“Silent Night”, sung with scenes from a Christmas far away from home on the background, floating in freezing water, as if that choir of comrades could ease both the physical and the homesick pain.
We aren’t marines, but this clip represents challenge for anybody who wants to win in an ocean of competitor. Resilience is the keyword, all that matters when life keeps on knocking you out and letting you fall without a protection. If the balance between going down and getting up is positive, then you will be one of the 20 % of people who believe in their own strength and responsibility.
Yet, this is not enough.
It’s commendable, but it’s not enough, because that 20 % has to fight everyday against the other 80 % who doesn’t want any responsibility. So, from the little things to the greatest ones, we often stay with our face in the mud, one eye closed and one eye open, hoping that the next attack will happen as late as possible. But everything is more tolerable when you share your mission with your team, when your comrades are willing to do anything to win together.
So, resilience and team spirit and it’s done. No way!
I don’t want to hear someone say: “Ring the bell three times, put your helmet on the ground, you’re done”.
Knowledge is what completes the formula. A reckless pursuit of knowledge, of any information your competitors don’t have, or don’t want to pursue, study, investigate, experiment, because of their laziness. This “knowledge” is you real weapon of our times, that can project you into the 3 % or that 20 %, “where the air is rarefied”.
I quote the ending of “Layer Cake”, when the leader of a criminal gang explains life to another leader:
“You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son.”
Resilience, team spirit and strategic knowledge, that’s what it takes to get on the top, as the seal instructors remind:
- Commence. You don’t make it, you do it again.
- You ever been tested this hard ever in your life? (if the answer is no, “challenge yourself” is implied)
- Winning here is a conscious decision. Make up your mind if you want to pass or choose to fail. All right now, gentlemen, I’m gonna introduce y’all to something called “not being able to breathe.”
- All this shaking and all this cold. Harness it. Turn it into aggression.
- You just proved to your bodies, through your mind, that you can push yourself further than you thought possible.
- Go get wet! Run!
- You sure you want to be here? (often ask yourself what you want)
- Just find an excuse to win. Keep going.
- It pays to be a winner.
- I like having my buddies that I can depend on. And I would like for them to be able to depend on me.
