Dealing with Failure at Air Force Special Warfare Selection and Assessment

[Music] Podcast a team of Air Force special operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience as well as a decade of selection instructor experience if you're tired of settling and you want to do something you truly believe in you're in the right place now here's your host PJ team leader former Indyk instructors supervisor entrepreneur and physician assistant student Brian Silva what's up everybody Brian's over here for the ones ready podcasts you guys are in the team room hope you guys are staying healthy and safe out there I know things are a little bit hectic out there but we're still here for you making these podcasts and we're ready to rock and roll today we're going to talk about a huge topic which is failing and failure when you're at selection and beyond what you should expect and what you should do in order to make that failure count and move forward with that but first I want to say thanks again for you guys listening and watching on youtube all the comments all the stuff on IG you guys can always reach out and you know I hope that all these podcasts and us talking here has helped you guys you know get prepared for selection if you're at selection is helping you through that process not right now you're probably not doing much training but at least you got something to listen to so thanks again for you know hitting us up oh my G and YouTube and stuff keep on commenting and throw us a 5-star rating up on a podcast if you got the time and we know you do so again also a couple things that I want to hit to net we never officially said congratulations to senior master sergeant select Trent sig Miller and Senior Master Sergeant select Erin love I had to do it you know we haven't officially said it but congrats to you guys I don't know if you had to I don't know if you had to you through my mind's here I thought we should just be friends anyways just you guys know that's that's it's awesome though so and aside from that you guys know we're not getting any money from these guys Everly stock alpha brew coffee company and the Strikeforce energy you guys can go check them out you can still use a discount ready go get some awesome products if you have another you know store or product that you want to you think would be valuable for guys that are going through selection and you want to throw us another discount code we'll throw you in here also and keep on going with that we always want to work with awesome companies and stuff so thanks again for all those guys and we hope you go check them out because they're awesome products so let me get back into this failure topic here I know it's kind of like a doom and gloom topic but failure you're gonna experience it a lot throughout the pipeline and you know throughout the rest of your lives we are constantly putting ourselves through test after test you know throughout high school where you're taking tests for each class when it comes to the Air Force and getting into Special Operations you have to take the pass test you have to go through MEPs you have to make sure that you know drug tests all these other tests that you have to go through drug test is not one you want to fail by the way so something else to tell us about when you join Brian so you're gonna be force faced with a lot of tests throughout your life and throughout the pipeline especially so we're gonna talk about ways that you can overcome that and things the way to kind of reframe a failure because it hits guys really hard and being an instructor that's at selection you know I've seen guys cry I've seen guys you know be happy they're everything in between you know a range of emotion goes through a person when they realize that they might not be a part of this career field for at least a couple years so we're gonna talk about all those kind of things so peach I'm gonna just hit you up first you know in your opinion what does it really mean to fail aside from like okay you didn't get a certain score or whatever like you know is there any way that you think a person can fail forward or that kind of thing learn from the mistakes what do you think about failure as a definition so essentially the silver lining of failure right so yeah failing forward and failing fast I see as being kind of the same not the same thing but they are aligned together failing forward means not just you know getting hit failing and just you know having a pity party or just feeling bad for yourself right it's failing being able to objectively step back and learn from the situation learn why you failed what was the city you know what was going on at the time of failure what could I have done to prevent it or what can I do next time to improve that and you have to do it quick so that's where they'll fail you're failing fast comes in because if I sit here and I fail and then I really do L on it then are you trying to it myself and they screw up my team right you try to explain it away you try to do all these other things like you're just lengthening in the process but like get to the end already okay yeah one of them us yeah that wasn't my best run okay god how can I be better okay let's let's get on with the business to make it better so the example I use is say I'm shooting a target or I'm shooting a you shooting a target right but I miss I shouldn't just like hell you know it's a myth boom immediately right on there and then yeah I mean where would we be at right now if Operation Eagle Claw was a success that mean that's so it was a failure right I mean that's pretty much been the the overarching you know judgment for it if you will I guess well you haven't done failure alleged JSOC it led to all of so-called it - all of it yeah let everything yeah so so in the end we failed Ford as a force as a nation because without that failure we wouldn't be where we're at today without a doubt yeah and I think there are a lot of conflicts that were like that you know like you look at Mogadishu and that kind of stuff that paved the way for the way that we prepare for battle and the things that we're like body armor and the kinds of guns that we carry the way that we communicate you know outside to the fob and that kind of stuff so each one of those lessons definitely contributes to hopefully future successes but like you said if you just sit there and you dwell on it and you're like screw it I'm just not gonna try anymore I mean I I couldn't get that one shot and then you just kind of throw your stuff down and I've seen a lot of people do that honestly like especially I go back to Buddy breathing a lot because it's kind of a personal and upclose kind of thing but you know when they you grab that snorkel from them and then they just like dude yeah it happens and that's when you know you just pull them up or smoke them for a while for doing that smells the whole team but giving them a chance to excel and be better that's all you're doing Peach's you're almost there man your turn to the dark side is almost complete my friend but yeah definitely learning from those mistakes and I think I don't know where the quotes from but it just talks about how fares better teacher than success because you know when you fail you know that you haven't reached any level but when there's a level six you succeed you're like all right well I guess I'm good I'm probably good enough I don't know that means you haven't set your standards high enough if you just constantly succeed and you succeed at every single thing so keep on setting those standards high all right let's go to Erin for this next one so there's a lot of people like weird like I was just talking about you know you can succeed and you can be like alright I'm good but sometimes you don't feel like that was really like our no unearned thing maybe you have a natural talent or whatever so what do you think is worse failure or unearned success for growth what do I think is worse I think on own success is probably far in a way worse than failures failure is at least objective you know maybe there is you know there are people that have been wronged in all sorts of things like wrongful convictions in court or you know of a basketball game there should have been you know that the infamous pass interference play with New Orleans in the football game like yeah that should have been called things should have been differently your you know should want differently but you know they didn't so not my bad that's just the way that the facts go but you know most times like we're talking about what's different between the failure and unearned