{"id":400,"date":"2025-12-09T08:29:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T08:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/?p=400"},"modified":"2026-02-08T19:17:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:17:56","slug":"believing-lessons-paid-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/believing-lessons-paid-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"36 – Believing – Lessons paid forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humility Isn\u2019t Diminishing Yourself<\/h2>\n

My therapist hit me with a truth today: being humble doesn\u2019t mean pretending your accomplishments don\u2019t matter. It simply means you don\u2019t let them define your worth or inflate your ego. But I\u2019ve always been quick to downplay anything I\u2019ve done, so when she asked me to recall a moment I was genuinely proud of, I froze. School accolades? Nothing worth mentioning came to mind. \u00a0Sports accolades? \u00a0Not that I could easily recall, though I had always been a standout athlete. \u00a0Not even my art that I could remember.<\/p>\n

But oddly enough, what surfaced was the first time I had to issue an Article 15.<\/p>\n

\"Briefing
Mission brief to the team at sunset drawn in Neo Trad style \u2014 the silhouettes, the horizon and fading sunset backdrop all carry the weight and calm-before-the-storm energy of the patrol brief, with the laurel symbolizing the success of the operation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had just finished explaining the standards to my Soldiers, sharing how important our mission was, laid everything out clearly. Later that same day, two E-3s did exactly what I had just told everyone would result in an automatic Article 15. I felt as lousy writing it as they did receiving it, but my hands were tied. While doing the paperwork, I told them straight: this didn\u2019t have to define them. I\u2019d suspend the punishment if they owned it and showed us who they could become.<\/p>\n

One Soldier stayed quiet and simply said, \u201cYes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other had excuses lined up like sandbags \u2014 why it wasn\u2019t their fault, why the rules shouldn\u2019t apply, why someone else should take the hit.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward a couple years. I was deployed again, different unit, different mission. Out of nowhere, I heard someone calling my name. It was the same two Soldiers.<\/p>\n

The quiet one was now a Staff Sergeant.<\/p>\n

The excuse-maker was still an E-3.<\/p>\n

The SSG told me he was grateful for that day \u2014 that I hadn\u2019t been lenient, but I had been fair, and I had believed they could do better. He had taken that chance and ran with it. The other Soldier admitted it took them longer to accept responsibility, but with the SSG pushing them, they too were finally stepping up and were on track for E-4.<\/p>\n

Hearing that meant more to me than any award or medal ever could. It reminded me that humility, much like leadership, doesn\u2019t always fix everyone in the moment \u2014 but when it lands, it can ripple forward for years.<\/p>\n

My therapist wants me to keep looking for moments like this. Not to brag, but to stop pretending they\u2019re \u201cnothing.\u201d Thirty-plus years in uniform taught me a lot about carrying other people\u2019s stories. Tattooing has become my way to capture those moments now \u2014 to honor experiences, lessons, scars, and growth in a way that lives on long after the moment passes.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo of the author and lead artist at Honor and Ink\u2122<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photo here is me in my Army service dress uniform. I\u2019ve always been uncomfortable with how many medals are on it. But I\u2019m learning to see it differently. I didn\u2019t earn them for attention. I earned them by giving everything I had, every single day, as part of a team for over three decades. That\u2019s not arrogance. That\u2019s ownership. \u00a0I want to remember all of my team mates still here, and gone, that helped me earn each one.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019ve got a story, a memory, or a moment you want to carry forward in ink, reach out to Honor and Ink\u2122. I\u2019d be honored to help you turn it into something that lasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hearing that meant more to me than any award or medal ever could. It reminded me that leadership, much like humility, doesn\u2019t always fix everyone in the moment \u2014 but when it lands, it can ripple forward for years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,9,26,30],"tags":[19,20,5,22,24,13],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-therapy","category-motivational","category-reflection","category-tattoo-design","tag-art-motivation","tag-creative-growth","tag-healing","tag-perspective","tag-positivity","tag-tattoo-artist-journey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}