Tribes stick when things get sticky ...
Updated: Jan 16, 2019
... gaggles and groups get out of town.
///Tribalism///
Description: Will Ferrell and Danny McBride maintain their standard hilarity in this movie remake of the television series. In this scene McBride and Ferrell are forced into a conflict with the T-Rex they've been running from for the entirety of the movie.
Discussion: The legendary attrition model associated with SEAL training (BUDS, Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL) and other special operations pipelines actually starts weeks, months, and sometimes years before candidates even swear into their selected branches.
There is always a cleaving moment in any great endeavor when parties and people begin to split ... this is the moment when "SAY" becomes "DO."
In the Naval Special Warfare community we often - and accurately - say "everyone wants to be a Frogman on Friday" when the week is over - when the word doesn't have to wear the weight of work done from zero-dark-early on Monday morning (and Sunday night if it's Hell Week) through Friday afternoon.
The same can be said really for any great ambition.
The entire health-club model is based on the premise that only about 30% of the people who say they want to get in shape will show up consistently.
BUDS is famous for having a consistent retention rate of between 10-20% since the inception of the SEAL community and our storied training program. That means if 100 people sign But if we measured the number of people who said they wanted to be in the special operations community who didn't show up and swear in ... well, that number would be closer to 1%. This scene hilariously captures one of those moments when "say" fails to stick and become "do."
Truthfully, I actually think there's a 3rd category of folks worth discussing: the "TRY" crew. We too often associate success with outcomes. For sure outcomes are important, We make decisions based on outcomes. Plans based on outcomes. Promote, cut, keep based on outcomes. Championships are awarded based on outcomes. But if we fail to celebrate effort - we miss some real magic. It is an incomplete and discouraging way to measure the meaningfulness of someone's effort. When we do it to ourselves we stifle and limit our ability to envision, dream, dare and adventure. There is knowledge, skill, and a future to those who try, fail, fall, rise, and try again. When we step and take a look at the supply chain of successful outcomes we'll often see hundreds of "he/she tried" on the way to "they did it." I never looked down on those who rang the bell during training. Becoming a SEAL wasn't for them. It is incredibly challenging. There are realities to our world that you only learn once you are in training. They didn't make it ... in my mind, the quitters were the ones who said they wanted to be a SEAL, but never even signed up.
If you want to find yourself in a Tribe, choose to be around people who do what they say they're going to do. Heck, just choose people who consistently even try to do what they say they are going to do. The difference between effort and outcome is sometimes serendipity. But one thing is absolutely certain, where there is no effort there is no outcome.
Decision, Design, & Discipline: Do 3 things today:
(1) Re-examine unrealized goals and objectives and determine whether or not you even tried.
(2) Hold yourself accountable for the times you did not escape the gravitational pull of "say," and acknowledge those moments where you slipped the surly bonds of words and breathed the rare air of work,
(4) Surround yourself with people who put their words to work. The wins will come.