A Totally Warranted Podcast

What Happens After Selection

• Chief D • Season 1 • Episode 3

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What happens after the selection board is a mix of magic and misery. The magic of being selected, the misery of awaiting additional information and class dates and the endless thoughts that cross your mind in the blank space.

In this episode we will discuss what happens immediately after selection, what you should be doing to prepare for Candidate School. I will give you my top 5 favorite parts of the Warrant Officer Candidate School and let you know what we'll be doing next week.

Make sure you listen all the way through and let me know if you have anything I can assist you with in this transition.

Remember, my journey isn't the way things. MUST occur, it's just the way they occurred for me. Want to share your story? Send me a message and let's set up an interview. ChiefD@TotallyWarranted.com

Links from the show:

10 Ways to prepare for WOCS Blog: https://www.totallywarranted.com/blogs/a-totally-warranted-blog/10-ways-to-prep-for-wocs


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What happens after selection?

Show Intro: 

Hi, I’m Chief D, and you’re listening to a Totally Warranted Podcast. A Podcast where we discuss all things Chief. From how to become one, to when to retire and everything in between. In this podcast we’ll discuss topics surrounding your board packet, attending school, life as a warrant officer and beyond. So grab your favorite beverage, and sit back as I take you on the journey of life as a Chief.

Opening: 

Hello, Hello, Hello and Welcome. It’s wonderful to have you back, or if you're stopping in for the first time, HEYYYY! What an amazing month we’ve been having. Thank you for your support of the Podcast, please continue to share and tell your friends about it. It truly makes me so excited to get on here every week to talk to you!

If you’re not following us on FB or IG you're missing one of my favorite parts of the week. It’s the part of the week that gets my hype and focused for the days to come. I call it the affirmation of the week or our weekly affirmation. I started doing these affirmations to help focus my thoughts and put myself in a positive state. When I started sharing them with my peers in my unit and my subordinates, it really resonated with them and so I wanted to also share them with you as well.

This week's affirmation is: This week I will achieve. This week I will achieve the goals I set for myself. I will be intentional with my plans and focus my attention on my priorities, but most of all this week will be an amazing week because I choose for it to be, it is in the plan.

So many of us focus on what we have to do and we forget to see all the things we get to do on a daily basis. I get to go to work everyday and motivate Soldiers to take steps to walk in my path. I get to go to work every day and hone my skills. I get to go to work everyday and make it a little bit better for someone else and this podcast is how I’m making it better for someone else today. So let’s get down to business.

Introduction:

So last week we talked about the process of putting in your packet, how to figure out what Warrant Officer MOS you qualify for, the documents you need, how to submit, when to submit and some things to review in your packet. If you haven’t listened to that and are still in the beginning of this journey you’ll want to double back and listen to Episode 2. If you need any additional information please reach out and let me know at ChiefD@totallywarranted.com.


So this week we will be discussing what happens after the board! Alright let's jump right in. 

So you’ve finally gotten through Board week and after waiting for your heart to stop dancing around your chest the board results are finally out…. You’ve been selected!!! Whew!!! It’s like a weight is lifted off of your shoulders. A wash of relief, maybe a tinge of OMG what am I doing. Some tears of joy and genuine disbelief… Or maybe it was just a confident smile, and a “yea I already knew that was going to happen”. Either way, the feelings are here and if they don’t hit you immediately, they certainly will after the emails and texts start pouring in!


So what happens now? Besides the swarm of texts from your family and friends, your Social Media post acknowledging your success, and the messages that follow that.  When I was selected there was also an email we received. I’m sure every branch works a little differently, but here is my experience.


After the selection announcement I received a group email from my career manager congratulating all who made the selection list. This was great because I could see the other people selected and had an idea of who may be in my class based on this email. We also received emails from other senior warrant officers congratulating us on our acceptance and offering us words of encouragement and advice. 


This was probably the most welcoming introduction to a military team I’ve ever received. The amount of sheer happiness for the group of us selected, the offers of support and kind words, the motivated messages. It was nothing like this when I became an NCO, it wasn’t like this when I became a Drill Sergeant or a member of any other “special group” in the military. It truly felt like I was supposed to be here! 


