As a SEAL you will find yourself in frigidly cold waters, muddy grass that you will call a bed or jogging with enough weight in gear that would halt the legs of mere mortals to a crawl. In BUDS, the difference between the men who will become SEALS and those who will ring the bell and walk away is all too often a simple difference of weather. Some of the men are combating the cold with shivers and telling themselves to hang on just one more minute. These men are often the ones who will walk away from the program and never wear the Trident of a SEAL. On the other hand, a smaller group of men have brought their own weather and while sitting in the same miserable conditions are experiencing a toasty warm experience of sun and surfing.
TC Cummings brought his own weather to BUDS and became a SEAL because of it. When enduring BUDS you are at the whim of the instructors. You eat four times a day, run, wake, talk, swim and enter bone chilling water when they tell you to do so. The average man will follows these orders as obstacles to endure on his way to reaching his goal of graduation. The extraordinary man will follow these orders as obstacles to endure on his way to graduation while at the same time not living in the weather provided by the instructors. This crucial difference is the difference between success and failure. And for SEALS it is often the difference between life and death.
In BUDS you have no control of your schedule or what miserable environment you will find yourself in. If you allow yourself to be herded like cattle eventually you will lose control of your thoughts, then your mind and then you will give up and inevitably leave the program. TC Cummings completed BUDs and became a SEAL, in part because he brought his own weather. In the midst of a rough day he would remove his ball cap and smile as large as he could into his hat. The last thing he wanted was the instructors to see his smile and bellow, ‘Are you having fun Cummings? Are you enjoying yourself?’ TC wasn’t having fun – he wasn’t enjoying himself and all the more reason that he needed to smile into his hat for his own sanity and his own weather.
TC needed one aspect of his day that he could control and that aspect of his day turned out to be something as simple as a smile. The smile into his ball cap was his way of controlling his mental environment and when he began to control his mental environment instead of allowing his environment to control him – he was bringing his own weather. You see, it may have been in the middle of a muscle numbing workout or in the frigid waters of the Pacific. Yet, when the smile spread across TC’s face he was telling himself that he had not lost control, that he could smile and no one could stop him. He was telling himself that he was happy, content and comfortable when his environment was telling his body that he needed to quit. In short, he was bringing his own weather when the weather outside was unbearable.
In life, your environment is going to be miserable and out of control more often than you would like. Your bank account might run low, your family may anger you to the point of outrage, your competition may undercut you, friends may betray you, co workers may undermine you, the economy may slow on you and you just might find yourself in the middle of an environment that would buckle the knees of most. The question that you must ask yourself is – What would a Navy SEAL do? Simple – a Navy SEAL would bring his own weather. A Navy SEAL would not allow his environment to control him, instead he would control his environment. He would control his environment by telling himself that he is toasty warm when freezing in the frigid waters of the Pacific in January. He would control his environment by smiling into his ball cap when he felt like doing anything but smile.
The simple smile is an act of remaining in control and maintaining sanity. The men who will not complete BUDs slowly begin to see themselves as victims. They are a victim who is being herded into the bone chilling waters, they are a victim who is being forced to push their muscles past the limits of mortal men. The SEAL who brings his own weather by smiling into his hat or convincing his mind that it is toasty warm outside is refusing to see himself as a victim. He is a man who is in control, in charge and not enduring his environment but dominating his environment. He is not a victim of his environment, rather he is the cause of his environment.
The simple difference of cause and victim hood is difference between ringing the bell and become a SEAL. It is the difference of massive success in your career and personal life and utter failure. When it seems that nothing around you is working smoothly, when all options for success have been exhausted and the weather forecast predicts doom and gloom. You must bring your own weather. This does not infer that you should maintain some Pollyanna attitude of ‘Life is perfect’ when it is clearly a challenge to endure. However, what this does infer is that a Navy SEAL maintains control of his environment by not accepting the miserable conclusions his eyes and nerves have reached. Instead, he redraws new conclusions by controlling his thoughts.
When a SEAL experiences the pain of a fall onto jagged rocks or the misery of laying on the beach huffing to gasp all the oxygen in the hemisphere as his lungs tell him to walk away from BUDS, he views this pain as weakness leaving his body. His environment is pain, although his thought process is that weakness is leaving his body. This viewpoint makes the pain bearable and even pleasurable. If he does not experience the pain, then the weakness remains in his body and he does not get stronger. Thus, the SEAL has once again – brought his own weather.
When you experience challenges, pain and a rough environment on your path to success you must remind yourself to control your environment. If you fail to do this, you will eventually begin to see yourself as a victim and victims don’t succeed in BUDS, as a SEAL or in life. You control your environment the same way a SEAL does, you tell yourself that it is toasty warm when reality tells you that it is not. This does not mean that you should not access the situation and adapt to your environment. Absolutely you should. A SEAL will urinate in the cold ocean water to warm himself and his fellow SEALs will maneuver themselves to catch some of the warm water as well. While at the same time they are convincing the greatest computer ever created – their minds – that they are relaxing in Cancun, they are at the same time living in reality and doing what they can to control their environment literally.
When reaching for your goals you will experience distress. Will you bring your own weather by a smile into your ball cap, not losing your cool or refusing to give up at the sight of a low bank account?
The divergence of success and failure during BUDs occurs when a man fails to bring his own weather and becomes a victim. When the fork in the road of life presents itself during challenging times, the majority will take the avenue of allowing the environment to dictate their mindset. On the other hand, others will bring their own weather and trek the road less traveled. This is the road of success.
Are you bringing your own weather?
ACTION POINTS
1.
Understand that the canyon between success and failure can be bridged by bringing your own weather.
2.
Realize that this does not imply you should ignore reality, instead acknowledge reality, do what you can to change it and convince your mind that it is toasty warm
3.
When your world is out spinning out of control, find at least one aspect that you can control. It may be smiling into your ball cap, a quiet daily time alone, reading your favorite book or exercise. Refuse to allow yourself to become a victim and ensure this by maintaining some measure of control over your environment
4.
What are of your life seems to be in the middle of rough weather?
5.
How could you bring your own weather to this situation?
6.
Are you dominating your environment or is it dictating your attitude?
7.
How could you seize control of your environment?
Find out more in the MIND OF A SEAL CD PACKAGE