Episode #163
Grit beats talent: the defining trait of SEAL success—and life success—is refusing to quit, even when others find it easy.
Prepare for inevitable adversity by embracing the grind; training yourself to suffer well builds resilience when life hits hard.
Aim beyond self: prioritize service, team-first values, and higher ideals to translate elite performance principles into work and family life.
If you don't quit, there's a good chance you're going to become a SEAL, and a SEAL is a pretty high-test, high-pinnacle thing to achieve, right?
I was either going to pass an event, I was going to pass out during the event, or they were going to kill me.
You're either going to be somebody that's done a little work to be ready for it or you've done no work, and it's going to be a lot tougher to shoulder the burden.
Doing hard things makes life sweet (42:56)
Commander Rorke Denver has run every phase of training for the U.S. Navy SEALs and led special-forces missions in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other international hot spots. He starred in the hit film Act of Valor, which is based on true SEAL adventures. His New York Times bestseller titled Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior, takes you inside his personal story and the fascinating, demanding SEAL training program. In his second book titled Worth Dying For: A Navy SEALs Call to a Nation, Rorke tackles the questions that have emerged about America’s past decade at war–from what makes a hero to why we fight and what it does to us. Rorke was most recently seen on FOX’s American Grit. The series followed 16 of the country’s toughest men and women as they faced a variety of military-grade and survival-themed challenges set in the wilderness.
Rorke was also an NCAA All American lacrosse player at Syracuse University where he was a member of two NCAA Championship teams.
