Always remember that while you are alive you are not yet dead. During these hours, it is important to be the very best you can be. 8 Be your very best in the darkest momentsĪt night, it is often hard to see what you are doing. Saddam Hussein never went for a swim with sharks. Although we lost several good recruits that night, the rest of us got to experience what it felt like to get lucky. One of the more hellish exercises we had to endure as SEALs was a 15-mile swim through waters infested with great white sharks. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life … And Maybe the World by William H McRaven (Michael Joseph, £9.99) Photograph: Michael Joseph 7 Don’t back down from the sharks Sometimes you just have to show initiative. The multiple leg fractures I incurred were more than worth it. It was only when I was prepared to throw myself off head first that I passed. I consistently failed this test by using the zip wire. In SEAL training, we had to find the quickest way of getting down from a 60-metre tower. I wasn’t afraid of it so it didn’t break me. The Circus was a brutal session of callisthenics that broke many SEAL recruits because they were afraid of it. So what if you lose a leg in a car accident? At least, you’ve got one good one left. “Do you know why you are a sugar cookie?” he asked me. One morning, after I had successfully completed an exercise, the instructor told me to roll in the sand. In all of SEAL training, there was no worse punishment than being coated in wet sand like a sugar cookie and not being allowed to wash for three weeks. Fortunately, I was with a man who was only 5ft tall. During one mission behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, I got stuck inside a tight tunnel. The guy with the biggest flippers is not always the man you want next to you in a crisis. Just because you are small, it doesn’t mean you are a failure. 3 Measure a person by the size of their heart And also to never get in a boat with someone I thought was a bit of a loser. Sometimes, one of the recruits was a bit tired so we didn’t go as fast as the other boats and the officers would make us all do 500 press-ups when we got back to the beach. 2 Find someone to help you paddleĭuring my SEAL training, we had to learn to paddle a boat in a crew of seven. It’s that kind of laziness that can lead to the downfall of any dictator. Years later, when we finally captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq, I was intrigued to notice that he had never made his bed. Making my bed taught me the importance of getting my day off to a good start. If the task wasn’t done properly, we would be sent on a 10-mile run. Every morning, we would have to make our beds. Rooms are spartan, with a simple steel bed on which there is a mattress, two sheets and a grey blanket. The barracks at basic SEAL training is a nondescript building in Coronado, California.
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