INTRODUCTION

Do It on Purpose

Sweating and dehydrated in the hot desert of Niland, California, I had two hours left on this last stalk, and if I didn’t pass, I would be dropped from sniper school.

I had already been on my belly crawling for hours—toward the wrong target. After spending four weeks, six hours a day, in the desert, I still hadn’t mastered the art of stalking my target. Somehow through instinct, luck, and sheer will I made it to my final firing position (FFP) with five minutes left to build and take my shot when suddenly I heard—

“Freeze!”

It was the sound that every sniper student dreaded: An instructor in the observation post (OP) had spotted a student in the field. Was it me? Was I out in the open? Did I shake a tree? Several minutes went by. A walker, or field instructor, passed within inches of me. I choked down some half-dry saliva and sand resting in the back of my throat, expecting to hear the sniper-career-ending words “Sniper at your feet!”

“Stay lower,” the walker whispered mercifully instead. “I think they can see anything above my knee.” He walked away toward the crackle of a radio from the other side of the field. I was still safe.

I remained perfectly still. This exercise was all about being stealthy, about getting your simulated shots off while under intense observation. The objective was to take two shots—the first while you were in your FFP and not under direct observation, and the second as the walker worked you, which meant he got within 10 yards of you, allowing the instructors in the OP to watch you as you chambered and shot the second blank. They wanted to evaluate your muzzle blast to see if there would be dust or leaves flying up. A Navy SEAL sniper was expected to be invisible while he was firing—even when someone was looking right at him with the best binoculars that money could buy.

With only two minutes left to do what normally takes between thirty minutes and two hours, I got in position to take my shots. Hoping the instructor’s gaze had moved away, I chambered my round, took a deep breath, and sprinted to a nearby tree. Standing out like a set of dog’s balls and with time ticking down, I abandoned all strategies of stealth and counted on luck as I dove barrel-first into the tree—

Bang!

I shot my first round just before the timer went off and thought, Oh, shit. I just failed sniper school. (The rules say that once you take your first shot, you can’t move or do anything to improve your position, and my position needed some major improvement.) I waited perfectly still for the walker to work me. After signaling the instructors in the OP to look my way, he said, “Shot in three, two, one, fire!” and I took my second shot.

Click.

Nothing happened.

Shit, I thought, I had a dud.

I’d have to find and chamber another round while they were watching, which, if I had brought another round, might not have been so bad.

“Well, I guess you’re going to have to try that one again. I hope it works, brother,” the walker said, more as a teammate than as my instructor.

I rechambered the dud blank and recycled the bolt of my Remington 700. When the sound of the gunfire settled, the walker confirmed I was within the proper distance of my target, 180 to 220 yards, and then said the words that, to this day, I still cannot believe: “You passed.”

CHASING THE BULL

Becoming a father is not much different than becoming a sniper. It’s hard, not a lot of guys can easily pull it off, and it requires incredible amounts of patience, discipline, and focus. We’re out in front trying to locate, stalk, and take down high-value targets to protect what’s ours while under direct observation and criticism—from spouses, kids, other parents, society. We crawl for days, or years, trying to make forward progress, leading our families through unknown territory as we figure things out for ourselves, depending on luck and a whole lot of mercy to achieve our objectives.

There was a phrase I used as a sniper instructor to explain to my students what was preventing them from consistently hitting their targets. I called it chasing the bull (“bull” is short for bull’s-eye): They would continually rely on what seemed obvious and intuitive to make their shot without ever considering the possibility that the source of their problem might lie elsewhere. Many factors affect a sniper’s ability to successfully and reliably nail a target. The most obvious is his scope, the magnifying optic with embedded crosshairs mounted on the top of his rifle: Turn the knob five clicks to the right, move the impact of your bullet five inches to the left. Easy. However, scopes are rarely what cause snipers to miss. Many times, the source of the trouble is less obvious. Wind, lighting, humidity, body position, trigger squeeze, air density, angles, body alignment, respirations, and even the rotation of the earth can become factors.

