LIFE Lessons Learned In The MARINES [0:00:00]
Lieutenant, I don’t have time to deal with your bull [bleeping sound].
Now, those words of wisdom were spoken to me on I think day three when I checked in
to third battalion first marines as their adjutant.
You see, I was a fresh out of school boot lieutenant, explaining to a gunnery sergeant
with about twenty years experience how and why we were going to change the way we were
doing accountability.
However, in no uncertain terms, the gunnery sergeant quickly explained to me that he was
not going to do this because first up, it was going to complicate his job and his main
priority, his number one job was to be combat-ready and this didn’t really have anything to
do with it.
And, right there, gentlemen, is the first life lesson I took from the United States
Marine Corps, focus in on the essential.
In life, there are only certain things that matter, a small percentage of things that
yields you the big return.
In fact, if you haven’t heard of the Pareto Principle, let me explain, the 20% that yields
you the 80%.
But, even deeper than that, 20% of the 20% the 4% that yields you the 64%, that’s the
deep Pareto Principle.
And this comes out of economics, but has been shown in pretty much any industry whether
it’d be sales, whether it’d be in your family life, there are only a small number
of things in life that really make the difference that actually affect the performance, that
are the things that if you don’t get these things right, everything else is going to
fail.
In today’s video, gents, I’m sharing with you the life lessons I learned in the United
States Marine Corps.
[Music] Next life lesson I learned from the marines,
take care of your body because it’s the only one you have.
Now, you can argue that a colonel in the Marine Corps will beat up your body, but overall
the day-to-day expectation is that you are spending one hour a day in the gym, taking
care of your body.
PT is mandatory.
Some of the best memories I have of Camp Pendleton specifically Camp Horno is going on runs with
my unit right in the middle of the day.
Seriously, if you wanted to spend an hour to ninety minutes in the gym, 1:00 to 2:00
PM, no one batted an eyes, as long as you got your job done, it was expected you kept
your body in shape.
Now, when it comes to my health, I’m the first to admit, for years, there were areas
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Embrace the pain.
An open secret in the United States Marine Corps is we are a bunch of masochist.
Seriously, when I saw for the first time an OCS, I was a bit dumbfounded.
You have these prior enlisted marines, who were asking for more.
Basically, they realized that the drill instructors, they kind of lost their power when you enjoyed
the pain.
When they were throwing stuff at you and you’re like, okay, is that all you’ve got?
I want more.
Now, obviously, there’s a human limit to suffering, but marines, it seemed like they’re
trying to find out what it is.
And by doing this, they embrace the suck.
They realize that, hey, if you approach this with a positive attitude, if you have fun
with this, you can’t do anything about it.
All of a sudden, you have strength and you have power and you’ve got the right set
of mind to be able to deal with, yeah, you’re going to have to go through it quickly.
You’re going to have to go under that water, it’s freezing cold.
You’re going to be breaking ice and you are not going to be dry for three days, well,
guess what?
Hey, let’s all just have a party.
Now, personally, why this was such a powerful lesson for me is it created the habit of seeking
out challenge and not being afraid of taking a choice of going down the path that, yeah,
is not cushioned, is not maybe sexy, is definitely not going to be more comfortable, but you
know where you need to go.
[0:05:00] And you just accept the fact that there is
going to be pain and suffering, especially if you want to achieve something great.
You want to start a business, okay, you’re going to get close to bankruptcy.
Maybe you’re going to go through a bankruptcy, guess what?
You’ll be able to survive as many people have.
If you want to go out there and do something great, you want to perform the high level,
you’re an athlete, you realize you’re going to have to go through those injuries,
you’re going to have to go through that pain.
And when you embrace the pain, all of a sudden, it doesn’t have power over you.
Candidate, I don’t give a [bleeping sound] why you’re late.
Don’t do it again.
Now, those inspiring words were spoken to me before I even went to OCS.
The gunnery sergeant that was doing my paperwork, well, I was 30 minutes late because I had
to drive an hour and a half through a thunderstorm on a motorcycle.
And you know what?
He did not care.
And I have to admit, I was taken aback because that was a damn good excuse, except for the
fact that that’s all it was, an excuse.
And up to that time, I had been able to get away with some pretty damn good excuses, but
not in the Marine Corps, I learned.
