During five days of Hell week, they only get four hours of sleep.

How bad do you want to create the life you want? How hard would you push yourself? Would you push yourself to actual death only to be revived?

Sometimes it’s good to put into perspective what some have to go through to achieve their life’s dream.

It makes what we possibly have to go through seem not as bad.

The toughest training in the world

That’s what sailors put themselves through when they have a goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. It’s 25 weeks of training to test their endurance and will.

Cold, miserable, and tired are three words that sum up the experience.

Master Chief Information Systems Technician Dennis Wilbanks, head SEAL recruiter said, “You have to want the program. And mentally, never give yourself the option to quit.”

70% drop out within the first few weeks. That number is pretty high considering sailors know what they are signing up for.

They want them to be able to work flawlessly under intense mental and physical exhaustion. Why? As one instructor put it, “Mistakes made when working with explosives only happen once.”

He makes a good point.

Navy SEALs raided Bin Laden’s compound last year. I read an article in Esquire magazine about the man who actually shot Bin Laden. A fascinating firsthand account of what it was like inside.

One story in the Esquire article really stood out to me. It really put in perspective how badly some of these guys want to become Navy SEALs.

One test during Basic Underwater Demolition School/SEAL (BUD/S) he describes, but I bet words can’t begin to show how grueling it really is.

They break them down and see how physically and mentally tough they are. It sometimes reaches the point of death and resurrection.

“One of the tests is they make you dive to the bottom of a pool and tie five knots,” the Shooter says. “One guy got to the fifth knot and blacked out underwater. We pulled him up he was, like, dead. They made the class face the fence while they tried to resuscitate him. The first words as he spit out water were ‘Did I pass? Did I tie the fifth knot?’ The instructor told him, ‘We didn’t want to find out if you could tie the knots, you asshole, we wanted to know how hard you’d push yourself. You killed yourself. You passed.”

That…is…crazy.

But that’s what it takes to become a Navy SEAL. Unrelenting drive and a willingness to not quit.

Isn’t that what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary amongst us as well? The ones who have success in life act like the guy who tried to tie that fifth knot.

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If you want to eat, you better go get it.

I spent a great week in Hong Kong and was so excited to go cause of the food.

One thing we couldn’t wait to eat was dim sum. If you don’t know what it is, it basically refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates.

Basically it’s damn good.

My wife found one famous local place and told me it was going to be different than what I was used to.

For example, when you enter the restaurant there is no hostess to seat you. You don’t line up waiting for people to leave and then go sit down. You have to walk around looking for people leaving. It’s like trying to park your car at the mall during Christmas time. You’re circling and hoping to see a spot free up.

A strategy we used was to see if people were very close to leaving. Then stand by their table patiently waiting for them to leave. It could be five minutes or more. You just hover around people while they’re finishing up. It might feel like you’re bothering them, but you have to do it if you want to get a seat.

When you do find a table, you’re very likely going to be sharing a table with others. When we went, we shared a table with three other small groups.

Might seem awkward, but if you really want to eat, you can’t be picky about where you sit.

The way most people know dim sum is ladies will push around a steam cart with stacks of small wooden baskets filled with food. They come to your table and open each stack to show you what they have. If you like it, you tell them and they give it to you and make a note on your ticket. At the end of the meal, you take that ticket to the cashier, and they add it up.

It’s very organized and it’s exciting to see the carts come by to see what good food they have. It’s also great cause you can eat within seconds of sitting down.

The Hunger Games

This place definitely was different than the dim sum places I’m always used to going to. My wife said it’s cause it’s more traditional style.

Ladies come out of the kitchen pushing the steam carts, but instead of everyone waiting at their table for them to come by, people rush to the cart and quickly surround it. (see photo above and look for the short lady in light blue and the people surrounding her)

They’re all looking to see what it is. If they want it, they get the attention of the old lady by gently shoving their ticket into her face. Poor lady!

When they have their items, they have to walk through a crowd of people who barely move cause they don’t want to lose their positioning.

IT’S CHAOS!

Eleanor went up many times. She had some success but also walked away empty handed many times too. I tried a few times and had to squeeze my way in if I wanted to get something. Didn’t matter if it was old lady or old guy. I had to stand my ground. Sometimes I had success and other times they ran out of that particular item quickly.

We called it hunger games because it was a battle to get the food. If you didn’t go get food, you would go hungry.

Okay you wouldn’t literally go hungry, but you would miss out on most of the good food.

Sometimes the carts would have leftovers. That happened when the items weren’t as appealing or they made too much of a certain item. This is when the ladies would push the cart around to different tables. Then at the comfort of your table, you can take a look at what’s left and and they’d give it to you.

But that didn’t happen as often.

You could sit on your butt and wait for the leftovers to come around and get full, but if you wanted the really good stuff, you had to take action. Most likely if it was something you really wanted to eat, so did everyone else in the restaurant.

From the time we walked in till we left almost 1.5 hours later, every time a cart came out, the same thing would happen.

This is exactly like life

While sitting there laughing at how chaotic it was and taking pictures, I realized this is like life.

When you want something, you’ve got to get off your butt and go get it. Sometimes you get it, and sometimes you come up empty handed, but at least you tried.

If you sit and wait for it, you’ll never ever get what you truly want.

The life you want isn’t going to be handed to you. No matter how much you wish that would happen, it won’t.

Someone isn’t going to walk around with a cart full of dreams and ask “Would you like to earn more money? Here you go.” or “Would you like to lose weight? Coming right up. Enjoy.”

The point is that you can’t wait for someone to give you the life you want.

Yet that’s what happens all around the world. People want everything to be spoon fed to them. They’re too lazy to take action. They want someone to tell them what to do. They want someone to do the work for them. They want instant results with little work.

Then they wonder why they’re not happy in life. They’re the ones who whine and complain. They try to bring others down in life because they can’t live their dreams.

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