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SEAL Secret #003 - December 23rd, 2023

“This may sound odd, but we weren’t teaching them to Stalk their targets. We were teaching them to develop and deploy their Tactical Standard Operating Practices.”

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When I first checked in as a Sniper Instructor, there was this debilitating thing floating around called the K.I.S.S. method, which means “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” It was debilitating because the art of sniping is a complex skill, and complex skills require complex training methods. It's what makes the impossible - possible.

So, we had this really high failure rate because we were having our students study and practice within controlled environments with all the resources they needed to succeed for limited periods of time.

And then, when we sent them onto the stalking fields without those resources, they had no choice but to just go with whatever stuck from their training, and then they would flounder, suffer, and fail because of it.

This is both common and acceptable in our academic environments because they have no promise or intent to have you fulfill any real objectives.

Fixing Failure

So, to fix the high failure rate that this antiquated approach to training was causing, we embraced the complexity of the situation and mastered it by designing and creating what I call Tactical Standard Operating Practices (TSOPs).

They enabled the instructors to teach exactly what was needed when it was needed and allowed the students to take the correct action at the correct time. The TSOPs started off as dynamic 'training wheels,' but as they evolved along with the skill of the student, they became the real weapons.

The TSOPs also served as a framework that helped them capture and process their experiences in ways that would allow them to convert them into the skill they required to become a sniper.

I even made small laminated TSOPs for sniper students to keep in their Ghillie suits during a stalk to help keep them present to each tactic they should be executing while they were fighting all of the fatigue and frustration that comes from hunting humans without being seen.

True & Effective Practice

You see, true and effective practice occurs in the real world while we're attempting to tactically apply a new skill set. So, a bulk of what they were ‘practicing’ was not what we taught them, but what they remembered from class and demonstrations, which was very different from what they needed to be practicing.

This produced what in the Teams we call ‘Training Scars,’ which are bad habits and intuitions that are generated through experience rather than perfect practice. So, they were getting better at doing what they remembered to do, but they were not getting better at doing what they needed to be doing to fulfill their intentions of becoming a sniper.

This left a lot of ambitious SEALs second-guessing themselves. Like, there was an impact on their self-confidence because they were stuck and they didn't know why.

So, these TSOPs radically elevated their performance because they allowed them to be in true practice, rather than repetition, all of the time. So when they were in the classroom, they had their tactical standard operating practices, and when they were on the stalking fields, they had the same tactical standard operating practices to practice with. This may sound odd, but we weren’t teaching them to stalk their targets. We were teaching them to develop and deploy their personal Tactical Standard Operating Practices.

If you think about it - this is no different than musicians learning new songs. First, they learn how to read the music, then they learn to play the right notes in the right order at the right times. You’d only remove the sheet music when two conditions have been met: 1) The song is complete and isn’t changing. 2) The musician has mastered it well enough to repeatedly produce the impacts they desire.

So, what these TSOPs meant for our sniper students was that every moment they were in action, they were improving in the areas they needed to. No wasted time, no unnecessary frustration. And, unlike a song, the TSOPs were dynamic so that they could change as necessary to dominate as the environment changed. Again - the real weapons.

Mastering the Modern Battlefield of Life

The paradigm shift from conventional training methods to Tactical Standard Operating Practices (TSOPs) in sniper training is strikingly analogous to the challenges faced by many men in today’s fast-paced, complex world. Just as sniper students once struggled on the stalking field, modern men grapple with the complexities of harmonizing their professional, financial, and personal purposes, often finding themselves lost in the stew of life’s demands.

In today’s highly competitive, dynamic, and technologically advanced marketplace, the ambitious need to operate with customized Tactical Standard Operating Practices (TSOPs). These TSOPs would act as a personalized guide, providing a framework for navigating the challenges and opportunities unique to each person's self and situation. Just as sniper students needed more than just basic training to succeed in the field, ambitious professionals need more than just an academic approach to thrive in today's world.

The implementation of personalized TSOPs would be transformative. It would shift the focus from mere survival in the daily grind to an exhilarating and strategic engagement with life’s challenges. The ambitious would be equipped not just with theoretical knowledge but with powerful weapons that can morph to their unique situations and objectives as needed.

In essence, applying TSOPs in our modern environment is about taking control of one's life path, by way of rapid skill development.

Success in any arena – be it personal, professional, or financial – requires a tactical approach, tailored to individual needs and goals. By embracing this mindset, the ambitious can move from floundering in uncertainty to confidently engaging with and conquering their life’s targets, turning the stalk field of life into a terrain of triumph.

Practical Application

To create a TSOP is easy.

Choose a part of your life that you’ve been stuck in and or need to make some serious gains in.
Identify the positive impacts you want to achieve and the negative impacts you want to eliminate or avoid.
Create a set of tactics that you believe when executed will produce the positive and mitigate the negative.
Set time on your calendar to execute these tactics
Every time you do spend a few minutes in debrief and ask yourself this: Based on the results, what will I now stop, start or modify.
Rinse and repeat until you produce the desired results.

*** WARNING ***

Do not dismiss the power of this because it’s simple. This can change your life.

Eric

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