Control Your Actions
EPISODE 6
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Today we are talking about how you need to be conscious of your actions and be able to control your actions and reactions to events. an even keel when things hit the fan is how you will be able to excel in Special Operations.
We just want to start with saying thank you for watching and listening and looking at all of our stuff on a social media, we appreciate everything that we're putting out and you guys are taking care of it and leaving all the great reviews that we've been getting for the podcast and everything else. Also, speaking of really awesome people, let's talk about Strike Force Energy and Alpha Brew Coffee Company for a minute. Both of these awesome companies are supporting us. So go to their websites, grab some high quality coffee and energy powder and make sure you put in the code: ONESREADY for your your discount and they'll take care of you. So today let's get right into it. Controlling your actions. That's going to be huge when you're going through training, when you're on team and everything else. And so I know I've seen this a lot on the pipelines and on team and we always talk about the only thing that you can control is your reaction to the situation. So I'll kind of want to start off with Brian.
Calm on the surface
It is really important to control your actions in any situation and you can overcome whatever kind of how with your why. So keeping that in the back of your head whenever you wake up in the morning. This the same thing, like Peach always posts on Instagram. He's talking about make sure you get up whenever your alarm goes off, wake up in the morning, control your actions in that way. Don't let your feelings and your tiredness and your soreness or whatever, whenever you get into the pipeline, control what your actions are going to be. So that's a huge thing whenever you get to selection specifically because they're going to be, a lot of times when in your chest your heart's beating 140 times a minute or whatever because you just finished doing duck walks, you just finished doing an underwater, you just finished doing whatever. But on the outside you need to be that calm demeanor. And that's what I would tell guys all the time is you really need to just look like that duck analogy that we always put out there. You know, calm on the surface and then your feet are just kicking like hell on under the surface. So be like that duck. Control your actions means just what the task is going to be. You know that some underwaters would come and you know that push ups, you're going to get dropped. So do it to the best of your ability and then show the instructors and show your teammates that you're there to actually perform and you're not going to be affected by whatever kind of things happen in an instructor's throw at you. So that's a really important aspect. And then, and they're getting out of bed thing in the morning. Oh, I tell people that was one of the most difficult times for me throughout the day. So once you are able to, step down off that bed you wake up and you're like, let's do this stuff right now you're not thinking about all that other crap or how you failed the day prior or any of that. You're thinking about, all right, what's my next step? What do I got to do? Control one step after the other and put one foot in front of the other. And that's how you're going to make it through today by controlling your actions there.
Instructors are playing a role
[Brian] A lot of things that we used to do, as an instructor at Indoc, you're kind of playing a role, right? And all of us kind of have been there a little bit. We know that we have to put the pressure on, we have to put on an environment for the students to participate in and for them to kind of get a reaction out of them. That's all it is the whole time. So, believe it or not, I can do a fair amount of yelling whenever I have to do it. That's not my thing most of the time. But so we would turn up the volume. We would do a lot of the bringing the sirens out, the Bullhorn comes out and everyone's like, Oh crap, it's about to go down. It's like we can all remember when we were at the pool and the Bullhorn came out, we're like, Whoa. Your heart's just like, Oh my God. And you're trying to stay calm. You're like, I got this, which you're shaking and you're like, Oh crap, what are they going to do to us? But a lot of times they'd just be for sure like that we'd roll up in a big squad as instructors and with the Bullhorn and just walk in there like we're angry and we'd immediately in the van we were like, Oh yeah, we're totally going to drop them. What are you going to say? All right. Yeah. And I'm going to drop them because of this, right? Yeah. And it's going to get hit. It's going to be so awesome.
Yeah. Go in the front. You're going to break in the room for us. Yeah. so yeah, we'd come in and do that kind of stuff or just mess with them in different ways. You know, whenever we walk in an area we have, they have to call the area attention. So we'd mess with them in that way and see if they're paying attention and always just find a reason to kind of drop them because there's always something that we can find a reason for. So that's kind of how we played it up.
