Eight Ways Military Training Can Enhance Your Life

As a kid I was always enthralled with everything military. I would watch movies, play with soldiers, read military comic books and play war games with my friends. It became a very strong desire for me to become a Frogman after I saw the movie with the same name as a mere five-year-old boy. Today almost forty-five years later, twenty-four of them spent as a Navy SEAL and over six as an independent security contractor protecting government officials in high risk combat zones, I have no regrets and highly recommend the lifestyle military style training can offer.

You do not have to go into the military to enjoy the physical fitness, discipline, esprit de corps or intuitive ability to think and make decisions in an instant. So what type of training and it’s equivalent in the non-military world does it take to have the benefits of military training that will enhance your life?

Number one is a total focus on your goals. I learned very early on in SEAL training that unless you have complete focus on becoming a SEAL you will not make it. It is all consuming and will challenge the most experienced athlete. In fact many high level athletes from former pro football, baseball, triathletes etc. would often be the first to quit in Hell Week. The Basic Underwater Demolition/Sea, Air & Land (BUD/Seal) training that has Hell Week in its first two months of training out of a total of six months of training was a great equalizer and would find those with the correct focus and those without. When I first saw this in my own training class and then witnessed it repeatedly over a three-year period as a BUD/S instructor and phase chief I was amazed. Everyone thought these superior athletes were a shoe-in but as I learned later you could never tell from outward appearance which guy had the inner focus necessary to achieve their goals. So having a total and complete focus on achieving your goals in nonmilitary life is just as important to attaining your goals as in the military. This total focus on achieving goals has carried over into my life now that I’m not in the military and is a gift that I will continue to enhance and use for the rest of my life.

Number two is a disciplined approach to managing your everyday life. As a football and soccer athlete in high school I learned that you have to exercise and stay in shape to play and stay on the team. I was gifted as a fast runner and at one point the fastest in my school. I would train with weights and play every sport I could after practice and in between sports seasons. This was a discipline that I set for myself very early on. I had a coach that I looked up to when I was in the sixth grade during gym class that taught us cutting edge physical training. He got universal weight machines for gym class that up to then was unheard of except for the football players in high school. I still remember his words when he said that he wished that he had worked out harder and developed his body at an earlier age and stuck with it. Remember I had a goal at an early age to become a frogman so I thought, rightly so as it would turn out, that the better in shape I was the better my chances for becoming a frogman. So I learned to discipline myself to workout everyday in one fashion or another. So taking a disciplined consistent approach to life is important to achieving short term as well as long-term goals no matter what they are.

Number three is physical fitness. I have been into physical fitness most of my life and can honestly say that I can’t imagine not working out in some fashion on a consistent basis. Physical fitness is not only for being in shape for conducting missions or performance during athletic events but; is also necessary for relieving stress, keeping the heart and cardiovascular system healthy, strong bones, muscle tone and general well being. It was not uncommon in the early days that I was a SEAL that people did not know anything about the SEAL teams. Post Viet Nam people were not friendly towards the military so my fellow SEAL’s and I were often fortunately confused with the local pro football team in San Diego where I was stationed in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It helped that I have a very close resemblance to Hank Bauer of the San Diego Chargers. At restaurants the waitress would get chatty and ask us what we did? “Are you guys football players”? would be a common question. Often we would just say yes, but once I told the guys I was with lets really tell the waitress when she asks what we are and see how she responds. So on this particular rare occasion when asked what we did we all said that we were SEAL’s. A confused look came across the waitresses face and then it lit up and she said: “Oh… you train… SEAL’s”! yes, we replied. Physical fitness is an important element in every military persons life and by adopting a regular physical fitness routine into your life will go a long way in enhancing your overall well being.

Number four is a commitment to esprit de corps. This term is usually used for military or sports teams but can and does apply to any organization. The morale of a group or organization is dependant on how closely the team works and operates together. A professional in one organization can easily move to another professional organization and easily integrate with that group. When I was working at SEAL team six I went to Australia for six weeks to work with their SAS (Special Air Service) equivalent. I completely integrated with on of their teams and still remember that as one of the high points of my Career. We worked incredibly hard but always had a great time together. I have never laughed so hard in my life. It was as if part of the requirement to make it into the team was how good a sense of humor you had. It seemed as if we had trained together all of our lives and this was because of the high level of esprit de corps. When I look back on the best groups or teams that I have had the pleasure of working with it was usually because everyone worked well together and treated each other as family. I try to think of everyone I see and meet as part of my extended family.

Number five is leadership. We would often have the most junior man among us plan, brief and lead a training operation. This was so that everyone knew that at anytime you could or would have to stand up and take charge. Leadership by example was also a must in the SEAL teams because do as I say not as I do would never get full compliance from a group of hard core veterans. Lead from the rear is another non-starter as the word LEADership is about being the example to follow not the one to look back over your shoulder and try and figure out what to do. If you want to be admired (Not Necessarily Liked) in a leadership position and get people to perform you must be a good example. If you want to come in and teach others anything you must have something that they can look at as an example of past performance. Do you tell your kids or know of someone that tells their kids not to do drugs; smoke or drink but does them themselves? What is the reaction? It’s usually obvious isn’t it? Lead, follow or get out the way is a quote that I have often admired.

Number six is the ability to follow. You must not only be able to lead but you also have to know when it is time to let a subject matter expert take over. We would commonly have guys that ran a particular department or taught a subject in which that person would go to several schools to get highly skilled. Take shooting for instance. We would have many guys that would run the armory where we kept our weapons that would teach courses in shooting to the rest of us. Eventually we developed training cells of guys that would do the same thing. Specialize in a particular area. When that person taught everyone else was junior to him no matter what his rank or the rank of the people that he taught. This ability to be humble and allow others to take the reins was an important aspect of military life. This is hard for some because after you attain a certain level of proficiency or rank your ego wants to keep you in the limelight. To excel in anything in life and to stay there you must learn to allow others to help you advance further or you will most definitely fall behind.

Number seven is learning to make decisions rapidly. In combat milliseconds can be the deciding factor in whether you and or your team will live or die so learning to be quick and nimble on your feet and making spot decisions is imperative. Many people agonize over making decisions but I’ll make them in less than a heartbeat if necessary. When forced into making a snap decision it’s often not so important that you pause to determine if you are making the right decision as much as it is to just make one and get off the X or the kill zone. I can fix a wrong decision in an instant but if we all sit around trying to come up with a solution then often that is the worst thing to do. If you have the time to make an informed decision by all means take it but don’t procrastinate your life away.

Number eight is in my opinion the most important and will greatly enhance the other seven if utilized. Learn to use your intuition. Often your initial intuitive response is the most accurate. By opening yourself to intuition as I teach you how to do in The Intuitive Warrior and will be teaching at seminars across the country soon you can take every single aspect of your life no matter what your capacity in life to a whole different level. Only the most advanced warriors become intuitive warriors. Not every military person is intuitive but every single one of them can be and it can be easily done. You don’t have to be in the military or have military experience to excel in life but you can most definitely enhance your life by following any or ideally all of the above.