By Kyle Johnston (COMMIT Fellow, Menlo Park Workshop 2025)

When I decided to retire, I knew that I was retiring the sense of purpose that comes with putting on the uniform every morning. What we do matters, and when I put on my uniform for the last time next month, I know I will miss it. I know that I will need something to fill the meaning that it provided me. This is the fundamental challenge of transition — how do we fill that gap?

Last spring, I joined the COMMIT community. I jumped right into the Pursue Your Purpose (PYP) exercises. I watched the videos, did the reflection, wrote about my ideal day, my flow state, what I’m afraid of, what keeps me grounded — and then I went back to my day job and got back to the grind. I put it away.

It wasn’t until this past winter that I finally slowed down (my status as “standard excess,” a government shutdown, and the holidays helped). I went back and read what I wrote in my early COMMIT application. I was surprised that I wrote a lot about the act of writing:

“It is here when I am in flow: telling a story that can have impact.”

I loved being deployed, leading complex ops, integrating new technologies, and reimagining how we trained. But that was only half my job. As a leader, half my value was effectively communicating what worked, what didn’t, and how we needed to change to get better. The latest operation, the newest technology, or a groundbreaking training methodology didn’t matter if I couldn’t communicate why. My value was telling the story of the people in my command.

I don’t know the whole of “my purpose.” I may never know. But I know that the pursuit requires deliberate reflection, and the best forcing function for me to do that is through writing. So I made a public pronouncement: I'm going to publish 1,500 words every week on Substack.

This isn't groundbreaking. There is no shortage of VetBro social media personalities, and navigating this space is a fine line littered with landmines. But committing to a regular cadence of writing serves two important purposes for me.

The first is accountability. If I just told myself I was going to journal at home, there's no deadline, no pressure, no external force compelling me to do the thing I know is important. Making it public changed that. As my self-imposed Sunday deadline looms, I am forced to unplug from the daily grind, reflect, and put my thoughts on paper.

The second (and possibly more important) reason for this public posting is that it’s scary as hell. Publishing your insecurity about anything in a public forum is an incredible act of vulnerability. This is especially true for people who grew up in the special operations community. We’ve come a long way, but emoting isn’t our forte, and any public-facing presence is heavily regulated and actively discouraged.

Writing for work or academic research is one thing. Writing about the fear of losing your identity and posting it on the internet? We don’t have a lot of those talks in the Team Room. I’m wading into new and very uncomfortable territory. So why do it?

Because I am more afraid of the alternative, and I told myself last spring in my PYP exercise:

“I fear taking the easy path.”

Being vulnerable is a requirement for real growth. Admitting you don’t know, asking for help, demonstrating a willingness to fail—for decades, I counseled young leaders to embrace these ideas as they stepped into new, challenging roles or made career changes. I needed to take my own advice.

That’s what my writing experiment is all about, and COMMIT gave me the nudge I needed to pursue it. It’s hard, and I fear taking the easy path.

COMMIT serves to help its fellows transform. It is about giving us the tools to navigate change. Through the structured Pursue Your Purpose exercises, in-person seminar, and community, COMMIT held me accountable to what is critical for my own transformation: regular reflection, writing, and demonstrations of vulnerability.