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The only easy day was yesterday.
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US Navy SEALs
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And he always stood up for the underdog--never realizing that because of his size he was one himself.
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Eric Blehm (Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown)
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Leading large groups of people, motivating and inspiring them to accomplish a common goal regardless of adversity or danger—that’s the essence of dynamic leadership.
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Jason Redman (The Trident: The Forging and Reforging of a Navy SEAL Leader)
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to overcome? Are you in the constant practice of learning new things and remaining someone worth learning from? Are you as happy and healthy as you want your son to be? Does permission to live a good life so that you can lead your son to do the same inspire or scare you? Why?
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Eric Davis (Raising Men: Lessons Navy SEALs Learned from Their Training and Taught to Their Sons)
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In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And they will not be able to convince
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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It was not about physical strength, Wit reminded himself. It was 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. That's what the SEAL instructors were looking for: men and women who could disregard the pleadings of the body. Pain was nothing, sleep was nothing. What was chaffed skin, wrecked muscles, bleeding sores? The body chooses to be sore. The body chooses to be exhausted. But the SEAL mind rejects it. The SEAL mind commands the body, not the other way around.
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Orson Scott Card (Earth Awakens (The First Formic War, #3))
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For inspiration, I would turn again and again to Lieutenant Jason “Jay” Redman, a Navy SEAL who had been shot seven times and had undergone nearly two dozen surgeries. He had placed a hand-drawn sign on the door to his room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It read: ATTENTION. To all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere. From: The Management.
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Robert M. Gates (Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War)
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Think of yourself as a colander—a bowl filled with holes. When you experience a peak state, it’s like turning on the kitchen faucet and flooding that colander with water. If there’s enough volume, the colander fills up despite the leaks. As long as water keeps flooding in, you will, for a moment, experience what it’s like to be a cup. You’ll feel whole; if you’re really inspired, holy. Then the faucet turns off, the peak experience ends, and all that water leaks back out. In a matter of moments, you’ll settle back to where you started. The information recedes. The inspiration that was so easy to grasp moments ago slips away. And now you’ve got a decision to make. Do you engage the dull and repetitive work of plugging your leaks or do you go hunting for the next ecstatic faucet to tap?
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Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
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Just as stem cells produce a growth factor that stimulates cellular communication, muscle growth, and wound healing in the body, fear is a seedpod packed with growth factor for the mind. When you deliberately and consistently confront your fear of heights or particular people, places, and situations that unsettle you, those seeds germinate, and your confidence grows exponentially. You might still hate jumping off high things or swimming beyond the waves, but your willingness to keep doing it will help you make peace with it. You may even be inspired to try to master it. That’s how a kid who was afraid of the water his whole life became a Navy SEAL.
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David Goggins (Never Finished)
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Pursue a mission. Set a massive, awe-inspiring goal—a “higher purpose”—that ignites within you an unquenchable burning desire. It’s not the smartest, richest, or best educated that succeed in this world… Nor is it the strongest men, the tallest men, or the best swimmers that become Navy SEALs… It’s those that want it the most.
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Dominic Mann (Self-Discipline: How to Develop the Mindset, Mental Toughness and Self-Discipline of a U.S. Navy SEAL (Self-Discipline Books Book 1))
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Ask others the same questions you ask of yourself: “Am I a good leader? Am I trustworthy? Am I inspiring?
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Rob Roy (The Navy SEAL Art of War: Leadership Lessons from the World's Most Elite Fighting Force)
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In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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Proving that determination and grit were always more important than talent.
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William H. McRaven (Make Your Bed 10 Life Lessons from a Navy SEAL [Hardcover], Rewire Your Mindset, The Fitness Mindset, Meltdown 4 Books Collection Set)
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PRINCIPLE In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Even when others doubt and question the amount of risk, asking, “Is it worth it?” the leader must believe in the greater cause. If a leader does not believe, he or she will not take the risks required to overcome the inevitable challenges necessary to win. And they will not be able to convince others—especially the frontline troops who must execute the mission—to do so.
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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While we've painted the guardians of the pale in a somewhat reactionary light, let's give the gatekeepers their due. What lies beyond the pale isn't always safe and secure. Outside the fence of state-sanctioned consciousness, there are, to be sure, peaks of profound insight and inspiration. But there are also the swamps of addiction, superstition, and groupthink, where the unprepared can get stuck.
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Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)
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That day, after barely resurfacing from a seventy-two meter warm up dive into the Blue Hole, Mevoli went into cardiac arrest and died. This time, he wasn’t able to bring himself back. When asked to comment on the accident, Natalia Molchanova, regarded by many as the greatest freehold breath diver in the world, said, “the biggest problem with freedivers . . . [is] now they go too deep too fast.” Less than two years later, off the coast of Spain, Molchanova took a quick recreational dive of her
own. She deliberately ran though her usual set of breathing exercises, attached a light weight to her belt to help her descend, and swam downward, alone. It was
supposed to be a head-clearing reset. But, Molchanova didn’t come back either.
And that’s the problem that free diving shares with many other state-shifting techniques: return too soon, and you’ll always wonder if you could have gone
deeper. Go too far, and you might not make it back.
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Steven Kotler (Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work)