[MUSIC PLAYING]
BRENT GLEESON: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
How are you guys doing today?
People, we're going to do burpees and push-ups
until morale improves in here.
Let's try that again.
How are you guys doing today?
AUDIENCE: Good!
BRENT GLEESON: You guys fired up to be here?
AUDIENCE: Yeah!
BRENT GLEESON: All right.
I just want to make sure you guys are
awake and energized, engaged.
I want to make sure I don't get the sleepy after-lunch crowd.
You know how that can go sometimes.
And the reason I ask is because in the early days
of SEAL training, you spend a hell of a lot of time
in the classroom.
You're basically getting a PhD in Special Warfare.
But of course, you do so on very little sleep.
So the instructors would keep these large metal bathtubs
full of ice water in the back of the room.
Guess what those were for?
Yeah, that's right.
You know where I'm going with this.
If you got caught nodding off, falling asleep,
not paying attention, you got to sit chest deep
in a bathtub full of ice water for the rest of class.
Yeah.
Not a head dunk.
Not for one or two minutes.
For the rest of class.
Let me tell you, it's really hard to learn anything
when you're shivering your ass off, reaching
hypothermic levels, in a bathtub full of ice water.
Now, how the hell do I know that?
Yes, unfortunately, I spent many, many days and hours
in those ice baths, clearly not learning from my mistakes
the first time around.
And in light of being fully transparent with all of you,
I did, in fact, request ice baths for this event.
Fortunately for all of you, you're
overprotective human resources department denied my request,
so you're off the hook.
But I'll be watching you.
No, in all honesty, thank you so much for having me.
It's really a pleasure and honor to be here with all of you
this afternoon.
So when a SEAL platoon is on patrol in enemy territory,
sneaking into an enemy compound, the man in front
is the point man.
He's taking point.
Leading his team into what we call VUCA environments.
And yes, that's one of the many hundreds
if not thousands of acronyms we have in the United States
military, and it refers to the volatile, uncertain, complex,
and ambiguous environments that we operate in.
Sounds like life, right?
And although Navy SEALs are widely known
to be the most elite and feared special operations
fighting force in the entire world,
we've been living in a constant state of VUCA,
of pain, of loss, sacrifice and disruption,
in our post-911 reality.
Yet how have we continued to persevere, adapt,
and lean into that pain and sacrifice,
to fight and defeat a very dangerous and decentralized
enemy?
In large part, it's due to our very well-defined and distinct
organizational culture, a culture
where every single person pushes the limits and boundaries
of their comfort zone every single day.
We get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Or as we say in the SEAL teams, we embrace the suck.
And that's what we're going to talk about today, how
to succeed by living a life outside of your comfort zone.
Because if you really think about it,
that's where the magic really happens.
It's not living in the confines of your comfort zone.
And when you can push the boundaries
of your own personal comfort zone just a little bit,
every single day, the wider that area becomes.
And the things that you used to fear,
the things that seemed uncomfortable,
or the things that seemed almost seemingly impossible,
they become a part of your everyday life.
And that winning mindset of persistence and determination
reminds me of a great quote by Martin Luther King
Jr. That says, "if you can't fly, you run.
If you can't run, you walk.
If you can't walk, you crawl, but no matter
what, you keep moving forward."
In the SEAL teams, we have an ethos, a creed that
embodies our culture and our values,
and a similar line from that ethos says, I will not quit.
I persevere and thrive in adversity.
And if knocked down, I will get back up every time.
I am never out of the fight.
And that winning mindset is how each and every one of you,
all of us, can continue to take point in our own lives,
to push the confines of our comfort zone,
to push the limits, to take calculated risks to succeed
and win, and to be all in, all the time.
[BEGIN VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
All right.
What do you think?
Does that remind you of your workplace environments?
Maybe on Mondays, right?
Being all in all the time is one of the many philosophies
we hold dear in the SEAL teams.
That phrase was originally coined
by one of our fallen SEAL Team 6 team leaders,
his name was Tommy Valentine.
And when he would indoctrinate new guys into the team,
he would sit them down and ask them
about what they thought their level of participation
on the team should be.
Now, of course, there was only one answer, that
is to be all in all the time.
That is part of our culture and mindset
and how we approach our work, our lives.
Simply put, it's about persistence, determination,
giving every single thing we do everything we've got
and nothing less.
We too, all of us, can embody that winning mindset.
And each and every one of you can take away from this
how to embody that winning mindset to get comfortable
being uncomfortable to win and to be all in all the time.
Well, it was December of 1999 when I first
made my decision to be all in.
As sometimes happens in a fit of youthful foolishness
and indiscretion, I quit my corporate finance job
and joined the United States Navy
with the dream of becoming a SEAL, a decision,
of course, that would forever change my life
and set me on the path that I'm on today.
So this afternoon, I would like to share
a little bit of that journey with you,
share some stories from training, from the battlefield,
so to speak.
But more importantly, I want to share some experiences
from both literal and figurative battlefields
about overcoming adversity, about being
able to adapt your mindset and approach to life, to work,
and hopefully give you guys some little bit of entertainment
and maybe even some insights, key takeaways,
and God willing, maybe even a little bit of inspiration
you can apply to your own lives, both personally
and professionally.
So let's dive in, shall we?
Do you guys want to do burpees, or what?
[LAUGHTER]
BRENT GLEESON: Let's try that one more time.
Let's dive in, shall we?
AUDIENCE: Yes!
BRENT GLEESON: All right.
Now, as a bit of background, I grew up
in the great nation of Texas.
Do we have any Texans in the room?
Not one damn Texan in the whole room.
You guys have got to be kidding.
I wore my boots for you guys.
I'm wearing boots at Google.
A little fun fact for you guys.
At any given time, about one third of all SEALs
are from the great state of Texas.
Now, I know you're a very data-driven organization.
Please don't go fact checking that data.
But I'm sure it's accurate.
I just really, really want to believe it.
So I grew up in Dallas.
I was a swimmer in high school, played rugby in college.
I attended Southern Methodist University, Oxford University,
ultimately, earning degrees in finance and economics.
So naturally, upon graduation, I took a job
as an entry-level financial analyst
with a big investment firm.
And during that time, I had a close friend of mine
in college who is now a senior at SMU,
and I was working out in corporate America.
Now he was, in fact, one of these guys who had a vision.
A lofty, and let's face it, highly unrealistic vision
of becoming a SEAL.
It was his passion, his purpose in life, his reason for being.
I thought it was a little bit ridiculous at the time,
but we started training together.
