Rob O’Neill is no stranger to stress and anxiety. But when you consider his career path, he’s less impacted by them as one might imagine.
The former Navy Seal Team Six member, who participated in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in 2011 and rescued Captain Richard Phillips in 2009, was the keynote speaker Tuesday during the Opening General Session of the 2017 Truck Renting and Leasing Association (TRALA) Annual Meeting in Bonita Springs, Fla.
Speaking on his illustrious career with the Seals—well, as much of it is unclassified—O’Neill says the Seal program learned a long ago that nothing good comes from carrying stress, and focusing on fear and anxiety. As the most elite unit in the United States’ military, O’Neill says the Seals thrive because they openly recognize the danger and fear they face on each mission, and have been trained to acknowledge it and manage it in such a way that allows them to still function, and thrive.
“All stress is self-induced stress, it’s in your mind,” he says. “When you get up in the morning you pick your stress up and put it on.”
And O’Neill says you don’t have to. In training to become a Navy Seal, O’Neill says all applicants are forced to undergo Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training, or BUD/S. Widely regarding as the “hardest military training in the world,” O’Neill says 85 percent of applicants to BUD/S fail to become Seals. The course is aggressively demanding, physically and psychologically, and tests each candidate on their ability to think critically and perform in incredibly tense, stressful circumstances.
O’Neill says the goal is to make cadets feel as much fear and anxiety as possible, and learn to function in congress with both and still thrive.
“Bravery is not the absence of fear, it’s the ability to recognize fear,” O’Neill says. “Fear is healthy. It allows you to think more clearly.”
That’s an absolute necessity in action, O’Neill says.
Looking back at his career, O’Neill says he can remember moments when he wished his daughters goodbye knowing there was a very real, and sometimes likely, chance he wouldn’t ever come home.
The main reason he did, he says now, was his training. The Navy Seals are the physically and tactically elite, but they’ve also optimized communication. When worst comes to worst, the ability to not only improvise a new plan but also communicate to a team is an absolute necessity. O’Neill says the Seals did that by being forward, and succinct.
“When you’re done saying the thing you need to say stop talking,” he says. “Panic is contagious. But so is calm.”
And O’Neill says that’s something that can be used in any operation, including trucking. He says training is “communication and repetition.” It’s openness, and providing people the information and autonomy necessary to succeed. He says micro-management is counterproductive and wastes time, while complacency kills. Evolution is mandatory.
Never get caught thinking “This is the way we’ve always done it,” he says.
