Sea Stories

The first three chapters of the book feature a young Bill hanging out with his father (a World War II veteran and Air Force officer) and his friends (fellow World War II veterans) and exploring his world on secret missions with his young friends.

That passage above is from Chapter #4: “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday” in which we get a front-row seat to Admiral McRaven’s SEAL training in 1977.

One evolution at a time.

<- That, McRaven says, is how you make it through difficult times.

When we’re feeling overwhelmed and not sure if we can go on, we need to collapse our “event horizon” to the task right in front of us—which just so happens to be wisdom echoed by a range of other great teachers.

In The Way of the SEAL, Commander Mark Divine tells us that, in the chaos of war (and life!), we need to “simplify the battlefield” and maintain a “front-sight focus” on whatever is most important in the moment.

In Constructive Living, Zen therapist David Reynolds tells us that the most important question we can ask ourselves is, “Now what needs to be done?” <- Asking and answering that question by doing what needs to get done is how we build the antifragile confidence we always talk about.

Then we have Byron Katie. In Loving What Is, she tells us about a practice called “doing the dishes.” She reminds us that: “We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do.”

Going through difficult times? Remember: Take it one evolution at a time.

P.S. As I reflected on this wisdom, I drew BJ Fogg’s B = MAP grid on the bottom of the page. As BJ says in Tiny Habits, if we want to get ourselves to take action, our Motivation + Ability + Prompt need to show up on the right side of the Action Line.

In the context of McRaven and other aspiring SEALs going through their brutal rite of passage, by taking it “one evolution at a time,” they were able to break down the near impossible into something much “Easier”—moving their Ability to the right such that when the next tortuous evolution-Prompt showed up, they did what needed to get done.

Those who quit, on the other hand, failed to make it “Easier” by breaking down the pain into discrete tasks. Instead, they extended their event horizon and aggregated ALL the anticipated pain—diminishing their perceived Ability and making it even “Harder” than it already was—ultimately feeling so overwhelmed that they rang the bell and quit.

One more time.Going through difficult times? Remember: Take it one evolution at a time.

That’s from Chapter #10 called “Airborne Froggy” in which we learn about (and I wince as I type this), a parachuting injury that resulted in McRaven’s pelvis separating “by about five inches.”

Ouch.

One of the things that comes through most powerfully in the book is McRaven’s love for his wife of over forty years, Georgeann.

As I read the line about her holding his hand while he was in the hospital, I immediately thought of a recent Note on the power of exactly that experience.

In The Upward Spiral we learned about the neuroscience of reversing the course of depression. One of the Big Ideas of that book is relying on the power of others to get us through tough times.

Alex Korb shares some fascinating research on the subject. Including this: “In addition, holding hands with someone can help comfort you and your brain through painful situations. One fMRI study scanned married women as they were warned that they were about to get a small electric shock. While anticipating the painful shocks, the brain showed a predictable pattern of response in pain and worrying circuits, with activation in the insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. During a separate scan, the women either held their husband’s hands or the hand of the experimenter. When a subject held her husband’s hand, the threat of shock had a smaller effect. The brain showed reduced activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—that is, less activity in the pain and worrying circuits. In addition, the stronger the marriage, the lower the discomfort-related insula activity. But even just holding the hand of the experimenter—a stranger—reduced activation in the anterior cingulate so that the women felt less distressed about the shocks.”

Holding hands.

It’s such a simple, yet powerful way to feel connected to those we love.

I’m smiling as I type this imagining holding not only Alexandra’s hand but Emerson’s and Eleanor’s. These days we’re all enjoying sleeping in a family bed. It goes Eleanor, Alexandra, Emerson, me. After sharing something that was awesome about the day and something for which we’re grateful, I say I love you then put the tape on my mouth.

Then I grab Emerson’s hand and squeeze it a couple times.

Whose hand can YOU squeeze Today?

That’s from the same chapter as our last Idea.

And, as you may know if you’ve read Make Your Bed, Moki Martin makes an appearance in both that book and this one.

In Make Your Bed, Moki makes a cameo in the chapter on lesson #4: Life’s Not Fair—Drive On! Moki was McRaven’s instructor when he was an aspiring SEAL. During training, he made McRaven do a dreaded “sugar cookie”—forcing him to plunge into the ocean then roll in the sand, getting wet, cold and sandy.

Here’s their dialogue from that scene:

“‘Mr. Mac, do you have any idea why you are a sugar cookie this morning?’ Martin said in a very calm but questioning manner.’

“‘No, Instructor Martin,’ I dutifully responded.

‘Because, Mr. Mac, life isn’t fair and the sooner you learn that the better off you will be.’”

As McRaven says: “It is easy to blame your lot in life on some outside force, to stop trying because you believe fate is against you. It is easy to think that where you were raised, how your parents treated you, or what school you went to is all that determines your future. Nothing could be further from the truth. The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life’s unfairness: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malala Yousafzai, and—Moki Martin.

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you are, you still end up a sugar cookie. Don’t complain. Don’t blame it on your misfortune. Stand tall, look to the future, and drive on!”

P.S. The 10th and final lesson from Make Your Bed? “Of all the lessons I learned in SEAL training, this was the most important. Never quit. It doesn’t sound particularly profound, but life constantly puts you in situations where quitting seems so much easier than continuing on. Where the odds are so stacked against you that giving up seems the rational thing to do.”

Those are the final words of the chapter called “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” in which Admiral McRaven tells us about his time in the White House immediately after 9/11.

He was assigned to a new position as the Director of Strategy and Military Affairs in the Office of Combatting Terrorism. During that time, among many other things, he led the rescue of Gracia Burnham who, along with her husband, was held hostage in the jungles of the Philippines.

When I read that passage, a number of thoughts came through my mind.

First, I admired McRaven’s humility and honesty.

And… Part of a longer discussion, but I think we can make a case that, from a broader conception of love, we can see a fierce, protective love at work as he fulfilled his missions to exact justice and protect the world from harm.

Although not quite what McRaven was saying, Pema Chödrön’s wisdom on the subject of the near enemies of Love (including “Idiot Compassion”) comes to mind.

In The Places That Scare You she says: “There is a traditional Buddhist story about a ship captain, Compassionate Heart, who was traveling with five hundred people when a pirate, Angry Spearman, boarded the boat and threatened to kill them all. The captain realized that if the pirate did this, he would be sowing seeds of his own intense suffering. Moved by compassion for both the pirate and the people, the captain killed Angry Spearman… There is no act that is inherently virtuous or non-virtuous. The warrior trains in the discipline of not causing harm, knowing that the way to do this skillfully will change with the circumstances. When we practice discipline with flexibility, we become less moralistic and more tolerant.”

I also appreciated the fact that McRaven has played his role so well—perfectly embodying the wisdom of Jim Collins’s “Hedgehog Concept” of discovering what you love, what you can be great at and what the world needs.

All of which brings us back to you. What role are YOU being asked to play in the world? Are you playing it as well and as intensely as you can? Please do. We need you.

Those are the final words of the book.

That sentiment to want to be a good man is EXACTLY how I felt as I closed the book and felt into its transformative power.

Einstein once said: “Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”

That’s exactly how I felt as I finished the book.

How can I give back in equal measure to all the men and women who have served and given everything so that I may live in freedom? And, how can I give back in equal measure to ALL the men and women who have served me and my family to make our blessed lives possible?

Let’s remind ourselves every day (!) that our inner and outer lives are based on the labors of other men and women, living and dead, and that we must exert ourselves in order to give in the same measure as we have been blessed to receive and are still receiving.

Let’s be good men and women as we play our roles well in service to the world.

TODAY.