

How Navy SEALs Fight Smarter, Not Harder - bkohlmann
http://disruptivethinkers.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-navy-seals-fight-smarter-not-harder.html

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gexla
More lessons...

The military is an organization which accepts nearly anyone who is able. The
only real restrictions are criminal records and medical. Most of the people
joining aren't the cream of the crop of society, they aren't the types who are
sending out applications to ivy league colleges. Many are also simply looking
for a job. The point here is that from the beginning, there isn't a high bar
to become elite among the entrants.

Once you are in the military and get started on the path of your career, most
of your peers simply get into their regular lives. They have kids, get married
and have real lives outside the military. They punch their clock to start the
day and punch their clock to end the day. Again, there isn't a high bar to be
elite among these peers. (ETA: that's not to say that they aren't elite
because they got married and have kids. A lot of people in special forces have
families. The difference is that the elites continue to keep their work as a
high priority to the point where they likely struggle with keeping everything
balanced.)

Our society has fabricated a lot of glamour around the world of special forces
and this attracts a lot of people who get caught up in that. I think a lot of
people who try for special forces only see that glamour and that veil is
easily pierced. Once they see the real work involved then they lose heart and
fail the weeding out processes. The people who are left are those who are
truly striving to be the best and have a competitive spirit which won't allow
them to fail.

At first, the recruits see hellish training, but eventually they see that this
is simply the type of situation they could find themselves in at any time
during real combat. When you are in a real survival situation and things get
tough (this could be military or simply being stranded in a remote location)
then you need grit and keeping calm under fire to keep yourself alive so that
you can reach your goals. The special forces training put the recruits in this
situation so that when shit hits the fan, they are already in a familiar
situation.

So, some of the lessons to me are...

There might be a lot of competition out there, but most of that competition is
just average. I can be a success simply by running a little faster than the
herd, and this isn't hard to do. Of course, the curve gets exponentially
steeper as I attempt to join the ranks of "world class."

There is a lot of glamour in being a successful entrepreneur in a start-up,
but that glamour is a fabrication. It's not the reason for being there and
it's not what will keep you motivated to put in the work that is required for
success. Those who aren't in for the right reasons will quickly fail. Those
who are ready to compete and reach into that "super human" in us will be the
ones standing at the end.

When the start-up environment morphs the typical corporate environment, then
we are no longer in the environment in which we forged our elite skills. At
this point, it's time for us to go. Start-up for life!

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te_platt
I particularly liked this quote from the article: "My training is never
complete."

It's a good reminder that a degree or certification is a marker of progress
but not an end in itself.

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mrgreenfur
Respect to the SEALS, but these examples are absurd. They get billions in
funding and they can't check the weather and buy some snow shoes???

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dguaraglia
Meh, am I this shallow? I just dismissed the whole article because of a misuse
of "principal" instead of "principle".

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danso
I've also admired the Green Berets, though their work seems to rely less on
the tight cohesion of the SEALs

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runjake
Army Special Forces ("Green Berets") and the Navy SEALs have distinct
missions, but teamwork is the root of everything they do.

In what ways and to what do you base this opinion on? The whole of the US
military is taught that the team comes first.

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danso
Yes, I misspoke. What I meant was that GB seemed to be tasked more with
longer-term missions (leading guerilla warfare, long term reconnaissance) and
less of the kind that have the level of tactical teamwork that the SEALs seem
to focus more on. Obviously, the GB work in teams for their work as well.

