GoDaddy Interview on Achieving Victory

If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking for a way to gain an edge in your career. Some might call it looking for a silver bullet. Others might call it hacking the system. For veteran Bill Merck, it’s about using the skills drilled into him to become well, all that he can be — it’s about that military mindset.

Bill is the author of the memoir “So, You Want to Be a Leader: Secrets of a Lifetime of Success.” He literally wrote the book on using your military background to advance your career.

I sat down with Bill to talk about how to develop a military mindset to advance the trajectory of your career. If you are hoping to find a leg up in business too, his advice might help you achieve victory in your career path.

What is a military mindset?

Having a military mindset in your life, is about acquiring and building on the mental and behavioral characteristics that are generally developed in the military. These characteristics are what helps the members of the armed forces to perform their duties, and to achieve their objectives in both high-pressure as well as high-stakes environments.

What do these characteristics look like? They include, but aren’t limited to:

• Discipline

• Responsibility

• Adaptability

• Resilience

• Attention to detail

• Teamwork, and

• Communication

When it comes to using a military mindset in your career, however, the definition goes a little deeper with one critical characteristic.

Bill said, “I think, if I had to use one word, it’d be clarity. In the military, there’s clarity of purpose. There’s a clarity in people’s roles. There’s clarity and communication. All of those things are emphasized, and then training."

“Whatever your specialty, or your role, is, you’re trying to constantly keep training, training, training. Then, when you need to exercise or you need to perform, it’s almost a muscle memory kind of thing.”

Continue reading the article here: ​How to develop a military mindset for career success by Ashley Grant.

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Bill’s book, So, You Want to Be a Leader, is available at Barnes & Noble. Read excerpts from his book and articles on leadership here.