I wanted to find a way to stay fit
while I was working in finance, prepare a friend
for an arduous journey.
So we started spending a lot of time together, and of course
having a lot of dialogue about the history
of the SEAL teams, the Naval Special Warfare community.
I read one book, the I read another book and another book.
And I became, over time, enthralled and fascinated
by their high-performance culture and mindset
and approach to their work and life, their core values.
And over time, with all the training and the studying
of the Naval Special Warfare community,
obviously, my close friends and family and colleagues
started realizing this growing passion
for my own possible rather dynamic career path shift.
So one day, I was having a conversation
with my twin brother.
I'll preface this by saying we're fraternal twins.
We are polar opposites in just about every possible way.
But I did want to run this idea by him before I ran it
up the chain of command to mom and dad,
who would no doubt be a little shocked by this dramatic shift.
And you know what he was doing, supportive brother that he
is, that's right.
He was laughing his ass off.
He's like, Brent, you've got to be kidding me.
SEALS?
Like, you're not being serious, right?
I'll admit, I don't even really know much about it,
but I know one thing.
There is no way in hell you could ever do that.
I mean, let's face it.
Aren't these guys supposed to be, I don't know, world-class
warriors or something?
Really tough guys?
You are not tough at all.
I mean, let's break it down, here.
Well, yeah.
Well, you have allergies.
Really bad allergies.
And asthma.
You're literally wheezing right now,
and there's a tissue on the floor.
Is that yours?
You wear those thick contact lenses.
You can't see shit.
How is that going to work?
And remember last week?
You forgot I thought about this, but remember last week,
when you cried a little bit during that TV commercial?
Again, don't know much about it, but I'm
pretty certain SEALs are nerdy, sniffly,
emotional guys who cry during a Clorox bleach commercial.
So let's just forget we had this conversation
and stick with your nerdy finance job.
Well, now I knew I had to do it, right?
This is a true story.
Literally a week later, I quit my job,
and my buddy, whom I'd been training with,
moved up here to Crested Butte, Colorado, where
we trained for an additional six months for five hours a day
at 10,000 feet altitude to get into the best
physical condition that we could.
Then in early 2000, joined the Navy,
and after a couple of months of basic training,
was on a plane, headed out to sunny San Diego,
California, where we would begin our journey.
And I can tell you with exact certainty and clarity,
like it was yesterday, that I have never
been more nervous in my entire life
than the day I stepped foot into the lobby of the Naval Special
Warfare Training Center.
Because it is a very scary and depressing thing, my friends.
Knowing for a fact--
for a fact, Matt--
that your life is going to be pure hell and misery
for many months to come.
But of course, at this point, there was no turning back.
I had to be all in.
And let's put our talent acquisition and employee
retention hats on for a minute.
I'll tell you another interesting fact.
It takes 18 months and costs about $3 million
to acquire one SEAL, and that doesn't
count the millions of dollars and years of arduous training
once you actually make it to a team.
That 18 months is broken into various segments.
The first segment is six months long and called BUD/S,
another one of our acronyms.
It stands for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL.
If any of you have seen the SEAL movie,
"Lone Survivor," it's unfortunately
based on a true story.
The opening scenes are actually from a Discovery Channel
documentary about BUD/S class 234.
We run six classes a year, so every two months, I
follow them in class 235.
I was present for all this filming,
and this will give you guys just a teeny,
tiny taste of what BUD/S is all about.
[BEGIN VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- 6 times 3.
- [GROANS]
- Hurry up.
Hurry up.
- It's uh, it's eight--
18!
- Ooh!
- Ring the bell three times.
Put your helmet on the ground.
You're done.
- Move it, you maggot!
You do it again!
- Have you been tested this hard ever in your life?
- Never.
- Winning here is a conscious decision.
Make up your mind whether you want to pass or choose to fail.
- All right now, gentlemen.
I'm going to introduce you all to something called
"not being able to breathe."
- Andrew!
Come back!
Come back to the light!
- Take all this shaking and all this cold, harness it.
Turn it into aggression.
You just proved to your bodies through your mind
that you can push yourself further
than you thought possible.
- You'll get wet!
Run!
- I met my limit, so that's it.
- Are you sure you want to be here?
- Yes, I do.
- Are you absolutely sure?
- [INAUDIBLE]!
- Whatever you have to do!
- Just find an excuse to win!
Keep going!
- It pays to be a winner!
- I like having my buddies that I can depend on,
and I would like for them to be able to depend on me.
- The guys are our band of brothers.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Silent night.
Holy night.
All is calm.
All is bright.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
BRENT GLEESON: Doesn't that look fun?
Does anybody feel like they missed their calling in life?
Anybody age 30 or younger, come see me afterwards, please.
Didn't think I was going to use this as a recruiting platform,
did you?
But now that I think about it, that video
probably really damages my recruiting possibility here
at Google.
Now, the funny thing is what you just saw
was a depiction of only the first three weeks of BUD/S.
BUD/S has a 90% failure rate of highly capable candidates.
None of us are extraordinary, exceptional individuals.
We're just common people with an uncommon desire to succeed.
So imagine those types of activities going on for months
and months at a time.
And then the irony, Wendy, is that the training just
gets more difficult after that.
That's the funny part.
It's actually not that funny.
If you think about that, that mindset, that winning mindset,
to highlight that, I want to focus on some of the things
you heard the instructors saying to the students
in those video clips.
Where he said, gentlemen, winning here
is a conscious decision.
You will make up your mind whether you want to pass,
or you're going to choose to fail.
Keep moving no matter what.
Find an excuse to win.
You can push yourself further than your mind or body ever
thought possible.
BUD/S training is based on the rule of seven.
When your brain is telling you that you can go no further
and take no more pain, you can go seven times longer,
seven times more, and push yourself seven times harder.
And again, that's why very few people make it
through this selection process.
And when we think about that winning mindset
when we approach our life and our goals,
setting those lofty goals, that lofty vision,
we've all done that in various aspects of our life.
We set that lofty goal, and we have
to work backwards to find our own path to success.
Elite athletes do this.
Elite warriors do it.
Each and every one of you has done it, whether you realize it
or not, at various stages of your life, to achieve goals
academically, in your personal life,
in athletics, to land a job here at Google, which what I hear
is not an easy thing to do.
That's a lofty vision, a lofty goal.
It took a lot of hard work to get here.
Same thing when I made that decision
to transition from corporate finance
to start training and join the Navy to become a SEAL.
A total mindset transformation.
