Who Defines Success Now?

 At some point, the scorecard changes.

The rank is gone.
 The titles fade.
 And the external validation that once defined success… isn’t there anymore.

So the question becomes:

Who defines success now?

In this episode, Marc and Cole challenge the idea that success is something given — and make the case that it has to be built intentionally.

Because if you don’t define it for yourself, you’ll default to chasing someone else’s version of it.

We get into:

•  Why external validation is a weak foundation 
•  The shift from recognition to responsibility 
•  Effort-based identity vs outcome-based identity 
•  “Experienced, not special” and “driven, not gifted” 
•  How to create a personal standard for success that actually lasts 

This is where leadership gets personal.

No rankings.
 No awards.
 No one keeping score.

Just your standards — and how consistently you live up to them.

Because success isn’t something you achieve once.

It’s something you define… and build daily. 

OperationNextChapter@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The emotional side of retirement and taking the uniform off was far more difficult than it was the work side of it and the next career side of it, right? Whether we think that our our trade or our skills that we learned in the military is going to transfer to civilian world or not didn't make a difference. I knew I had a work ethic. I knew I could go to work. But you're absolutely right. That was the sole focus. I felt attacked is how to transition into your next job physically.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to operate the next chapter. We're Mark Nicole, retired Air Force First Sergeant. And 15 minutes is about leadership without the US. Because eventually the rent comes up. The structure changes, no one has given you orders anymore. So who are you when no one is telling you who to be? 15 minutes is about reclaiming your standards, your discipline, and your role as a leader at home, at work, and in your own life. The next chapter is in a time. It's built. Let's get to work. Mark, what up? How about the week? Uh my week was pretty good. Well, since we last recorded, it's been a couple weeks. Really good. A couple of visits with my son and his wife and our grandson. And then we were in Las Vegas for my buddy's retirement, and that was a really awesome, fun, quick weekend, a couple days up there, like a mini reunion with some old Thunderbird buddies and people we were been stationed with before. So fast weekends, both of those, but really good time with friends and family. How about y'all?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Been great. Been traveling for work a little bit. My son just finished uh yesterday, actually, got his uh officially his instructor rating for his pilot. So that was pretty cool. And now he doesn't have to call me and and Jenny every night and do lessons, go over through his lessons plans and everything. So that was that's cool, you know, two ways. It's cool we've talked about this about seeing your your sons or your kids uh succeed in in what they're doing and living out their dreams and living out you know what they want to do in their life and and taking that step forward. Really, it's really fun to just sit back as a parent and just watch, watch the fruits of of their labor, which ultimately the fruits of your labor, pushing them forward.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

You know, that's a really good segue into this episode of success, succeeding after the uniform, right? Like we titled this Who Defines Success Now? And I know just from you telling me about your son being certified, that came through a series of time and commitment, some failures, some losses to get to the end goal. Like that didn't happen overnight, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

