One’s last few months as a Junior Officer are often a desperate bid to impart wisdom. You have learned SO MUCH—you’re practically a different person than you were just a few years ago—and somebody, anybody, needs to take note. You want to grab that new ensign by the collar. You want to scream, “Do it like this! Don’t do it like that! Do everything right like I did! Don’t make the same mistakes I did!”
Much of this is just natural self-aggrandizing, affirmation-seeking human ego. And yet some of it is heartfelt love for the ship and her crew, desire to preserve a hard-won legacy. You’ve worked tirelessly to get things running just so, and you don’t want this new bozo to undo all of your hard work. And then finally, some little piece of your patronizing BS is genuine concern for the bozo.
About twelve years ago, following upon an intense three years aboard a fast-attack submarine, this was me. At the time, my head was swimming with lessons learned, half-baked opinions, and advice that I desperately wished to vomit onto anyone who would listen. I started by making a list. Most of its contents were pithy little one-sentence nuggets of recycled wisdom. Classics like “you get what you inspect” and “ask why five times” come to mind. But it seemed that every little nugget required volumes of caveat, qualification, and supporting anecdotes. Each one could be its own mini-article. Thus, a blog was born.
The Name. The title JO Rules was a play on words, my attempt at cleverness in blending the idea of formal guidelines with the informal traditions of Junior Officers. Initially, the posts were framed as “rules” that JOs were expected to follow. Meanwhile, in my former wardroom, “JO Rules” referred to a more relaxed and enjoyable dynamic during meals when senior officers weren’t present. Without the stiffness of formal naval etiquette, conversations became candid, unfiltered, and engaging—perfect moments for genuine mentorship and shared wisdom. That atmosphere of camaraderie and practical advice became the inspiration for creating a similar space online.
Anonymity. I carefully kept my personal identity hidden from the public-facing site. There were several reasons for this; one was an unfounded concern that I might slip up and say something I shouldn’t, either compromising OPSEC or discussing topics too controversial for public airing by a uniformed member. Another reason was that I didn’t want my message to be contaminated with suspicions that I am just after self-promotion; I really wanted new JOs to consider and benefit from what I had to say. I must admit, though, that above all, I was worried about the haters. I just didn’t want to be criticized in real life; I knew that providing unsolicited advice is a highly presumptuous thing to do, and I didn’t want to be “that guy.”
Looking back, those fears were exaggerated. If I could give my past self advice, it would be this: When it comes to OPSEC or potentially controversial topics, don’t obsess over the possibility of making a mistake—just don’t make one. You have the opportunity to violate the rules every time you open your mouth in face-to-face discussion, and yet somehow you carry on and don’t let this “risk” constrain you. Online discourse should be no different. Just follow the rules. As every naval officer needs to be reminded sometimes, the mere presence of risk isn’t a good reason not to do something worthwhile.
And then, regarding the haters… let ‘em hate. The reality is that they’re not thinking about you anyway.
The Following. The project was never meant to be a major hit. The target audience was always small—just Navy junior officers—and in retrospect, I think that tight focus is part of the reason it developed a little cult following. By writing for a small group, I was able to keep the blog exceptionally relevant to its readers in a way that no other online resource could be. At its peak popularity, it was receiving a little over 8000 views a month. This is modest in internet terms, but when your target audience is literally a 3-5 year age bracket within an already tiny population, 8000 views is pretty good.
I never had interest in monetizing it. The goal always was just to have an outlet for my own thoughts that might find a receptive audience. In the best of all possible worlds, my ideas might make somebody better at their job, might be culturally relevant. And then one day it happened— the first time I heard my written words repeated in my presence, uttered by somebody who had no idea that I was their author, it hit me that this writing thing might be a big deal. Real humans were actually reading my stuff and acting on it; my pen made ripples in the real world. The ego stroke was positively narcotic. I recognized in that moment that putting ideas into the world is both an incredible power and an incredible responsibility.
I kept up the blogging for about two years. In that time, I produced roughly a book’s-worth of advice for junior officers, all of which is still there, still attracting a modest trickle of internet traffic. Certain practical advice, like The Intro Letter, have been surprisingly resilient in their steady attraction of internet clicks, while other thoughts, like Myth of the Kinder, Gentler Navy, disappeared from interest but seem to be weirdly pertinent right now.
When the self-imposed weekly cadence became more trouble than it was worth, I wrapped up the project and left it as an abandoned blog. I moved on with life, went back to sea as a Department Head, then a tactical evaluator, and then an Executive Officer, and now here we are today.
What I Didn’t Know Then. Now a full Commander, my old Lieutenant-thoughts are amusing, but are not as embarrassing to present-me as one might think, or perhaps as embarrassing as they ought to be. I still think I was right about most of it. I was also much funnier back then—as JOs tend to be. In a handful of cases, I was wrong enough about something that I’ve needed to go back and correct myself—examples include Talking to Ships, where I’ve become more of a believer in bridge-to-bridge communications, and Yes, It’s Your Fault, where I’ve come to recognize that always taking the blame can mask some specific leadership failures.
If I must name the biggest blind spot in my early leadership philosophy, it’s that I didn’t really appreciate at the importance or difficulty of holding people accountable. The bitter fact is that your team needs to be successful or life will suck for them, and as much as I love Simon Sinek, all the servant leadership in the world won’t make up for a failed inspection. Likewise, it is great to be stoic, but sometimes the appropriate response is to be pissed off; conversely, failing to be pissed off when appropriate is indeed a leadership failure. There are many different ways to hold people accountable, and a good leader needs to be adept at all of them.
The Takeaway. Blogging was my introduction to public writing, and on account of that fact alone, it was absolutely worth it. I needed to get through the early blogging phase to become good enough to publish major articles, and I needed to publish major articles to become good enough to write whitepapers shaping Navy tactical doctrine. I needed to do that to become confident enough to write a book. Others can be successful without all those antecedents. I would not have been.
But that’s only half of it. The other half is that writing is inherently purposeful. Even if I had never followed through with those other projects, the process of writing alone would have still been transformative. Without my realizing it, those moments of inspiration clarified my own thoughts and matured my leadership philosophy. While crafting stories and reflections for what might as well have been an imaginary audience, I was unknowingly preparing for future challenges. The audience with the most to gain from my writing was not some bozo with ensign bars, it was the bozo behind the keyboard.
William C. Spears 
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