The Greatest Advice You Will Ever Receive | Admiral William H McRaven Motivation

changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it but the question is what will the world look like after you change it well i'm confident that it will look much much better i have a few suggestions that may help you on your way to a better world and while these lessons were learned during my time in the military i can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform it matters not your gender your ethnic or religious background your orientation or your social status our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward changing ourselves and changing the world around us will apply equally to all basic seal training is six months of long torturous runs in the soft sand midnight swims in the cold water off san diego obstacle courses unending calisthenics days without sleep and always being cold wet and miserable it is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a navy seal but the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress chaos failure and hardships to me basic seal training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months so here are the ten lessons i learned from basic seal training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life every morning in seal training my instructors who at the time were all vietnam veterans would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they do is inspect my bed if you did it right the corners would be square the covers would be pulled tight the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack it was a simple task mundane at best but every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection it seemed a little ridiculous at the time particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors tough battle-hardened seals but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over if you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day it will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another and by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter if you can't do the little things right you'll never be able to do the big things right and if by chance you have a miserable day you will come home to a bed that is made that you made and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better so if you want to change the world start off by making your bed during training the students are all broken down into boat crews each crew has seven students three on each side of a small rubber boat and one coxswain to help guide the dinghy every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast in the winter the surf off san diego can get to be eight to ten feet high and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach for the boat to make it to its destination everyone must paddle you can't change the world alone you will need some help and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends colleagues the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide you if you want to change the world find someone to help you paddle over a few weeks of difficult training my seal class which started with 150 men was down to just 42. there were now six boat crews of seven men each i was in the boat with the tall guys but the best boat crew we had was made up of the little guys the munchkin crew we called them no one was over five foot five the munchkin boat crew had one american indian one african-american one polish american one greek american one italian-american and two tough kids from the midwest they out paddled out ran and out swam all the other boat crews the big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim but somehow these little guys from every corner of the nation in the world always had the last laugh sowing faster than everyone in reaching the shore long before the rest of us seal training was a great equalizer nothing mattered but your will to succeed not your color not your ethnic background not your education not your social status if you want to change the world measure a person by the size of their heart not by the size of their flippers several times a week the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection it was exceptionally thorough your hat had to be perfectly starched your uniform immaculately pressed your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges but it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle it just wasn't good enough the instructors would find something wrong for failing uniform inspection the student had to run fully clothed into the surf zone then wet from head to toe roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand the effect was known as a sugar cookie you stayed in the uniform the rest of the day cold wet and sandy there were many a student who just couldn't accept the fact that all their efforts were in vain that no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right it went unappreciated those students didn't make it through training those students didn't understand the purpose of the drill you were never going to succeed you were never going to have a perfect uniform the instructors weren't going to allow it sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie it's just the way life is sometimes if you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events long runs long swims obstacle courses hours of calisthenics something designed to test your metal every event had standards times you had to meet if you failed to meet those times those standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to a circus a circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down to break your spirit to force you to quit no one wanted a circus a circus meant that for that day you didn't measure up a circus meant more fatigue and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult and more circuses were likely 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