You are having a real bad day and falling behind and someone comes to you asking for help on something trivial? Be patient and offer to help later. Someone hurls abuse at you in traffic? Give them a smile. Any challenge faced is an opportunity to demonstrate virtues and practice principle. “Embracing the Suck” means “The Obstacle is the Way”. This mean but not just doing it but doing it with enthusiasm and a sense of gratitude that people will start to wonder if you are not quite sane. It might be filling in for someone’s shift when they can’t come in when you’d rather have the night off. Taking out the garbage or scrubbing the latrines. Putting your hand up for the most unsavory and unpopular jobs. Running the extra mile when you think you are going to puke. This means turning up to training even when you don’t want to. Rather than avoiding the unpleasant we must seek it out. In order to build resiliency and then strengthen it we must relish any opportunity to put ourselves to the test. “Misfortune is virtue’s opportunity.” – Senecaįor us mere mortals the lesson is clear. Image Source: Lucas Films Bullet Proof Mind I was back on the cable in a second and apparently broke the record for the fastest time across. “What are you waiting for dickhead?” the Sergeant yelled “remount and get over here”. I thrust my arms down and bought my feet together and gave a grin. “Stand at attention and give us a smile”. I looked down and could see trees far below and a dry wadi bed. “Embrace the Suck and grow some balls Student 67! Now look down!”. “Student 67! look at me”, the Instructor yelled out. My mind was racing in panic and I wondered if the lanyard and carabiner were going to hold. An old blue lanyard and a rusty carabiner was the only thing keeping me from falling to my death. I was suspended above the void looking straight ahead as I swung with the cable above me.

The cable lurched back and forth and I felt like I was going to be flung off. A Corporal standing near by laughing went over and also started to pull. I shook my head with a stifled no and the Sergeant swore and started to pull at the cable harder. “Let go of the cable” the Instructor bellowed, “get the F_ off!” he yelled again. It became worse and worse and I realized the Instructor 30 meters in front of me was pulling the cable violently. Suddenly I felt myself swaying to and fro. Pulling myself closer and closer using my hands and mounted leg pumping to slide my body forward. Pulling myself across the cable I kept my eyes on the Instructor on the opposite side of the canyon. I attached my carabiner to the cable and swung on so that my body was lying on it with one leg dangling for balance. A cable was suspended across a chasm that was at least 100 meters deep. Once during a course in the Army I had to traverse across a 50 meter canyon. “ The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” -Confucius By “Embracing the Suck” the candidate for Special Operation Forces transcends to another level. The pain and discomfort is an illusion that is temporary and transitory. The evolution is entirely mental, emotional and spiritual. Those that somehow get through it all will admit that the key to success was to drop all resistance to the experience and truly embrace it with every fiber of your being. Those that pass selection the SASR or the Navy SEAL BUDs Operator training will tell you that the course was 80% mental and 20% physical. It is the essential ingredient for success and one that alludes 80% of candidates attempting the world renowned and feared BUDs course. The Navy SEAL former Commander Mark Divine calls Embracing the Suck the essence of the Warrior’s “Unbeatable Spirit” or “Kokoro Mind”. “ When a man is beaten, tormented and defeated…He is ready to learn something.” – Emerson “ People who wade in to discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses” – Brene Brown It is a process of turning a negative perception of an experience upside down by surrendering to it. You know you are going to hate it and you know it will suck badly but you flick a switch in your head that reads “Beast Mode” and you wade in. The term was also adopted in CrossFit and you hear it in the Box around the World.Įmbrace the Suck means diving in to the crap and wallowing in it with a grin on your face. I’ve heard it used in one form or another in three different Armies in three languages. “Embrace the Suck” is a term used in the Military. It sounds devious and twisted but it works and it is incredibly effective in building Resilience. Voluntary Hardship is one thing but loving adversity is at an entirely different level.

“ I’ve got a bad feeling about this” – Han Solo

Embrace the suck meaning