There I was in a Zoom Meeting. There was a guy going on and on about a single mission he went on several years ago where he was wounded. He was an embedded journalist.
Clearly, I hate that the guy was wounded. I respect that he put himself in harm’s way to report the facts. This isn’t the point. The point is, the guy just kept talking about this one mission. I looked him up online and he seems to have made a career of talking and writing about this one mission.
Wow – many of us have been on many missions. Many of us are wounded and certainly deeply effected by the toils of combat. Few of us have built our career around it.
Props to this guy, I guess.
I asked my buddy, who lives and works in DC in and around the government. He opened my eyes. He explained that people have an origin story, a spine, he called it. It’s your main story, the base where you project all else from.
The guy on the zoom call tells the story of this mission all the time, then he goes on to say whatever else he feels like saying after he’s attempted to establish credibility through his spine identity.
My buddy explained that his spine is that he had spent time in the military long enough to know his own values – what he can add to the world based off his own experience.
So when you meet people or people think of you, what is your spine? Is it the work you do? Is it who you’ve worked for? What is the first thing your distant colleagues think of you?
For example, a few years ago anyone who worked for McChrystal had the McChrystal spine. In introductions and preparatory notes, we heard, “so and so worked for McChrystal in 2005.” A collective ‘wow’ fell over the crowd.
This got me thinking, what the f is my spine? I need to ask my friends and others. Maybe my spine is that I write poorly and never copy edit my stuff. Maybe it’s the limp I have after a long run? Maybe it’s my work…maybe it’s this website. I have no clue and that’s dangerous.
My buddy is right, everyone has a spine. You damn sure need to know what yours is.
Read this entertaining but sad book for perspective, This Town.
No go and do likewise.
Photo by Spc. Andrew Baker