success for me is like you know a failure is a failure and you know what you can get better on like you you're like this is objective unearned success it's almost like having the imposter syndrome where there are some days where you're like holy cow I can't I still have days where I'm like holy cow I can't believe I'm a PJ I can't believe you know I'm in this assignment I can't believe I've had these experiences really and it's not you know thinking it's cool it's good bad ugly indifferent you know some of the best and worst times of my life have happened you know in this career but so there's just some days we're like holy cow like I can't believe I am Who I am you know I would rather fail then I would be kind of like blinded by unearned successes or things that weren't mine you know yeah because you can 100% appreciate the failure better or worse you know you learn from those mistakes and you really actually taken those lessons learned rather than I think you know people that have the unearned success kind of feeling you know you're sitting at the top but you don't know if it's a stable platform because how'd you get here did you put up forth the effort to like build up your way to where you're at right now or do you just like somehow take a magic elevator and get up there because you see people resting on their laurels and they just they're like hey that was a that was a good run I had or a good deployment and I'm gonna ride that train for a while I'm gonna ride this one out see along well yeah I think though looking at your failures objectively your own personal failures is a skill and so being able to look at your failures and objectively look at them and learn from them in a positive light that's a skill set you know what I mean cuz like people have a hard time failing at something and then telling themselves like hey I failed it's okay let's move forward like we see it all the time on the selection courses you know that's one of those skill sets you need to develop by working your perception and your self honesty and all that other kind of stuff and it takes failing a lot yeah 100% and I think what you said Trent you know about people who are not telling the truth about their failures you just see that a lot even in the Air Force now if you go ask a lot of people that have been to selection they'll just say you know I wasn't I didn't make it or I was injured or whatever and a lot sometimes that's true however the extent of their injury you know was it kind of made up or blown up a little bit because we know guy we all know guys that had broken bones in the pipeline and they still pushed through whatever kind of things that they had to in order to get the job done I'm already sure most those guys were doing so well that the CIA came in and grabbed them for a secret mission so yeah they took you on in doc and put you right onto a team right away yeah sorry they didn't do so all right Trent what do you think of fear failure as you know a motivational tool either for yourself or even when you're an instructor you know for the students because a lot of times we give people like crazy timeline like you need to go down to the creek and you need to be completely drenched bring these jerry cans back in a million-and-a-half ready you go we know they're gonna fail fail but there's still some motivation there you know how come guys use X I know there's a lot of fear fear that no one wants to fail but how did you get guys to use it and how do you think they can benefit well I think it's as a spectrum right like if your fear is a spectrum from one to ten if you're feeling fear of failure is a ten then when you hit that that failure mark it's gonna be catastrophic right but you should I mean I have a healthy fear of failing I don't like to fail I really try hard not to do it but it's not like a it's my life doesn't fall apart if I fail you know like I think once you get that high and that the fear failure become you kind of harden I don't know you can become fragile in a way like your ego hardened so much or something that happens that when you finally hit that failure point if you're so afraid of it and you don't have that growth mindset and all you're doing is try not to fail because of whatever reasons your ego or whatever that's when it when it goes really really poorly but you you should have like a certain amount of that fear at least I do I'm not trying to tell you that you should be afraid of failing but it needs to be within within the certain range that were like when you do fail because you're gonna fail if you go through the pipeline I don't I've never spoken anybody that's like no I made it through the pipeline zero failures zero setbacks 100% good to go and my whole career was was perfect you just need to make sure that you're regulating that so that you have that growth mindset so that when you do hit that failure you're able to you know process it move it forward not dwell on the past don't go down those rabbit holes of self-pity and all that other nonsense and you're able to learn from it and then you can truly grow I think that a fear of failing helps keep you sharp though I mean it it's just because you you don't want to mess up you don't want to embarrass yourself you don't want to let yourself and your team down so that fear helps keep you sharp but at least for me anyway I mean I think that's what we leads to the learning though like I know at a certain percentage right because like everything that I've ever failed I I remember those things forever like I don't dwell on them but I can definitely tell you about every failure I've had in my career and then people start talking about like oh remember that one time when like you were really good at something and I'm like I don't know like I guess so okay that only happened once whereas really good at something so that was like a one-off like I didn't repeat that behavior it was just a good time it was a good run need you to identify that moment actually hairdressing or something to see what happened was the CIA pulled me on the secret mission and yeah well you know with fine ages you're talking about like the fear fear of failure like keeping you sharp but like I was I was liking it to alert because we have alert commitments when we're back stateside where you have you might have to go out like respond like real stuff like even as as an instructor you know down in New Mexico I had to go and respond to real stuff and I had friends at went and you know like rescue people off the you know lost hikers off the side of a mountain and we did a recovery down there down at the missile range but yeah it's that uh that kind of fear of knowing that if your phone rings like are you ready to go right now are you ready to go on some heinous stuff like right now that's always kind of creeping in the back of your head of you know what if things do go south am I ready to am I ready not just to go have like a normal day at work but am I ready to go get it on like post-apocalyptic zombie virus scenario that we're all living in right now but like are you ready to get that call as always something that's that's something that's always in the back of my mind for for not wanting to fail not not wanting to get that call and be like oh geez I can't go you know yeah and that's super important especially you know even if you do get back from a training iteration or whatever that fear of failure and that fear of not succeeding on the mission it keeps you in your cage and makes you get your gear ready after you're done you know just reconstitute refit do all those steps that are necessary that way you know if you do get the call like you're saying then you can just head straight back into your locker you know where everything's at everything's ready to go and then a minimum time is spent whenever there's actually stuff going down and you have to go you know take off and get a flight to wherever so yeah you definitely gotta make sure that that fear of failure is not something that keeps you from doing something you're like oh I'm not going to do you know X or Y because I'm scared that I may fail no I mean get in there and get after it and learn yep well never but yeah how else you gonna learn training some time to do it training is the time to fail you should go at it yeah yeah people at the end of their lives don't always think about the things that they did it's always the things that they didn't get to do if they I'll help back you know and I talk to a lot guys who are in selection previously they quit or whatever and it just always kind of lingers in their head or if they didn't ever