These elements often get missed or ignored because on their own they have a limited impact on the accuracy of a shot; however, together, they can—and do—add up to a complete miss. Making learning even more difficult is that many of these factors change moment by moment. I once saw a sniper in training attempt to take a head shot from 800 yards away and, because of some downrange wind, miss to the right. He then readjusted his scope to the left, because he assumed it was incorrectly set rather than considering the possibility that he had misread or missed the wind. When he took his next shot, the previously unnoticed wind had stopped, and he fired and missed to the left. To him, unaware of the hidden force of the wind, it felt like there was something wrong with his gun. (Hell, you can miss an 800-yard head shot because you ate spicy food for lunch.)

And so begins the chase. Replace the scope, replace the gun, and nothing changes, or some shots hit and some shots miss. Many students have failed out of sniper school not because they were incapable of performing the tasks required, or because their equipment was faulty, but because they were unable to see beyond their current intuition and understanding. The concept that the direction of the sun coupled with the position of their body could cause them to miss a target today that they drilled yesterday was beyond them. Therefore, the cause of their failure remained hidden. They’d have no recourse but to chase the bull.

As fathers we face the same challenges of sometimes hitting our targets and sometimes not. We rely on what we were taught by our own fathers or count on our intuition and cultural norms to pull us through, and when we get stuck or fail, we cycle through the solutions with which we’re most familiar and comfortable. We stick to what we know without considering what we don’t know.

I’ve seen too many fathers experience high levels of shame, doubt, frustration, and failure for two main reasons:

✦  They mistakenly adopt their father’s, or family’s, cultural assumptions about manhood, choosing a firm, authoritarian style of parenting that relies on harsh discipline, coercive punishment, and the restriction of love.

✦  Due to apathy, laziness, or busyness, they crank the knob on their fathering scope so far in the other direction that they cripple their son’s ability to grow—either by giving him everything he wants or by insulating him from the natural and necessary consequences of his choices and behaviors, which denies him the opportunity to learn and grow. It’s like they lift their sons up and over the very obstacle course that is meant to develop the strength and skill that they need to survive and thrive.

Both groups are not able to see beyond their existing knowledge to understand the real factors taking them out. Because of the high-threat environment in which SEALs operate, they work hard to discover and learn these underlying principles, which affect their ability to survive and dominate out in the field. Because people’s lives are on the line, they learn not to chase the bull, but to do the hard work and to correct the problem—with no excuses. Many parents don’t realize that the actions and abilities they embody are a matter of life and death, just as much as they are on a typical SEAL mission. The consequences may not be immediate, but they can be just as fatal.

What It Takes to Be a SEAL Parent

✦  Courage

✦  Respect

✦  Honor

✦  Perseverance

✦  Innovation

✦  Communication

✦  Confidence

✦  Responsibility

HERE’S WHAT I GOT

The U.S. Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land Teams, known as the Navy SEALs, have become the premier Special Operations force of the United States. Currently, there are approximately 2,500 active Navy SEALs, representing less than 1 percent of all navy personnel.

I served as a Navy SEAL from 1998 to 2008, stationed in Coronado, California. I deployed on four separate occasions and executed more than thirty successful missions, many of them requiring me to pirate ships in the Middle East, and others requiring me to perform intelligence work in unnamed places. I am honored to be a decorated veteran of the Global War on Terror and was lucky enough to become proficient in the art of technical and physical surveillance, allowing me to be hand-selected to perform intelligence collections in denied areas around the world. I was also fortunate enough to serve as a sniper instructor for half of my time in the SEAL Teams, during which I had the honor of training men such as Marcus Luttrell and Chris Kyle.

One of my best friends, former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, and I went through BUD/S, served at SEAL Team 3, and taught snipers together during our careers. (If you read his book Red Circle, you may be able to pick up on his subtle recognition of how I carried him through each phase of our careers.) Together and under one of the most amazing leaders I’ve ever worked for, Master Chief “M,” Brandon and I, and the other sniper instructors, were able to significantly reduce the failure rate of Naval Special Warfare’s internationally recognized sniper course—the course had been so difficult to pass that experienced Special Forces Operators would fail regularly. (Every SEAL platoon is required to have a certain number of qualified snipers on it to be deployable.) During our tenure, the attrition rate plummeted from the double digits to just 5 percent, and we accomplished this without additional money or time, and without lowering our standards. This success was all in relation to performance through process, passion, and principles—exactly, as you’ll read, what this book is about.

Since departing from the SEAL Teams in 2008, I’ve been repurposing and delivering the proven principles of performance used by the Teams for both organizations and individuals. I’ve used these principles to redesign and deploy corporate sales programs as well as individual performance initiatives. I also use them in my own life as a successful father, husband, entrepreneur, and writer.

