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Some inspiration for you

Two days ago I tweeted a link from YouTube titled, “Navy SEAL Athlete | Wrestling“.  The video was of Navy SEAL A.J. James who also was one of the stars on the recent blockbuster, “Act of Valor”.  The video appeared to be a recruitment tool to encourage athletes of the wrestling community in a way to say that they may have an edge at enduring BUD’s training.  It also appeared to garner recruitment of minorities at the same time.

I would never profess to know anything about the Naval Special Warfare or SEAL community, but I do know a little about behavioral and sociological comparisons of minorities and swimming.  While in college I read a report that spoke about the minimal number of minorities in water sports [swimming, water polo, diving etc].  This report specifically addressed the athletic prowess of inner city minorities in other sports, yet their affiliations in the water was dismal.  Much of this is due to access of pools, and a general cultural fear or water.  The report went on to say that most of these inner city families rarely have access to the beaches that many others do.  Even to the point that inner city families took far less family vacations and when they did it was not a water [Beach] based vacation.  If the families did go to the beach they did exactly what A.J. explained in his video.  It was to hang out with family and eat.  In fact AJ grew up with access to water.

The hidden and real message in this video that we all can gravitate to was that Mr. James knew his limitations and capabilities [the water] which he called his “nemesis, and dedicated 2 years to preparing himself for BUD’s.  That is not just dedication, but that is DRIVE.  The kind of drive that is fueled by one of the same characteristics [Self motivating] I blogged in, “The Analysis of an Elite Specialist“.

In our craft, you can replace Mr. James inadequacy in the water with many aspects of what is needed to succeed in this craft.  If you know that you need to get in shape-motivate yourself.  If you know that you are deficient in proper training-motivate yourself.  The list goes on.  Surviving the cut in this industry is somewhat like drown proofing.  Don’t let your deficiencies get the best of you-motivate yourself.

There are many of you who are plugging away daily trying to set yourself up for success but have no idea where you need to focus your attention to get ahead.  Send your bio to someone you respect in the industry and ask them to critique it.  Ask them to make suggestions where you should be focusing your energies on.  That is a simple first step solution.  Clearly Mr. James knew that swimming would be a deal breaker for him so that’s where his focus went.  He was successful in doing so, he has been successful and remains successful.  Now ask yourself, “Who doesn’t want success?”

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