try you know we get comments every once in a while about people that are 50s or whatever and they're like man I really wish I would have gone for this thing because it sounds really awesome and you know these are the kind of dudes that I want to be around super motivated in a lot of stuff so definitely go out there fail if you you try at least then you fail yeah go ahead try not to fail to see how that works see which one you like better yeah yeah see which one happens more all right peach this one's for you so you think a person can get used to failure build up that tough and like callus they get through and get used to failures or you know should they let it affect them that much I feel like this is a personal attack on me yeah way to use your feeling words it makes me feel upset when I mean I I think all of us are living proof that you can get used to failing and you know you build up a callus it still stings when you fail like that doesn't go away and like it's like we're just talking about the fear of failure but it helps toughen you up and and I almost give you I would say some perspective like when something fails and it's like you know you do see people dwell on it and you feel the same thing and you're like yeah okay on to the next you know like it it just happens and you know when you when you try and rest on say rest on your lawyer that's like what three times there in this podcast that's ridiculous okay so train or any time he says it yeah and because it's because teach got water a new saying of the day calendar and that's the saying of today the word on apple's lane saver resting on your laurels the Chiefs group sends it up so believe it or not I'm actually pretty decent at public speaking I'm a lot better than I am on a podcast but whenever I go to give a speech someplace right a lot of times I'll just kind of go like yeah I'm gonna wing it right you're gonna check the YouTube shooting from exactly and I'll tell you what man there's been a couple times where that has backfired on me because let me tell you that did not work no no and then you know what I go in the next time I get you know tagged with a do some kind of speech and I'm practicing the night before the day of yeah yeah so you've built up a callus - failing at public speaking so it was in the pain by being better prepared also doing tall things he's still trying to don't know but I think you know when I fail when I was younger I still kind of am hard on myself a lot of times when I fail but it helps me you know internalize it and try and learn from it but when I was younger you know it would keep me up at night like I can't believe that I freaking it failed on whatever thing that it was and a lot of times it was published but yeah I'm a terrible public speaker but you know I also continue to put myself out there and learn from it you know sometimes wing it and try and do the best job that I can to you know make outline do the best you know practice some words I'll read up on Apple you know sometimes my screen saver make sure I sound intelligent sometimes but I'm saying yeah come up with a new singing but there you know there are a lot of times where I was just hard on myself and over the years you know I learned like oh well you know I really screwed that one up let me think of how I could do it better you know sometimes I'll write it down or whatever just go on a run and really think about it but you know I get over it a lot quicker now and I'm able to handle more tasks because the quicker you get over it the more you can handle in the future because you don't have time to do all you do well on one little incident throughout the day when you have a full day of you know all the other stuff that you got to do when you end up being 35 I said I'll think about my failures though some of my big ones I still think about him it's not like it haunts me or anything like that but it's still like okay if I see this again or this situation happens again like I know I know what to do better now yeah I think that's one of the good things about the pipeline knows is we're always telling guys just to live in the moment and only focus on the next thing right in front of them like you shouldn't have enough time or bandwidth to focus on what went wrong three hours ago and if you're focusing on that you're gonna veer off track and you're probably gonna fall apart and you know just keep failing some more until you're you're out of the pipeline so live in the moment don't dwell in the past that's definitely important you know we tell guys all the time don't try and predict what's gonna happen or when you're looking at selection don't look at the entire time span or of the pipeline or of selection but is the same thing going backwards to you know learn from your mistakes but don't sit there and dwell on every single thing that has happened because you're gonna screw up you're gonna miss a timeline you're gonna be that guy that's trying to put on their their pants or whatever you're the slowest person and the team has to pay up because you're the slowest dude getting your boots on or whatever it's gonna happen don't dwell over it just learn from it and keep on moving on yeah and I think speaking for you know current and past instructors out there let me tell you from the instructor I guarantee you that instructor three hours later in the day is not thinking back to that for that thing that you screwed up in front of that instructor I guarantee it because I never did people would be like oh man I felt like I had the worst day I screwed up in front five pounds be like man I didn't think about that the second it was over I'm thinking about all kinds of other stuff other than you like it was funny yeah unless it was really funny or like we all laughed and there's something but I like those minor interactions where you think you're like and you know me as a student I did the same thing I was just like oh my god that guy thinks I'm a complete idiot and they were almost always right but every once in a while one of the instructors is like I didn't even think about that like I didn't even think about that interaction so you know just I always remember that to like only only focus on your failures as much as like as much as they deserve like okay yeah I learn from it go get yourself a good meal get back in the fight they're turbo and you'll be fine but you're worrying about this thing that happened hours ago and nobody else knows it just like faded off yeah I was actually that's the next topic I was gonna ask you err and specifically it was who really decides what constitutes failure you know oh yeah I mean you do like when you decide to quit failure is when you just quit trying at all failure is when you're like all right cool like hey I want to you know for me I wanted to be a PJ I failed my I'm still failing today I failed today I failed on the podcast so far like it just it's a thing all the time but when I stopped trying to be the best PJ that I can and that's when you fail if your goal is to become you know what Special Warfare operator and you at one point or just like I'm sick of trying I'm sick of waking up I'm sick of this event whatever and you just need quit trying that's when you fail but you get to decide that somebody else very rarely takes you out like we're joking about the medical thing earlier and you know get you know some some people do run up against some really bad circumstances where it might not be their fault or in their control but 98% of the time it's totally in your control and you decide when that process is over you just keep showing up bring your lunch pail go to work get your data selection done and then get off into the real career field where you're just doing more of the same so and you know a good thing to keep in mind for all you guys are listening out there there are guys that like I was talking about before you're gonna go through tons and tons of tests and you're gonna fail some of them a lot of them all of them who knows but like Aaron was saying you fail that moment that you're like I'm not even gonna try anymore I'm just going to stop trying to prove you know progress and stop trying to do that goal accomplish that goal that I was aiming for when you really fail because I have guys that are hitting me up that you know we're in the pipeline a couple years ago they're gonna come back and they're gonna do a great job but and in my eyes they haven't totally lost it they failed one event or a couple events but they continued to push on and continue to see and they're gonna succeed if you have that mindset to where you take that failure