THE NAVY SEAL SPEECH THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
I can’t pass as a Navy Seal, but this is the closest that I can be..
There was a time in my life when I lost a job because the company that I work with just went belly up. It was a start-up company. When the company ran out of resources, I was let go.
It was one the days that were crappy and I felt not in control. Every morning, I have to cheer up myself by writing on my gratitude journal. I forced myself to write. And to be thankful.
I would search motivational speeches that would push me out of my bed and ready to push myself.
One of the best motivational speeches that I heard was from this guy by the name of General William McRaven. His speech was delivered at the University of Texas commencement exercises, but was heard throughout the world.
Below is the speech.
I will hack the speech and insert my own opinions. The title of the speech is:
What starts here changes the world
I have a few suggestions that might help you on your way to a better world and while these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you’ve ever served a day in uniform.
It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward, changing ourselves and changing the world around us will apply equally to all
So here are the 10 lessons I learned from basic seal training that hopefully will be a value to you as you move forward in life.
Every morning during seal training, my instructors who were at the time were all Vietnam veterans, which show up in my barracks room and the first thing they did was inspect my bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers would be pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack.
It was a simple task, mundane at best, but every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. That seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened seals. But the wisdom of the simple act has been proven to me many times over.
If you’ve made your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.
Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter.
If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made that you made and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.
So if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
(I was trained to make my bed every morning at a very early age. I didn’t know that this was a valuable lesson in life later on. I always encourage my kids to do the same. Start them early…)
During seal training, the students during training, the students are all broken down in a boat. Crews, each crew has seven students, three on each side of a small rubber boat and one coxswain. And to help guide the team, everyday your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast. In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be eight to 10 feet high and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in.
Every paddle must be synchronized to the strobe count of the cox Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach for the boat to make it to its destination. Everyone must paddle. You can’t change the world alone. You will need some help.
And to truly get from your starting point to your destination, it takes friends, colleagues, the goodwill of strangers, and a strong coxen to guide you.
If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle over a few weeks of difficult training.
(I went to graduate school in chemistry. What I found out was that most of my classmates are international students. Although we sometimes difficulty in language, our group meetings are always productive, with a lot of ideas coming.
Before writing this, I read Watson and Creek, scientists who elucidated the structure of the DNA once said, “If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in trouble”. What they were saying is that the people who are smart rarely asks for help. And that’s a problem).
My seal class, which started with 150 men was down to just 42 there were now six boat crews of seven men each. I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best boat crew we had was made up the little guys, the Munchkin crew, we called them.
No one was over five foot five. The bunch of boat crew is composed of one American Indian, one African American, one Polish American, one Greek American, one Italian American, and two tough kids from the Midwest. They ou paddled outran and out swam all the other boat crews, the big men in the other boat crews would always make good natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim, but somehow these little guys from every corner of the nation in the world always had the last laugh, swimming faster than everyone in reaching the shore long before the rest of us.
Seal training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education, not your social status.
If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers.
(One of my favorite coaches was Coach Tom Tomjanovich of the Houston Rockets. He once said, “Never underestimate the heart of a champion”. So true, it’s in the heart that makes you champion, and nothing else.)
Several times a week the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection. It was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform, immaculately pressed, your belt buckle, shiny and void of any smudges.
But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle, it just wasn’t good enough.
The instructors would find something wrong for failing uniform inspection. The student had to run fully clothed into the surf zone, then wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as sugar cookie.
You stayed in the uniform for the rest of the day, cold, wet, and sandy. There were many a student who just couldn’t accept the fact that all their efforts were in vain that no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it went on appreciated.
Those students didn’t make it through training. Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed.
You were never going to have a perfect uniform.
The instructors weren’t going to allow it. Sometimes, no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform, you still end up as a sugar cookie.
It’s just the way life is.
So if you want to change the world, get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
(In this advice, what he’s saying is that life is unfair. If you think life is fair, check out the hospital for your kids with cancer. And you will just say, yep, life is not fair.
When I learned this, what I did was just continue working and live life to the fullest. It happened to me when the start-up company I was working for handed me the pink slip. I said, I was one of the employees with higher degree and training. But in the end, they didn’t need me anymore.
I moved on and made a better life.)
Every day during training, you are challenged with multiple physical events, long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics. Something designed to test your metal.
Every event had standards times you had to meet. If you fail to meet those times, those standards, your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day, those on the list were invited to a circus.
A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit. No one wanted a circus, a circus means that for that day you didn’t measure up.
A circus meant more fatigue and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult and more workout. But at some time during seal training, everyone, everyone made the circus list, but an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list.
Over time, those students who did two hours of extra calisthenics got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength and physical resiliency.
Life is filled with circuses.
You will fail. You will likely fail often and it will be painful. It will be discouraging at times. It will test you to your very core.
But if you don’t, if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circus.
(This is so true for me. When I was let go on my job as a scientist on a start-up company, I felt so weak and depressed. The company eventually went belly up, but that experience knocked me on the canvass.
Failures like that suck, that’s the technical term by the way. Every morning, I updated my resume and then sent it to companies. I was thinking how am I going to support my wife and a 3-year old toddler?
Life knocked me down, but I didn’t stay down in the canvass. I rebooted my life, cancel unnecessary things such as Netflix, Amazon and gym membership. Slowly, I went back up. I started a part time job as a chemistry lecturer at a nearby community college. I then started my own business.
Today, I’m thankful for the experience, it made me stronger.)
