Adm.
Bill McRaven is a badass — and fount of good advice.
Head of
the U.S. Special Operations Command, he is a 36-year SEAL who has been at the
tip of the spear in the war on terror since 2001. He has commanded a squadron
in the fabled Naval Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL
Team Six, and he oversaw planning and execution of the raid that killed Osama
bin Laden.
He is
also the most mysterious and guarded Navy four-star. While Admirals Greenert, Gortney, Locklear and
company frequently appear in the media and before Congress, McRaven
shies away from the spotlight. In fact, outside the special operations
community, he rose all the way to four-star without attracting much notice
until Operation Neptune Spear.
But
students at the University of Texas at Austin got a rare treat last weekend
when McRaven delivered their commencement speech. McRaven, a 1977 UT grad, riffed on the school’s motto
(“What starts here changes the world.”) to deliver the 10 lessons he learned
during his SEAL training. Among them: If you want to change the world, start
off by making your bed.
“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,” he said.
He
closes the speech with the classic SEAL metaphor for failure: ringing the bell.
“Don’t ever, ever ring the bell,” he says.
The following are the remarks by Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations
Command, at the University-wide Commencement at The
University of Texas at Austin on May 17:
President Powers, Provost Fenves,
Deans, members of the faculty, family and friends and most importantly, the
class of 2014. Congratulations on your achievement.
It’s been almost 37 years to the day that I
graduated from UT.
I remember a lot of things about that day.
I remember I had throbbing headache from a party
the night before. I remember I had a serious girlfriend, whom I later
married—that’s important to remember by the way—and I remember that I was
getting commissioned in the Navy that day.
But of all the things I remember, I don’t have a
clue who the commencement speaker was that evening and
I certainly don’t remember anything they said.
So…acknowledging that fact—if I can’t make this
commencement speech memorable—I will at least try to make it short.
The University’s slogan is,
“What starts here changes the world.”
I have to admit—I kinda
like it.
“What starts here changes the world.”
Tonight there are almost 8,000 students
graduating from UT.
That great paragon of analytical rigor, Ask.Com
says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their life time.
That’s a lot of folks.
But, if every one of you changed the lives of
just ten people—and each one of those folks changed the lives of another ten
people—just ten—then in five generations—125 years—the class of 2014 will have
changed the lives of 800 million people.
800 million people—think of it—over twice the
population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can
change the entire population of the world—8 billion people.
If you think it’s hard to change the lives of
ten people—change their lives forever—you’re wrong.
I saw it happen every day in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
A young Army officer makes a decision to go left
instead of right down a road in Baghdad and the ten soldiers in his squad are
saved from close-in ambush.
In Kandahar province, Afghanistan, a
non-commissioned officer from the Female Engagement Team senses something isn’t
right and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500 pound IED, saving the
lives of a dozen soldiers.
But, if you think about it, not only were these
soldiers saved by the decisions of one person, but their children yet
unborn—were also saved. And their children’s children—were saved.
Generations were saved by one decision—by one
person.
But changing the world can happen anywhere and
anyone can do it.
So, what starts here can indeed change the
world, but the question is…what will the world look like after you change it?
Well, I am confident that it will look much,
much better, but if you will humor this old sailor for just a moment, I have a
few suggestions that may help you on your way to a better a 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
the world around us—will apply equally to all.
I have been a Navy SEAL for 36 years. But
it all began when I left UT for Basic SEAL training in Coronado, California.
Basic SEAL training is six months of long
torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San
Diego, obstacles 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 life time of
challenges crammed into six months.
So, here are the ten lesson’s I learned from
basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward
in life.
Every morning in basic SEAL training, my
instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my
barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.
If you did it right, the corners would be
square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard
and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy
talk for bed.
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 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.
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 little things in life matter.
If you can’t do the little things right, you
will never 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.
If
you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.
During SEAL training the students are broken
down into boat crews. Each crew is seven students—three on each side of a
small rubber boat and one coxswain to help guide the dingy.
Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach
and is instructed to get through the surfzone and
paddle several miles down the coast.
In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to
be 8 to 10 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 tossed 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
them.
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 35. 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 the little
guys—the munchkin crew we called them—no one was over about 5-foot five.
The munchkin boat crew had one American Indian,
one African American, one Polish America, one Greek American, one Italian
American, and two tough kids from the mid-west.
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 and the world, always had the last laugh— swimming faster than everyone
and 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 and not your social status.
If
you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not
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 and 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 fine “something” wrong.
For failing the uniform inspection, the student
had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and 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 that 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 effort was in
vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right—it was
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.
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 mettle.
Every event had standards—times you had to
meet. If you failed to meet 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.
But at some time during SEAL training,
everyone—everyone—made the circus list.
But an interesting thing happened to those who
were constantly on the list. Overtime those students-—who did two hours
of extra calisthenics—got stronger and stronger.