I had to think about the reality of the world around me
in a totally different way.
Everything had to change in order for me
to achieve that lofty goal of a program that has a 90% failure
rate.
Let's take public speaking, for example, Steve.
People always ask me, well, how did
you get into this part of your profession?
The public speaking, and do you enjoy it.
I mean, who likes public speaking?
Nobody.
It's like the number one fear of most people.
And it's kind of a funny story.
It started in graduate school.
I actually started my MBA program one week
after I got on the SEAL teams.
And literally, a month into this program,
I was doing my very first group class presentation,
and I got up for my portion, and I had some notes.
My hands were shaking.
I'm like-- and I was sweating.
I'm like, I'm a Navy SEAL combat veteran.
I was standing in front a classroom of 50 people,
and my hands were shaking, and I'm sweating.
I'm terrified.
But I kind of enjoyed it at the same time.
And several years later, it was December of 2012,
it was a Saturday morning, and I opened my laptop.
I was checking my email.
And right there at the top the Inbox
was an email, personally, from the President
of Bank of America, Merrill Lynch Asia-Pacific, one
of the top four executives in the entire global organization.
And he explained to me that he had read the first article I'd
written for my Forbes column, literally a month before this,
which was titled, "From the Battlefield
to the Boardroom, a Navy SEAL's Guide
to Business Leadership Success."
This guy is a highly energetic banking prodigy,
an Australian guy.
Super into fitness.
Super obsessed with Special Operations culture.
He's like, I really love how you draw
these correlations, these cultural values and principles,
then you can apply those to building winning cultures
and winning teams in the business world.
And he went on to invite me to do
a series of keynote presentations and workshops
at their Global Leadership Conference in Hong Kong
the following month.
He didn't ask if I was a speaker.
Didn't ask to see a website.
Didn't ask to see any videos.
Didn't ask for client testimonials, nothing.
As silly as this sounds, just the fact that I was a SEAL
was enough for him.
But of course, being the entrepreneur that I
am, I was like, hell, yeah.
Of course I'll come out there and speak
to all you people in Hong Kong.
Sent the email back, and I closed my laptop,
and I turned to my office, like, oh, shit.
What the hell did I just commit to?
I don't know how to be a speaker.
But I had enough content.
I built some presentations based on various discovery
calls we had, and I prepared relentlessly.
Living outside your comfort zone and pushing those boundaries
cannot succeed without discipline and accountability.
So I prepared and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed,
practice, practice, practice, and I went out there,
went on stage for the first keynote,
knowing that I had several other talks,
and I was doing breakout sessions throughout the day.
It was exhausting.
Go up on stage.
Of course, once again, I'm terrified.
But again, I had rehearsed and prepared so
relentlessly that it went very well.
They had me back to Singapore and Sydney the following month.
I've done that Asia-Pacific tour every year since then,
and I've doubled the frequency of speaking engagements
every year over the past six years.
I speak about 75 times a year.
Those early years, it was always uncomfortable.
I always had to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
It was always terrifying getting on stage.
I was always nervous.
My wife would always say-- because she
used to travel with me before all of our children--
and she'd say, honey, I like you so much better
after you're done talking.
She'd be trying to talk to me, and I'd just be in the zone.
I wouldn't even answer her.
I couldn't even hear her talking.
But I found a passion for it.
Even though it was uncomfortable,
I pushed myself beyond that comfort zone
to do something that I had a passion for,
that I had a desire to continue to do.
At any time in our life, when we have that vision, that vision
and that lofty goal, just like we
say in the SEAL teams and other areas of life,
we have to break that lofty goal, that lofty vision,
break it down.
In the SEAL teams, we say, you've
got to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
You break the big goals into bite-sized chunks,
making them less daunting and more achievable.
Navy SEALs can only be forged in adversity.
Every single person in this room has
and will continue to face various aspects of adversity
throughout your entire life.
But again, as you know, it's what we do
and how we react in the face of adversity that
builds our character and defines who we are.
So the third week of BUD/S, the third week
of this 18-month training pipeline is called Hell Week.
And I assure you, it's a lot worse than that sounds.
Actually, that sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
Hell Week?
It's designed to do one thing, simply weed out
those not committed to the vision of becoming a SEAL.
You do not sleep for an entire week.
You run the equivalent of multiple marathons
while wet and sandy, inside and out.
This is called getting a sugar cookie.
It sucks.
Because the instructors make a concerted effort to ensure
you get the sand on the inside of your clothing,
so that it strips the flesh off your body as you run.
It's like wearing sandpaper inside out.
It does.
It's very effective.
You swim dozens of miles in the open, frigid ocean.
You run with heavy logs, heavy boats, heavy backpacks.
You run the obstacle course multiple times a day.
Endless calisthenics.
Brutal beatings.
All while battling severe bruising, cuts, lacerations,
stress fractures, cellulitis, broken bones, the most
severe chafing, people, you could ever
imagine, in all of the areas you would never,
ever want to be severely chafed.
In fact, calling it chafing is not even accurate.
You literally have--
I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it anyways,
you have no skin left between your legs, around your waist,
in your armpits, and on the top of your head.
And then imagine all the extra time
you spend in the saltwater.
It really kicks it up a notch.
Oh, and one more thing.
And.
pretty much constant second-stage hypothermia.
So bearing all that in mind, let's do the math really quick.
This is a picture of my graduating class,
intentionally grainy to preserve people's identities.
But about 1,000 guys applied for our BUD/S class.
We run six classes a year.
Of that 1,000, only 250 were selected to begin training.
Of that 250, only 23 graduated, earning the right
to wear the SEAL trident pin.
Now, the interesting thing about this pin
is that it's the only emblem in the United States military
where the Eagle's head is fully bowed.
Bowed in memory of those that forged the path ahead of us.
Bye.
Everybody say good bye.
[LAUGHS] Thank you.
Another line from the SEAL ethos says, my trident
is a symbol of honor and heritage bestowed upon me
by the heroes that have gone before.
It embodies the trust of those that I am bound to defend.
It is a privilege we must earn every day.
Your roles, for example, as members
of this team of this amazing organization,
is a privilege each of you have to earn every single day,
simply by asking yourself, what will I do today
to be the best, most valuable, and effective member
of this organization that I can be.
Which we say in the SEAL teams, how
will I earn my trident today?
So after several combat tours, I left the SEAL teams,
went to graduate school, and decided
to become an entrepreneur, another very uncomfortable
thing.
I didn't have any money saved after being in the Navy.
It's like working for free, people.
I had student loans.