[Aaron] Yeah, so the other kind of nuance thing too is you got to see students control their actions in like different scenarios, right? Like so sometimes there were like disciplinary things. Sometimes guys like would have those issues cause I got to be around those students in some form or fashion for like two years. So they would be down there, they'd be going through their pipeline and you'd see them in different stuff and back and forth from schools and seeing how guys came back. Like maybe if they had to refire a school, maybe they didn't do so well at free fall or if they had to come back. That was actually a pretty good one too. You could see as students, like how do they respond to combat failure and the apprentice course all the way at the end. It was, we didn't have to turn the volume up at all because the volume was naturally turned out by like, okay well we're going to go jump. It's been a year since you did a free fall job, but now we're going to start talking about evaluating you on, you know, not only jumping like with your team, like getting into a stack but doing follow on missions and stuff. Like that. Volume was naturally turned up. But it was really interesting to see from the beginning all the way to the end. Cause I saw the product that Brian and the Indoc instructors or A&S instructors at the end would put out. Right. So they have had stress inoculation. They got really good at managing their times of stress. But it was just a constant uphill battle, a constant curve of more and more things that we would pile on. So it was really cool to watch the teams, especially in their debriefs when they would walk the team through debrief where they just did something that maybe six or six months ago, a year ago they couldn't even do, they weren't even free fall jumpers. And to watch them brief their team and tell them, okay, when we opened up and we got together and then we landed and then we did a follow on situational medical exercise or something like that, it was really, really cool to watch how they, how they'd grown and their ability to control their actions throughout the pipeline. Like the capacity got bigger and bigger and bigger. So saw a lot of good things. I saw some bad things. You definitely see guys lose it and kind of handle things the wrong way. So I've seen, I've seen a couple of different reactions. I won't put any names out there, but I've definitely seen tears. I've definitely seen some thrown helmets. I've definitely seen some poo poo faces. And Brian's, exactly right. I always, the only thing that you can control about a situation is your reaction. The only thing that you can control is what other people see. And that's what they're going to remember. I will always remember those guys that threw their helmets. I will always remember like, remember when that dude cried? It doesn't matter if that guy goes on to get the Medal of Honor. We will sit at a bar one time and we'll be like, man, Medal of Honor. Crazy mission. Remember when that guy cried that one time? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But you own it. Like, and by the way, it's okay to cry. I'm not a guy to like thinks you're less of a man of emotion.
Things that make Brian mad
That was one of the things that used to make me really mad whenever I was an instructor. Dudes who get really upset in the pool, like on buddy breathing or whatever and they think their buddy is screwing them, they get really upset at their buddy or they get really upset at themselves and they show it outwardly to the instructors and they're like, they swear they throw stuff and you're just like, what are you doing right now? That's totally unprofessional. You know, you learn from your mistakes and you keep on moving on. You don't sit there and cry about it here in the middle of the pool, maybe in your room later on you can do your little pity party and then move on from it. But right here when I'm literally face to face with as an instructor, these guys that just finished and yeah, maybe they got torn up a little bit, but learn from it and then move on. Don't sit there and splash water and blame it on your buddy or blame it on the snorkel. Blame it on whatever. Just learn from it and move on.
[Peaches] Yeah. I had a guy, I had a guy get out of the pool, grab the bull horn, right. The one that everybody is and he just yelled into it and said, I quit and slammed it and smashed it on the pool deck. It didn't work out well. Funny enough. But I mean we're in the water doing stuff and he does that. And at the time he was actually the Team Leader, so he was an officer. A lot of people may not understand, at that level in the pipeline when you're a young Airman or you just joined, you kind of look at those officers and then those cross trainees as these guys have a lot more maturity. They have a lot more experience. They're probably going to make it because percentage wise they, they do typically make it. And then the have him come out of the water, grab it, quit and smash it on the pool deck. It was a little weird.
Overreaction in tough situations
Well, I think it's the consistency thing too, because you'll see guys in a one school that, that handle and they think they've got a handle on. And I, I've done the same thing where like I'm good, I'm good and you change your environment and then it's a whole new situation and you constantly have to be thinking about controlling yourself, how other people are perceiving you and just being ready for what's ever coming your way and dealing with it in the correct manner. And that goes all the way through team, right? Like, it's not like you get on team, things are easy and you're not going to have any more stress in your life and you've mastered it. So like from a team Sergeant perspective, this is where Peach comes in. I'm sure you have tons of stories about guys doing the right thing, the wrong thing. Guys that in certain situations can't control or have lost control of themselves and guys in the worst situations that have just maintained it and move forward.
