The Navy SEAL Approach to Uncertainty with Author Rich Diviney

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it, it really stems from this idea where I was distinguishing the difference for people between peak performance and optimal performance, and peak being this thing that almost everybody's out there chasing.

You hear about peak all ...

Everybody wants to peak everywhere and peak all the time.

And they used to tell me, you Navy SEALs are the ultimate peak performers.

But in fact, I disagreed because peak is an apex.

That's all it is.

And there's only one place you can go to go from peak, and that's downward.

So, so I used to say, "No, we're actually optimal performance," because optimal performers means I'm going to do the very best in the moment, whatever the best looks like in that moment, right? So sometimes the best looks like peak, and I'm clicking, everything's flow states, and everything's cool.

Sometimes the best is I am just slogging it out, going step by step, and it's gritty, and it's dirty, and it's ugly, and it's hard.

And that is still performing optimally.

And so, so unless you're a pro athlete, and a pro athlete, like you said, gets to design their entire week so they can peak for three hours on Sunday.

We don't get to do that.

I can see maybe once in a while we have a presentation we can target, you know, and may- maybe do that.

But, but we still probably don't get to do a week of preparation and design our diet and our sleep cycle around [laughs] everything ar- around that.

So, so we just have to be very comfortable with this idea that we are always going to do the best we can in the moment.

Sometimes the best we got is not ...

it, it's ugly, and it's dirty, and it's hard, but this sets us up for an environment of both uncertainty, but also grittiness and hardship and all that stuff.

And you start understanding and celebrating this idea that, "Hey, y- that was tough, and that was ugly, but we, we got the job done," you know? And the other thing it, it really does is allows you, which really gets to the crux of being able to do this long term, it allows you what I call responsible energy management.

In other words, I don't need to be peak when I'm driving to the grocery store, okay? I can be at some other energy level.

And so people may have seen movies and TV of, of SEALs or spec ops guys getting ready to go on an op, and before they get on the helicopter, they're all hoo-yah-ing, high-fiving like a sports team getting ready to take the field.

And I tell you, that never happens, okay? It never happens.

In fact, most of the time, we've ... we're in our helicopters going into combat, and the guys around me were napping.

And there's a reason for that.

It's because we don't know what's coming.