What Dan Crenshaw Learned During Hell Week

Competition doesn't mean being mean. It doesn't mean people, they're associating it and equating it with either violence or aggression or toxic masculinity. There's all these words that kept thrown around for people feeling bad because they lost. But that feeling of feeling bad because you lost something is extremely valuable in your life. And I don't want to say it hardens you because it doesn't harden you emotionally. You still are the same amount of emotional availability. But if you're accustomed to it, and I always tell people, young men, get involved in martial arts, especially jujitsu. Because you can do it, you're not going to get brain damage. You get strangled a bunch, you get your ass kicked all the time, and it teaches you humility. It teaches you humility, and then you learn after that that you can get better, and then eventually you become the hammer instead of being the nail. And that's something you can actually apply to your real life. You can understand that these lessons of failure and humility and humiliation and just getting pummeled, all that stuff pays off ultimately. If you just keep showing up, and that's analogous to life, in life if you can just keep showing up and keep working hard, you're going to have setbacks. But don't let them define you, and you can move forward. But if you don't, if you're just like, the world's toxic, we need to nerf everything, and everyone needs a safe space. We're just going to make a whole island full of pussies, and we're in danger of doing that. Yeah, we're definitely in danger of doing it if it hasn't already happened in many ways. And what you're saying is intuitively true, that hardship creates a stronger mind. Yeah, lessons. But it's not just intuitively true. This isn't data, this isn't science as well, and in a lot of psychological research. And we know it to be true. But the reason I love the subject of psychology, because it kind of tells us things that we already intuit to be true, and it just makes sense. And this is certainly one of those. And there's a lot of studies that show people who have suffered deep trauma end up better for it, as long as they're telling themselves the right stories. And so I go into this a lot in my book too. You have to tell yourself the right story about that trauma. You have to tell yourself that you are resilient and that you are empowered to overcome it. That's a very important narrative that you have to tell yourself. If you tell yourself it just happened to you and it's not fair and everybody's out to get you, I wouldn't wish that psychological state on my worst enemies. I agree with you. Well, maybe my worst enemy. But that's the point, right? Like you would never wish that upon somebody you like. And that's an important truth I think we have to tell ourselves. When you were in the military, is this something that they taught you or is it something that you learned through example? Yeah, I think learned through experience. So, you know, the reason BUDDS is basic underwater demolition slash SEAL training, it is our six month trial by fire selection process that we go to become a SEAL. It's the very first thing you do. And it's where you see all the infamous footage of G.I. Jane and Hell Week and all that stuff. That's all first phase in BUDDS. And so... I like how you brought up G.I. Jane. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah, it's probably the wrong example in hindsight. It's all the Navy SEAL movies on the military. Because I can't think of any other movies that show BUDDS now that you bring it. Actually Lone Survivor, the very first intro I think has some BUDDS. Anyway, find it on YouTube. Most people know what I'm talking about. But G.I. Jane is not a realistic movie. It's one of the least realistic movies in every single aspect about the SEAL teams. But the point is that there's not just a hardening of the mind that occurs from Hell Week. It's an increase in confidence in a pretty excessive way. If I can push my limits this far, imagine what else I can do. And you continue to push those limits. Even after Hell Week you do it, what I would describe as controlled drowning in second phase where we learn to be super calm underwater under the worst conditions, meaning you can't breathe and you're about to pass out. And you're still going to go through procedures in a very specific way. You have to learn that calming. And you've pushed another limit. And you've pushed another limit. So by the time we do get to combat, we have already suffered so badly in training that the combat doesn't feel all that bad. And we're ready to get your eye blown out of your head like I did. You're ready for that. You understand it. And it's not surprising and you don't react in an emotional way when it does happen because you've allowed yourself to be hardened and you've told yourself the right story about that. What is a traumatic experience? I mean, Hell Week can be. It really is. I broke my leg the first time through. I had to do it again. So just a stress fracture that turned into a fracture and just snapped while we were running with the boats on our heads. So we run with these 200 or 300-pound boats on our heads. They're basically the kind of boats you use in river rafting. But we run everywhere with them. Some estimates up to 200 miles in just Hell Week alone. So it's one of the reasons older guys, 25 and older, have a lot of hard time getting through boats. Older guys, 25. That's hilarious. Yeah, because your body just breaks more. Early 20s are probably the prime time. Your muscles are developed about that time. Your bone structure can still handle the immense amount of punishment that it's taking. And except for mine, we call it that. And then we'd make fun of each other and say, oh, nice weak genes you have there. That's why you broke. So your leg broke, and how much time did you need before you went back to do it again? Six months. I was enrolled in three classes. Which bone? Left tibia. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah. Yeah, it hurt. It's a dangerous one to break, too. There's not a lot of blood flow there. Yeah. It's amazing that you got back in there six months later. A lot of times, I had no guy who broke his leg, and he was fucked up for a good solid couple of years. Yeah. And it was a risk, because we weren't sure. Frankly, the command was getting impatient. They're like, we're not going to let you heal anymore. Six months is it. Jesus. So go for it. And it's not like a compound fracture, either. This is a crack in the bone. So maybe, in any case, it worked out just fine. It's a risky thing, because I knew it broke. I felt it. I rounded a corner, and my adrenaline took me through the rest of that run. Then we sit down for lunch, and I couldn't get back up from that seat. The adrenaline had worn off. There was something badly wrong there. There's always this question that the instructors will ask, are you hurt or are you injured? Because there's a difference. And if you're just hurt, because everybody here is hurt, if you're just hurt, then you're just quitting. If you're injured, okay, we might give you another chance. Isn't that interesting? For the average person, that's such an alien thought. It's an alien question. Are you hurt or are you injured? It is, but there's a difference. There is a difference, yeah. Now, do they have any courses where they explain to you how your mind works and how to overcome questions and doubts that creep into your head? They're teaching you through fire. Right. And we wouldn't want those courses, frankly. So when you see all those online people, what you got to do is you got to face your fears and understand who you are and say it's going to be okay. Does that drive you crazy? No, it doesn't drive me crazy. I don't mind that somebody's trying to do that. I say that we wouldn't do it because the point is that you're already that person. You're a SEAL before you got there. We're just making you prove it, but you are already that guy because you never had a choice and there's another chapter in my book. I call it No Plan B. You go through this with No Plan B. If you ever thought for a second that maybe I can make it through Buds, like maybe I'll make it through Hell Week. I hope I do. You're not going to make it. There's a choice there. You're telling yourself that you actually have a choice. I think that's with everything. Yeah, it is with everything. This is an extreme example, but it certainly applies to everything. If you, it replied to my run for Congress. I didn't plan anything after the primary on March 6th. They just didn't. Now, you could argue that that was probably not a great idea. Maybe you should have had some kind of backup plan. Well, it worked. But it was more of a mental state than it was like a don't have a backup plan. I'm not saying don't have contingencies in your life. I'm just saying only you know when you've actually decided to quit, right? Because it's one thing to be like, I have tried to be an artist for so long and I'm just not good at it. Then you quit. Well, is it really quitting or is it just facing reality that you're just not good at being an artist? You know, so it's different. You have to distinguish between those two things. But you know, you know if you quit because you actually quit. You gave up on yourself and that's, and nobody can really judge that for you. I think that's an important lesson and that's how you make it through buds because you never had a choice.