We started a company.
And basically, the first company I started right out
of graduate school was, essentially,
an early version of Trulia, Zillow,
it was a home finding search engine.
The housing market was booming.
The economy was booming.
We knew this ride was never going to end.
This housing bubble was never going to burst.
We raised $2 million with this business.
We kept growing it.
We probably spent $200,000 a month
in Google AdWords, because our SEO rankings sucked.
I had to learn how to become an SEO expert, which we all know
is impossible, because you change the algorithm every 30
seconds.
Thanks a lot, guys-- oh, see?
I just blacked out.
I went off on a tangent.
All our rankings dropped.
We had to spend $200,000 a month in AdWords.
So you're welcome.
You're welcome.
And then 2008 came around.
Anybody remember what happened in 2008?
The global economy collapsed.
The housing market was destroyed.
All of our advertisers cut their--
you know, what's the first budget
to go when there's an economic downturn?
Marketing, of course.
We got hammered.
There was a lot of pain, a lot of struggle,
a lot of adversity, a lot of crying, mostly by me,
unfortunately, in front of people.
And it wasn't really until I had to reflect back on and lean
into some of those principles and that mindset
that got me through SEAL training, that got me
through hundreds and hundreds of combat missions
and the loss of many friends, and really reflecting
on the culture and values that forged SEAL culture
and how we could apply those principles in building
a winning organization that was resilient, that would bounce
back from this adversity.
We also leaned in to the principle
that we hold dear in the SEAL teams of adaptability.
So we diversified ourselves.
We had learned so much about digital marketing and media
that we decided to start a digital marketing agency.
So we borrowed $100,000 from the first business
to start the second business, gave those shareholders
equal common stock shares in the new company,
and that company doubled in size--
using those principles I just talked about--
doubled in size every year until we sold it a year
and a half ago.
But even that company went through a lot
of change, a lot of organizational transformation.
You're talking about a fast-growing company in an even
more rapidly changing industry, mostly chasing your Google
algorithm, again, thank you.
But again, all those principles can
be applied to building winning teams, winning organizations,
and of course, succeeding in life in general.
And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about in more detail
today.
I had a failing company at that time.
Starting a new business.
All those things causing a lot of pain, adversity.
I was CEO of two companies, not an easy thing to do.
And then more adversity came along.
It usually comes in threes, for some reason.
Anybody know that about life?
When something shitty happens, two more things
are coming, so get ready.
I'll spare you the details, but during that time,
I was trying to save a failing business
and start a new business and make that business successful.
I was literally transformed into a full-time single parent
to a two-year-old overnight.
Anybody in here have kids?
It sucks, man.
[LAUGHS] I'm like, where does Mommy keep your stuff?
[LAUGHS] I would drop them off at school with no shoes.
It was a disaster.
But the point of telling you this
is sometimes in life, when we face adversity, we also
have to make very difficult and humbling decisions
to do what's best for our family,
to do what's best for the organizations we're a part of.
So what I ended up having to do is
making the decision to step down as CEO of that second company.
I knew I could not effectively lead that organization,
even though I tried.
I had to shift my priorities to my son.
But again, that was a very uncomfortable thing.
It was something that was outside my comfort zone.
But then the magic happened.
I was able to place myself in a role I
was very passionate about in the organization as chief marketing
officer.
And that company continued to thrive, and things got better.
And then something else happened a few years later.
I had an opportunity to go to one of two weddings.
One was a wedding in Houston for one of my best friends
from college and high school, another
was a wedding in Costa Rica for one
of my best SEAL team buddies.
Wedding in Houston, wedding in Costa Rica,
where do you guys think I went?
Costa Rica.
The day I got to Costa Rica was the day I met my wife.
I literally told her two days into that wedding weekend
that we were going to get married.
Taking a little calculated risk, right?
I knew that would do one of two things,
scare the crap out of her and send her running for the hills,
or maybe marginally intrigue her enough
to continue the conversation.
A month later-- this is a true story too-- a month later,
we got matching tattoos-- before the ring.
We got matching tattoos.
Two months after that, we got engaged,
and a after that, we got married.
And now we have two more beautiful children
and are happy as can be.
But again, it's about taking that calculated risk in life,
whether it's in our work, in our personal lives,
in our relationships, but living outside your comfort zone
and finding any level of success really cannot happen, ever,
without extremely high levels of discipline and accountability
and follow through.
The concept of accountability in SEAL training
starts on day one.
And as we say, our training is never complete.
So from the very first week of training,
throughout the entire 18-month training process,
we perform a weekly--
what I refer to as an accountability drill.
We're essentially teaching ourselves and our teammates
to hold each other to the highest level of standard.
The highest level of accountability.
It's a wonderful, fascinating, weekly evolution
called The Top Five, Bottom Five.
So every Friday afternoon, before the class
is secured for the weekend, they bring the class
into the classroom.
They sit you down, and the instructors
pass out blank sheets of paper, and on that paper
are five lines on the top and five lines on the bottom.
And you are instructed to anonymously rank
who you believe the top five performers are in the class
and who you believe the bottom five
performers are in the class.
I know you're thinking, from a human resources perspective,
wow, that's probably pretty cool.
No.
They never tell you who the top five are,
because people, that would be positive reinforcement.
And we do not deal in positive reinforcement in SEAL training.
We deal only in negative reinforcement.
So what they do do is they tally up
all the names in the bottom five and post them right there
on the white board next to the door.
Not a great way to start your weekend.
The one name most frequently listed in the bottom five
every Friday until the end of training
is immediately ejected from training,
based on peer evaluations.
No ifs, ands, or buts, no appealing to the empathies
of the human resources department, because we do not
have a human resources department in SEAL training.
But we take this concept of accountability
extremely seriously.
We take it with us to the battlefield.
When you're on patrol in enemy territory, each and every man
is accountable, for example, for owning a field of fire.
The area you are responsible for protecting,
should the enemy attack.
And that's the great thing about accountability,
especially in a team setting, is because when everyone
is accountable, everybody is executing their duties
to the best of their ability, you
don't have to worry about anything outside
of your own field of fire.
Accountability is equally as important in a team
setting as it is in a personal setting.
We're trying to achieve goals.
As you can imagine, when I decided to make that lofty leap
and take that risk to quit my rather lucrative finance
job to join the Navy and try out for the SEAL program,
knowing that there was a high, high, high likelihood that I
would never make it, again, it was a total mindset
transformation with that lofty vision.
But again, like I've said, you cannot achieve those lofty
goals, pushing outside your comfort zone,
without extremely high levels of accountability and discipline.
