I Simply Wasn't Good Enough
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SEAL Secret #004 - January 13th, 2024
"There were times I contemplated reverting to my former life as an operator, maybe even considering roles with the CIA. However, I realized that such a move would be an evasion, a retreat from the very challenges that both I and my children needed me to face. "
Believe it or not, my life as a SEAL, with its intense operations, constant training, and deployments to war zones, felt more balanced than my follow-on career in the conventional business world. At the time, I didn't realize this, which led me to leave the Teams.
I left to create a harmonious life: balancing mental, physical, and spiritual health, family, social connections, financial stability, and fun. I wanted to be a model for my kids and others, not willing to be the guy who sacrifices health for wealth, nor the one who's fit but financially broke. As a father, it was crucial to demonstrate how to live a whole, complete, inspiring, happy, and powerful life.
Knowing that producing the income now required for a dignified life, both currently and when I could no longer work, meant outcompeting 99% of the population, I got after building my power and skill.
As a SEAL, I had become accustomed to operating at the highest level, and I knew that this ability came from our training. So, when I got out, I invested significantly in personal and professional development. I spent $20-$30K a year on learning—attending an elite business school, taking online courses, joining business networks, and participating in conferences. I read extensively, absorbing every piece of knowledge that I thought could give me an edge.
By conventional standards, I had become successful, climbing the corporate ladder with increased responsibilities, status, and income. But something vital was missing. While the training sharpened my professional skills, it failed to harmonize my personal and professional life. The pursuit of significant income within life's demands was beyond me.
The compromises I found myself making, common as they were, felt unacceptable & gross. Over time, as life's pressures mounted, I grappled with the potential need to choose between professional and financial success or personal fulfillment.
For years, I lived in this state of conflict. There were times I contemplated reverting to my former life as an operator, maybe even considering roles with the CIA or similar high-stakes organizations. However, I realized that such a move would be an evasion, a retreat from the very challenges that both I and my children needed me to face.
STANDING ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF:
I vividly remember sitting on the metaphorical edge, considering a return to my former life, when a pivotal memory struck me. It was after I had quit my first attempt at SEAL training. A young boy introduced me to his mother as 'the guy who was almost a SEAL.' That label – 'almost a SEAL' – was a hard-hitting realization. It shot me back to the Navy to complete SEAL training, not motivated by the fear of regret, but by the resolve to not let my children see me giving up on my dreams.
I realized that the pattern of compromise and regret, which had lingered in my family, had to stop with me. I couldn't afford to quit again – not for myself, but to be the role model my children and future generations would need if they were to thrive. I understood it was my duty to either exemplify mastering and harmonizing personal, financial, and professional aspects of life or to teach them the value of relentless perseverance.
THE VILLAINS
Emboldened by this renewed sense of purpose, I revisited all the training, coaching, books, and conferences with a fresh perspective. My fight was no longer just for my well-being; it was for the future of the Davis lineage. However, it didn’t take long before I got knocked on my butt again.
Now, before I explain what happened, I need to establish a little credibility. As someone who trained SEAL snipers for five years, individuals who represent the pinnacle of performance, I have a better idea than most of what effective training looks like. What I discovered upon reentering the personal development space — a world comprising coaching, academic degrees, books, and seminars — was a gut punch. On my second pass at it, I finally realized that the content being delivered wasn’t designed to propel me into the stratosphere of success I needed to reach. As it turns out, it was all engineered to keep participants like myself hooked, not through meaningful advancement, but through quickly deployed and massive amounts of engaging and entertaining information.
The reason for this overwhelming pace is manipulative: It’s designed to divert your time, energy, creativity, and financial resources away from true progress and into a state of dependency. If you have notebooks filled with information that you never apply in a structured, strategic way, then you’re likely in the same boat. It's not your fault; the personal development and coaching industry is a colossal machine that many are unaware of. But once you're aware, continuing to engage with it becomes a choice.
This realization injected me with an nearly unbearable level of stress. I knew that high-level development was essential for the life I after living. It would be idiotic and arrogant to think one could produce such a life without substantial amounts of coaching and training. I was faced with a massive chasm between my current situation and where I needed to be. Failing to bridge this gap meant resigning myself to live. life of unacceptable compromises, that would render me irrelevant in my own life as well as in the lives of those I cared for.
This failure wasn’t just a personal setback; it meant losing the respect of my children and my ability to lead them as they became adults. I couldn't let myself become a living example of what not to do. I had to find what was missing. I needed to change my approach.
THE UNIVERSE - SUPREME REALITY - GOD
Unexpectedly, the pivotal moment came when I encountered a profound quote in Jim Dethmer's book, 'The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.' This quote posed the most radical question I've ever faced:
"What if the world, the universe, God, or Supreme Reality is not just neutral but genuinely benevolent? What if everything that happens is not a random occurrence but a meticulously crafted curriculum designed for our highest individual and collective development as individuals and as members of teams and organizations?"
The phrase "our highest level of development" altered my perspective entirely. It explicitly highlighted growth, encompassing physical and psychological aspects, such as muscle growth, psychological evolution, and the enhancement of myelin fibers in our brains for improved performance.
But what struck me most was its implication—I was not on the path to becoming my highest self and I knew this because I was pursuing mass-produced and conventional success with mass-produced and conventional training methods. I was in a "curriculum" that was not tailored to my unique purpose and could never bring me to my highest level of self.
"What this meant was that I was attempting to accomplish something so challenging that less than 1% of the world's population can achieve, all while doing it as not only the wrong type of self but a self operating far below its ultimate potential.
This realization marked the inception of the concept of Strategic Transformation in my journey. I understood that achieving the life I envisioned required more than just acquiring new skills or accumulating knowledge; it demanded a fundamental transformation of who I was. To seamlessly integrate financial success with a fulfilling personal life without compromise, I needed to evolve into a different version of myself. The highest version of myself.
THE FRAMEWORK
Excited by this discovery, I immediately developed a training framework specifically designed to transform someone into their Ultimate Self and what was most exciting about that was that the only way to do so was is to bring someone back to their true self.
I explain this is more detail in a short course we have on Strategic Transformation, but here’s what it comes down to.
First is to identify and discover your personal, professional and financial purposes. These become ‘targets’ that are customized to you that aligns everything else.
Second is to design the action plans and strategies required to fulfill those purposes. These become the custom ‘Obstacle Course’ that will develop you as your highest level of self. This is where the forging process resides.
Third, sequence these strategies so that as you execute them in a way that has you increase your levels of time, energy, creativity and currency as you go so that you can continue your journey without getting stopped. This is very much a game of power.
THE AFTERMATH
I began leading others through this framework, initially with multi-millionaires, C-Suite executives, and entrepreneurs. It worked. Then, I expanded to real estate agents, developers, doctors, lawyers, and even network marketers. This framework proved universally effective—a set of principles that, when applied meticulously, realigned individuals from their current selves into their ultimate selves.
I distinctly recall the moment when I felt the stress start to drain from my body when I realized that every bit of my time, energy, creativity and currency was being deployed in the most effective way to harmonize my ability to care for all of the parts of my life. No more second guessing my training investments of time and money.
But what mattered to me even more was knowing that I was strategically transforming into a man who no longer led a fractured life, torn between being a resource provider and a powerful role model. These roles merged into one. Surprisingly, the amount of time I spent with my family didn't increase significantly. The real change was in the kind of father they were spending time with - a father on a journey they would want to follow.
