“Who is your ideal leader to coach?”

The question came on a podcast this week, one of four conversations we had at Wayward Purpose during a week I’d set aside for rest and reflection. I didn’t think long about it.

“Me,” I said.

Then I laughed. And then I spent the rest of the week sitting with it.

It wasn’t the only question that followed me into my home after the camera and mics turned off. Another was one I’ve answered so many times the answer had worn smooth.

“Why did you join the military?”

As I approach military retirement eligibility, I’ve been setting aside a lot of time for reflection. For years, my quick answer to that question has been that the Air Force was the only branch that didn’t come looking for me. They didn’t need me. It gets a laugh, and it’s true.

This week I went back further, to the recruiter who brought me in.

“You scored high enough on your ASVAB that you can pick any job you want. So what will it be?”

I sat across from him in an office decorated with a career’s worth of achievements and accolades. And if you didn’t know, the ASVAB is the test that determines which military jobs you qualify for.

I was not someone who did well with choice. Up to that point I had lived a life of survival, responding to one situation after another, and a wide-open choice scared me.

Instead of pushing me to become someone who could choose, he told me the Air Force needed the person who already wanted to serve. It needed me to bring who I already was, because that person was the one who would be trusted with everything that came after.

I saw the possibilities and asked how I could help. We signed some paperwork, and a few months later, off I went.

Almost fifteen years later, I had nearly the same conversation with a mentor who asked me to come help continue stand up the Space Force from the ground floor. Unfortunately, he has since passed. He wasn’t looking for someone to mold into something else, only for who I was.

Nearly twenty years on, I think that first conversation with my recruiter was some of the best coaching I’ve ever received. I just didn’t know it was coaching at the time.

Twenty years is long enough to collect a lot of things that look like identity. Rank. Titles. The cloth of our nation. Most recently, a certificate.

I’m a certified coach, and I’m proud of that. But the certificate didn’t make me a coach, any more than a marriage certificate made me a husband. Or, a birth certificate make me a Dad. A degree doesn’t make you the thing it names.

A credential may mark a beginning. The becoming happens in the showing up after.

I’ve heard the question put this way. Are you a Sergeant, or a businessman, or whatever your title is, who happens to have a family? Or are you a family man or woman who happens to wear a uniform, run a business, or name your thing?

I finally settled my order after life brought me to my knees, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That was the turning point, and it’s where Wayward Purpose was born. Richard Rohr would call it falling upward, the title of his book on a spirituality for the two halves of life.

I’m a dad. I’m a husband. And I’m a self-proclaimed wayfinder who invests in the human experience and keeps serving in many different capacities.

That order is what lets me say this: wherever this life takes me, I have a better understanding of who I am.

I don’t have all the answers.

There are plenty of things in my past life I still shudder at when they cross my mind. Some I’ve made amends for. Some, I still need to.

But something happens when you know a little more about who you are. Other people’s expectations lose some of their grip as nobody can pressure you into meeting their expectations without your permission. And when your identity is borrowed from a title, you hand out that permission without noticing.

Now, I’ve always told people that if you’re running toward something, let me help you get there. If you’re running away from something, let me help you work through it.

This transition space has taught me something I didn’t expect, and I’m in the middle of one now. You can do both at once. And sometimes the thing you’re running from and the thing you’re running toward are the same person.

That’s why I’m not convinced the answer is finding the next mission. As I gear up for the veteran-citizen return, I’ve been pitched countless times. “Let us be your next mission.” “Are you ready for your next mission?”

It’s the story a lot of us lean on: I’ll know who I am once I find the next thing to give myself to. It sounds like progress. It also lets us stay exactly where we are.

When you’re pulled two directions at once, knowing who you are steadies you in a way the next mission can’t.

I don’t need another mission. I don’t need the battlefield to the boardroom. I already have the battlefield to the dinner table.

If there’s a mission left, it’s this. Take care of me. Take care of my kids and my family. Take care of the relationships closest to me. And, like that recruiter asked of me nearly twenty years ago, keep showing up as me with the people and teams who want me there.

Whenever I take off the uniform, whether that’s in a few months or in ten years, what’s underneath it is what I’ll bring to whatever comes next.

So, back to that podcast. Who’s my ideal leader to coach?

Me. Someone still figuring it out. Someone who built something and may have forgotten who they are right when they need to show up.

I work with people who don’t know anymore. People who spent years being responsible, productive, useful, and dependable, and woke up one day realizing the life they built didn’t quite feel like their own.

I know that person because I was that person. I am that person. Some days I’m moving away from him, and some days back toward him.

I used to think it had to be one or the other. Now I understand both can be true at the same time.

The service I signed up for never needed me to become someone else. It needed me to bring who I was, and to keep growing from there. I think that’s still true, for me.

What about you?

One more small step on the wayward path to restore togetherness.

More soon, from further down the path. Until then, keep wayfinding.

P.S. This one is a little different. Ten Waymarkers and seven podcast appearances in, I’m realizing this writing doesn’t have to be anything but what it is. If you are enjoying these, I’m glad you’re here. If not, that’s okay too. Thank you to Helping the Brave, Warrior Servant Leader, Coaching in Session, and the Two Piers Consulting podcast for having me on this past week (more to come as they release). I’m grateful for the time, the questions, and the care you put into your work.