“If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations 
and everyone else only their conduct we shall 
soon reach a very false conclusion.” 

Greatness

                                                                         

“Greatness and nearsightedness are 
incompatible. Meaningful achievement 
depends on lifting one's sights and pushing 
toward the horizon.” 

Be Better

                                                        

“Focus on making yourself better,
 not on thinking that you are better.” 

Be conservative

“If there was a reason why he preferred the 
liberal tendency to the conservative one (also 
held to by many of his circle), it was not because 
he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but 
it more closely suited his manner of life.” 

Don't be Afraid

“Don't be afraid to be afraid. 
Have fear, and then conquer the 
shit out of it.” 

No time

                                                           

“There is no tomorrow and there was no 
yesterday; if you truly want to accomplish 
your goals you must engulf yourself in today.” 

Your life

“If you don't make the time to work on 
creating the life you want, you're eventually 
going to be forced to spend a LOT of time 
dealing with a life you don't want.” 

Our doubts are traitors

“Our doubts are traitors and make 
us lose the good we oft might win, 
by fearing to attempt. In other words, 
a wish is a good place to start but then 
you have to get off your butt and make 
it happen. You have to pick up a quill 
and write your own damn story. 

Surpass yourself

“We have to surpass ourselves every day, 
make every day undying. Climb our own 
personal Everest and do it in such a way 
that every step is a little bit of eternity.
That's what the future is for: to build the 
present, with real plans, made by living 
people.” 

Lonely

                                                       

“When you are lonely for a while 
don't get restless, if you had born 
alone, you are going to die alone 
then for sometime you can certainly 
live alone.” 

Every game is winnable

                                                     

“Every game is winnable if you change 
your mind about what the prize should 
be and your perspective about the players 
at the table.” 

To turn your dreams into reality

                                       

1. Get the simple things right.

During training, Sunday was always depressing, because you knew the inevitable torture that Monday would bring. Monday was inspection day. To be successful as a SEAL, your attention to detail must be unwavering. So you start with the little things, like making your bed and cleaning the floors. I used to keep my bed impeccably made and sleep on top of the covers with a sleeping bag. If everything wasn’t perfect, you paid for it. And sometimes when it was perfect, you paid anyway. The lesson: If you can’t get the simple things right, you can’t expect to successfully tackle more daunting tasks.

2. Set both realistic and unrealistic goals.

Successful people are relentless goal setters. They break down larger milestones into smaller, more achievable tasks. One of the most unrealistic goals a SEAL candidate can set is completing Hell Week. You don’t sleep for a week. You run countless miles with boats, logs, and backpacks. You swim dozens of miles in the frigid ocean. You run the obstacle course daily and do more pushups and pull-ups than you can count. All while battling second-stage hypothermia, sores, and often fractures. Some students quit just minutes into Hell Week. You can’t allow yourself to imagine what the end will look like. So you make–and achieve–one small goal at a time and pray for the sun to come up the next day. A series of near-term realistic goals will help you get closer to your big audacious ones.

3. Work hard.

This one seems obvious, but many people underestimate the level of effort it takes to be successful and achieve aggressive goals. It astonishes me that some of the guys showing up to SEAL training put no real time or effort into preparation. If you don’t work hard preparing for potential success, you won’t change that behavior when things get really tough.

4. Get others to work with you.

A SEAL training class is broken down into boat crews of seven guys each: three on either side of the boat and a coxswain in the rear steering. During the first phase of training, you take the boats out through the surf and paddle miles up and down the beach every day. I was in a winter class, where the swells can be up to 10 feet or more. It takes every man digging in and paddling hard just to get through the surf zone without getting tossed upside down. When setting goals and pursuing success, you must sometimes lead and get others to paddle with you. You can’t do it all alone. The minute you realize that you don’t know everything and need help along the way, the better off you will be.

5. Don’t make excuses.

Successful people don’t make excuses for failure or shortcomings. They acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses and seek feedback from trusted advisers. The longer you sit around making excuses, the further you will drift from the possibility of achieving your goals.

6. Don’t underestimate others.

One of the most fascinating things about SEAL training is that out of the couple hundred guys who start a training class, you could never hand pick the 30 or so who will graduate. Rarely is it the Rambo types who make it. Usually they are the first to go. Underestimating people, whether peers or competitors, is one of the worst things you can do. People who go far in life measure others by qualities such as integrity and strength of heart. Empower those around you, and you will be surprised by the outcome.

7. Be willing to fail.

When entering this phase of my life, I knew that statistically, the odds were not in my favor. I also knew that if I didn’t try, I would never forgive myself. I decided that I would rather try and fail than be the guy who says, “I was thinking about trying that.” You simply can’t look at life through a lens of fear. If you take a calculated risk and fail, at the very least you have a valuable learning experience. Get back up. Dust off. And never, ever, be out of the fight.