Every night I would come home from the office about 6:30 PM,
throw on a backpack, running shoes,
the backpack had fins and goggles in it.
I would run four miles to the SMU pool, swim a mile,
then run four miles home.
On the weekends, we'd run marathons, do various spring
training activities.
I did this for an entire year while I was working in finance,
and then as you know, we moved up to Crested Butte, Colorado,
and trained, again, for five hours a day
at 10,000 feet altitude.
But doing all that required an extremely high level
of focus and discipline and accountability,
because I had to transform my entire life
to mold it around achieving this vision.
My social life had to change.
My dietary habits had to change.
My fitness regime had to change.
I did it, of course, responsibly.
I wasn't shutting out loved ones from my life,
but I did shut out a lot of people
that didn't need to be in my life that
would stand in the way of me achieving that goal.
My social life changed dramatically.
But again, all these things, accountability, discipline,
are critical for living a life beyond your comfort zone
and achieving those lofty goals we have set in our lives.
Let these pictures sink in for one second.
Studies actually show that interacting with animals
can actually improve human social interaction in the areas
of trust and empathy.
So I thought these pictures were appropriate for the trust
slide.
Yes, that is a monkey on my head.
My last tour was in Africa.
His name is Iron Mike.
I raised him from infancy.
I found him on the side of the road.
His mom was injured.
And at night, he would sleep in my cot with me,
either nestled in my armpit or on my chest.
And in the morning, he would wake up and crawl up
onto my chin, grab my eyelashes, and rip my eyes open.
Like, hey, Dad!
It's time to eat!
You people in the room who have kids
know that our children basically do something similar
every frickin' morning.
My two-year-old came in the morning, 5 o'clock,
two days ago, with a hat and sunglasses and a diaper
on, also demanding to eat.
And yes, that is a dog attached to my body
as I jump out of the back of that plane.
You know what he's thinking right now?
Man's best friend, my ass.
Not a happy--
I don't know what it is about plummeting 130 miles an hour
towards the face of the Earth.
It takes a little getting used to.
They don't particularly care for it.
I know there's a lot of dog lovers in here.
I'm a dog lover.
I have three myself.
Trust me, these dogs get taken care of a lot
better than we do.
They stay in their own hotel rooms at the W
when we go on training trips.
So don't worry about these dogs.
They're fully taken care of.
I wanted to tell you guys a brief story
about trust from my BUD/S class' Hell Week experience.
Hell Week, again, the brutal crucible
that all SEALs share that few pass, Hell Week
starts on a Sunday and ends on a Friday afternoon.
And the beauty of that Sunday is that the whole class
will report to the classroom with only
a couple required items in their possession.
And the amazing thing about this Sunday
is that the students have no idea when
Hell Week will commence.
The anxiety, the anguish is literally
eating away at your soul.
You know it's probably going to be the worst week of your life,
and you just want it to start.
That's the weird paradox of it all.
And as a way to inspire us and motivate us, our class leader,
who is the highest ranking officer in the class,
he read to us the St. Crispin's Day speech from William
Shakespeare's "Henry V."
And he read aloud those famed lines that say, "we few,
we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
shall be my brother."
John died four days later.
We were four and 1/2 days into Hell Week.
There were only about 30 students left of the 250.
We were in full gear, no fins, in an Olympic-sized swimming
pool, doing relay races.
And we were performing an evolution
called The Caterpillar Race, which
is not as cute as it sounds.
Your boat crew of seven guys is in the water,
in a line, swimming backwards, like this.
Except I would have my legs wrapped
around the waist of the guy in front of me,
his legs are wrapped around the waist of the guy in front
of him, and so on and so forth.
Now, even fresh, this is a very difficult evolution
to execute properly, much less to beat the other boat crew
to the other side of the pool.
Everything in Hell Week is a race.
Four and 1/2 days into Hell Week,
you're hallucinating so violently, your body is
so brutally beaten, it's more of an evolution
in controlled drowning.
Long story short, John suffered a massive heart failure
and drowned in the pool right next to us.
But again, we were hallucinating so violently and so exhausted
at that point, nobody had any idea what was going on.
So they ran us back across the street
to the Special Warfare Center, and they
put us in the classroom, where we waited for a couple hours.
After a couple of hours, the door opens,
and the instructor staff walked in, and with them was
the commanding officer of BUD/S at the time.
He walked to the front of the room, turned around
to address the class.
He said, gentlemen, listen up.
Lieutenant John Skop was pronounced dead at 1:00 AM.
Lieutenant Barado, you're taken over.
And he said it with that level of candor, I believe,
purposefully.
He paused for a minute to let that sink in.
Then he said, gentlemen, get used to this feeling
that you have right now.
This is what it's going to be like in the teams.
And you will lose teammates.
You have to learn to control your emotions,
stay focused on the mission, and trust each other no matter
what, especially amidst adversity.
And it was a bit of odd foreshadowing,
because he really had no idea how right he really was.
Literally four months later was 9/11, and that's
when we all knew we'd be going to war,
where trust would be at a premium.
When you think about the notion of trust, like accountability
in a team setting, obviously critically important,
the trust all of you have for one
another as team members of this organization,
the trust you build with the customer,
the trust you build with your friends,
your family, and your relationships.
As we all know, trust is the bedrock
of any sound relationship.
It takes a long time to build and moments to break.
And it's equally as important in an individual setting,
especially when we're talking about living
a life outside your comfort zone and setting and achieving
those lofty goals.
The trust you have in yourself to fulfill the promises you
make to yourself to achieve those goals,
to be disciplined and accountable.
And like accountability, trust is
the bedrock of any successful purpose-driven life.
It's how you fuel the drive to achieve those goals.
It's how you shut out the noise and the naysayers who
want to stand in the way of you achieving
your goals and your dreams.
It builds resilience, and resilience
is the foundation of any life lived outside your comfort
zone.
In closing, I want to share a short poem with you guys.
There's a poem that's widely shared in the Naval Special
Warfare community.
It was authored by Chief Tecumseh.
He was a Shawnee chief from the War of 1812.
It's shared widely in our community.
It's part of our culture.
It speaks to how we approach our life, our work,
it's how we honor our fallen.
And I've, of course, seen many things in life.
I've experienced the war-torn countries around the world.
I've been to more funerals than I can remember.
I've lost more friends than I can remember.
And I've taken life.
And even though this poem is called "Death Song,"
it's a metaphor for living a purpose-driven life.