The message that resonated with me the most was from a WO1. She told the group how a year ago she was in our shoes, how she was feeling, and where she stands now. She told us to push on, to study hard, and to be great. I don’t remember her name but her words live on.


After the messages died down I got to talk to my mentor and share some of the feelings of overwhelm I was having. Don't worry, it happens and it's natural. I like to think of that overwhelmed feeling as “all the things I asked for” coming to me at once. When I think of it like that it becomes less scary and more of a figure-out-able situation.


So the official message says within 45-90 days you’ll receive an email with your follow on information. I know we got our information well within that 45 day window. It was an email from our career manager congratulating us again and giving us a run down of how things would flow. Asking us to rank the open assignments available from most to least preferred and submit the documents she’d sent us back to her. 


We were asked about class dates to ensure our families would be situated and shortly after we began to receive our ATTRS reservations. From there I remember registering for WOCC Blackboard, joining the milconnect page and starting to figure out who is who and what’s going to happen from my class.


Class preparation- 

There actually, a lot of work that goes  into WOCS even before you get to 1st WOCC. Some of the things my class had to come together and do prior to ever meeting each other were: Vote on a Mascot and Motto, submit it for approval and start the process for designing our T-Shirts and coins prior to ever touching foot on Mother Rucker. In my research for this episode I went back into my email and reminisced over the preparation emails trying to get everything together and approved by our TAC. Let’s just say we went through a couple different ideas but our SR TAC was absolutely amazing. (The extent of which we didn’t even know at the time)


What you should be working on between selection and arrival to 1st WOCC seems like a mystery to some but it became more and more abundantly obvious as we got closer to the date. 


I use this list in my blog “10 ways to prepare for WOCS”  which I will link in the show notes for you. But I will also be going through the list in far more detail than I did in the blog and I’m going to add a bonus list once I get to the #1 thing you should be doing to prepare. So the top 15 things you should be doing or focusing on right now if you’re awaiting your trip to the motherland are: 


10. Brush up on Land Nav:

Land Nav at Mother Rucker is like no other… Ok, I’m exaggerating (but only a little bit). Do the homework, know your landnav style and stick to it. Don’t go trying to learn something new the day before and getting yourself a quick pass to the retest.  2. Things that will help you on this course, terrain association, and keeping your mouth shut…. Oh, and don’t let that unmarked chopper confuse you, it's not on the map! (did they update that map yet?!) Oh look that was 3 things.


9. Learn to Network

Don’t just learn the concept, put it into practice. Go out and start introducing yourself to people. But instead of looking at them with the frame of “what can they do for me” look at everyone you meet with the frame of “what can I do for them” THIS, this right here creates lasting connections and allows people to buy into you and then support and advocate for you in the future even when you're not around.


8. Learn the warrant Officer Definition

Don’t just learn the words like a scared soldier in Basic learns the Soldiers Creed, know it, embody it, and for the love of everything say it just as confidently and loud as you do the NCO creed. It will save the grass! Besides, anything less is uncivilized and time consuming!


7. Wean yourself off of caffeine

Yup, I said it. Lay off the coffee and the redbulls in advance unless you’re trying to go through withdrawals in the beginning. The beginning is hard enough without caffeine headaches and anger issues! Also, when you… No, forget it, thats too much information. Just remember words have meaning, choose them wisely.


6. Get in Shape and Stay there!

Now when I say get in shape I’m not talking about round! You are about to put your mind and body through the ringer, the least you could do is stress and prime for this marathon of an event! BE ACFT ready. These 6 events are no joke! Prep yourself with some fartlek style runs, run with weights, run for distance, ruck for time with weight, get ready to achieve that summertime fine in 6 weeks or less.


5. Prepare to be a team player

If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. This is something my current commander manages to say at least twice a week. (and yes, I do count). I count it because the message rings true every time he says it. This journey of WOCS and WOBC can make or break teams, friendships, relationships…. 


Choose your path wisely. In WOCS class there was a candidate who told another group of candidates that they would never need them (they were all the same MOS)... Well I suppose that was the go-fast method, because when WOBC came around and that candidate had to reach out for help, they realized there weren't many people to reach out to, because the others had gone together… (I suppose this one doubles back on networking to… 


4. Read of Understanding

WORDS have means… Say it with me again, WORDS have meaning, one more time WORDS have meaning. For the love of all things please read the actual words and not the ones you thought you saw… Read out loud if you have to! The last thing you want to do is make the challenge harder on yourself because you're not paying attention to detail. 


