The military is made up of all sorts of people. The good, the bad, and the ugly all find their ways into uniforms, and although much of the training service members undergo is intended to improve upon our abilities to lead, some aspects of good leadership are innate and unlearnable. Some men and women just […]
Motivation
Honing the demon and channelizing violence of action
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken Every person has it in them — the demon. I’m not sure what it is exactly, whether it’s some inner spiritual rage or some biological instinct to spur one toward survival […]
The power of your playlist in the gym
The workout mix: a time-honored tradition of fitness enthusiasts in gyms all across the world. Few things can inspire an athlete to push harder, to work longer … or to start a fist fight with other gym goers better than a carefully selected list of songs intended to get the heart pumping. At some point, […]
How to Make Sh*t Happen, by Sean Whalen
We all hit times when we stall out whether at home, work, family, fitness, or just life in general. We can’t seem to get motivated and moving in the right direction. We make excuses that sound legit accept them and sell them to others. The truth is we lost the drive we once had and […]
How Beauty Relates to Your Ability to Perform
It was on a stationary bike, main deck, Port Side of a Navy “Gator Freighter”, cruising the Arabian Gulf waiting for my next mission. This is when I learned how critical beauty is to my ability to perform. As the lead Sniper, I was separated from my platoon so that I had immediate access to […]
A Navy SEALs Guide to Mastering Fear | Learning to swim
I grew up on the water. Love it, spent my childhood in it, and a good chunk of my adulthood, too. But there’s a reason people use water when they want to drive you to the edge of sanity and break your spirit. If I say, “I’m going to drape a cloth over your mouth […]
A Navy SEALs Guide to Mastering Fear | Night Ops over the Persian Gulf
It’s nighttime over the Persian Gulf, summer of 1995. The four of us— pilot, copilot, another crewman, and me— have been out in our H-60 Seahawk helicopter doing sonar ops. It’s been a long night, and we need to refuel on a nearby destroyer before heading back to the aircraft carrier we’re calling home. The […]
A Navy SEALs Guide to Mastering Fear | Fear of the water
My friend Kamal is a world traveler; he has meditated with Tibetan monks in the Dalai Lama’s monastery, trekked the Himalayas, and hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. He served in the U.S. Army and studied to be an ER doctor. He has launched tech companies, runs his own venture capital firm, and is […]
Think Like a Green Beret: Be Your Own Drill Sgt
In 3,000 BC, a Sumerian drill sergeant was tasked with training a ragged platoon of illiterate teenagers to defend their homeland. When his new charges faltered, he gave a speech to motivate them. In the last 5,000 years, that same speech has been given millions of times in every human language. It goes something like […]
How a T-shirt got me through Navy SEAL training Hell Week (Pt. 2)
In my previous article, I discussed how visualization—or what I call “paradise from the pain”—can help us get through challenging or difficult times by allowing us to live in the moment that comes after the pain or discomfort. But how do we do that? How can we train our brains to focus on what’s up ahead and not […]