I learned that you, yeah, you’re on time or, yeah, you are out.
And that was a very valuable lesson that I’ve taken throughout the rest of my life.
And I’ve just come to realize that if you find that you have a pattern of making excuses,
you are the person late all the time, understand, it’s not the world’s fault.
Look at yourself in the mirror and come to the realization that it’s probably yours.
And the powerful thing about that is when you accept this, you can change it.
Saint Mattis of Quantico.
Is that rust on that rifle?
This unfortunate incident happened in the summer of 1997 while I was at OCS.
It wasn’t my rifle, but it was somebody close to me.
And this was not the final inspection, this was one of the warm up inspections.
But, that staff sergeant found rust on a rifle and guess what?
Every single rifle was cleaned up, was re-inspected, everything was pulled out of the lockers.
And, strange enough, the person who had rust on the rifle, also did not have their weapon
on safe.
This person – it was a complete mess and was within a couple of weeks kicked out of
OCS for being, well, let’s just say [bleeping sound].
The lesson learned here is that little things matter.
Why?
Because they’re indicators of bigger things.
People ask, why do you military men care so much about the shine of boots, about their
uniforms, about all of these details?
Because those details are bigger issues whenever it applies to weapons or just simply your
company.
It can lead to millions of dollars lost.
And that’s the type of detail I learned.
If I want to surround myself with people, make sure they’re people that pay attention
to the details especially when lives are on the line.
The more you sweat in training, the less you’ll bleed in war.
Unknown.
I have no idea who said that one.
But, it was passed around and it was gospel and it made a lot of sense.
And I saw actually in action my unit for two years trained up for combat.
When we were put in that situation, we were a well-oiled machine.
I have to say that for me, I was very happy that I wasn’t one of the other units that
I saw that was thrown together and it was sent into harm’s way and guess what?
They had casualties.
Why?
Because literally, they – in one instance, you know, they – they drove over people
sleeping.
Stupid things like that happen whenever you haven’t trained together, whenever you haven’t
learned what somebody who that is in the dark.
You can tell because of the way they walk, the way that they move.
And that happens with practice, putting in the effort.
And how does this apply – I mean, throughout life I’ve realized, you’ve got to put
in the work.
You’ve got to put in the sessions.
In the gym, you are not going – you can read all the books you want about getting
in shape, but until you go to the gym and you put in the effort, you put in that work,
you’re not going to see results.
And there’s other little things that you may not even noticed.
Oh, you got to eat certain types of food to actually be able to see results.
I know for me, running for years, this was something I didn’t see the returns because
I wasn’t eating properly.
When you start to put together and you realize that things are more complicated than they
look from the outside.
And that’s what training, that’s what putting in the sweat, that’s what putting
in the effort because when you show up on game day, guess what?
You’ve earned it, you deserve it.
You know that you’re going to go out there and take it because you have worked harder
than anyone else out there.
Don’t judge others based off appearance.
Have you ever heard of the halo effect?
It’s actually was known as the halo defect.
A guy named, Thorndike, found this in military officers in the 1920s when they were evaluating
and doing promotions.
Guess what?
If there was a picture and the officer looked the part, he actually looked like a good officer,
then he was much more likely to get promoted than somebody that didn’t look the part,
that didn’t have the visual inspection.
And I saw this, I mean, we had officers, we had marines that look the part.
They were – they were tough looking.
You know, they just simply had the built versus officers maybe that were thinner, marines
that were skinny that may be had a little bit of weight on them.
But, guess what?
I – the best marines I ever met, the ones that were most confident at their jobs did
not necessarily look the part.
And I learned it very quickly because we had an officer who will remain unnamed, the guy
was a complete shit bird, yet, he looked the part.
[0:09:59] And I saw this guy get promotions and it was
something that was inside joke that, yeah, no one wants to be under his command because
they’re going to end up getting killed because the guy does not know his head from his ass,
yet he look the part.
And, again, we would see people default to looks and appearances.
This happens everywhere in life.
When you understand that, hey, people are lazy, that we make judgments based off little
information.
And that first judgment, that first decision, we want to stick with it.
We want to think that we’re right and we will find evidence to reinforce that first
decision until we are, yeah, until we, you know, something catastrophic happens.
Point being is do not judge a book by its cover.
