Attention to Detail Will Change Your Life

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

For five years I was a soldier.  It was one of the proudest things I have ever done with my life (second only to becoming a father).  I have a lot to thank the Army for.  Many of those things helped shape me into the man, father, husband I am today.

I remember in basic training having to shine my boots everyday.  I hated it.  We had to go outside in the cold and sit down on the concrete pad under our barracks.  You could be out there for hours just shining, not allowed to talk.  I remember thinking that there was much better things I could be doing with my time.  I could be sleeping, writing letters, or training for combat.

Back then I thought it was the stupidest thing to make us do.  Why should we shine our boots?  They are just going to get muddy as hell the next day during training.  Now I know how naive I was to think that way.

In training, everything is done for a reason.  We shined our boots over and over.  In the start it would take us forever to get that perfect shine.  And no matter how well we shined them, we were told we did it wrong.  We didn’t have the choice to quit, we just had to keep shining over and over.

As time went on we got good at it.  I got to where I could shine my boots in minutes and not get jumped on by the dreaded Drill Sergeant.  I remember sitting in the barracks right before lights out talking to other soldiers in training about what they were doing to get their boots perfect.  The people who got the hang of it, or figured out some new trick shared with those of us that were doing poor.  Those of us that were having a hard time on it because hungry for information on how to get better at it.

Over time it became second nature to us to get a perfect shine with our boots.  We would look at our boots 100 different ways before declaring them good enough.  And when we got them good enough we would work on it more to make it perfect.  The Army was teaching us with our boots.

It taught us to care about our appearance.  It taught us to work together.  It taught us to always be looking for a better way of doing something.  It taught us to never quit.  It taught us to pay attention to the details.

It is strange to think that because of something like boots that I learned how to never give up and to always want to improve myself.  I now apply those skills that I learned in the Army to my business.  Those simple tricks of attention to detail and never giving up are what helps me to be successful today.

The hunger that the Army gave me to always want to improve myself and my skills are what made me get into Empower Network.  I had marketed before but I became stale.  I wasn’t learning new things.  I just kept putting the same dull polish on my boots each and every day.  Empower Network is helping me learn how to put the spit shine back on my marketing.

Whatever you do in your life, in and out of business, make sure you make it shine.

And yes, I still have those very same boots from training.

P.S. Let me know what you are doing to improve yourself.  Comment below.  Share your shine.