Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

responsible for receiving orders from the instructors and briefing,
directing, and leading the other six members of the boat crew. The boat
crew leader bore responsibility for the performance of his boat crew.
And while each member of the boat crew had to perform, the boat crew
leader—by his very position as leader—received the most scrutiny from
the instructor staff.
During SEAL training (and really, throughout a SEAL’s career) every
evolution was a competition—a race, a fight, a contest. In BUD/S, this
point was driven home by the SEAL instructors, who constantly
reminded the students, “It pays to be a winner.” When racing as a boat
crew during Hell Week, the winning boat crew’s prize for victory was to
sit out the next race, earning a few brief minutes of respite from the
grueling, nonstop physical evolutions. They weren’t allowed to sleep, but
just to sit down and rest were especially precious commodities. While it
paid to be a winner, this rule had a corollary: it really sucked to be a
loser. Second place, in the instructor’s vernacular, was simply “the first
loser.” But bad performance—falling far behind the rest of the pack and
coming in dead last—carried especially grueling penalties: unwanted
attention from the SEAL instructors who dished out additional punishing
exercises on top of the already exhausting Hell Week evolutions.
Meanwhile, the victorious boat crew celebrated by sitting out the next
race and, most important, not getting wet and cold for a few brief
minutes.
The SEAL instructor cadre kept the students moving with constant
boat crew races, giving detailed and intentionally complicated
instructions to the boat crew leaders, who in turn briefed their men and
executed the instructions as best they could in their exhausted state. The
command went out from the SEAL instructor with the megaphone: “Boat