TRUE ACTION vs. USELESS MOVEMENT

For a SEAL, every action has a purpose, every mission has an objective. However, in the civilian world, few people truly understand the meaning or purpose of action, which is why so many find themselves stuck—in their careers, in their projects, or in their relationships with their significant others or their children. There is one key difference between action and movement:

Action: Effort, with a meaningful objective.

Movement: Effort.

Movement simply makes you feel like you’re doing something or getting somewhere. It is busyness and effort without progress. It’s not even like stalking the wrong target. It’s like stalking no target—head down, brutally crawling nowhere. Ask yourself:

✦  What three things do you spend time and/or energy on every day that are meaningless? What activities could you stop doing right now and your life would be just fine?

✦  What are three objectives that you spend time and energy on every day that are meaningful? What activities greatly impact, in a positive way, your ability to parent?

Fundamentally, performance in every domain shares common principles. Concepts such as strategy, leadership, and team building are as applicable to a SEAL Team as they are to a sniper team, a sales team, or a parenting team; the missions may vary, but the requirements are the same. At the core of success for every father, sniper, or CEO is the ability to recognize, master, and manage the underlying factors that affect each and every tactic, person, and situation he encounters. When these underlying factors are not recognized and dealt with, there’s nothing left to do but chase the bull.

OUR BOYS NEED OUR HELP

I have four children: three daughters—Taylor, twenty-three; Ella, eleven; and Lea, nine—and one son, Jason, twenty. They’re not always perfect, but they are drug-free, self-confident, respectful toward others, and, most important, happy. I treat them equally. I parent them with the same principles. However, there’s a reason why I’ve chosen to focus on boys, on raising men, for this book.

I see far too many dudes getting their asses handed to them—they’re stuck in the wrong careers, not making enough money, not healthy or active, or just plain miserable. For generations, fathers have been slowly slipping out of the parenting game. When the Industrial Revolution hit, we headed away from our homes to make the almighty dollar, and for many years our success as a father was measured solely by our financial contributions—our ability to make a lot of money for our family. Tradition, heritage, and the art of manhood stopped being passed down and transferred to our sons, because we were straight-up too busy punching the clock. Our absence allowed our manhood to get shoved around and redefined by others and by popular culture. While the sheepdogs were away, the punks played.

We must reclaim our role. We must lead by example. How can we expect our boys to become powerful, successful, and complete men if we ourselves don’t possess or act on the tools and the know-how to take them there? This book is as much about us being a man as it is about our sons becoming one.

THIS MEANS WAR

Parenting kicks your ass, but, like war, it propels you to innovate and operate with high levels of excellence and efficiency. In the military, there are two types of warfare:

✦  Symmetrical warfare: The two opposing sides have similar and conventional military power, resources, and tactics. It’s basically force on force. Not a lot of variety. Think of the schoolbook images of Redcoats standing on a hill and shooting at a group of Whitecoats who are doing the same. Winning comes down to which side is the largest or which side works the hardest. This requires little training or skill.

✦  Asymmetrical warfare: The opposing sides differ greatly in size, morals, codes of conduct, tactics, and strategies. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Patriot, you’ll notice that the lead character, Benjamin Martin, played by Mel Gibson, bends over the larger British force with a small element of colonials by abandoning the manners of war and resorting to what is considered unconventional warfare—camouflage and concealment, deception, and covert and clandestine operations. It’s how you win. This requires a lot of training, skill, and innovation. Principles must be understood.

Think of parenting as asymmetrical and unconventional warfare. Any and every discourse can and is used to wage war—drugs, alcohol, peer pressure, texting, advertising, social media. The variations of attack are endless, and the only way to win is to become whatever is needed or expected of you. Being a father in this day and age is a thinking man’s game. We must learn to become an expert at becoming an expert.

In today’s dynamic and high-threat world, a new type of father must prevail. We have to go beyond the duties of the traditional breadwinner. Our sons need us to be part of the family—to lead, to love, and to teach them the ways of the world, outside and inside our front door. Men, we need to square ourselves away, or else we will fail our sons—and ourselves—by falling short and leaving them hanging.

