The Navy Seals and Marine Corp are known, admired and revered for their strong bonds and their organizational culture. Americans feel a confidence in them to protect and keep them safe in threatening and dangerous situations. I've never been in the military but
I was able to relate my experience competing in a team sport and spending time with friends being outside and active to come up with these ideas about building relationships and community in my everyday life.
Simon Sinek talks about the confidence course that marines have to complete in basic training. The course is untimed and designed for individual failure. You cannot complete this course on your own. Recruits must takes risks and be vulnerable on the course, they must complete an obstacle before they can help a team member. Each recruit is put in a position of failure for a bit. At this point in the course, they can make progress; if they reach out. The group must finish to complete the task and there is always a guy in front to help and a guy behind who needs help. So the opportunity for each individual to help and be helped is built into the challenge and necessary to complete it.
Maybe this is where these two ideas come from 🤔 Marine's say that ... "everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die", the Navy Seals' understanding that they don't go into battle for their country but rather they go into battle for the person to the left of them and the right of them. These guys in these organizations know from experience that the other person would do the same.
Navy Seals show up to basic training not knowing the person on their left or right, from Adam, virtual strangers yet after just a short period of time they trust each other enough to risk their lives for one another. They gain the confidence to put themselves at great risk because they have the knowledge that the guy on the left, or right, would do the same. The foundational belief underneath their courage to take risks is a deep trust in someone else. I wonder if the trust these navy seals develop in their own skills and abilities and must be there first before they can form this deep trust in someone else? 🤔 I wonder if thats why you must complete the obstacle first before you can help someone else?
Completing the group task on the training course is the goal ... it's the mental task that is shared by everyone ... but each individual must do the physical work to achieve the mental goal. Each navy seal has to push themselves mentally and physically to the point of no return. At the point of no return they make a choice to reach out for help from their team mate. In that moment, do they form a shared belief that they can rely on on the person, that the other is capable and strong and that when they doubt themselves they CAN count on a team mate to support them - to tell them that someone else's belief in them IS stronger than their mental and physical frustration, exhaustion that they are feeling in that moment? Is it in that moment where the coin drops that there IS a force greater than our self doubt, we just have take a leap of faith and believe? We have to allow someone in to bust out of who were are to become something bigger and more connected in this moment?
If you hadn't struggled to get to that moment where you hit the wall would you be able to take that leap of faith?
Maybe doing the physical work to get over the hurdle builds trust in yourself to do hard things. Maybe listening to and accepting the hand of another who believes you can busts through the mental wall because deep down you know and believe you can do it. It's just something in this moment that causes you to need some help! When you take that leap of faith and achieve something together, both people feel whole and vital for completing the challenge, a task meant to push your mental and physical limits, both people feel the inspiration, both people feel motivated seeing the other prevail!
This reminds me of a day, this past winter, when I met some friends to try Fat Biking for the first time. We had just had one of those beautiful winter snow falls. The trails were covered in inches and inches of fresh fallen snow. I was so excited to be on a bike, outside in the forest and with friends. I played around in the parking lot, like my goofy self does woo whoooing and riding in circles. The bike felt great!!!!!! When we got on the trails the geometry of the bike changed for me and the balance was a whole different thing. I fell off again and again, but I absolutely loved it!!! The snow was soft and I wasn't afraid to fall.
In the summer on my mountain bike, I do feel a fear of falling sometimes when I get going because I know the dirt, the rocks, the trees may cause injury if I fall!!!!!! So when I fell in the snow, I laughed and it felt like playing and having fun. I just kept getting up and on the bike again.
The challenge came 3km in when the bike felt heavier to pick up, and my energy was starting to drain. I finally arrived at the trail head where everyone was stopped (thanks for your patience guys) and heard that we had 7km to ride still. We were kinda lost because we had so much fresh snow we couldn't really see the trail. We weren't really confident if we were on the actual marked trail and what route we could take on the map. We just knew that the hardest part of the trail was still ahead. So we decided to pick a route, stick together and make it to the parking lot. It was fat bike basic training for me and any Navy Seal or Marine would be so proud.
It was gruelling and transformative. You see ...
I've been on a journey over the past decade to find and build and create trust in myself, who I am and confidence to share it with the world, as well as, love and gratitude to insulate my inner wild child from shame that has come and trapped that kid inside, when I allowed the critique and judgement of others to be the lens through which I saw myself. Sometimes the people who love us the most deeply and see our best point out all the things we are doing wrong to motivate us to do better. They tell us all the things they don't want us to become because they know who we are and what we have the potential to become.
I do that with my own kids sometimes.
During fat bike basic training, LOL, I was reminded by two friends about the power of support, belief and encouragement, community, relationship and trust. The power of friendship, the power of patience and acceptance, and where trust truly resides... its nuance, its delicate place in that space, between where you are and where you've agreed to be, that space and that commitment that two or more people share.
Where you are is often pretty gnarly and uncomfortable. Where the other is, is usually less gnarly but both people know they have something to give in that moment to propel the group to the finish line. It all comes down to what you can contribute.
In a number of those moments on the trail all I could listen to, all my attention had to go to a friends' voices and my openness to believe their words and feel their power to keep my head up and my feet pushing on the pedals. It was a conscious choice.
All choices are what we decide to contribute in any given moment. You see I could've chose to listen to my doubt, feel my frustration, my pain, my exhaustion, my lack of skill and contributed that .... but instead I chose to listen, I chose to keep my head up, I chose to focus on the agreement to get to the parking lot, I chose trust in a friend and my love of biking, the simplicity of playing outside in nature and the belief in myself that i can do hard things. The feel at the finish, the creation of deeper trust and the fun of friendship ... nows thats the payoff...the celebration...the smiles and feels that fill the space inside and out when the group prevails and that is why we need to channel more of inner Navy Seal, call on our Marine our own personal marine core when we are starting to go in battle with ourselves! We need to take a leap of deep faith in love, friendship and others ... we can create ....
UNWAVERING FAITH AND COMMITMENT IN SOMEONE
TRUST
DEEP TRUST
A TRUST ALIGNED AND CONNECTED WITH A POWER BIGGER THAN OURSELVES
In times of challenge or strength ... make the prognosis bigger than the problem and the power in the collective good will outweigh individual strength. That's a community and we all need them. We all thrive in them. They generate and sustain love and friendship and they are founded on trust and mutual respect. They are necessary for our survival as a species. We all share that DNA.
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