Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life (30 page)

Take a second and look briefly at how you personally grope with mastering these five pyramids. Take, for instance, your body. Notice the way it looks, what it feels like, how it performs, or doesn’t perform in some cases. I just want you to notice that. Run through that same brief noticing with the other four pyramids. With Wealth, notice what you invest in, how you spend your money, how much money you have saved up, and notice your debt. Just notice it. Notice as well your level of spiritual mastery in whatever religion you hold for yourself. Notice then the current situation we find ourselves in with becoming masters of intellectual achievements. Notice many others whom either you know or have heard about, who have attained some very serious high levels of intellect informally. Finally, identify where you are regarding relationships, which can be teams you are on, groups you participate in, and even romantic relationships.

I want you to notice you are at various levels. I ask you simply notice
you have some degree of mastery in each and that those around you have other degrees of mastery.

Now I want to tell you a story of human performance. In the world of Navy SEALs, we constantly seek very high levels of performance in each category. Maybe not wealth in the aspect of becoming rich, but to a certain degree, we handle, develop and control money and material and have mastered some aspect of wealth. The actual mastery of making money and having material wealth is only one part of mastering wealth.

Yet in the other three prominent pyramids we are recognized as masters. And for the sake of this discussion, we have sought to constantly improve on relationship, physical, and intellectual abilities and performance and have achieved some very serious high levels. Right now as you read this, I can tell you that somewhere on this planet, SEALS are pushing the boundaries of those three pyramids well beyond what you would even think possible. I have seen SEALS band together as a team and overcome the most hellish conditions simply because of their mastery of relationships. I have witnessed SEALs physically achieve impossible feats because of the constant pushing of his own physical boundaries. And as you can guess, I have witnessed SEALs use their intellect and smarts to create and recall things that far surpass normal human ability.

Finally, for the sake of this conversation on the human performance in an Adamantine life, I will merely say men and women across the globe are clearly masters of spirituality—from the Yogis and the Buddhist monks, to the Catholic priests and the preachers. Many others have attained spirituality in a cave all by themselves.

We have a six-month course for our own SEAL growth called Basic Underwater Demolitions School. This is our entry point for discovering what it takes to push beyond our previous limitations and produce extraordinary results. This brings me to the point of my initial tale. We have a very high attrition rate. We only graduate 15 percent. I want to share with you the broader discussion of why that is the case and how what we have found actually will have an immediate effect on you, your own life, and your performance no matter what you are up to.

In the attempt to discover the answer, we looked at improving the gear we use to get the jobs done in an efficient and productive way. We bought better shoes and chaffing guard, because your performance is dramatically
affected when your legs, feet, and armpits are bleeding from chaffing.

We spent monies improving the teaching ability of the instructors and enhanced the curriculum. We bought high quality tables, chairs, computers, and screens. Our staff and facilities are now state of the art, as is our equipment.

Our latest effort was to screen our applicants more thoroughly to weed out the ones we thought would not make it prior to starting. We also spent millions on a pre-training workout program that we thought would make the men physically harder and more resistant to injury.

We implemented all these reasonable improvements that MIT, top business schools, and human performance labs had recommended.

What we found in our effort to make SEALs better was that this invisible string between the five pyramids was actually where every level of human performance starts and stops. I want you to notice that your Internal Dialogue is already and always working before, during, and after everything you do.

So, here is what we found:

None of the “stuff” we did, bought, or paid for made any significant difference to the attrition rate. We all were dumbfounded. This is also what most corporations do. This is what we all do; I think, don’t you? We spend all of our efforts trying to adjust the outside world or influences in the hope that our personal performance, and maybe our lives, improve.

It’s sort of analogous to buying a better car, clothes, and getting on another diet or workout routine. We must realize our own Internal Dialogue didn’t shift, so the same results continue to happen again, again, and again.

Mastering the five pyramids of human performance and grasping your Internal Dialogue actually bridges the gap between who you were to your goals. That bridge will make all the difference. Ultimately, the only thing that makes any significant difference is what we all actually DO—our results and our performance. The only way to alter our performance is to expose and then master our Internal Dialogue.

I began to look at each SEAL’s Internal Dialogue—what he was saying to himself about himself or his environment, whether he quit or succeeded. The biggest point is that they all had an Internal Dialogue. Your Internal Dialogue is running twenty-four hours a day, can you believe it?

Take a second now, stop, and either close your eyes or keep them open: I want you to get the first taste of your Internal Dialogue. Ready … go.

First notice if you are saying anything to yourself. Notice that you may even say, “No, I don’t have an Internal Dialogue.” Well, that is still an Internal Dialogue.

Here is what I found: Internal Dialogue runs the show—It
runs the show.
You dress the way you do because of it. You go to school because of it. You stay up late studying because of it; well, some of you do. And those who don’t, don’t because of it. And you didn’t even know it was there!

More importantly, you didn’t think you had any control over it. Let me tell you, you do; it is yours, and it is actually the only thing you do have control of in this life. And, it controls everything.

I want you to go back and remember you have these five pyramids of the human performance in your Unbreakable Life. In the beginning, you took notice of your body, wealth, intellect, spirituality, and relationships. That noticing is the surface of your Internal Dialogue. The manifestation of that is how you look, your grades, your boyfriend, your religion, and how much money you have either in your pocket or in someone else’s.

In the process of moving through Adamantine Lesson One, you will have pushed through the most subtle human performance test known to man. The experience is not to get in shape, although it is a great by-product to be sure. The lesson is to get you truly in touch with your Internal Dialogue. Without knowing you had one in the first place, you will have experienced how subversive and counterproductive self-talk is. Internal Dialogue is not self-talk. Self-talk is what is on the surface to protect you from exposing your Internal Dialogue. My first gift to you is
keeping your word
by mastering your Internal Dialogue.