I know there’s a lot of bullshit out there, and we’ve all become jaded when it comes to self-help books and all those pink- and blue-covered parenting books littering bookstores. This book is not that. I’ve spent a lifetime searching for answers about manhood and fathering, and nothing I’ve seen has proven to be as sound and reliable as the principles that the men of the SEAL Teams and other Special Operations forces have been leveraging and exploiting for years.

I’ve organized this book around a series of fundamental and powerful SEAL training principles, repurposing them for fatherhood, so that you, too, can discover those mysterious factors that seem to thwart your every fathering move. I’ve invited a group of my SEAL brothers, some of the finest examples of men I know, to share their parenting stories as well. Navy SEALs may not be parenting experts, but they are experts at getting the job done. They kick ass and raise kids in ways that have opened my eyes and will open yours. You’ll also hear from my wife, Belisa, and my son, Jason, to find out what impact they think the SEAL principles have had on our family.

CLEAR END STATES

A large part of being a leader is the ability to define and communicate what SEALs call clear end states. These are the conditions and criteria of a final objective—how things will look and feel when you get there—within any given category of performance. By defining these end states, you’ll be able to strategize and focus all of your effort and energy toward a more productive future for you and your son.

At the end of each chapter is a Debrief, a series of questions that will offer you an opportunity to start building your personal parenting mission statement. Don’t worry about making a project out of them or sharing them with your spouse or even writing anything down for now. Just use the space to consider how these core end states will help shape the role you, as a father, must systematically pursue and nail.

EXTREME PARENTING?

A SEAL’s approach to being a father can seem a bit extreme, especially when I talk about tying the hands and legs of my kids together and throwing them into a pool (chapter 2), but it’s often through extreme experiences that we learn the most about ourselves and about what’s important. I’m not saying that you need to throw your kid off a cliff or into a pool in order to be a good father. That’s not the point. The point is to show you what I do, to exaggerate the example, so that you can see the principles behind my actions—the life fundamentals that are often hidden and subtle. My hope is to help you uncover the kind of things that are so human and deep within us that once you understand them, you’ll wonder why you’ve never noticed them before.

This technique of using the extreme to reveal the subtle is something I developed as a sniper instructor. When students had a hard time understanding a concept, such as how wind could affect the impact of their bullets, I would encourage them to imagine the effect of shooting a beach ball instead of a bullet, and suddenly the effect of the wind was pretty obvious. That’s what we’re doing here, showcasing the extreme to demonstrate the basics. We want to help you to see what’s going on, so that you can be a better father—not by working harder but by ceasing to chase the bull and redeploying your current time and energy to what really matters, in a way that really matters.

As fathers, our objective is to produce a bond and a relationship of honor, trust, and respect with our children so that we can guide them for the rest of their lives and help them make the choices that will allow them to succeed. This is how I do it. I’m a former Navy SEAL who went through some shit and came out on the other side with four great kids. Maybe the future will bring some new challenges, but the principles on which my children were raised and that are discussed in this book will help us through them. We all have our moments of weakness, but success—whether in the SEALs, in parenting, or in life—is about recognizing those moments so that we can recover and grow from them.

Whether you have a newborn, teenagers, or adult children, it’s time to take control of your parenting and your mission objectives as they pertain to you and your kids. I was just barely nineteen years old when I brought home my daughter Taylor. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was emotionally, physically, and spiritually ill-prepared, not unlike when I was in BUD/S or sniper school, but somehow I knew that I would get fatherhood right. (It was so ingrained in me that I spent a drunken night in Singapore getting the Japanese kanji character meaning “father” tattooed on my back.) That’s because it was an objective that I wanted, a path that I chose, like being a SEAL.

There’s a great power in choice, and a great opportunity—to learn, to grow, to begin, or to begin again. There may not be a definitive word on being a man, or on raising one, but the shit I’ve learned in the SEAL Teams has taught me that you’ll never find out what is in you until you are all in, so let’s put it all on the table. The stakes are too high for us to “wing it” or depend on our intuition. Time is too short to chase the bull of fatherhood. Fellas, we’ve got a job to do. It’s time to parent on purpose. It’s time to do it right. It’s time to take back what is ours and redefine an entire generation of men, starting with ourselves and our sons. It’s time to get some.

As they say in the Teams: Hooyah, motherfucker!

Copyright © 2016 by SOFREP, Inc. dba/Force12