3. Talk to your local WO1

 I’m sure if you tried just a little bit you’d be able to find a WO1 that recently graduated WOCS. (And if you can’t stick around I will be interviewing a few of them coming up as well as sharing my own story)Talk to them! Ask them about their experience and remember regardless of what they say, everyone’s experience is different. Use what they have given you and put it into your toolbox but don’t put all your eggs in the basket of their experience alone. 


2. Ensure Family Affairs are in Order

If your family isn’t situated you won't be able to focus on anything while you're there. Take the extra time now to draw out the plans, figure out what you need to take care of and pay for, coordinate, buy or arrange now for when you're gone. WOCS is a fully immersive course, you will not have constant contact with the outside world so get it together now. Also, make sure you share the class information with your family so they know how to get an emergency message to you… Also, you should probably sit down and talk to them about what constitutes and emergency also… 


1. Remain Flexible

You are going to hear this a million times! Remain flexible, things will change without notice, plans will shift and you will have to adapt and continue to push forward. Don’t let the lack of foresight on certain things make you rigid in your ways. Ensure you think about second and third order effects of decisions and don’t stress over things you can’t control. I say again, do not stress yourself out over things you cannot control. Look at your sphere of influence, if the issue doesn’t fall in there then let it go… 


Ok, so the next 5 things I’m going to tell you are my favorite parts of WOCS… No one ever talks about this! They always tell you the challenging things, the things that make you doubt yourself or your skills or make you fearful of how hard it may be. But no one ever tells you about the things they enjoyed.


So here are the top 5 things I enjoyed about WOCS. 


5. My history instructor, I don’t remember his name for the life of me but you’ll know him if you see him. Older gentleman, white hair, gave me Col Sanders vibes, but thats not why he was memorable. He was memorable because the way he went through the lessons made military history an early 1900s Tela-Novella!  This man has got to be the most phenomenal storyteller of all time. It’s like he was there the way he describes the scene “and then one afternoon there was a knock on the door, and when it was opened in walked in _____” 



4. Picking a job that requires me to do my work at the front of the cycle. Yup, it was a smart move! I was working when we were still at home relaxing, got the majority of the work done in that period of time, then only had to worry about collecting money and purchasing coins/shirts after that.


3. That one time my battle buddy asked this candidate in another class if he had two asses, I don’t know if it was the way it rolled off her tongue so smoothly or the look of bewilderment on his face as he pondered his response. It was a wild time to be alive. Lol. 


2. Building strong bonds and forever WOMIES. Regardless of what compo they were in, the bonds that were forged there were that of basic training misery (except with less misery). 


1. Letting go of all preconceived notions of how things had to go, should go, or would go, because everyday we woke up, for my class in particular we played russian roulette with the rules. We never knew what rule was going to change from one minute to the next, but again, I went through a particularly interesting time and I’m happy to say although we were the covid class, no one from my class actually got covid. 


So, that's it. This is what happens next. You will have all the opportunity in the world to reminisce afterward, while you're there enjoy the moment, remember it's only 6 weeks, follow the rules and I’ll see you on the other side! Also, if you’ve been through WOCS and you know the name of the history instructor I’m talking about, would you let me know what it is. He really is an amazing teacher!


So now that you know what you can and should expect, what you should do to prepare and how you should train, the question is, what are you waiting for? Are you going to do it and be prepared to meet the challenge, or are you going to put it off and go into this half-cocked and unready… The decision is yours… 


Next week on the podcast we will be discussing what happens between WOCS and WOBC and how to prepare for the Basic Course. Let me know what you  thought of this episode. I’me posting links in the show notes of all of any resource I mentioned like the blog posts. I look forward to chatting with you again next week and I’ll talk to you later. Go do great things!


Outro: 

You’re listening to a totally warranted podcast. A podcast by chief for chief. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, would you mind leaving a review. A review lets others know that this podcast is worth their time and will help them on their journey to embodying Chief. We’ll see you next time.


Links:

10 ways to prep for WOCS: 

Emails: ChiefD@totallywarranted.com