No, no, absolutely not. It took a lot of hard work, it took a lot of hard work from him, especially, uh, and then ultimately it took a lot of hard work from Jenny and I too. Short answer, I think, to what you're you know, this episode is who defines who defines success? You right? You do. What are you doing to define that success? What are your actions? What are you silently doing that that defines that success that helps push you forward? In this case, with with Dylan, he just decided he was gonna do this. He had multiple challenges starting out, he had multiple stuff, you know, academically and everything else, and he made it work. He decided that he was good, this was gonna be what he does, this is the path he was gonna take. It didn't matter the roadblocks, it didn't matter the challenges, it didn't matter what stood in front of him. He was going to overcome.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, he was chasing success, not approval from you and Jenny. Absolutely. And I think that's something we need to remind ourselves of and other folks going into the next chapter of life is that's what we need to sit, that's what we need to chase is success, not approval of anybody. It's all on us now.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Too easy, right? Yeah, much easier said than done. But I think you're exactly right. And the definition of your success is your success. Has nothing to do. You mentioned the outsiders, the the folks, you know, Dylan went after this career, and don't get me wrong, Jenny and I are super proud of him and super happy that he he fought through, that he pushed through when he didn't think he was going to be able to. Now, in those moments, all Jenny and I did was sit back and encourage and sit back and help wherever we could. We didn't offer any unsolicited help, we didn't offer any or give any unsolicited advice. We sat back, which was difficult at times, and just were there to support, to push when he needed pushed, to help out. I can tell you, when he first started this journey, first started school, he called me. He was frustrated because he had moved down to you know a new location. He was starting school, he hadn't received. School started on a Monday, let's say, I don't remember what day, but on a Monday, and he hadn't received as of Friday before his syllabus or anything else, right? Had no idea going into the college realm, high school to college, and that transition and everything else. And he was super frustrated because he couldn't start preparing because he knew that he needed to prepare. Well, Monday hit, he gets all of his syllabus, he gets all of his work for the next six weeks, he gets everything. And I was on the road, and I remember him calling, Dad, I saw the recruiter's office right down the road. I think I'm going there. And I had to sit back and I said, No, you're not. You're not. I said, You just got everything dropped on you. You're from the frustration of not having and not knowing, and now you have all of this information and everything is lined out. He's like, Yeah, it's it's just totally overwhelmed. And I said, Okay, what's due tomorrow? What's due in the next seven days? And you know, we started breaking it down like that. Sometimes in life, you have to break it down that simple. What do I need to complete by noon? What do I need to complete by close of business? We talked about it in the last episode or in the episode a little bit ago with Kirk. Start planning the night before what you have to do the next day. Sometimes in life, that's the definition of success, is breaking it down that simple so that you can take step by step by step by step.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That's right. And let's be real, you would have been proud of him no matter what he chose. Oh. Whether he chose to move on from pilot training and didn't make it through, andor he went into the service. Like you were there for him either way. But I think you pushed him to put his emotions aside, because that's what was getting him, and be like, hey man, we got this. Pump the brakes, just take a step back, and that's what he needed from you as his dad to lead him, like, okay, I got this. I just needed some normalcy, you know, different perspective. But he pushed through, persevered, and achieved success over a long list of frustrations, like I said, some failures. That's what Bill, that's the foundation to success. It doesn't happen overnight or just because you want something today doesn't mean it's gonna happen tomorrow. That's how we win in life.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

That's succeeding. Right. Even if it seems like the littlest hurdle that you get over. You got over that hurdle, that's a success. The trouble we have is when we start looking at the outsiders, we start looking around us, and we start judging ourselves or or measuring ourselves against others. You can't measure yourself against other people and ever feel like you succeed. Your success is your success. Your life is your life. What you make of it is your choice. And it's going to be hard sometimes, and it should be. Otherwise, would it really be a success? Right? Would pushing through those hard times, would it feel as good on the other end if it all came easy to you? I know for me, it definitely wouldn't. And you're absolutely right. Whichever avenue he decided to take, right, I'd have been proud of him. But I saw what he wanted, I knew what he wanted to do since he's way young, four or five years old. This is what he wanted to do. He set his sights on it, and now he's there, right? He's not complete. The mission is not complete. He still has work, he still has a lot of work to do. So it's not mission complete, but it is a success.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, and you know, coming from the uniform and service into civilian life, it was pretty structured and straightforward, and we knew how to color within the lines, so to speak. Going into civilian life, it's not quite as clear. And I think that's what a lot of us who have transitioned or retired went through is what you were talking about. We we started drifting, comparing ourselves to others and how successful people were versus how successful we were or were not in every part of life. You know, money, job, fitness, health, marriage, you know, that's easy to do. But it doesn't make us entitled to automatically being successful outside the military. We have to start over from scratch, have a vision of where we want to go, and start working toward that. It's not easy, but we're not gonna be an overnight success. And these are the kind of things that I think the military would do members a better service of when they're retiring or separating, is talking through these emotion-related subjects versus just worrying about the next career. Because I felt like that's what I got out of tap was how to prepare yourself for the next career. And a lot of us, and I'm one of them, I didn't even know what I wanted to do as the next career. So, how could I start preparing for it? That's what was so frustrating, and that's where I did not succeed at.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