"So live your life so the fear of death
may never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion.
Respect others and their views, and demand that they respect
yours.
Love your life.
Perfect your life.
Unify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day
you go over the great divide.
Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the light,
for your life and strength.
If you see no reason for giving thanks,
the fault lies within yourself.
When your time comes to die, be not
like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death,
so they weep.
They pray for a little more time to live their lives over again
in a different way.
Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.
Now, again, I know that poem is titled "Death Song,"
but if you listen to those words, it's not about death,
is it?
It's about life.
Living our lives to the fullest extent.
Creating, seizing every opportunity
we have to be better, to achieve more, and not
for our own selfish desires, for the organizations we're
a part of, for our teams, our families, our communities,
bettering the lives of those around us,
and hopefully one day making this world a little bit better
place than we found it.
So ladies and gentlemen, as you step forth
onto your own battlefield of life,
setting and achieving those lofty goals,
pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone,
and achieving maximum performance,
remember these three things.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Push the boundaries of your comfort zone
every single chance you get, because the more you do,
the wider that area becomes, and that is truly
where the magic happens.
Next, remember, as we say in the SEAL teams--
we have a hell of a lot of sayings, people--
the only easy day was yesterday.
There truly are no easy days for high-performance teams
and driven individuals to achieve
an existence of excellence.
Life is full of challenges.
We simply have to face those challenges head on, controlling
what we can and ignoring what we can't.
The last thing, my friends, I ask that you
be all in all the time.
Ask yourself every day, at what level
am I willing to participate on this team and in this life.
And no matter what challenges life
throws your way, whether they be at work,
at home, your family, spouse, kids, even things like divorce,
illness, finances, no matter what it is.
Not if, but when you get knocked down, get back up every time,
and never ever be out of the fight.
God bless you guys.
Good luck in your life's journey.
Thank you.
Thank you, guys.
AUDIENCE: The bottom-ranked individuals that [INAUDIBLE]..
What characteristic [INAUDIBLE]?
BRENT GLEESON: It's a good question.
Because typically, from those peer reviews--
BUD/S is a very level playing field.
We have Olympic athletes who quit in the first minute
of Hell Week.
We have guys who look like some accountant who crush you
at a 15-mile ruck run.
But typically, the data points that come out
of those anonymous peer-to-peer surveys
are more character-driven.
Your moral compass is off.
You've got an ego problem.
You're not a team player.
You're not a collaborator.
Basically, somebody who is not a trustworthy person, who
you would not want to be standing next to in a gunfight.
That's what gets those people dropped out of BUD/S, more
frequently than performance drops,
more frequently than quitting.
When it comes down to performance evaluation,
if you're not the best shooter on a shooting range,
you're having trouble with ocean swims,
they'll typically work with you if you
have a sound moral compass, and they
believe that you'll be a great culture
fit for our organization.
But when those-- and the instructors now,
they use iPads now.
They had clipboards back in my day.
But they have this scale in this algorithm they created,
where one on one bar of the scale, there
is your physical and tactical abilities that are needed
as a SEAL, and the rest is culture and moral values,
and that's what gets people dropped
is that they don't think you're going
to be a good fit for our organization,
or you're not a trustworthy individual.
It's a good question.
Yes, ma'am.
AUDIENCE: You mentioned that BUD/S
is one of several different--
BRENT GLEESON: Yes.
So you'll go through BUD/S for six months,
and then the 25 or 30 students that will graduate from BUD/S
will then go on to SQT, or SEAL Qualification Training,
which is another year of advanced training.
So you're doing less getting your ass kicked, and you're
doing more of the learning the technical skills
and tactical skills that you need to be as a SEAL.
So now they bake in a lot more schools.
They do language schools, freefall school,
breacher school, some other things you never used to get.
You'd get those schools later on, once you get to a team.
But now the guys are coming in more fit than we've ever seen
them and more qual'ed up.
So they basically hit the ground running.
Because we have-- there's only 2,000 active SEALs
in the world at any given time, yet we have conflicts
all over the world.
It's not just Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, it's everywhere.
Places I can't mention, of course,
but we have more conflicts and more missions
than we have people.
[LAUGHS] And again, we're open for business
for you ladies, too.
Remember, three years ago, we lifted the restriction on women
in the front lines of combat.
I will say we haven't had one single female applicant yet,
but it will happen someday.
They're out there.
So thank you.
Yes, sir.
AUDIENCE: What are some of the ways you're making yourself
uncomfortable in civilian life?
BRENT GLEESON: [LAUGHS] A lot of way to do it--
and this is kind of also how I prepare.
Because people always-- well, is BUD/S and SEAL training more
mental, is it more physical.
I believe if you're preparing for something like this,
my approach was it's very difficult to prepare
mentally, because you really don't know
what it's going to be like.
Everybody's journey through SEAL training is totally different.
But I prepared physically as relentlessly as possible.
Because when you push your body as hard as you can,
it increases mental fortitude and mental strength
and emotional intelligence.
And so that's how I do that.
So I still do that in life, I approach fitness.
I travel lots, and my diet is not as good
as it possibly could be, so I have to work out harder.
And I have three kids, so chasing those crazies
around is also a good way to do it.
But again, doing things like public speaking,
that was something that took years to really get comfortable
doing.
Where I was always nervous.
I was always fearful.
But now I'm not.
Now I can just focus more on preparation as opposed
to combating the fear and anxiety of getting up
in front of an audience, whether it's 30 people or 3,000 people.
And other things are just taking calculated risk in business,
in life, in those personal goals.
The transition to sell the company a year and a half
ago was a bit of a risky transition,
to go all in on writing the book and doing more speaking
and building a consulting practice around this.
So now I don't have 200 amazing employees anymore.
I have me and a few other people.
So it's kind of going back to the drawing board, being
an entrepreneur again, where it's all on my shoulders
to figure it out.
So it's always taking not just irresponsible risk,
but calculated risk, and then working your ass off
to make sure that that vision is fulfilled.
Thank you.
Who else?
Yes.
AUDIENCE: So those 90% that do get cut or quit [INAUDIBLE]
BRENT GLEESON: I always joke that the SEAL
program is the best recruiting tool the regular Navy ever had.
You're not going home, people.
You're stuck in the Navy for four or five years,
doing any job they want to give you.
Before, in my day, you had to choose
what's a rate, which is a job.
So a sonar technician or whatever.
And because 90% those people need a job and a career path,
and somewhere to place them after they inevitably fail out
of BUD/S, now SEAL is a rate.
