Prudentia (Veteran Voices)
Prudentia / Critical Thinking (Veteran Voices)
Transcript
I think my personal brand really is wrapped up in my veteran identity and my identity as an entrepreneur who is pursuing software engineering. My experience in the military really allows me to bring a kind of focus and a kind of team collaboration spirit to every team that I work on that is both refreshing-- my employers have given me feedback that to them seems refreshing, and helpful, and different than what they get from a lot of other entry level early professionals in their careers.
I think having a mission and being mission driven is absolutely an ethos you can bring to pretty much anything you do, whether it's school, or your passions, or your career. I think vets provide a lot of very unique kinds of ethos to a team and it's definitely something that I think every veteran should leverage as they're moving into that phase of their life. I think that being able to learn how to talk to civilians and people who aren't familiar with the military about your experiences in a way that conveys to them that it was something very important to you, and relating that to how that informs your daily work ethic, and how you actually function on the team is super important. I think that though I haven't faced it a whole lot, I have seen other people face it and you can certainly overcome that with some conversation.
This is another area as far as building my own brand and becoming separate from just Staff Sergeant Bartlett and becoming Rachel Bartlett the singer or even in some ways just Rachel Bartlett the student here. It still is an ongoing process I would say for sure. I think for me, the ongoing process is that I don't just want to have to stand up in a room every time and say my name is Rachel, I'm a marine, or something like that. But rather just say my name is Rachel, these are the things that I am interested in or that I'm working on.
To be able to set yourself aside from your previous identities and really think, what am I actually being driven towards and what are my characteristics that I would actually really like someone to know, like I think when you talk to someone in business or for an interview they want to know more about you. Not just where you've been, but really what your skills and characteristics are. So for me I always found that being pleasant was a very invaluable characteristic. I mean, yes, in my job being civil affairs, you have to work with people who really hate each other and kind of mediate that.
So I always found that it was very valuable to be pleasant, to be empathetic, or emotional intelligence, I think, is like the proper term for it now. And to have excellent work ethic. That really above all else. And then if you have to at the end of the day say, yes, I'm also a veteran, or yes, I'm also in the military. But really, I think the power that we can give ourselves when we're transitioning is to try to step away from that previous identity and think what really does make me me and how can I share that with others in a way that they'll be receptive to it in a way that they'll say this is the person that I want on my team or that I want for this job, and they happen to be a veteran, that's really cool, too.
I think having a mission and being mission driven is absolutely an ethos you can bring to pretty much anything you do, whether it's school, or your passions, or your career. I think vets provide a lot of very unique kinds of ethos to a team and it's definitely something that I think every veteran should leverage as they're moving into that phase of their life. I think that being able to learn how to talk to civilians and people who aren't familiar with the military about your experiences in a way that conveys to them that it was something very important to you, and relating that to how that informs your daily work ethic, and how you actually function on the team is super important. I think that though I haven't faced it a whole lot, I have seen other people face it and you can certainly overcome that with some conversation.
This is another area as far as building my own brand and becoming separate from just Staff Sergeant Bartlett and becoming Rachel Bartlett the singer or even in some ways just Rachel Bartlett the student here. It still is an ongoing process I would say for sure. I think for me, the ongoing process is that I don't just want to have to stand up in a room every time and say my name is Rachel, I'm a marine, or something like that. But rather just say my name is Rachel, these are the things that I am interested in or that I'm working on.
To be able to set yourself aside from your previous identities and really think, what am I actually being driven towards and what are my characteristics that I would actually really like someone to know, like I think when you talk to someone in business or for an interview they want to know more about you. Not just where you've been, but really what your skills and characteristics are. So for me I always found that being pleasant was a very invaluable characteristic. I mean, yes, in my job being civil affairs, you have to work with people who really hate each other and kind of mediate that.
So I always found that it was very valuable to be pleasant, to be empathetic, or emotional intelligence, I think, is like the proper term for it now. And to have excellent work ethic. That really above all else. And then if you have to at the end of the day say, yes, I'm also a veteran, or yes, I'm also in the military. But really, I think the power that we can give ourselves when we're transitioning is to try to step away from that previous identity and think what really does make me me and how can I share that with others in a way that they'll be receptive to it in a way that they'll say this is the person that I want on my team or that I want for this job, and they happen to be a veteran, that's really cool, too.