Yeah. So I, I can't remember when I actually wrote the post, but, or at least maybe I was thinking about it in my mind, but talking about getting in a firefight and making fun of yourself and being able to laugh about it. And I mean we, there's a good chance that a lot of us have had, whether it's parents, friends, bosses that tend to overreact when something happens. It's about consistency, having that even keel. And no matter what happens, whether it's a little amount of stress or large amount of says stress, not crumbling, not overreacting to it, whether it's anger or not. But, you've got to maintain an even keel whether, especially when you have people that are following you and depending on you to have a, a stable reaction to something almost in a stoic fashion to be able to like bring in the data, analyze it correctly, and then have the appropriate response. And I think that's important. Whether it's in a pipeline, whether it's in a firefight or whether you're under two parachutes that are collapsing and you're heading towards the water, right? I mean that kind of thing is something that you just gotta make sure that you're cognizant of. And that whole fight or flight thing is a real thing. And you'll find that most of us, if not all of us, are going to go towards the fight rather than back away from it. But that's primarily what I've seen. I wouldn't want to get into a certain good or bad scenarios other than, no kidding been in firefights and then I look over at the guy next to me and we're fighting and we're just crack it up and then "look at that dude, he goes running across there and he just tripped or he slammed into the wall and fell or you know, he, he's so stressed that his, yeah, his belly is flopping out, you know, I mean he's just a complete garage sale as he's, as he's running across getting shot at. I mean it's, it's funny. It really.
Yeah. And that, that will follow you to the next unit or the next team. If you're known as somebody who, who wigs out, if something comes, it's going to follow you.
I was going to say, I think I've seen it more in like the, the medium to low stress environments where guys lose it. And I know I'm way more susceptible to lose it in those environments because I practice and I think about the super high stress environments on a regular basis. Right. And so when I get there, and for the vast majority of guys that I've ever worked with when it actually hits the fan, everybody knows what to do and we all find our groove and we're there and we're used to it. We know what to do. But it's when you're in that sustained low to medium stress environment, day after day after day and you've got to stay on top of it. Cause that's when guys tend to like just freak out over nothing that that'll affect your reputation. But you got, you gotta do that. It kind of plays into that self analysis. I know times that I've lost my temper a little bit or lost control of my emotions, I'll look back and I'll be like, that wasn't even that big of a deal. Why did I react that way when I know that I can handle, way more stressful situations than this? And so it's just like everything else. You constantly have to, at the end of the day, look back at yourself and be like, Hey, what do I do right? What I do wrong and how am I going to get past this?
Controlling your emotions
Well, I don't want to go too far down any rabbit holes here, but this is all about controlling your emotions. Right? And that's, that's the whole pipeline. And all the training that we do is designed to break down some of our barriers and to help us control our emotions in the worst of environments. But like, I know my wife will tell me, she's like, you're a robot. You don't have feelings but, she gets tired of me telling her like you can control your emotions and your reactions to everything. As you go through the pipeline, as you go through these situations, I'm not, it's not ideal for marriage obviously, but you need to actively work on putting things in perspective. And my point about this was, is for me getting past my own ego is when I could finally control my emotions and realize that I'm not in charge. I'm not the most important person on this planet. And then I'm not a slave to my emotions anymore because I don't think that I'm the most important person that ever walked the face of the earth.
calm breeds calm
[Aaron] Dude, it took a lot, man for me, that emotional maturity and I am loud. I had some really good input. You know, from one of the first guys that ever sort of evaluated me is a good friend of mine. His name's Nick. I know he listens to the podcast. What's up Nick? But Nick gave me some feedback. He goes, you know, you may not be stressed in your head, but the way that you look and the way that you sound makes me think that you're stressed. I don't think you're actually stressed. I don't think you're actually freaking out. But you think fast. You talk fast, you talk loud. He was like, when you raise your voice, you lose your power and calm breeds calm. So you need everybody else. So as the stress goes up for me, I think in my head all the time, as the stress gets higher and higher and higher, no kidding it's part of my crosscheck now. I think to myself, get calmer, take it easy, make sure everybody knows that you've got a handle on this. Like it's something that I've had to develop because I am passionate. I do have that fiery personality, right? Like I, think that's a nice way of saying that I'm an egotistical narcissistic megalomaniac. Do you know how long I had to practice on that. But it's something I've had to develop and Trent, I man, I love that you said you had to, you had to get past your own ego, man. So did I, I had to get that emotional maturity to be able in that moment to go, okay, back it down. Remember, other people are looking to you like as a team member you can, you can lose your emotions a little bit as a team member, not as a Team Leader, not as, not as a Troop Chief, not as a Team Sergeant. You can't do that. You have to be the one that is the calmest in the room when everything is burning down around you because the men deserve it. The mission deserves it and you deserve it as a professional to yourself. So for me, short answer, I had to develop it. I had to work on it. I had to constantly seek feedback and most importantly internalize the feedback that was given. Right. You can't just be like, Oh well that's, that's just one dude's opinion. That's the wrong road. That's, that's the wrong way to think of it. I won't lie like the good things too, like it's not just bad, but keeping that even keel, a great sports analogies act like you've been there before, right? Like the first time that you do something, well man, you don't strut around and Pat yourself on the back. Like that's not what you do. Like act like you'd been there before. Act like you've won a championship before, act like you've done this good thing before. Because people, people take information from that too. So that's good and bad. But I think that's it for me that that emotional maturity piece of it was a, was tough. And especially for louder personality type dudes. Like, man, I get emotional, I am passionate, so.
