Learning to do the hard stuff in life first

  • Published
  • By Col. Leonard Kosinski
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing vice commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Last month I was at my 20-year reunion and reminisced with a former classmate about our challenging days at the Air Force Academy.

My classmate, after serving in the Air Force for several years, is now a successful president of his own consulting company, a published author and still a competitive athlete.

Considering his accomplishments in the Air Force and in business, he described the puzzlement of a colleague at a company he worked at after the Air Force who, after a weekend of working together nonstop on a big project, finally broke down and asked him why he always seemed to eat his vegetables first and, in particular, why he first ate the crust around the edges of the bread before getting to the good stuff in the sandwich. My friend, a former college football lineman, smiled explaining that, growing up in rural Mississippi, he didn't have much in the material sense. What he did have was drive and a dedication to work hard and to sacrifice immediate gratification for long-term success. He notes that he actually likes vegetables, but when you think about eating a meal, he asks, "Why not get the stuff that is good for you first?"

He has built a habit of this delayed gratification, which he learned as a child, to get the hard stuff out of the way while you are fresh with energy. Then when you're tired at the end of the day, you still can handle the easy stuff. This differs from the approach of just grabbing the easy, low-hanging fruit and then trying to deal with the hard stuff later.

Our Air Force core values inspire this ethos. Even before our core values were crystalized in their current form in mid-1990s, I had given some thought to a succinct set of three rules to live by that I have shared with others throughout my career. These are: 1) work hard; 2) take care of each other; and 3) always do the right thing. The last two should be self-explanatory and relate to Service Before Self and Integrity First in our core values. The concept of work hard, however, requires a little more explanation, but encompasses, in part, Excellence in All We Do.

Working hard does not necessarily mean working 24 hours a day, although it might in some cases, such as medical on-call duties or long-range strategic airlift missions. Working hard is working smart as well as being efficient and effective with your time and resources. Do the hard stuff first and get ahead on your training and mission duties. Then you can have time to do the fun stuff.

Balance is also important and you must be able to be strong in all the core pillars of Comprehensive Airman Fitness, mental, physical, social and spiritual. These enable our Airmen, Air Force civilians and family members to become more resilient and better-equipped with the rigors of military life.

So, eat your veggies first and finish off the tough crust around that sandwich of a challenge to get to your end goal. You've got to enjoy what you do, but delaying that instant gratification for even bigger accomplishments for the future is the key to our long-term success in both our professional and personal lives.