you learn from that you keep on moving forward and push to the goals that you set for yourself and you decide whenever that's a total loss and a failure and you don't want to put time towards it your time should be spent somewhere else but it's completely up to you just like I said all right so let's go into a little bit more about you know we were talking about the cadres impression and everything let's get a little bit more kind of personal and some of the experiences that we had and kind of our teammates impressions and what we should be thinking about you know like you're doing 10 ups you're that dude that's on the gunnel next to the other guys you see one dude or maybe it's you like you popped on that one one session or one of the dudes wasn't doing the push-ups pulling their weight or you're the guy that you see a guy hopefully you're not the dude that's kicking your buddy or whatever because you're just worried about your own breath and you're doing all this crazy stuff under the pool or whatever so what were your impressions of other guys that you saw that did that kind of thing and they kind of fail on the team what you guys think of that overall this is kind of like a open open talk here oh it's a well I was told a long time ago by a Stowe that everybody has their day right so like I've been that guy there's there's been other guys on the team that have been that guy and really I think what what that still was able to do on our training team together through hit that attitude was everybody's gonna have that day where they they Jack something up and and and that's how he kind of looked at it and that that's how you move forward so that when you are that guy and you have that day it's easier to move past it and your teammates because of that environment that that guy that the officer had fostered within that team everybody's able to move past it but you just can't be that guy every single day you know what I mean and it can't be like that the easy things like you know like you have almost 100% control over showing up on time you don't show up on time I'm gonna give you a hard time you know if you don't have like the best excuse in the whole wide world but oh man if you're just having a rough day and you pop on a ten up or 50 or whatever you know like it's gonna be like every has their day or you or you jack up something it's as you know it is what it is and as a team and everybody does have their day nobody gets out unscathed out of selection mm-hmm yes what that brother I remember there are some dudes like when I was you know going through the undock there was one dude in particular woman mention his name here but there was one guy that was that was struggling super bad and he kept on popping on every single underwater and were like dang this guy is done cuz you know people get you told you how bad all right the guy may be a senior math start and select right now but you get to that pain cave in that tunnel where you're just continuing to fail and and this dude was in that in that pain cave right there he couldn't see anything else his face was why he's just breathing hard his eyes were big cuz he heard the instructor saying wallings read it and then that thunderous you know in the sky like when it just kind of echoes and says go and there was a one dude that I was talking about he steps in front of the other guy and takes his turn I was like dang you know in you know in in doc I wouldn't let any of the students do that if I saw it but when I was a student and I saw him do that was like wow this dude must be like super squared away and he's covering for this dude now you guys can't do that when the instructors are watching on Holly miss this this flavor I mean go ahead you can try it you sighs let's party - so it's your own peril but I mean fine go ahead you're already like what are they gonna do take you to pool as the season I was like dang that's awesome this guy is freaking covering for this baler and the other dude ended up you know making it that time but he ended up quitting later on but covering three guys definitely will not let you do that kind of stuff I yeah yeah buddy buddy breathe him one time I was fine that buddy breathing and this dude was hurtin a night and they put me with him because they they were worried that he was gonna fail so I was his partner on evaluation day and on his Reve out because he failed at evaluation day and I knew he was hurting so I just you know is it still I won't say how many breaths they can take but like it was my turn I knew that I was going to be allowed to get a breath and I skipped it just to give it right back to him yeah it wasn't in my eval but I paid the man for that some heroes don't wear capes translate yeah and then you're out of the airforce like the point of that is you know don't let yourself get if you're the person that continues to fail don't let yourself get into that repetitive mode like you can sensibly think of like I just failed I'm gonna fail again I just failed I'm gonna fail again and then you get into that like repetitive mode all you can think about is failure and that's what you're gonna end up doing because that's what you think about it's kind of like you know when you're driving you start off at whatever object then you start kind of veering off to that side because that's what you're focused on if you that's why you know people that are looking at cops or people that are pulled over get another accidents but you know don't let yourself go down that tunnel and all yourself be sidetracked of Khitan and set mindset of like I'm gonna fail I'm gonna fail this again and again you know you should always be just cognizant like refocus reset think about your objective whatever you need to do in order to accomplish the task think about that in your mind don't think about the failure also a protip for skydiving if you're under canopy and you're coming close to the ground just like you said don't stay at objects you know while you're driving because you'll start veering to it you start staring at things when you're under canopy when you're getting plugs to the grout you start going look at completely random and it's along the same thing so like the target fixation thing where you're just staring at solidity or like I watched one of the guys that I went through the pipeline with who I will he is a PA now and has been for a while but he got out after the second assignment he I watched him straight up just hug a barrel cactus down in Yuma Arizona he saw it from what I mean I don't know how far away it was it was far enough away that he was just like oh we're all like dude turn dude turn your canopy like turn just a little and he was just the whole time he was like yeah it's work it just straight into it it was great hey dude both of both you and I actually Brian does too probably I think we were probably all there when one person decided to hit a cow and get crapped on to understand it spelled phonetically yeah but there's a lot of cows there and there are a lot of cows there and he got a little fixated on a cow and hit it and it scared the crap out of well yeah if we're telling the story I mean yeah so he hit the cow because he was unable to steer because winds were right at limits so he was into the wind and he was going straight down and how he was right over top of the cow cows are stupid and then he hit the cow scared the cow hurt his ankle scared the crap out of the cow and then because it was high winds he was drugged through cow poop and then the idmp would not let him inside of the van to treat him he had to ride in the back of the six-pack because he was covered in half of his body in English cow poop and that is to story to treat him like really hope his ego or true not feeling good either but his angle actually was Hurley geared as near is that closeup cuz he landed on a cow I really appreciate the service that let you know it I might hear about this hey this is just a couple of England alumni talking about an inside thing there's nobody else that knows about this on the face of plans it's just for the record I've I've never been stationed in England just throwing it out there okay all right you grab the wheel on that one now I just completely lost exactly where I was yeah let's go back to again kind of close to where we were so cadre impression we kind of went over this a little bit but I just want to talk you know specifically you know the instructor standpoint one yeah I see guys fail and recover or not recover but the biggest the biggest thing that I think cadres think about is how is this guy going to react to getting smack