Admiral McRaven Leaves the Audience SPEECHLESS | One of the Best Motivational Speeches

What starts here changes the world I have a few suggestions that may help you on your way to a better world and while these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not, whether you ever served a day in uniform, it matters not your gender your ethnic or religious background, your orientation or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward Changing ourselves and changing the world around us will apply equally to all So here are the ten lessons I learned from basic Seal training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life Every morning in seal training my instructors who at the time were all Vietnam veterans Would show up in my barracks room. And the first thing they'd do is inspect my bed if you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers would be pulled tight, the pillows centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack.

It was a simple task mundane at best but every morning we were required to Make our bed to perfection It seemed a little ridiculous at the time particularly light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors tough battle-hardened seals But the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning You will have accomplished the first task of the day it will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and Another and another and by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many task completed Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter If you can't do the little things, right You'll never be able to do the big things right and if by chance you have a miserable day You will come home to a bed that is made That you made And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better So if you want to change the world Start off by making your bed [Music] During seal training the students During training the students are all broken down into boat crews Each crew is seven students three on each side of a small rubber boat and one Coxon to help guide the dinghy every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and Is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast in the winter The surf off San Diego can get to be eight to ten feet high and it is exceedingly difficult The paddle hook through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in Every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the Coxon Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach For the boat to make it to its destination Everyone must paddle You can't change the world alone You will need some help and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends colleagues The good will of strangers and a strong Coxen to guide you if you want to change the world Find someone to help you paddle over A few weeks of difficult training my seal class which started with 150 men Was down to just 42 there were now six boat crews of seven men each. I Was in the boat with the tall guys but the best boat crew we had Was made up of little guys the Munchkin crew.

We called them. No one was over five foot five The Munchkin boat crew had one american-indian One african-american one Polish American one Greek American one Italian American and two tough kids from the Midwest They out paddled out ran and out swam all the other boat crews the big men and the other boat crews will always make good-natured fun of The tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim But somehow these little guys from every corner of the nation in the world always had the last laugh Swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us SEAL training was a great equalizer Nothing mattered, but your will to succeed not your color. Not your ethnic background, not your education, not your social status If you want to change the world measure a person by the size of their heart not by the size of their flippers Several times a week The instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection It was exceptionally thorough Your hat had to be perfectly starched your uniform immaculately pressed your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle It just wasn't good enough The instructors would find something wrong For failing the uniform inspection the student had to run fully clothed into the surf zone Then wet from head to toe roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand the effect was known as sugar-cookie You stayed in the uniform the rest of the day cold wet and Sandy There were many a student who just couldn't accept the fact that All their efforts were in vain that no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, It went unappreciated those students didn't make it through training those students didn't understand the purpose of the drill You were never going to succeed you were never going to have a perfect uniform the instructors weren't going to allow it Sometimes no matter how well you prepare Or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie It's just the way life is sometimes If you want to change the world Get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events long runs long swims obstacle courses hours of calisthenics Something designed to test your mettle every event had standards times you had to meet if you fail to meet those times Those standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day Those on the list were invited to a circus a Circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down to break your spirit to force you to quit No one wanted a circus a circus meant that for that day You didn't measure up a circus meant more fatigue and more fatigue Meant that the following day would be more difficult and more circuses were likely But at some time during seal training everyone Everyone made the circus list But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list Over time those students who did two hours of extra calisthenics got stronger and stronger The pain of the circuses built inner strength and physical resiliency Life is filled with circuses You will fail You will likely fail often it will be painful.

It will be discouraging at times. It will test you to your very core but if you want to change the world Don't be afraid of the circuses At least twice a week, the trainees were required to run the obstacle course the obstacle course contained 25 obstacles including the 10-foot wall a 30-foot cargo net a barbed wire crawl to name a few but the most challenging obstacle Was the slide for life It had a three level 30-foot tower at one end and a one level Tower at the other in between was a 200-foot long rope You had to climb the three tiered Tower and once at the top you grabbed the Rope swung underneath the rope and Pulled yourself hand over hand until you got to the other end The record for the obstacle course had stood for years when my class began in 1977. The record seemed unbeatable Until one day a student decided to go down the slide for life headfirst Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope and inching his way down.

He bravely mounted the top of the rope and Thrust himself forward it was a dangerous move Seemingly foolish and fraught with risk Failure could be an injury and being dropped from the course without hesitation the students slid down the Rope perilously fast Instead of several minutes. It only took him half that time and by the end of the course He had broken the record If you want to change the world Sometimes you have to slide down the obstacles headfirst During the land warfare phase of training the students are flown out to San Clemente Island which lies off the coast of San Diego the waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for the great white sharks to Pass seal training. They're a series of long swims that must be completed One is the night swim Before the swim the instructors.

Joyfully brief the students on all the species of sharks That inhabit the waters off, San Clemente They assure you however that no student has Ever been eaten by a shark at least not that they can remember But you are also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position Stand your ground Do not swim away Do not act afraid and if the shark hungry for a midnight snack darts towards you then summons up all your strength and Punch him in the snout and he will turn and swim away There are a lot of sharks in the world If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them So if you want to change the world Don't back down from the sharpest As Navy SEALS, one of our jobs is to conduct underwater attacks against the enemy's shipping we practice this technique extensively during training the Ship attack mission is where a pair of SEAL divers is dropped off outside an enemy harbor and then swims well over two miles Underwater using nothing, but a depth gauge and a compass to get to the target During the entire swim even well below the surface. There is some light That comes through It is comforting to know that there is open water above you But as you approach the ship which is tied to appear the light begins to fade The steel structure of the ship blocks the moonlight. It blocks the surrounding streetlamps.

It blocks all ambient light to be successful in your mission You have to swim under the ship and find the keel the centerline and the deepest part of the ship. This is your objective But the keel is also the darkest part of the show where you cannot see your hand in front of your face where the noise from the ship's machinery is deafening and Where it gets to be easily disoriented and you can fail every SEAL knows that under the keel at that darkest moment of the mission is a time when you need to be calm when You must be called when you must be composed when all your tactical skills your physical power and your inner strength Must be brought to bear If you want to change the world You must be your very best in the darkest moments The ninth week of training is referred to as hell week It is six days of no sleep Constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the mud flats the mud flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the rough water runs off and creates the Tijuana sloughs a Swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you It is on Wednesday of hell week that you paddle down in the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive this freezing cold the Howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors As the Sun began to set that Wednesday evening My training class having committed some egregious infraction of the rules Was ordered into the mud The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit Only five minutes just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up it was still over eight hours till the Sun came up eight more hours of Bone-chilling cold a chattering teeth and the shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything and Then one voice began to echo through the night one voice raised in song The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing the instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing but the singing persisted and Somehow the mud seemed a little warmer and the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away if I have learned anything in my time traveling the world it is the power of the power of one person The Washington a Lincoln King Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan Malala one person can change the world By giving people hope so if you want to change the world Start singing when you're up to your neck in mud Finally a SEAL training there's a bell a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see All you have to do quit. All you have to do to quit is ring the bell ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'clock ring the bell and you No longer have to be in the freezing cold swims Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs the obstacle course the PT and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training All you have to do is ring the bell to get out If you want to change the world don't ever ever Ring the bell It will not be easy Start each day with a task completed Find someone to help you through life Respect everyone know the life is not fair that you will fail often but if you take some risks Step up on the time through the toughest Face down the bullies lift up the downtrodden and never ever give up.

If you do these things the next generation and the Generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today And what started here will indeed have changed the world for the better?