cross a finish line and stop running. Getting through BMT isn't the finish. Getting through tech school isn't the finish. Making E-5 isn't the finish. Every accomplishment is just the foundation for the next one.

It's not a sprint. It's a marathon of serving.

And the people who coast, the ones who hit a rank or a milestone and decide they've "made it," are the ones who stall out. I've watched it happen over and over. Someone makes SSgt and stops trying. Someone finishes their degree and stops learning. Someone passes their fifth PT test and assumes the sixth will take care of itself. (I told you what happened to me in Module 7.)

If you do something to be noticed, a one-off event or a single act of going above and beyond, people see right through it. They can smell the ulterior motive from across the room. The Airman who volunteers once to look good on their EPR looks very different from the Airman who volunteers consistently because that's just who they are.

The Real Reason

This part is hard to explain, and I want to be really honest about it.

Going above and beyond has opened so many doors for me. Years and decades later, the reputation I built continues to pay dividends. Former supervisors who became hiring managers. Peers who recommended me for opportunities. People who trusted me with responsibility because they'd seen me handle small things with excellence.

But that was never the reason. It has always been about adding value to other people's lives. That matters more than the standing out or the reputation. If you're doing it for the recognition, people will eventually figure that out, and the whole thing collapses.

The recognition is a byproduct. The service is the point. If you get that order right, everything else follows.

I'm still doing it. Which means I know it'll pay dividends in the future too. But I'm not doing it for the dividends. I'm doing it because I've seen what happens when people adopt this mindset: their teams get better, their relationships get deeper, their careers take care of themselves.

Why Wait to Be Asked?

I'll take this one step further than most advice gives you. Everyone says "take initiative" and "volunteer for additional duties." Fine. Good advice. But why wait until something is asked for?

If you see a need and you have the motivation, skills, and time to accomplish it, lean forward. Don't wait for the tasking. Don't wait for the email. See the gap and fill it.

You don't need a big platform for this. Nobody asked me to clean stall number one. I saw a need, I was standing there, and I filled it. That instinct scales up over a career (it's where the ACE organization and Forever Wingman eventually came from), but it starts small and it starts now. See that the break room is dirty? Clean it. Notice a new Airman looking lost? Walk over and introduce yourself. Realize your section's training materials are outdated? Update them.

Don't wait to be asked. And don't do it for the credit.

The Test

You want to know if you're on the right track? Ask yourself this question at the end of every day: Would I be proud of how I showed up today if my best supervisor was watching?

Not your actual supervisor, who might be absent or distracted or checked out. Your best supervisor. The one you respect most. The leader who made you want to be better just by being around them.

If the answer is yes, if you showed up early, did the hard things, helped someone who needed it, didn't cut corners, didn't sneak out, and left the room a little better than you found it, then you're building something.

You won't see the results immediately. That's the hardest part. Consistency without immediate reward takes real discipline. But the compound effect is real. Every day you show up with excellence is a deposit. And one day, maybe not for years, you'll look back and realize that the reputation, the opportunities, the trust, the relationships were all built one random Tuesday at a time.

Don't come this far just to come this far. Keep going. Keep serving. Keep showing up.

The nuts and bolts of how WAPS points and the promotion system reward consistent performance over time are in AF101. See Promotion System.