[Brian] A lot of times whenever we do our training or even now in the PA career field or whatever, I try and put people under the stressful situation like you're talking about, we're all, it's all about like algorithms. You know, that a person's legs blown off. You go through your ex. Abcs or whatever. You take care of things in a list. And we practice under stressful situations. We want to make sure that you have that list in your head whenever you see that actual situation happen in front of you. So constantly just going through that, practicing your skills. Like at night we used to in helicopters and stuff and Aaron can talk to you, like talk your ear off about all this stuff too, because we used to do it together, but we'd be under NVGs trying to get the IV and of course as a Team Leader we'd be like, "Hey, we're going to try and do an IV back here." so that doesn't mean that the plane that the helicopter is going to be, it's not going to be steady or anything like that during training anyway. But that means the pilots will be like, let's do this. All right. Low levels or whatever, go through this Valley. So yeah, we'd always practice in the most difficult situations so we can get that muscle memory and that whole checklist going through our head as we're going through that stressful situation. That way whenever we actually get into that, then hopefully we react a little bit better. And we've been there before, like you guys were talking about.
JTAC Experience
[Trent] But I mean, I know when it wouldn't have, would not have been evaluating students in the past for how they react to things. One of the things I always go back to is the first time I was ever in a firefight hearing my JTAC at the time come up on my, on the comms and, and calmly walked down, Hey troops in contact and I just want to start with Air Force JTACs are the best troops in contact and he just goes down the list of everything that was coming our way. And this is, you know, for Peach like that to me, because it was my first time ever being there. And when you feel that that stuff rising up, and then I hear that guy come up on comms and be like, Hey, troops and contacts, PKM, AKs, RPGs and he's just, he's just calmly and coolly going through. And that helped me and I'm sure I'm not the only one that was on that team that that calmed down a little bit knowing that that guy at least sounded super calm.
[Jared] So that's, that's a double edged sword, right? It's great for you guys and it's great for me because I'm able to get, articulate the information correctly, calmly and get it to the pilots that need to hear it so that we can engage the targets. The problem with that is that when I say, Hey, we're troops in contact, yada yada, here's the information, the pilots thinking, well, I mean I, he seems really calm. This dude's not breathing heavy. He's not. So, so we do tend to, we will, like if we're not getting the urgency that we need out of the pilots, we will induce a little bit more inflection in our voice and ramp it up. And then maybe I'll just walk on over here next to a 50 Cal or somebody who's got an M4 that's lay into it and say, here are a couple "pop, pop, pop" And they go, Oh, look at that. Look, look, now he's 30 seconds out instead of two minutes. Funny how that happens, you know? So, you know, you do have to, or at least me as a JTAC, I had to recognize when to turn it on talking to pilots and when not to, but that, that's just been my experience.
TLDR- evaluate the situation. Select your appropriate response. And that's how you control your actions. Summary. Boom.
Whatever situation you find yourself in, you guys were talking about. So for specifically for selection, whenever you get there, you're going to be excited. You're going to be all that, be calm on the outside, introduce yourself, get to know your team. And that way whenever like Peach talking about, you get to those firefighters, you get to the, those hard times. Whenever you get to Selection, you can react appropriately and get the task done.
Thanks for tunining in!
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