by Michael Moffeit
We have all been there, hastily scribbling notes into our notebooks (mostly green and mostly government-issued), trying to capture some notes or to-do lists. We attempt to record pearls of wisdom from our raters, senior raters, or senior leaders that seem insightful and valuable at the time but inevitably become shelved and dusty pieces of our previous duty positions and assignments, never to see the light of day again.
It does not have to be that way.
Barring the hyper-organized Soldiers who walk among us (yes, I am sure they exist), most of us become overwhelmed by current events and the traditional day-to-day knife fight that is the Army.
We rarely take a moment to stop and reflect on what we have learned. We don’t commit those elusive pearls of wisdom to something that can persist through the years of PCS moves, duty assignment changes, promotions, PME schooling, and so on. My solution is somewhat counterintuitive: a notebook. Yes, the solution to a myriad of notebooks is yet another notebook. Let us refer to this notebook as the Tome of Knowledge.
Borrowing from a blog post I recently read by Joe Byerly at From the Green Notebook, and especially borrowing from the sage wisdom of our current Chief of Staff of the Army, General Randy George, I recently embarked upon a journey that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would serve as a valuable trip down memory lane.
I resolved to capture all the lessons I had recorded over the years. From a junior Soldier trying his best to be a decent combat medic in 2008, to an anxious and eager ROTC cadet in 2011, to a young and aspiring (albeit impatient) Lieutenant in 2014, to a workaholic Captain in 2019, and finally to an insightful and yearning Major in 2024.
With each notebook I re-read, it became clear to me the personal journey I had taken as an officer and as a leader. Initially, my primary concerns were setting a good example, developing a strong working relationship with my NCOs, and avoiding the pitfalls of becoming too familiar with the troops. Then, as the years went on, this morphed into building multidisciplinary teams, the value of giving and receiving feedback, the importance of being a good coach and team player, and finally, managing talent and systems to the benefit of the organization.
Although the previous priorities and focus areas were never replaced, it was insightful to see how many priorities shifted over the years with different duty positions, commanders, and missions.
Additionally, although it was not the focus of my journey, I was also greeted with the mundane, day-to-day notes and to-do lists that had plagued many hours of my waking life many years ago: send this email, write this order, compile these slides, host this meeting, and so on. It occurred to me that, while it rarely seems important at the moment, our professional lives are measured by these micro contributions we make to the organization and to the team.
No one will remember the one training meeting for which you compiled slides, but they will remember the major training event that followed. No one will remember the multiple iterations of the Quarterly Training Brief slides before the boss finally said they were good enough, but they will remember the Brigade Commander’s praise for how prepared you were for the brief itself. As one of my mentors put it, “It’s all about the people,” and that is another piece of sage advice.
We are not measured by the number of meetings we hold, products we create, or tasks we accomplish, but by the lives we touch and the teammates we impact along the way. We must all eventually hang up our uniforms, and perhaps the number of subordinates, peers, and even superiors that we have impacted along the way is the true measure of success.
So, whether you are currently serving your first (and last) term in the military, are somewhere around the mid-career point, or are on the cusp of hanging up the boots one last time and enjoying what the next chapter has to offer, I encourage you to revisit your past. Let your past self teach your current and future self. Let those lessons from the past, hard-earned and dusty as they are, serve you and the future version of yourself once more.
We live our lives forward because the march of time moves inexorably on, but understanding requires us to live our lives backward. It is only by examining where we have been that we can correct our course to reach our desired destination.
MAJ Michael Moffeit is a Field Artillery Officer currently attending the Command and General Staff College (CGSC). He enjoys the wonders of pickleball, camaraderie with his staff group, and the occasional meme.