The emotional side of retirement and taking the uniform off was far more difficult than it was the work side of it and the next career side of it, right? Whether we think that our our trade or our skills that we learned in the military is going to transfer to the civilian world or not didn't make a difference. I knew I had a work ethic, I knew I could go to work, but you're absolutely right. That was the sole focus I felt of TAPS is how to transition into your next job physically.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, our experience was a tool, it wasn't the pedestal for the next thing. Right. We had a lot to draw from, but figuring out what to put that toward was the hardest part for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah. The emotional side of it, the emotional side of you go from the camaraderie and and caring for airmen and and being cared for by airmen, big A airmen, and everything else, and taking care of in that that family, if you will, environment that we had, to walking out into the civilian world where if I died tomorrow, my job would be posted the next day. Right? It it would be out there to that mindset. The emotional side of retirement is what got me. It it wasn't the the physical, it wasn't the work, it wasn't anything, it wasn't finding a next job, it was that emotional side that just it was devastating, quite honestly. We've all you guys have heard my story. That is what led me to that point. Not knowing, not fitting, not having a brother or sister to go talk to at the drop of a hat, all of those things, and I lost my definition for what success was, quite honestly. I lost the feeling of succeeding because I didn't feel like I fit anywhere, and I didn't feel like I was succeed succeeding at anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

You know, it's ironic, it just crossed my mind as you were saying that the jobs that we had in the military may have been by choice, may have been forced, you know, depending on how you scored on ASVAB and things like that. But you didn't have a choice just to bow out. Like you got good at what you were assigned to do over hard work and consistent work, and then if we did volunteer to do something like we did as first sergeants, we weren't good at that. That didn't come natural, we weren't talented at being a first sergeant. It took years and multiple cases to get good and succeed at being a first sergeant. So fast forward to after the military, we have to have the same type of mentality. Finding the next vision, finding the next career, finding the next thing is not going to come easy. It's gonna take hard work and consistency to achieve success. I think that's easily forgotten, and I didn't that didn't cross my mind when I retired, but I wanted it to come that fast, and it didn't, and now I understand why.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, we we left pretty successful careers, right? Yeah, we we achieved a lot of things in our careers. We were we were in positions that that took a lot of work to get to. I know that when I transitioned, I was okay starting back at the bottom, but I did have memories of what it was like and the difficulty to get back there. I had to tighten up my boot laces, if you will. Actually, I wasn't wearing boots, so tighten up my shoelaces and or my tie and you know, and get going, right? And and go achieve again. And on the in my military career, you're absolutely right. I got really good at being an aircraft maintenance guy because I worked at it every single day. Every single day, every minute of every day out there on that flight line, I was honing that skill. And, you know, 17 years later, yeah, I was really good. I was really, really good. And then I get picked up for a first sergeant, and I got no idea what I'm doing. The only thing I bring to that is hard work, the attitude of we're gonna get through this, and multiple failures along the way, and learning and growing from those failures. Then I built up, I was a pretty good first sergeant when I retired. Retiring, taking the uniform off, life was completely foreign.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah, and I think that's the mentality shift that we have to have is knowing just because we fail doesn't mean we're a failure. Just because we lose doesn't mean we're a loser. Those failures turn into successes. We're only a failure if we quit.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

That's right. That's right. Going to work and doing a job, whatever that job is, and that doesn't mean accidentally going to a place of business to do the work. Sometimes the work is within. Sometimes the work is in the household, sometimes the work is just on you. Going to work and doing a job takes no talent, it just takes work. As long as you keep moving forward, nothing is a failure. As long as you keep learning and growing, nothing you've done is a failure. It may have been a fail, but as long as you don't let it stop you in your tracks and keep you in one place, transitioning to that next chapter, transitioning to that new job, transitioning to be a father, transitioning to getting married, whatever that transition is, graduating high school, moving to the next grade, whatever that is, starting college, as long as you keep moving forward, it's never a failure. It may be a failed mission. What are you doing? Are you gonna adjust? Are you gonna sit there?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, are you gonna let somebody else define what your success is? We can control the inputs, we can't control the outputs. But if we have that positive mental shift towards succeeding and stop comparing, we'll ultimately succeed, sticking with it and building on those failures. The identity shift was moving from if I do this, I'm successful, to if I do hard things consistently, I will be successful.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

