When you quit your mind does this because you're out once you say I'm not going to quit
when you quit your mind says we're done so it doesn't expand there's no expansion when
you quit when you say you uh uh this sucks I'm drowning I'm miserable I'm suffering
I'm broken but I'm not going anywhere what happens to your mind is it does this it says he's not
leaving so we gotta expand we gotta grow we gotta figure this thing out
I needed to be ready I needed to be the things I always talk about I needed to be
stronger and faster and smarter and better that was a thought that used to drive me
and kind of haunt me and make me get up early and work hard to push myself
I've been getting on that squat rack and grinding it out for 25 years
and I'm not bored with it yet it might seem like that's an unwinnable battle but really to me
it's not about winning it's the battle itself it's the struggle it's the daily test that's what
life's about not just physically but mentally getting that rock to the top of the mountain
that's not what my goal is
my goal actually is pushing the rock because pushing the rock
that pushes me that makes me tougher that makes me harder mentally and physically
It gives me much more than I give it I wanna struggle
I wanna grind and claw and scratch and I wanna dig in and I wanna push
and I don't want it to end if I ever got the rock to the top of the mountain and it stayed there
I push it back down myself I don't want to rest and I don't want to coast
and I want to reach a point in my life where I say that's it I've done enough
I'm not going to give anymore I'm not going to push anymore no no
that relentless cycle of day-to-day challenges they aren't maddening to me they don't
frustrate me they inspire me inspire me to drive and push more and to push harder so I say
dig in and get to pushing those of you who are listening to this whoever hear this
you will not find toughness in a comfortable environment you will not find it
I was trying to look for it everywhere the only way you find it is to drown yourself
in a position where you're just out of sorts where you can't swim and you're drowning
where you're drowning you're drowning in life but you say you know what man
And then you start to engage parts of your mind that you never engaged before but you
can't engage it by sitting back in these nice chairs drinking this nice water talking to you
talking about what i want to do when you're in suffer mode and you say i'm not going to quit
you're forcing your brain now to operate on a level it's not used to but then it becomes used
to it there's 24 hours in the day where you're alone in this brain and your brain is talking to
you in all kinds of ways and it wants to control you and pull you in these different pockets
if you can't control your own brain and your brain controls you
you got to tell your brain where you want to go and how you want to go and how you want to get
there you got to control it if not it's over it's over all i knew back then was hard work
the only way anything gets accomplished that's all i heard back in those days
you gotta work hard you gotta work hard i'm not getting how to i can't get this paragraph
i can't remember with the in this paragraph to pass this test to get the military
read again still not getting it read again but if you're not getting it write it out
and that's how i started learning okay well i can't i gotta write out every
thing i do and then write it out again and write out again and guess what happened i got it
i got it i can't swim i'm negative buoyant go back again i can't swim go back again go back again go
back again i got it i realize if i keep going back and going back and going back until this
just becomes your mind was safe okay we're gonna figure it out because he is not going to stop
it's not like i'm gonna try one more time no i'm gonna it's just like alarm clock goes off
boop we're going back i can't read right we're going back i gave myself no way out in my mind
realized that they said okay we're gonna adapt and overcome now like when i say trying hard they
your mind knows man he knows this guy's i mean man this guy's lying there's no truth behind it
when i was a navy still training people how are you there for 18 months the program is only six
months long you were in three hell weeks in one year no one's ever done that how did you do that
i told myself after the first time i knew it was gonna be a long journey there my body
was breaking down it was it was just how it was going on i said you know what this is my new norm
so my mind said it's like going to work like you go to work you put your certain tie on
i go into suffering every day every day suffering being broken duct taping my feet up stress
fracture shin splits being broken this is my new norm and your mind says if we're not broken
this ain't normal we got to be broken so then your mind starts to get tougher and tougher
my mind knew this is how we operate we're navy still training this is what we are i became hell
and that became my new norm i gave myself no way out i became i became the boss the owner the ceo
of navy seal training that was my mindset and that's how you get through things you put yourself
you immerse yourself wherever it is you become that you become that and give yourself no way out
i can tell you what path i'm on and what path i strive to stay on
and that is the war path that that's the path i'm on the war path a path of war
Because to me war path means moving toward a battle a fight towards war
and that is what i am doing and that's what i've always been doing
whether it was the actual war against our nation's enemies or the war
against my own weaknesses that is what i am doing preparing and sharpening my sword and honing
my skills and maintaining the unmitigated daily discipline in all things and the war path is just
that it's a path it's a root it leads somewhere i am waiting and i am ready the war path is a war
against weakness and so it leads to strength so you know what you have to do you have to be a man
and you have to do your job now and this is what matters now i think that telling yourself and
recognizing to yourself why are you trying to do this thing because you're trying to do something
because it does matter right it has to matter in some way these little things these little
stupid meaningless tasks in life they actually do matter so you know what you do you line them
up and you freaking crush them that's what you do that's what you do you line up these stupid
meaningless things and you crush them and you use them as an exercise in discipline they become an
exercise discipline oh this thing doesn't matter guess what i'm going to crush it now bring it to
me when you say oh you know what i'm not going to finish this book right now if you say but i
don't want to do it right now i can push it off a little bit you accept that you accept that answer
you accept that answer i'm not a guy that says you know i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do that i
just do it i just go and do whatever that thing is and the path the war path leads to control
and leads to ownership of your life and that to me is the war path the path of fire and adversity
the path of blood and of sweat and of suffering the war path is the preeminent path of discipline
which is why it leads to freedom and beyond that in the end the war path it leads to peace.