in the face like we're talking about with timelines earlier a minute 30 to make it to the creek and back and must be completely drenched you got a bear crawl back or whatever you know there are tons of tests that are gonna be just like that and they're gonna continue to be pushed to your limit and you're gonna fail and we want to see what are you gonna do once you do fail are you gonna be that person that's like we were talking about before were dwelling on that or you're bringing your teammates down we give you guys a bathroom break or snack break or whatever you see dudes that are just like staring off into the distance contemplating their lives like why do I start this in the first place like yeah are you that dude that's you know sitting there you need a snack you know watching what's going on watching the area you know keeping your head on a swivel while all this stuff is going on so that's kind of my perspective on what I wanted to see whenever I put guys through a stressful you know failure type situation no no trying to Aaron peach peachy also didn't instruct her things I'm sure you saw tons of people fail at weapons cool oh that's the name of the game at the weapons come your everything is built to test your absolute limit and with the expectation that you are probably going to fail you are definitely going to fail at some of the the learning objectives because they each scenario is built to ensure that you learn certain objectives but I think it's you know doing this is kind of a morality thing as well but doing the right thing when no one's looking right and how does that translate in the failure its yeah okay I failed now what get it going again you know that's this is my two cents on up definitely trying Aaron you got anything on that yeah I know I don't know I was like oh no all right yeah good talk no I was like when you you know self policing is always the goals and instructors so you know I'll tell you you know just for me my impression of students that I've had now like especially for those guys that are operational now my impression of them as a student is like I may be one percent useful like granted I've seen like a whole bunch of data points I've seen a million things but you know who you are as a student and who you are is you know kind of a one deployment or two deployment guy are making that transition of the leadership positions or are getting some of those unique experiences like we've had Oh beyond and you know these other guys that we've talked about and stuff and you know those things are gonna come with your career cadre impression is important because we can guide you like I've seen thousands of students go through the pipeline right cuz that was my that was my job so I saw a thousand data points I've seen a bunch of different wacky scenarios and you know the run-of-the-mill scenarios you know for some students it might be like oh man this is the worst thing ever really not handle this like four times is here come on I know the right three people to talk to and this isn't gonna be a big deal right so the things that I was like to see from students that I think are good that you should like focus on and it's not all the other stuff like students are gonna be stupid I'm gonna be like Oh remember the time that that guy fell inside of a clothing bin we had a student it was like reaching to get inside of a clothing bin and it was like up to his waist and he fell like ass over teakettle like just completely all the way up like fell into this bin and we got it on video so there may or may not be a video of this guy that's a good dude reaching into this bin and completely like yard saleing and he did and yet no idea that he was being recorded so then he like had like hop out of the bin it was hilarious knock it off right so it's hilarious but the good things that we like to see is like when you see a team really clicking when you see like very little talk just a lot of work and even when bad things happen they're like yep that was bad on to the next thing what do we got like I love it those are the good type of cadre impressions where I start feeling really good and you know really comfortable for a team for me as an instructor that was time for me like it's time to give these guys more rope give them a little bit more freedom give them a little bit more you know say and other day goes like all that stuff like if they want to come to be like hey we want to we want to you know go on a rock tomorrow morning like teams want to go on rocks at five o'clock in the morning like hey we're gonna go on a rock instead for PT can we do that and then you know show up to school a little bit later be like yeah your block instructors are totally willing to to work and it's like that most places in the Bible on when things are good but yeah for cadre impressions like that's one of those things that I've loved seeing you know I won't talk about the negative stuff hilarious stuff is always funny watching that dude fall under that huge bin was hilarious I still had video on my phone it's great did you guys put hair pomade in the bottom of the thing and he was just reaching forward and it was like where the instructors would put their kid like when they were you know it wasn't unserviceable is so good kid but you just got it replaced did put in there and the students would have like a free run of it but as a big try wall and he just ate it it was hilarious things great yeah great yeah there's there's a few things for me at least more rewarding as an instructor than seeing that person that shows up that fails a lot of stuff or struggles really bad that ends up making it through the pipeline and having a successful career like when if you quit and I have to go talk to you like there's usually when I was on the selection course I've got quit in the pool or whatever and they go to the locker room you know I'm the guy that was assigned to go talk to that person and you were the cone sympathizer we've learned something new every day fellas but like if you quit in the pool and I go in and talk to you and you got the waterworks going and you're sad like I feel sympathy for you but I'm like okay well you got a help process like by ok baby all right but if you aren't that guy that obviously like you wherever you are ever you came from you don't have enough time the pool you're just trying really hard or you know and like you just blacked out one too many times and for medical reasons we have to wash you out or whatever it is if you missed the the swim by 3 seconds and that's your the last straw and we send you the locker room and I go back there the hardest thing for me is when the guys that are actually trying their hardest and they're failing like they're like hey sergeant I'm so sorry you know like I was trying my you know like and you know that this kids giving it us all and I mean I feel a lot more sympathy for that person I'm like I'm giving them all the tips to come back and like try and be like hey man it's cool like growth mindset nonsense blah blah I'm gonna talk your ear off about this don't cry in front of me please because I don't want to have like an emotional reaction because but you know what I mean it's it's that to me like if you if you fail and you gave it a hundred percent as a cadre member I'm like good job you know like those guys that go face plant during rocks or runs like I'm not looking at my kid being like man that guy's a piece of crap I'm like that dude really he wouldn't a hundred percent all in but if you're like feeling discomfort and then you quit I'm like well better luck next time see you later like bye there are those guys that oh the those guys that take every opportunity they could possibly get to go to like sick call or to just say like REO surgery could we have a water break or whatever break like they're always asking for an out and stuff yeah we don't feel sorry for those guys but just like you said you know I saw a lot of people that whenever they quit or they failed out you have to go in your blues or you know is the old way you have to go in your blues and stand on the black line to be processed by the Commandant and I would sit in on the meetings you know talking about what they're good at what they were good work it weren't good at and we you know kind of offer a setback based on whether or not we thought a guy is gonna have another shot or if they needed to get another couple years of experience and maturity under their belt and it was always those guys that you know kept the composure but like the entire time and they told us you know systematically how they thought about