June 1998. I was a private in basic training at E 2/54, Fort Benning, Georgia.
We were laying out our equipment for inspection. Every piece had a place. Our right-angle flashlight was supposed to be placed at the top-left corner of the poncho, with the lens facing left.
Drill Sergeant walks by, scans my layout, stops cold.
“What the fuck is wrong with your flashlight, Private?”
Confused, I respond, “What, Drill Sergeant?”
“Why the fuck is your flashlight facing the wrong way?”
I look down. It’s facing right.
He yells again, “Private, you need to have attention to detail. Why is your flashlight facing the right?”
In the most confident, clueless way possible, I said, “It’s a right-angle flashlight, not a left-angle flashlight, Drill Sergeant.”
He paused. Looked like his brain short-circuited trying not to laugh. Then told me to fix it and “beat my face.”
As I’m doing pushups, drenched in sweat, I finally realize… I didn’t understand the assignment. It wasn’t about the name. It was about the standard.
And I got it wrong.
But here’s the thing—
I answered like I knew.
I was loud. Confident. Certain.
And I was dead wrong.
Lesson:
You can be confident and still be completely off target.
But that doesn’t make you weak. That makes you human.
What matters is what happens next.
You own it. You learn. You fix it.
Then you move forward and never miss that detail again.
That one mistake taught me to never confuse confidence with competence—
and to always close the gap with humility and action.
That’s how you win.
That’s how you grow.
That’s how you lead.
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