Do the work

Steven Pressfi

eld

Do Th

e Work!

74
candidate will crack. Better that the aspiring warrior fails here—at Coronado Island in San Diego—than someplace where a real wartime mission and real lives are at stake.In SEAL training , they have a bell. When a candidate can’t take the agony any longer—the 6-mile ocean swims or the 15-mile full-load runs or the physical and mental ordeals on no sleep and no food ... when he’s had enough and he’s ready to quit, he walks up and rings the bell.

Th

at’s it. It’s over.

He has dropped out.

You and I have a bell hanging over

us, too, here in the belly of the

beast. Will we ring it?

Th

ere’s a diff

erence between Navy SEAL training and what you

and I are facing now.

Our ordeal is harder.

Because we’re alone.

We’ve got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our butts to keep us going. We’ve got no friends, no fellow suff

erers,

no externally imposed structure. No one’s feeding us, housing us, or clothing us. We have no objective milestones or points of validation. We can’t tell whether we’re doing great or falling on our faces. When we fi

nish, if we do, no one will be waiting

to congratulate us. We’ll get no champagne, no beach party, no diploma, no insignia. Th

e battle we’re fi

ghting , we can’t explain

to anybody or share with anybody or call in anybody to help.

Th

e only thing we have in

common with the SEAL

candidates is the bell.

Will we ring it or won’t we? Crashes Are Good

Crashes are hell, but in the end

they’re good for us.

A crash means we have failed. We gave it everything we had and we came up short. A crash does not mean we are losers.

A crash means we have to grow.

A crash means we’re at the threshold of learning something, which means we’re getting better, we’re acquiring the wisdom of