stuff and they said you know I went a hundred percent and we know because we were there at the pool with them like they literally put their all into this thing and they have the right attitude they have the right personality they're a good teammate and you can see that you know the entire time they're at the course or whatever those guys are gonna get a setback those guys that are like you know we have a record and we look like how many missed training events they have and they miss like every other day or one training event a week or something like that and it's always a water con event especially on Thursdays they're trying to get out of it you're like thirsty Thursdays sometimes I guess ladies night I don't know but there's those guys that always try to avoid the things that are hard and they let their team go and you know do the hard stuff and they'll try and slip by but everyone's tracking you at selection they're always writing down whatever you're doing the things that you miss the way that you acted the attitude you had when you told them they failed you know all that stuff gets written down and recorded too later on decide like saying when you're in that room whether or not you're gonna get a setback or you're gonna get you know a different job in the Air Force or out so all that stuff comes to consideration and the cadre impression you know the reason we're not we're talking about this it's not like at a certain point you have to think about how people are gonna judge you I know everyone always says like live your own life don't worry about people judge you when you're at selection that's what are they saying Yolo can you did you do it just like you did when you go to selection you're gonna care about people's judgments because that is what is gonna happen you have to be squared away all the time and it is a selection because their opinion as I guess this is gonna be kind of dicey with those instructors instructors over there they're trying to keep it as objective as possible but they have to write down what they see and how they perceive it is what goes on the paper so you know it's a selection so it matters what they think and how you act whenever you conduct yourself specially in the team environment so think about that stuff whenever you are going into that situation but ultimately you know the real changes that are gonna occur with when you fail are the way that you perceive yourself in that moment of failure like like I was talking about on the on the gunnel or wherever if you're that person that just got kicked in the face and then you popped or whatever or you just pop because you're having a bad day are you gonna perceive yourself as a weak person and are you can gonna continue to think that you are not capable of succeeding the next time that's what's really gonna matter the most at the end of the day when you go to hit that pool you know on that hell night or those hell week or whatever that's what's gonna matter the most so perception of yourself is huge and that's gonna set the precedent for your time at selection you know how you overcome those obstacles and now we already did the moving towards obstacles but overcoming the obstacles while we're at selection really is gonna set the precedents like are you gonna stop and you're gonna push forward when things get start to get tough alright so let's get into personal biggest failures at selection will do who wants to go first any chronic alike feel like I've already laid this out on a couple different platforms so I thought I'm good I figure out one of them think that one of and then tell us you know how you handle it and how these guys should handle it oh man man my if I had to go biggest failure I'll tell you what it's like I actually did I came down to I came down to my last go like the last time that I was allowed to leave the water service on ditching Donna I had never injured on it uh you know at the in dock that I went to the first and the second times I was totally ok with it I wasn't as fast as I had a good friend that could do it in like ten seconds he would just smash it come up he was perfect every time as awesome as it was a joy to watch that was just his event but I I was never bad at it and I never really stressed me out that much it was okay but no kidding I got done I was really close on one of my cam I pull up Cowell numbers I was really close I ended up you know doing good enough to pass the eval and then I was I thought I was on cruise control I was like all right cool I got all the way through the pool session that day kitchen dogs one of the later events I went down came back up the instructor was like fail I thought I was joking with me I was just like hi whatever because that's how that's how confident I was addition down I felt great I hadn't failed it in like a week so I was just like ah no I'm fine whatever but uh no so sure enough I did so I went down put it back on came back up he's like alright go so I went down and I did the exact same thing I failed it again I had to revile the next day so that was like the last time I had one shot to do it in the pool with no warm-up that's like basically like go in try it a little bit get yourself ready to go I'm gonna take a practice run like here you go I was just like alright well my my whole pipeline rests on this moment I mean you know obviously I passed it but you know maybe getting a little bit complacent there even with what was on the line because I was definitely let it at that Revo and I was like man did I not take it serious enough yesterday I was like was I on cruise control like I don't know make maybe I didn't feel like I was but I don't know so yeah yeah let me just cover ditchin down real quick just quick overviews basically for you guys that don't know you're wearing a 16 pound weight belt mask fins and you have to kind of go down to the pool with 12 foot pool and then ditch your stuff down there in a certain order has to be like perfect and within the certain parameter and then you come back up and then you got to go back down and Don your gear and then hands up go to the pool side of the pool but how do you suggest guys you know recover from that or learn from that kind of thing yeah I don't know cuz I don't know if I don't know if I got to revolve by sheer luck or if I really did that you know I felt like I had an instructor definitely was giving me like it was 100% fair but it was also not lenient at all so I knew that with that instructor Rob's of positive that I passed I would just say you know stay and stay in the fight like I didn't take too much time that night I didn't do anything out of the ordinary I didn't come up with his magical new drill that I was gonna do I just had a bad go it just happened to be on an eval so I just kind of had to put that beside me or behind me and then kind of trust my training like my training was there it's that's not what failed I just I had a bad day and on that day and I just needed to perform the next day so you know I didn't come up with a bunch of crazy waz new things that I was gonna do or stay up late at night you know running through you know dry drills or anything I just sometimes you just have to go perform yep just take it and keep on moving well it's funny because I think I had a lenient instructor one time but it wasn't like necessarily during the pipeline I was at freefall school and you're looking at a guy that took every single jump it that you're allowed to make it through freefall school and it's a it's one of those things like no one fails freefall school right like everybody there's no problem you know like how you spend like that's how I come out of the plane like my last my last jump you know you got the full everything on and I jump out and I do exactly what the instructor says and I won't go into too many details it definitely wasn't a low pool but we got on the ground he's like no you did everything I told you to do and that you pass but now like moving forward from something like that and it's like it's I was so close to complete humiliation for almost failing free you know like I'm just not a natural father like I'm a tense person and that goes against everything that that's required in that school are you are you we haven't jumped together but are you any better at jumping now numb nuts is fun I think I'm probably dead if I wasn't better at jumping at this point well it's the kicking well it's funny though I stopped doing it after my instructor stopped correcting me on it it's a weird you know what those mind things like cuz he kept talking like hey stop kicking your feet on the way out the door