8. Embrace the repercussions of your actions.

On your path to success, you will make mistakes. One of my early mistakes was slacking off on my pushups after the obstacle course during the first day of the third phase of training. An instructor was looking through the rearview mirror while sitting in the truck. He was counting to see if I did the required 50. I decided to do 30-ish. That mistake earned me a spot with the “cheaters” the following week while at the shooting range. Each day, before we started, during lunch, and between drills, the cheaters would line up and sprint to the top of a nearby mountain in full gear. If you failed to make the cutoff time, you ran it again. It was torture. But the week after, I miraculously cut my four-mile run time by three minutes. Learn from your mistakes and turn the consequences into something positive.

9. Don’t back down.

My favorite passage from the Navy SEAL creed reads: “I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.” Enough said.

10. Laugh when you want to cry.

Staying positive seems like an obvious trait for successful people, but it’s easier said than done. Your character is defined by what you do when things get tough. During Hell Week, one of the fun tasks is called “steel pier.” After spending some time in the cold water of San Diego Bay, you strip down to your undershorts and lie down on the freezing metal pier while the instructors spray you with hoses. Your body convulses uncontrollably as it reaches stage-two hypothermia. But the guys who found the strength to laugh (partly because of delirium) during this event were the ones standing proud at graduation. When things get rough and are out of your control, don’t forget to laugh.

11. Make sacrifices.

Success comes with sacrifice. Let selfish ways fall by the wayside, and know that you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. The most successful people in the world have made significant sacrifices along the way. To become a SEAL, you give up comfort, and the discomfort only increases the further you go. But you get used to it, because you know what you are doing is worth it.

The path to success is paved with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but you can’t lose heart. Stay strong, be humble, and lean on others for support when necessary.

Good and evil

It was with a good end in mind – that of acquiring 
the knowledge of good and evil – that Eve allowed 
herself to be carried away and eat the forbidden fruit. 
But Adam was not moved by this desire for knowledge, 
but simply by greed: he ate it because he heard Eve say 
it tasted good.” 

Plan

                                                        

“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, 
but when the action starts, it may not go the 
way you planned, and you're down to your 
reflexes - that means your [preparation:]. 
That's where your roadwork shows. If you 
cheated on that in the dark of the morning, 
well, you're going to get found out now, 
under the bright lights.”

Dream your dream

                                     

“Dream your dream; and realize that you are 
more than just the dreamer, you are the point 
of origin for its reality.” 

No one asks how to motivate a baby

“No one asks how to motivate a baby. 
A baby naturally explores everything 
it can get at, unless restraining forces 
have already been at work. And this 
tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out.”

The universe

“The universe doesn't give you what you want 
in your mind; it gives you what you demand 
with your actions.” 

You are a divine being

“You are a divine being. You matter, you count. 
You come from realms of unimaginable power 
and light, and you will return to those realms.” 

Happiness

“If you want to be happy, you need to set your mind on happiness.”

Our doubts are traitors

“Our doubts are traitors and make us
lose the good we oft might win, by fearing 
to attempt. In other words, a wish is a good
 place to start but then you have to get off 
your butt and make it happen. You have to pick 
up a quill and write your own damn story. 

Surpass Yourself

 “...You have to surpass yourselves every day, 
make every day undying. Climb our own 
personal Everest and do it in such a way
 that every step is a little bit of eternity.
That's what the future is for: to build the 

present, with real plans, made by living people.”

No tomorrow

“There is no tomorrow and there was no yesterday; 
if you truly want to accomplish your goals you must
 engulf yourself in today.” 

In Love

“Virtually everyone needs motivation of some sort, 
but when you are in love - that is motivation enough,
 it turns many into poets and painters, it spurs the 
creativity in you.”

GIVING

Applied tithing is so rewarding. 
When you give away your time, 
talent, and treasures you create 
a huge shift in your prosperity 
consciousness. So start where 
you are as you reach for where 
it is you want to be.” 

Struggle

“I have moments that aren't too bad, but there's 
always something I'm struggling with, or feeling 
guilty about. I just figured I needed to try harder, 
but I find it difficult to sustain that motivation.”
  "Believe in yourself that you can make it" 

Life

“We are motivated more by aversion to the unpleasant 
than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are
 constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather
 than enter our pain , and we wonder why it is so difficult
 to be fully alive.

Beautiful day

“Recognize that throughout this beautiful day,
you have an incredible amount of opportunities 
to move your life into the direction you want it to go.”