The pain of the circuses built inner
strength-built physical resiliency.
Life is filled with circuses.
You will fail. You will likely fail
often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it
will test you to your very core.
But
if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.
At least twice a week, the trainees were
required to run the obstacle course. The obstacle course contained 25
obstacles including a 10-foot high wall, a 30-foot cargo net, and a barbed wire
crawl to name a few.
But the most challenging obstacle was the slide
for life. It had a three level 30 foot tower at one end and a one level
tower at the other. In between was a 200-foot long rope.
You had to climb the three tiered tower and once
at the top, you grabbed the rope, swung underneath the rope and pulled yourself
hand over hand until you got to the other end.
The record for the obstacle course had stood for
years when my class began training in 1977.
The record seemed unbeatable, until one day, a
student decided to go down the slide for life—head first.
Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope
and inching his way down, he bravely mounted the TOP of the rope and thrust
himself forward.
It was a dangerous move—seemingly foolish, and
fraught with risk. Failure could mean injury and being dropped from the
training.
Without hesitation—the student slid down the
rope—perilously fast, instead of several minutes, it only took him half that
time and by the end of the course he had broken the record.
If
you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head
first.
During the land warfare phase of training, the
students are flown out to San Clemente Island which lies off the coast of San
Diego.
The waters off San Clemente are a breeding
ground for the great white sharks. To pass SEAL training there are a series of
long swims that must be completed. One—is the night swim.
Before the swim the instructors joyfully brief
the trainees on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off San
Clemente.
They assure you, however, that no student has
ever been eaten by a shark—at least not recently.
But, you are also taught that if a shark begins
to circle your position—stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not
act afraid.
And if the shark, hungry for a midnight snack,
darts towards you—then summons up all your strength and punch him in the snout
and he will turn and swim away.
There are a lot of sharks in the world. If
you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them.
So,
If you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.
As Navy SEALs one of our jobs is to conduct
underwater attacks against enemy shipping. We practiced this technique
extensively during basic training.
The ship attack mission is where a pair of SEAL
divers is dropped off outside an enemy harbor and then swims well over two
miles—underwater—using nothing but a depth gauge and a compass to get to their
target.
During the entire swim, even well below the
surface there is some light that comes through. It is comforting to know
that there is open water above you.
But as you approach the ship, which is tied to a
pier, the light begins to fade. The steel structure of the ship blocks the
moonlight—it blocks the surrounding street lamps—it blocks all ambient light.
To be successful in your mission, you have to
swim under the ship and find the keel—the centerline and the deepest part of
the ship.
This is your objective. But the keel is
also the darkest part of the ship—where you cannot see your hand in front of
your face, where the noise from the ship’s machinery is deafening and where it
is easy to get disoriented and fail.
Every SEAL knows that under the keel, at the
darkest moment of the mission—is the time when you must be calm, composed—when
all your tactical skills, your physical power and all your inner strength must
be brought to bear.
If
you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment.
The ninth week of training is referred to as
“Hell Week.” It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental
harassment and—one special day at the Mud Flats—the Mud Flats are area between
San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slue’s—a
swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.
It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle
down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the
freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the
instructors.
As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening,
my training class, having committed some “egregious infraction of the rules”
was ordered into the mud.
The mud consumed each man till there was nothing
visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if
only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive
cold.
Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that
some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till
the sun came up—eight more hours of bone chilling cold.
The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the
trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything and then, one voice began to
echo through the night—one voice raised in song.
The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with
great enthusiasm.
One voice became two and two became three and
before long everyone in the class was singing.
We knew that if one man could rise above the
misery then others could as well.
The instructors threatened us with more time in
the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted.
And somehow—the mud seemed a little warmer, the
wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.
If I have learned anything in my time traveling
the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person—Washington,
Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan—Malala—one
person can change the world by giving people hope.
So, if you want to change the world, start
singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.
Finally, in SEAL training there is a bell.
A brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all
the students to see.
All you have to do to quit—is ring the
bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock.
Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims.
Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the
runs, the obstacle course, the PT—and you no longer have to endure the
hardships of training.
Just ring the bell.
If
you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.
To the graduating class of 2014, you are moments
away from graduating. Moments away from beginning your
journey through life. Moments away starting to
change the world—for the better.
It will not be easy.
But, YOU are the class of 2014—the class that
can affect the lives of 800 million people in the next century.
Start each day with a task completed.
Find someone to help you through life.
Respect everyone.
Know that life is not fair and that you will
fail often, but if take you take some risks, step up when the times are
toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never, ever give
up—if you do these things, then next generation and the generations that follow
will live in a world far better than the one we have today and—what started
here will indeed have changed the world—for the better.
Thank you very much. Hook 'em horns.
Hook 'Em Horns, Admiral.