and as soon as he was like hey man it's not a big deal it's not affecting your jumps just go ahead and do it the rest of videos I'm not finding my way out the door it was just that weird like don't kick don't kick don't kick and of course on my way out the door I'm finding my way out yeah targeting station you're just thinking about kicking that's what you did see I failed a lot speaking of kick and that's what that's when my little story is finally valid in dock whenever we used to do him on Fridays was I crushed all the other events and then the was it 3,000 or 4,000 meter it was a 6,000 meter swim when you went through in Korea uphill okay so I start doing it fitting was never my my strong suit as we've talked about previously but I failed the eval by two seconds two seconds and two instructors come talk about it the one guy that's you know counting my reps my laps and then and then the essentially the head instructor of the proctor for that pool session and they're talking about it and the one that's counted me is like hey man I know you that you want to give this to him but two seconds is two seconds and that's a failure and that we have a standard for a reason I was like okay so he goes you're gonna you're gonna ream out there you go yeah you know I mean it was there's no other option it's just I mean you talking about failing by you know two seconds what is that a turn on the on the wall maybe one or two turns on the wall like did they tell you that you're gonna fail like when you were you know 3,000 meters in it or whatever they're like this guy is really cutting it close like hurry up or you know we did what he claps or just cited the time in close par for the course yeah with it when it came to finning yeah that was that was just like oh well he'll squeak it through you know he always has before mm-hmm he'll fail finning and especially during the final e-value know you kind of get better hey my story is similar so mine was at guy school and I failed drown proofing so I know drown proofing is like the easiest thing you say just like drama able to yeah like drown proofing and I was just like no no but like drown proofing yeah like drown proofing like yeah no no I didn't fall asleep or anything now I'm talking about when I'm fin I fell asleep that was like my zone out don't even think about anything moment but yeah I was a at die school I failed the first time and it was a 12 foot pool we'd only trained in the skylark before and a 9 foot pool so that was my first time going into a 12 foot pool not an excuse or anything I should have still knocked it out but you know I pushed off the first time and I had that mask in my teeth and I didn't make it to the top like oh oh crap this is not good this is not gonna be good you're like that's the worst you'll be like 300 below the water and like two feet above the bottom and you're just stuck and like eternity I can't go anywhere I can't do anything to immediately start gutting because you're like heart rate just went up 20 you know right there oh no I know anyway so yeah ended up doing a kick at the top on my like third or fourth one or something like that so I rebelled it and I passed the second time with difficulty I still sucked it because I didn't really have like remedial training or anything just like alright come back tomorrow and we'll try again and I still sucked at it but I just got it out because I was like I'm not going home I'm just gonna suck it so I could pass out whatever wake up in the hospital but I'm not gonna go home because of this but yeah that was that was my thing and you know I up to that point I didn't have a lot of difficulty especially with trauma proven like he guys said it caught me by surprise because I was like it's just drown proofing like it's not a hard thing I've done it a bunch of times but that really caught me off and that kept me on my toes throughout the rest of school because I was like holy crap if I juggle with this I got a re-evaluate you're just wonder if that's as hard as I think it is yeah what's different about this pool are there sharks in the bay they're like what's going to affect me here so you know that I kind of kept me on my toes and that's something that I think was beneficial for me when I was going through the rest of high school so alright so I went through that we'll go through a couple more questions here specifically like instructors and that kind of stuff let's go through let's talk a little bit but about more about the mental aspect of let's go Trent having a bad day at selection like everyone has that like day where you just are screwing everything up and whatever how do you what kind of tools do you use to get over that kind of thing and what do you how do you kind of reframe your mind on that well I mean just how like you talked about like when I was a young person I was incredibly dishonest with myself and I have a point here but like if I felt it something I would I would just lie to myself you know and then that's what kept me up at night really is that I was lying to myself and I wasn't being honest about what happened why it happened and so on and so forth and so as I the first step for me is to be honest about what it is and and whose fault it was and why it happened I tend to take training very seriously so I was at a CQB course and I get super amped up for these things because you know let's CQB there's like the worst possible scenario it could ever be in and I was the I think it was the senior enlisted dude that was there at the time and I ended up it was a beautiful shine I'm shooting one of my own guys right in the noggin you know what I mean like he came around I couldn't see his Kym stick he like leaned over and we're taking fire from that direction I just I didn't PID correctly I can't deal with what my hands I'm sorry boom perfect shot it was it was beautiful but like about three seconds later I realized I'd shot probably my favorite person I was on that team it's hard because it's dark in there the music is turned up to like you know 11 and maybe if I don't say anything no one will ever know that I shot the student ahead you know what I mean like I just brained my own dude in training so as soon as we all went back to the room and we all sat around like the first thing I have to do and I just for the record I don't enjoy doing stuff like this I had to be like hey guys I know I just yelled at you guys about something stupid yesterday listen dude here I have a confession to make and this is what I did you know this is what happened I got a little too amped up you know my heart rate was a little higher than it should have been and and now I owe something to the the Heritage mascot that is in our team room and it's definitely at a bar so but I mean it's hard but like I'm surrounded by a bunch of dudes that are that are younger and lower ranking than I am but like that's that's the key right there it's like I didn't dwell on that forever and it did make me a little bit sharper throughout the rest of course but I learned something from it but I was like dude hey no one else jacked up like you know what of course I'm like well I didn't see his Kim stick like you walk around so I can see her Kim stick bro but you know it was my fault and that's the key to me is it is immediately being like boom my fault my responsibility learn from it admit to it move forward and and keep training you have to own your successes as along with your failures because the only way that you're gonna actually move forward and you know make progress is by internalizing those things I'm sure like immediately you felt terrible and like he's like you said owning up to and saying like hey I totally screwed this thing up just want you guys to know then that also you know lets people know that they can trust you and Trust is is huge on the team because they know that if there's anything that happens there you're gonna tell them straight up like hey I screwed this up lemme let's figure out how to fix this you know obviously it's in training and if you weren't a training that it wouldn't be something that you cannot really think I'm looking at Jared's facing he doesn't want to jump with me or shoot with me now so you've got a judgey face on the truck face Nicolas Cage yeah but it's important to when you have a bad day and you have that thing you know just internalize it and then learn from that thing continue moving on and don't let yourself spiral into that that sense of hopelessness and nothing's gonna improve and that kind of stuff because that will get you out way faster than just failure on its own all right so peach