Monday November 18th, 2024

Hooyah!! Lessons From Navy Seals:

A few years ago, the Greenbrier High School Softball and Football Programs were privileged to have two former Navy Seals come in and teach our athletes the Fundamentals of Winning. Not just winning on the game fields, but more importantly winning in the game of life.

The name of their business is Stonewall Solutions. Jason Kuhn and Paul Vespie are two former Division I athletes who decided to serve their country and become Navy Seals shortly after 9-11. They travel the United States nowadays working with young athletes on creating positive team cultures and developing individual mental skills. Their program is one of the best I've witnessed in my 25 years of coaching.

We started off Friday night with a 4 hour classroom session on the Fundamentals of Winning. They used their Navy Seals experiences to teach the kids the importance of being a great teammate and developing mental skills for when life knocks you to the ground and you have to get back up. Saturday morning they took the training to the field and put our kids through a challenging 4 hour workout. 

Following our Friday night session I met with our softball team and I asked them the question, "what's one lesson you took from Jason and Paul tonight that you feel you need to apply to your life?" I thought I would share some of the responses in this month's article. It's good stuff!!! It's the good stuff we all need to apply to our lives on a daily basis.

1- Justification vs Value: When making decisions we need to apply thought and action that produce VALUE instead of producing NO value. Life's circumstances sometimes allows us to justify feeling sorry for ourselves or feeling as if we are the victim or have been dealt a bad hand in the game of life. We naturally experience doubt and self-pity. What value do we bring to ourselves in feeling that way? What value is there in feeling sorry for yourself? Let's say someone has wronged you. You could justify getting even with that person, but does that bring value to yourself and the people around you? Forgiveness would bring VALUE. The great quote from the movie The Shawshank Redemption holds true in these situations, "get busy living or get busy dying." One of the Navy SEAL Creeds is: "My ability to control my thoughts and actions regardless of circumstances sets me apart from other men." 

2- Conflict Resolution: Have you ever encountered a challenge or negative situation with another person at work? How about with a member of your family? Do you attack the person or do you attack the problem? How much better would our work environment be if we attacked the problem? How much better would our families and our marriages be if we attacked the problem and not the person? 
Attacking the problem requires us to be selfless. Being selfless creates trust. Trust creates proper communication. I've learned that whenever I have a player show up late for practice I praise the other 17 players who showed up on time. The message becomes clear for the player who shows up late.

3- Be Where You Feet Are: Live for TODAY. Live for the MINUTE. You can't control tomorrow. You can't control yesterday. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, TODAY is a gift. It's the PRESENT. Live it to the fullest. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. DOMINATE THE DAY. Live TODAY with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. With any interaction with people they are going to feel 1 of 3 ways:
1- Feel better when you are around.
2- Feel worse when you are around.
3- Feel no different when you are around.
Live the day with enthusiasm! Think of other people first. Make a difference in someone's life TODAY! 

4- Embrace the SUCK!: There's no way around it. Life is going to knock you to the canvas. Are you going to get up? Life is going to throw negatives your way. Are you going to turn them into positives? Embrace adversity as a great OPPORTUNITY! If you want something in life.....GO GET IT! Adversity will hit you in 3 ways. 1- distractions (unfairness) 2- other' opinions 3- failure.
You can control two things: 1- how you react 2- what you do next.
Don't quit! Keep battling! Embrace the suck! Embrace the daily grind! "The cowards never started and the weak died along the way..." --Oregon Trail Memorial. 
Start acting like what you want to be right now! Do not let anything get in your way.

I could write more from what we learned from Jason and Paul over those two days. These guys live their lives by the principles they teach. Their passion is to make a difference in young people's lives. It's an honor and privilege to be around those guys. It's great to know we have people like them serving in our armed forces. If you would like to know more about Jason and Paul go to stonewall-solutions.com

I will close with one of their favorite quotes, "There are two ways to do things...the right way and AGAIN!"

Hooyah!