So the problem with that is it's good
because you're taking advancement exams based
on the jobs you actually do.
I was a sonar tech.
That's like listening to little pings in a submarine.
So I took an advancement test one time in Iraq--
this is going to be a ding to my character--
but I was like, I don't know anything about this.
There's no study materials.
I was like, somebody go find me-- we were at a base in Iraq.
I was like, somebody find me a sonar tech.
Luckily, there was some sonar tech there.
And I was like, can we collaborate a little bit
on this?
I didn't cheat.
He was my study partner.
But the problem with SEAL being a rate
now is that it's great for advancement exams,
but now, you don't have a job coming out of BUD/S,
so the Navy can do whatever they want with you, which is also,
I would hope, a motivator for those individuals not to quit,
because you don't know where they're going to stick you.
Did I answer the question?
Yes.
OK.
Yeah.
Anything else?
Yes, sir.
AUDIENCE: Saying all in, all the time is a wonderful motto,
but it takes its toll.
Can you speak to the resiliency in that?
BRENT GLEESON: Yes.
The concept of all in, all the time,
is all about prioritization and execution.
I get that question a lot.
And when I have time to explain, it's usually in the Q&A.
But it's not about--
you can't go all in on everything.
And I don't even like the concept of multitasking,
because then you're just doing a whole bunch of things
really crappily.
So it's really all about prioritization.
So if you can prioritize those goals
you have in life or in work or whatever it is, and invest
the appropriate amount of time and resources
or whatever is needed into that prioritization,
then you can really go all in.
But you can't say, well, I want to be an expert guitar player,
and I want to have great upward mobility at Google,
and I also want to have all this and all this and this.
You're not going to able to do all that all in, all the time,
all at once.
It has to be a prioritized list of the things that
are most important to you, that you're most passionate about,
or you have a passion for those things.
Then you're going to be successful,
because you're going to willingly put
the work and the time into being successful.
And then once you've achieved some level of success
in that field, then maybe shift to another one
of those priorities.
Good question.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
AUDIENCE: Can you talk a little bit about the role of mentors
and [INAUDIBLE] in your life, in your experience in the Navy
and otherwise [INAUDIBLE].
BRENT GLEESON: Yes, absolutely.
It's a great question about mentorship.
When I-- I had a lot of mentors throughout my life
in high school and college.
But when I told my parents, hey, I'm
trying for this SEAL program, they're
like, oh, good luck with that.
But ironically-- and I didn't even know this at the time--
my dad's best friend in college, who they swam together,
they also went to SMU--
was a Vietnam-era SEAL, and he still lived in San Diego.
So he called his friend Tom up and said,
hey, Brent's joining the Navy.
Can you kind of talk him out of it?
No.
He's joining the Navy.
When he gets out there, it'd be great
if you could take him under your wing,
mentor him a little bit, tell him
about the community, the process.
Obviously it changed vastly since the Vietnam era guys.
He was in BUD/S class 32, I was in BUD/S class 235.
So years later, of course, but he
became a phenomenal mentor for me, so much so
that he actually became the first investor
of my first business.
So it was a great opportunity to learn from him,
not just about the SEAL community,
but about business and entrepreneurship.
And the downside was that he also
liked to swim the La Jolla Cove every morning at 5:00 AM.
And he's my mentor and investor and my first company,
so guess who also got to swim the Cove at 5:00 AM every day?
[SIGHS] Anyways.
And then, of course, in the SEAL teams,
you informally have other mentors, basically,
the older guys who've been there longer and seen more stuff.
And it was such a great part of my experience
that I now mentor young guys into the program.
I have mentored seven or eight guys,
and I will say, I'm seven for seven,
which of course I take the full credit for.
But it's really neat, because it's a way of giving back.
I had mentors throughout my entire life that
really were phenomenal building blocks for the goals
that I achieved.
And so it's also a way that I give back now.
Because I get, through social media and things like that,
I have high school kids all the time saying, hey,
I want to go to BUD/S. And I'm like, oh God, here we go again.
Like, you're a freshman, I can't do anything for you right now.
However, it's a really fascinating thing
to see the drive in these young kids and the respect
that I have for them now.
This is the post-9/11 world.
In the Special Operations community,
you will be going to war.
I joined selfishly as more of a physical challenge, pre-9/11.
I was like, well, I can do that.
So it was a selfish thing.
I thought I'd be traveling the world
and getting tattoos and drinking in the Philippines.
And I did all the drinking, got all the tattoos,
but I never went to anywhere nice.
I spent all my time in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.
But I have such a respect for these young kids
now, going in knowing that if they make it,
they will go to war.
They want to serve at that highest capacity.
I've only mentored officers, except for this one guy who
was-- he reached out first when he was--
I think he was a freshman or sophomore in high school.
He's a good Christian boy from Texas.
See?
Texas.
Told you guys.
And I was very polite, and I was responsive.
And my wife was like, come on, honey.
You don't have time to respond to every high school
kid that reaches out, wanting to be a SEAL.
There's a lot of them out there.
And I kept in touch, but I was transparent with them.
I was like, there's not a whole lot I can really do for you.
You're in East Texas, I'm in San Diego,
and you're a sophomore in high school.
You've got a few years to go, buddy,
especially if you're going to go in right after high school
and not college.
And he was so persistent, so determined.
He just kept training and training.
He kept in touch off and on throughout the months
and years.
And then all of a sudden, I got home from the office one day,
and I got a text, and it said, hey, it's Garrett.
I just checked into BUD/S. I was like, holy crap.
I was like, honey, he's here.
And I was like, come on over to the house.
He is by far the most disciplined individual
I have ever mentored.
Far more disciplined than the officers,
which was kind of scary, because they're in a leadership role.
But all he wants to do is go to SEAL Team 6, which is
Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
So if you want to aspire to go to SEAL Team 6,
you have to be in the regular SEAL teams
for at least four years, have an immaculate record,
have all the qualifications that you can only
get if your top ranked in your platoon.
He's the lowest ranking--
he just turned 21, and he's a sniper and a breacher
and a JTAC already.
A JTAC is the important radio guy
that talks to the F-22 pilots, telling them
where to drop ordinance.
Kind of a big responsibility for a 22-year-old or a 21-year-old.
But he's so emotionally mature and so disciplined
in his approach.
He doesn't party.
He just studies and works out.
That's all he does.
He's the lowest ranking guy in his troop,
yet he's the highest ranked, as far as performance,
in his troop.
Very well respected.
And so he's a shoo-in for going through the SEAL Team 6
selection process.