in high-stress environment you know people always say failure is not an option you know there's shirts and there's mugs and all that kind of stuff out there about failure not being an option what's your take on this popular saying and it's barely an option follow me night I think sometimes you can't you can't fix the scenario or you can't perform well enough for you to succeed so by that regard failure is an option now failure doesn't have to be a decision point for you though if you decide not to fail then then don't fail at your performance right I can't necessarily help all the other variables that are in the environment or just like I said before the enemy has a vote so like as long as my performance is successful and at the level that it needs to be then at least within myself failure is not a decision point of failure absolutely is an option and sometimes you just can't help it now you're gonna fail failure I love this one failure is most certainly an option like you can fail I've see I've done it I've failed I've seen people do it like I've seen people a real world missions it's unfortunate to say so but you know sometimes failures lead to deaths on the battlefield and hopefully we learn from them we don't repeat those in the future but you know training same same sort of thing like it sucks but it is an option I don't think that you should include it in everything you're doing you know you shouldn't I should fail I think you should know exactly what that failure looks like like we always do you know the risk to a mission or the risk to a force and really what that is is what would make the mission fail what would hurt my team so badly that we couldn't do the mission anymore so though you figure those two things out you should be part of your planning but maybe not maybe not part of your go twos maybe uh maybe quitting right out the gate let's see how this feels like try it on for sauce try it for a couple days before we start you know accepting failure early on in a process you know it's funny you talked about you mention the missions and stuff like that Aaron what a lot of people well people within our community realise this and understand this but a lot of people outside don't is that all these decorations and medals that people have earned are because the situation went bad terribly terribly south polar was a mistake it wasn't as either yeah poor situation poor decision-making poor mission planning like something went wrong and luckily somebody or a group of people were there to perform and rectify the situation and get everybody out of it but those things happen because things went wrong mm-hmm well and no plan survives first contact right and just like when you're entering the pipeline like no one's planning on probably not failing a bunch of times to succeed but I think we've all been on missions where like you have to adapt and overcome look we don't necessarily call a failure but look what you had planned to do is necessarily what happens but we still end up being on the successful side just because the way that we deal with these situations yeah and I think it's important also to just kind of point out you know you react to the things that you are aware of at the time so you know there are a lot people that can armchair quarterback and be like you know you read a book or whatever you're like oh well why did they just do this or whatever after the fact and the reality is you know if you're the dude on the ground you see what you see and you hear what you hear whether the radio contact didn't come in you know later on you'll like oh that's what they said a buddy of yours will tell you like oh crap I totally didn't even hear that on comms like there are plenty of times when you know I was doing you know Tim later saying you have a couple radios you're trying to talk to another person that's here in real life you're the airplane other team and you're just like trying to figure out what's why you miss things that are going on and other people catch it so once you get that full story and it's in a book or whatever it's easy to be like oh they should have just went this way instead of this way yeah it's easy to say but that dude maybe he missed something maybe he wasn't able to see it was dark you know whatever the fact is so just saying that because we're not trying to like you know armchair quarterback or sharp sheet anybody that did anything but you will fail and you have to definitely think about what you're gonna do in that moment and that's why it's important to just talk about this thing like we're talking right now failing because you're gonna continue to fail and if you're in a deployed situation and things are on like lives are on the line and stuff then you have to continue to move forward you can't be like oh man I totally screwed up that that calm with the aircraft or whatever I sounded like an idiot no time to like think about that I keep on like it idiot so it's like Napoleon Dynamite eat your food guys I think quarantines getting to us this is the most human contact yeah yeah all right let me just end it you know pretty much on that no right there I was going to talk about a little bit success and that kind of stuff but let's leave it at failure and we won't talk about success for a future episode yeah next up next up success alright let's turn it around be a short podcast yes talk about our successes crickets alright so you guys got anything else final parting words here everybody stay stay home do your part help out thanks alright you know if you don't try then you automatically fail but if you at least try and fail then you know that you've at least tried to do something and it doesn't matter what the armchair quarterbacks gonna say at the end of the day the people are gonna you know say what they're gonna say but overall what matters is how you internalize that failure and if you make yourself better from the failure so continue to learn from it don't dwell on those little failures that you may have had in the past just learn push on and over time you'll develop a you'll develop like Peterson you know you get over a lot quicker you start learning a lot quicker you don't beat yourself up as much if it was something that was kind of smaller and you kind of rationalized you know it wasn't that big of a deal but you keep those really big things that you mess up with you for the rest of your life and you're always gonna use those and reach back whenever things go south and you're like this I need to make sure this happens because I don't want another repeat of this failure that I had in the past and you're gonna continue to do that throughout the rest of your life and whether it's an academic test or a physical test or you know a social test you like selection they're testing the kind of person that you are you're going to screw up but what you need to do especially in selection is bounce back and continue moving forward be that guy that motivates don't be the person that's in their pain cave constantly thinking of failure because you're gonna go straight towards the failure whenever that happens you have to be that person that moves there adjusts your target stop looking at that failure that happened and then adjust back onto the goal and where you're headed and that is you know overall success and pursuit of whatever kind of goals you have in mind so keep that in mind again we appreciate you guys listening to the podcast you can hit us up anytime via email IG youtube there are some comments down below let us know you know some of your successes of failures and ways that you could never come them share with each other and got there and keep on training I know things are crazy right now in the world but you can still get your run on get your rock on be outside you know just do what you got to do for the meantime you know hopefully this all goes over soon and life continues back to normal so thanks again for listening and we will catch you guys on the next episode so [Music]

Channel: Ones Ready

Views: 28,010

Keywords: Air Force Special Warfare, Assessment and Selection, USAF SPECWAR, AFSPECWAR, AFSPECWAR A&S, Air Force Special Tactics, Air Force Special Operations, AFSOC, Special Operations Command, SOCOM, Failure Proof, Hard to Kill, Air Force Pararescue, Air Force Combat Control, Air Force Special Reconnaissance, USAF PJ, USAF CCT, USAF SR, Combat Rescue Officer Training, Special Tactics Officer Training, Air Force Special Operations Pipeline, Special Forces, Special Operations Forces, SOF

Id: o-Dwy-1USkI

Length: 70min 0sec (4200 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020