In Adamantine Lesson Two, I wanted you to encounter fear. Fear is nothing more than an Internal Dialogue that stops you from acting. The second gift of an Unbreakable Life is
owning fear
and adjusting your Internal Dialogue to take action.

With Adamantine Lesson Three, you master the body, your physical abilities. I wanted you to experience true exhaustion, pain, and maybe being sick in the effort. In facing exhaustion, pain, and sickness, you may have had to start over in order to meet the goal. I want you to experience what your Internal Dialogue was and said about it all, and what you did
when your Internal Dialogue was yelling at you to stop. The third gift of an Unbreakable Life is to have experienced
being broken, rebuilding, and doing it again
, reshaping your Internal Dialogue to do it until it is complete no matter the cost to your body.

While in Adamantine Lesson Four, you will master not only relationships, but you will also notice and feel what your Internal Dialogue has to say about it all. A distinct difference exists between urgent attraction that comes on you like a freight train and the relationship you create using your Internal Dialogue. Relationships need to be created anew every second of every day for the rest of your life. If you don’t create it using Internal Dialogue, it dies. The pivotal point in the path of an Unbreakable Life is to
create love
using your Internal Dialogue.

Adamantine Lesson Five is my discussion about
mastering spirituality.
Hope and faith are not spirituality. As you looked into and experienced those words and when they are used, you will have noticed how desperately not in action you were when you used them. If your Internal Dialogue is not mastered in some way prior to Adamantine Lesson Five, you will have gotten disillusioned. I suggest spiritual people do not use hope and faith because true spiritual people don’t need faith—they know. They will not have hope because they are relentlessly pursuing their convictions. An Adamantine life is Unbreakable because mastering your own Internal Dialogue and reshaping it away from hope and faith enables you to know and relentlessly act on that connection to a divine power.

Tackling Adamantine Lesson Six may have felt absurd. Yet, your
point of view
regarding everything is shaped by you, and you alone. And that reshaping only comes from mastering your Internal Dialogue. Your performance in everything is relative to your points of view. That point of view can, and will, change, and so must your Internal Dialogue. Battles are immediately shifted as your point of view shifts. Don’t let the environment dictate your point of view; instead, shape your point of view with the masterful stroke of your Internal Dialogue. You will have an Unbreakable Life.

Adamantine Lesson Seven is partly a relationship idea, yet mastering
connecting your efforts to the efforts of others
is key to the human performance. While working with others, you will have noticed how you affect them, and them, you. That connection effect is filtered through your Internal
Dialogue and theirs. If you notice another’s effort is not working, don’t look to change them. Instead, look to reshape your Internal Dialogue preventing you from connecting to them. This is a great gift, but I have to admit, it is fucking hard as hell. I have to work on it all the time. I suck at it, to be honest, and I know it is all in my own Internal Dialogue, not in their actions. Because my actions come from my Internal Dialogue.

The
Mentors and Masters
Adamantine Lesson may come early or later in life. You will not notice it until you have mastered your Internal Dialogue. Once you master it, you will see everyone around you is very willing to help. It took me forty-four years. OK, I am a slow learner.

Adamantine Lesson Nine for me comes easy. My Internal Dialogue is always to never give up. It is the loudest thing in my head. I thought for the longest time I was born with it. Yet, as I have learned how Internal Dialogue really works, I know that is a crutch to think you are born with something. In reality, you shape and evolve. However, learn to listen to your own Internal Dialogue and learn to be relentless. The ninth gift of an Unbreakable Life is to tell yourself to
NEVER give up. Never.

Adamantine Lesson Ten is
a game
, and by the time you get to mastering your Internal Dialogue, you will be ready for this game. Most people are terribly affected by their environments—weather, people, and everything external to them. We all are, yet cold is cold. Cold is neither bad nor good. What most people don’t realize is they are giving meaning to their environment, thus living a life that is totally shaped by their outside world. Here is how you will know you have mastered your own Internal Dialogue: when it is raining outside and you’re tired and want to stay inside because you hate the cold and hate being wet, I want you to say to yourself, “God I so love the rain; it makes me feel energetic, and I love the way the coldness seeps into my bones. I feel so alive.” Then, go out and take action on that new Internal Dialogue.

Adamantine Lesson Eleven is a tough nut to crack, so to speak. It is
encountering death.
It is seeing what death does to your Internal Dialogue, yet not letting it shape it in any lasting way. Death will scream for a lasting Internal Dialogue. You will have to master not death itself, but master your Internal Dialogue
about
death. Allow yourself to pass through both the sadness and the anger, and the way it makes you perform. At the end,
see death merely as a passing, then move on. It is not calloused, nor unfeeling. One of the greatest gifts is to feel and to move on. Holding on is a disease of the weak mind.

Adamantine Lesson Twelve is something for later in life, I think.
Being a contribution and being contributed to
are two distinctly different actions that have two very unique Internal Dialogues. I have personally had the hardest time with others contributing anything to me. Rather, my Internal Dialogue here is very hard for me to get a grip on and reshape. Praise in the form of a contribution screams loudly in my ears, when I say to myself, “I did nothing to deserve this praise. I was merely keeping myself from dying and keeping my teammates alive.” When I received the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for stuff I did in “hell,” I struggled. When Jerry and Tammy put on the SEAL Gala in South Carolina because they wanted to contribute to the SEAL Teams and to Bravo platoon, I felt awkward. I am working on this, and I pray my family can help me work on it, too.

Finally, Adamantine Lesson Thirteen is the masterful stroke of genius. I recognize I have yet to talk about this particular one until now.