It's Been a Year Since Retirement from the Navy - Now What (Who CARES: Comparing, Assessing, Replacing, Exploring & Soliciting options)

It's been a year since I hanged my Navy uniform and take a year off from workplace jungle and military life.

There are things that became part of me after 23 years of military life:  deployment cruises from 3 Navy carriers, 4 major coast to coast change of home station, promotion every 3 to 5 years, steady paycheck with actual higher benefits like:  housing allowance, sea pay - to name a few.

Now it finally hit me.  I miss being part of a big team.  But thanks to social media (mainly Facebook), I still see the movements and changes going on.

But living inside "the boat" and ending up in another country with unplanned drills, structured meal hours, jet noises, the stink of steel & saltwater and snores of my shipmates after TAPs was just a few multicolored lifestyle I grew up with when I was "born" in the Navy in 1991.

But nothing to worry, I have adjusted from the real deal and this is good enough to coverup those military or Navy habits I've develop replace by these:

1.  For Daily Exercise:  Kickboxing replaced my 3X/week Physical Training (PT).  Every Mondays & Thursday we take a group aerobics exercise with some modern music.  It still needs coordination, timing and participation all in cadence for an hour - just like what it is used to be except we don't have that yellow Navy shirt & blue short.

2.  For Meetings:  It is important that as human beings we stay connected with others.  Here you can discover other people's hardship & know that you are not alone and be able to share your experience and mentor others or get a mentor yourself.  Same situation when we had weekly Maintenance meeting on deployments & Department meetings every week in the office.  I now meet my ICCI Counselors every first Tuesdays, my Toastmasters & Capella mentors on Wednesday, Thursdays for fellow business owners (Trusted Compass, Business Networking, UnWined, Chamber of Commerce, etc.)

3.  For Daily Walks, & Visits.  As counselor and supervisor on board ship or even on shore, I walk & visit departments for few reasons:  to get out of my desk and get the blood flowing, to chat with colleagues about next port visits (i.e. fellow Chiefs, aka B.S. time or "skate") and mainly to connect with your department or team besides the email & phone calls.  Like meetings, this is an informal way to get & give information that will set the phase for your next email or projects.

Now as a veteran retiree / entrepreneur, I own my time but I see to it that I walk daily this time - thanks for living by the beach.  Daisy is my motivation mainly to do her "business" and appreciate some quiet moments before heading to my daily email & business undertakings.

Talk about visit (port visit) well, I don't have to go far to enjoy sitting on the beach and have a "liberty call" because I have it 24 hours a day if I want it.

4. For Chiefs Mess / Meetup.   See Facebook page / group.  Enough said.

5.  For Mentoring & Disciplinary / Career Board.  This is one tradition I really think I could make a difference with a person.  Imparting traditions & experience to someone whether to correct a efficiency or to inspire a long term goal.  I believe (subject to many disapproval) that  social media has connected many of us who embrace the technology into a level of talking to each other in  real time.  We can do group talk, share information, agree to disagree and follow  through with those who listens and needs to relay important and helpful information just like when we do Career Development Board (reviewing of records & interviews) and Disciplinary Review Board (prior to possible Executive Officer mast or something positive).

Now, I still do it using Private Messages on Navy Career Wise Facebook page.  Mentoring prospective Career Management Fellows for ICCI as marketing / mentor advisor using Adobe Meetup & LinkedIn.  I would like to expand on this area once I've completed my dissertation on "Career Counseling using Social Media / Facebook" because this area is unproven but it works in some areas of how mentoring and career counseling works.