Sutton

In Navy SEAL training, students who failed daily had to do two extra hours of punishment. They called it “circus.” Those students should have burned out first. Instead, they got stronger than everyone else. Admiral McRaven spent 20 minutes explaining the 10 lessons SEAL training taught him: Lesson 1: Make your bed. Every morning, the first thing instructors inspected was your bed. Corners square. Covers tight. Pillow centered. "It seemed ridiculous at the time. We were aspiring to be real warriors." "But if you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another." "And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made. That you made." Lesson 2: Find someone to help you paddle. Students were broken into boat crews. Seven men paddling through 8 to 10 foot surf. "Every paddle must be synchronized. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will be dumped back on the beach." "You can't change the world alone." Lesson 3: Measure a person by the size of their heart, not their flippers. The best boat crew was "the munchkin crew." No one over five-foot-five. "They out-paddled, out-ran, and out-swam all the other boat crews." "The big men would make fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet. But these little guys always had the last laugh." "SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed." Lesson 4: Get over being a sugar cookie. Several times a week, uniform inspections. Hat perfectly starched. Belt buckle shiny. "No matter how much effort you put in, it wasn't good enough. The instructors would find something wrong." Fail the inspection, you ran into the surf. Then rolled in sand until covered head to toe. "Sugar cookie." "Many students couldn't accept that all their efforts were in vain. Those students didn't make it through training." "Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or perform, you still end up as a sugar cookie. It's just the way life is sometimes." Lesson 5: Don't be afraid of the circus. Fail to meet standards, your name went on a list. End of day: "circus." Two hours of extra calisthenics designed to break you. "No one wanted a circus. More fatigue meant the following day would be more difficult." "But everyone made the circus list. And an interesting thing happened. Over time, those students got stronger and stronger." "Life is filled with circuses. You will fail often. It will test you to your very core." Lesson 6: Sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first. The obstacle course record had stood for years. Seemed unbeatable. Until one student went down the slide for life head first. Mounted the top of the rope instead of swinging underneath. "Dangerous. Seemingly foolish. Fraught with risk." "Instead of several minutes, it took him half that time. He broke the record." Lesson 7: Don't back down from the sharks. The waters off San Clemente are breeding grounds for great white sharks. Night swims were mandatory. "If a shark begins to circle your position, stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not act afraid." "If the shark darts towards you, summon all your strength and punch him in the snout. He will turn and swim away." "There are a lot of sharks in the world." Lesson 8: Be your very best in the darkest moments. Underwater ship attacks. Divers swim over two miles to the target. As you approach, the steel structure blocks all light. "The keel is the darkest part of the ship. You cannot see your hand in front of your face. The noise is deafening. You can easily become disoriented." "At the darkest moment of the mission is when you must be calm. When all your inner strength must be brought to bear." Lesson 9: Start singing when you're up to your neck in mud. Hell Week. Six days of no sleep. Constant harassment. His class was ordered into the mud flats. "The mud consumed each man until there was nothing visible but our heads." Eight hours until sunrise. Instructors said five men could quit and everyone could leave. "Then one voice began to echo through the night. Terribly out of tune. Sung with great enthusiasm." "One voice became two. Two became three. Before long everyone was singing." "Somehow the mud seemed warmer, the wind a little tamer, and the dawn not so far away." "If I have learned anything, it is the power of hope. One person can change the world by giving people hope." Lesson 10: Don't ever, ever ring the bell. A brass bell hangs in the center of the compound. "All you have to do to quit is ring the bell." "Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'clock. No longer have to do the freezing cold swims. No longer have to endure the hardships." "Don't ever, ever ring the bell." This 20 minute speech will teach you more about discipline, resilience, and hope than every self-help book combined. Bookmark & give it 20 minutes today, no matter what.