DON’T EVER, EVER RING THE BELL

“In 2014, at the University of Texas at Austin commencement, Admiral William McRaven brought the house down with his inspirational eighteen-minute talk, ‘Ten Ways to Change the World.’ In it, he described the ordeals of SEAL trainees, including punishing runs in freezing cold weather, navigating underwater in pitch-black conditions, and being forced to do extra calisthenics after multi-hour endurance sessions. Admiral McRaven said if you want to change the world, you have to ‘sing when you are up to your neck in mud,’ ‘go down obstacles head first,’ and ‘punch the shark in the snout’ when you are underwater, alone, and scared. He finished his speech with the last of his ten change-the-world points, noting that everyone in the SEAL training wants to quit at some point because they don’t believe they have what it takes to persevere: 

Finally, in SEAL training there is a bell, a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see. All you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at five o’clock. 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. Just ring the bell. If you want to change the world, don’t ever, ever ring the bell.’”

- Caroline Adams Miller from Getting Grit