But it's just a really-- again, I take all the credit
for his success.
But it's just fascinating to see these kids go through
so-- because mentorship is as rewarding for the mentor
as it is for the mentee, at least I've found that so.
Good question.
Thank you.
Yes.
Do we have time?
I don't know.
What time is it?
SPEAKER: Yes.
BRENT GLEESON: OK.
We're good.
AUDIENCE: Would you allow or encourage your own sons
to Navy SEALs?
BRENT GLEESON: I always get that one.
[LAUGHS] I would like my parents--
my answer to this is typically that I
would be cautiously optimistic.
Obviously, when I told my parents about this,
my mom was somewhat devastated.
But then when 9/11 occurred, she was very devastated.
And then when we found that we would-- my task unit from SEAL
Team 5, back in 2003, we were the very first SEALs
deployed into Iraq.
So she was also not super thrilled about that.
Because you can go to what's called CENTCOM, which
is the Central Command for Afghanistan, Iraq,
Syria, or you go to PACOM, where nothing is really going on,
Guam, Philippines, Japan, you're just
doing training and exercises and readiness drills.
But everybody wants to go where the fight is.
And she wanted me to go where the fight was not.
So I would be cautiously optimistic.
I would be supportive.
I would never encourage it.
My dad was a marine during Vietnam.
Never once did he ever encourage me to go into the military.
If anything he was--
he was happy I had a job after college.
So he was like, sweet.
Stick with that.
And I was like, I'm going into the Navy.
He was like, what?
You have a job.
I just paid for four years of college.
What are you doing?
But again, if there was passion there and drive,
I would be very supportive.
I found this statistic out recently,
because I do a lot of tours of the training facility
to help raise money for the SEAL Family Foundation
that I'm on the board of.
And they giving this tour, and that question came up.
And they were like, well, how often do the sons of SEALs
make it through training?
It's actually a funny statistic.
The answer was, guys, we're not a family business.
Statistically, the sons of SEALs are less likely to make it.
I don't know why that is.
I don't know if they go in with a different approach
or some sort of an entitled mindset thing.
Well, clearly, I've got the blood of a SEAL warrior running
through my veins.
Obviously, this is going to be a piece of cake.
And most of them quit.
Sometimes they get injured and things like that.
But it's just the same risk that my parents were worried about
of having a good job out of college
and taking the risk to go into the Navy for five years
and knowing that 90% will fail.
That their point was, well, you're
kind of putting your life on hold for five years
when you fail out of BUD/S. So of course that gave me
the drive not to fail out of BUD/S.
But I wouldn't encourage it, but I would be supportive.
AUDIENCE: I had a question.
What did you tell your brother when you made it?
BRENT GLEESON: [LAUGHS] He was at graduation.
I was like, what's up, bro?
[LAUGHS] How are you doing by that?
How's your career going?
[LAUGHS] He was--
any of the people in your life that are naysayers, being like,
oh, that's probably not a good decision.
I mean, again, once you make it through Hell Week,
it's very unlikely that you're not
going to make it all the way.
We weed 90% of the people out in the first five weeks.
So within five weeks of being at BUD/S, whoever was saying
you couldn't do it is going to know that you can
or that you failed, like they said you would.
So.
[LAUGHS] Yeah.
AUDIENCE: So of the people who stuck it out and made it
till the end, how did they keep themselves
motivated in the moment?
BRENT GLEESON: It's a good question about keeping yourself
motivated in the moment.
Another interesting piece of that is you
could never predict the people who
will be standing at graduation.
Out of the 250 people, it's not necessarily
the big, tattoo-covered, musclebound macho guy,
or someone who is an Olympic athlete, or anything.
You could never hand-pick the people
who are standing at graduation.
It's going to be a total mix of cognitively, mentally,
physically.
And everybody's journey is totally different.
Some people are better at self-motivation than others.
Some people lean on their boat crew members or classmates
to help motivate them.
And everybody also has their own specific challenges.
Sometimes they're not the strongest swimmer,
so they're worried about their swim times.
Or they're not the strongest runner,
so they're worried about their run times.
Because every phase you go through BUD/S,
every evolution gets more and more difficult.
Your run times have to get increasingly dramatically
faster every two months.
Swim times have to get dramatically faster.
So twice a week, you're always doing a four-mile timed run
and a timed two-mile ocean swim.
Not the easiest thing in the world to do,
but you have to make these certain times.
So it's not just the physical strain and the academic part
of it, because you're working and getting your butt kicked.
Especially in the early days, until 1 o'clock in the morning,
you've got to get up at 4:00 for your four-mile timed run,
and you have homework to do and studying for your exam
tomorrow.
So you really get no sleep, but then it's
also the stress and anxiety of not just the academic side,
but all that difficult evolutions you have to pass.
Because on most of the evolutions
early on, whether it's the drown-proofing or some
of these drills that weed a lot of people
out because they're not comfortable in the water,
it's the stress of not passing those things.
So it's not just the physical strain,
but the mental stress that if you fail, at once, you're done.
I mean, that's it.
On most of these evolutions, you get one chance.
So you can imagine how stressful.
Every single day you get out of bed, you're like--
I remember the anxiety of just every morning, I would get up--
and this benefited me later in life,
because I can now manage stress like you couldn't believe.
If nobody's trying to blow me up or shoot me in the face,
I'm good to go.
Any problem is a problem that's solvable.
But I would get up every morning at 4
o'clock just literally wrought with anxiety,
knowing that one, I'm going to get my butt
kicked all day long.
But two, what if I fail one of these evolutions.
It wasn't so much self-doubt, but knowing that the numbers
speak for themselves.
The statistics speak for themselves.
And knowing that there was a possible element of failure.
So the answer to your question is that it's
different for every person.
Everybody has a different journey
and their own different challenges.
For me, it wasn't swimming or running or specific evolutions.
I didn't have a lot of problems with those.
It was the entirety of the whole thing, and the grind,
and the stress physically and mentally that was just--
it's just very hard to overcome that level of stress, which
is also why oftentimes, the guys out of high school,
the younger folks, don't make it, because they haven't had,
really, any life experience.
They haven't-- you know, they're coming from mom
and dad's house.
So oftentimes they don't have the emotional maturity
or mental fortitude yet.
Not that being a fraternity guy in college
really gets you ready for SEAL training either,
but it's oftentimes too why they just
don't have the mental fortitude to handle that anxiety.
Well, thanks, guys.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for showing up.
Thank you, Wendy.
Thanks, Steve.
Appreciate it, guys.