And what's your effort? What's the effort you're willing to put into it? Even when it's hard, what's the effort? Where is that effort gonna take you? Is it gonna leave you stuck in the mud? Or is it gonna take you to succeed? And again, your success is your success, and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. Celebrate your success and keep moving.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, and in addition to what you said about measuring your effort, measure your consistency, measure your integrity. Those three things are rating mechanisms for your success. And don't worry about everybody else's doom because you don't know what they've done to get to their success or or even failure, right? We can only control what we put into where we're going. And I hope that the people you're comparing yourself to are succeeding or are successful because of all the things and the back work that we don't see. We just know that they're successful and we want to be like that. You don't know what kind of work they put in, what kind of effort, the consistency behind that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

How many times have you sat there and you know, Joe gets promoted or J Jenny gets promoted, and Jenny's moving forward and she's achieving all this and she's going here and going that, and Jenny just came out of my mouth. I'm not saying that because that's my wife, but she's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

But that would be a bonus for you.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Absolutely. Yeah. And I would sit back and I wouldn't be mad at the fact that she's succeeding. I would just sit back and well, I'd probably goff, but that's okay. Yeah. But you see people succeeding and you're jealous. Well, you don't know the work that they put in to get there, right? That's another don't judge yourself based on other people's merits or other people's failures. We don't know what people have put in. Did they earn it? Well, you can sit there and say, no, I'm a better qualified, or I should have got that promotion, or I should have done this. Or you can say, I'm getting the next one.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Or look yourself in the mirror, but what was I not doing? Yeah. Why could have I done better?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah. Why did I sit here and and not take the next step? Nobody's gonna pat you on the back every single time you do a good job. No, nobody is there to pick you up and recognize you every time you do something good. But you still need to go, you still need to move forward, you still need to work hard at whatever it is and build your successes based on your efforts, not anybody else's, and don't look at other people as succeeding when you don't know the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah. Being applauded is addictive, but it's unreliable. And if we need recognition, we're gonna quit when it's not there. And I think that's another thing from the military that we were pretty good at recognizing performance. You knew there was quarterly awards, annual awards. There was always something that we were recognizing people for, and it was a great incentive for people to have a good work ethic. On the outside, there ain't no special award programs, there ain't nothing, there's no decorations, it's us against the world. Compare yourself to yourself. That's who you're in competition with. Nobody else but you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

How many times when you were in the military did you tell a young airman, hey, go take a CLEP test so that we can show education because the quarterly awards are coming up? Or how many times were you told that? Hey, you don't have any education for this quarter, go take a CLEP test and we'll put it on there so that we can put you in for this quarterly award, or we can put you in for the annual award or whatever. Nobody does that in civilian life. No, you know, that's that's not a thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah, nobody cares about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah. Right, wrong, or indifferent, all of my successes are based on me, my effort, and my attitude, and what I'm willing to do as they should be. Let's be honest, as they should be. Should you get recognized if you're setting yourself apart and you're above and beyond? Absolutely. But do you want The same recognition if you've decided to take a a week off and just drag your feet and not do anything. Do you want to be highlighted in that way? Probably not. So, what are you doing with consistency? What discipline do you have? What are you willing to do differently if you're not if you don't feel like you're succeeding? And move forward. Whatever it is, move forward.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, and you can relate this to every topic in life. Our relationships, our marriages, our health, our fitness. Everything goes back to the same thing if you want to be successful. You have to do hard things consistently. If you have a spouse, great. Go at it together. Teamwork makes the dream work. Right? That's your cheerleader. Be each other's cheerleaders. If you need applause or recognition, hopefully your spouse is already doing that and you're doing that for your spouse. That's one key to make a marriage even better is cheer each other on in life, but go at it as a team. It's not you against them, it's you against the world. Let's go, let's win. If you want to succeed as a as a team, do it together, be on the same page, work hard at it consistently together.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah, man. That's uh that's a whole nother ballgame, right? That teamwork.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