You’re going to still do it, but understand what’s happening and try, yeah, not to judge
people.
Just simply take the time to get to know them and, yeah, even though I know I talk about
style on this channel, I talk about image and presentation, I hope that you just understand
the reason I’m talking about this is so that you can use this to your advantage, so
that you can dress the part and understand that most people are going to fall to that
default.
But, when it comes to others, look beyond and really take the time to evaluate and understand
who it is that you’re working with and engaging with.
Next up, let’s talk about leading by example.
And any marine with assault knew I was going to through this one in there.
It’s one of the first things they teach every single marine.
You don’t just tell people what to do, you show them what to do and you should be able
to do it better than them.
One thing I learned as a young officer had this explained to me is that you need to be
in the best shape.
You need to be hitting a 300 PFT, which is the perfect score because you’re going to
have marines that are bad assess and they’re going to look up to you, they’ve got five
years on you.
And you’re going to have to lead them and they need to be inspired.
You need to go in humble.
You need to go in hot, though.
You need to be – go in just simply in the best shape prepared and you need to be the
first person there, you need to be the last person there.
Because, again, if you’re going to demand twelve to fourteen to sometimes, you know,
weeks to months at a time to, you know, you guys over in the army – and I know we got
guys in various service.
I mean, the army were deploy for a year, so you need to be able to be the type of officer
who’s going to be out there and at the tip of the spear.
Now, are you always going to be the guy, you know, saying, hey, follow me?
No, because you’ve got a job as a leader.
But, you understood that if need be, you knew how to operate every single weapon and you
had to put in the time the effort.
You had to be the one that went beyond because when other people see that, it inspires them.
And a leader that inspires is one that cannot – he – he goes beyond.
I mean, even if you fall, even if you’re not there, other people pick the collars and
they go on.
And this is one of the most powerful things, not – and, again, you can’t just know
this, but you have to practice it.
You’ve got to be the type of manager, you got to be the type of business owner that
is willing to – I mean, we talk about the lion share, you’ve heard this.
Well, there’s a reason that the lion gets the lion share because the lion protects the
pride.
And, you’ve got to be the first one to say, you know what?
I’m going to take the hit, I’m going to stand up for my people, I am going to take
care of my people and guess what?
When you do that, they will take care of you.
Now, for this next lesson, imagine that you’re in this scenario.
It is a laid back Sunday morning and you’re in charge of the base.
You are sitting there having a coffee and all of a sudden, you get a call in that somebody
is shooting at the guards and you can hear the gunfire.
People are saying that they are, you know, they don’t know where it’s coming from.
The guards at the back of the base are talking about it, the guards at the front entrance
are talking about it and you’ve got one reaction force.
Where do you send them?
Well, the answer is you don’t quick – you don’t just send them off right there.
You calm down in the face of chaos with these incoming calls.
One of the best lessons I learned about the Marine Corps is you stop first and think before
you commit, before you go out there and take action.
Before you react, you need to understand what is truly going on.
So, the answer that I’m talking about, well, there is a celebration going on and you’ve
got people locally who are just shooting into the air.
They weren’t shooting at the guards at all.
Yet, guards in various situations, you know, they reacted.
They were thinking more tactical level.
And, what I’ve learned from the Marine Corps is that if you’re going to be in charge
especially of a company, if you’re going to be in charge of, you know, I don’t know,
a family, you’ve got people that you are looking out for who immediately chaos erupts
and who knows what the situation could be.
But, you’ve got to be calm in the storm.
You’ve got to take – I’m not saying don’t act, but I am saying take a few breaths.
Think before you jump in because oftentimes people react in the wrong direction.
They react when actually no action was needed to be taken.
They react in the wrong way.
The overreact to a situation that didn’t need that type of, you know, over the kill
response.
In summary, breathe, think, understand, and then, quickly take action.
Holy [bleeping sound] I am going to die.
So, that’s pretty close to what I was telling myself when I went in my first ten-mile forced
march.
Now, I’ve been on a three-mile forced march.
That one seemed pretty easy, I was a distance runner.
[0:15:04] The six-mile forced march that we were warming
up to if we were going to do a thirty-mile, that one was hard.
But, the ten-miler, I thought I was going to die.
For some reason, it was faster.
I had gotten saddled with some extra ammunition and weight and my gosh, we were moving quick.