That can be a whole nother episode.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah. And if you're blessed to have somebody in your life that's that's there and is your supporter, then be their supporter as well. It can't be one way. But yeah, your successes are up to you. And your successes can only be defined by you. Can't be defined by the neighbor, can't be defined by your parents or your your son or daughter or your spouse or anybody else, brother, sister, anything. Your successes are only defined by you. Even if you feel like they're little, they're minuscule, you define those successes. And if you want big successes, then do the work. Whatever it takes, do the work.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Do the little things that add up to big wins. Yeah. The little things that nobody sees behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah. I I say it all the time, not all the time, but I say it a lot. Why did we fold our shirts in six-inch squares? It had nothing to do with the t-shirt in the drawer, it had nothing to do with fitting everything in the drawer, it had everything to do with the attention to detail that it make that it takes to succeed. That attention to detail still plays a part in my life. That those little things make big things possible.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah. And you know, just thinking about that alone, graduating from basic training was a success, right? Because you did all those little things, and we did those things every day, and that's how you got good, that's how you got better, that's how you got to the end, the finish line, so to speak, and graduated, and then guess what? We're going into another chapter, starting all over from the beginning again, from the very basic steps, climbing that ladder to be productive and successful member of whatever team you were a part of. It didn't just happen because you graduated basic training, it didn't just happen because you graduated your technical school. You had to do those things over and over and over again every day. It's the same in all aspects of life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Let's be honest. Just passing a wall locker inspection because my shirts were folded correctly, that was the immediate success. Not having my wall locker flipped over and my TI screaming in my face, you know, that was the immediate success, which led to down the road graduating basic. You know, so I we talk about the little things, we talk about those little steps that you have to take. Every time you move forward, every time you get it right, those are successful. I'm not saying you throw yourself a party and you jump up down and expect to have cheerleaders, but it's okay to feel good about those things.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah. Or if you want to compare yourself to somebody, how about the people that aren't succeeding? Let's not do what they did. That was my motivation in basic training. I watch these dudes get their lockers flipped upside down, and I'm like, oh man, I better go check my uh uniforms for stray freaking threads. And I learn more from watching that than and listening than you know, actually doing it.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Right, right. Let's go check my razor so it doesn't have a single piece of hair left on it, even though I've used it to shave my face five times this week. But anyway, sorry, I digress.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

But those are great comparisons to what we're talking to.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah, it's the little successes, the little things in life, the little things that are the foundation and the building blocks of what you gonna what you're going to do, who you are, and where you've been. Yeah. You can't build a house on the sand. You have to have the foundation.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Especially now, I think there's such a comparison game. We've talked about this several times in other episodes, about comparing ourselves on social media, and you know, it's not all what we think it is. It's not everybody winning in life and you're not. It's actually probably the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, and that's totally up to you. Right? Don't get caught in social media rat race because I promise you, everybody is not living their best life. Everybody is not seeding at everything, succeeding in everything in life.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, how about we start posting all of our failures on social media and then start comparing ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Let's be honest and not put this, you know, mask up of this glorious life that everybody's living that they want you to believe they're living. Yeah. Great episode, man. Yeah, we'll talk on the next one, brother. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Hey, thanks for listening. If this episode challenged you, good. Leadership without the uniform isn't loud, it's daily, it's quiet, it's built, and it's small decision that no one else speaks. This is your reminder to reclaim it. Reclaim your standards, reclaim your discipline, reclaim your responsibility at home, at work, and in your own life. No one is coming to assign your next business. The next chapter is built by the person you choose to be tomorrow morning or see next week.