And this was very hard on me.
For some reason, I just wasn’t feeling good and I thought I was going to die.
I thought at least I was going to fall out.
You guys know what happens when you fall out, you corpsmen?
You give us the silver bullet.
Anyone doesn’t know what the silver bullet is, you can be enlightened down in the comments.
If you know what that is, let me know.
But, yes, that was something I was not looking forward to, but all I thought about is, you
know what?
I just need to take five more steps, I just need to take ten more steps.
And I started just counting.
I started focusing on what’s in front of me.
I went to another place and that’s one of the most powerful lessons I learned in the
Marine Corps is that what your mind tells you you can do is very different from what
your body can actually do.
Anyone that’s hit the wall running a marathon, anyone that’s actually pushed themselves
beyond what they thought they were capable knows what I’m talking about.
And until you do it, you don’t realize, wow, I was able to make it, I was able to
– I didn’t quit, I didn’t fall out, I didn’t embarrass myself by getting, yes,
the silver bullet.
But, what I did do is realize, you know what?
I need to stop listening to this mind and how weak it is sometimes and just simply throw
one foot in front of the other and keep going.
And that is life is it’s sometimes you’re going to get hit so hard.
You are going to get the wind knocked out of you.
And you just got to pick yourself up.
You know you’re going to start breathing here in a couple of seconds, but keep going,
don’t stop.
Now, speaking of the mind, speaking of mindset, the next life lesson and this one, I’m dead
serious on because it’s so dangerous and it’s something that no one really seems
to talk about.
And that is as man, it seems like a negative mental mindset can take a hold of us and just
ruin our lives.
It can ruin a relationship, it can lead to us doing something permanent and stupid.
I’m talking about suicide.
I know more marines that have killed themselves than have died it seems like from all other
causes.
These are people that I served with, these are people that I’d be out on a deployment.
I have people killed themselves under my command on a deployment and it’s something that,
yeah, you have to live with.
And I don’t know why.
I don’t even pretend to understand why people do this, but I am saying if you are ever considering
this, if you’re ever facing this demon, you need to get help.
You need to reach out.
You’re not weak.
When you ask for help, that sends a signal to the world, you are not giving up.
Don’t give up on others, don’t give up on yourself.
And be careful of those voices in your head that, you know, if someone were to tell you
to jump off of a cliff, you know, would you do it?
Probably not.
And those voices, don’t listen to them.
Get outside of this.
Get help and just be very careful of that negative mental mindset that can sometimes
take a hold of us.
And, on a more positive note, let’s talk about how you can leverage the power of death
knowing that it’s going to happen to lead a more positive life.
Because guess what?
When you realize that you only have so much time, maybe fifty years, maybe twenty years,
who knows, you could die tomorrow.
And if you were to die tomorrow, what action would you take today?
Who would you call to let them know that you love them?
Why not call them today?
If you do one thing, get on that phone.
Send somebody a text, let your brother know that you care about him.
Let your mom know that she is everything.
Let your wife know, let your girlfriend know that you care about them.
Let your son know that everything he does, even though you don’t always approve of
it is just you love him no matter what.
You can send these messaging, guess what?
The person receiving it feels great.
The per – you sending it out, that’s what’s most important, you feel great.
Because when you realize you’ve got very little time on this planet, you can measure
it by hours, by days, all of a sudden, you can cut off the crap and you can focus in
on what truly matters.
You going after you goals, you going after your dreams, you having an impact, you going
after what truly matters.
You can take nothing else from this video, guys, take that.
Go out there and live your life like it’s your last.
Probably the greatest gift I took from the Marine Corps is knowing that life is limited
and that I am just so grateful, so happy for this life and for the time I have left and
for, you know, you guys watching these videos and interact.
So, gents, if you enjoyed today’s video, let me know.
Smash the like button.
I really appreciate when you guys interact with these videos.
Let me know in the comments what you thought about this video, know a little bit different.
I don’t do many of these Marine Corps videos, but I love doing them.
And if you want to watch another video in which I talk about lessons learned in the
Marine Corps, guys, check it out right here.
I made this a while back.
It is a good one, a solid video talking about my Marine Corps.
And, again, guys, let me know in the comments what you thought of this video.
I appreciate you.
Take care.
[0:19:54] End of audio