Helicopters, Goggles and Why The Best Leave Nothing to Chance
The Baltimore Ravens team can’t swim. Well, according to Marlon Humphrey’s and a few of his teammates, technically 1 out 3 can’t swim. So Humphrey and a handful of players reached out to Olympic great, Michael Phelps, on the 29th of July, to ask for his help. Phelps was obliged to not only teach them how to swim, but to also draw attention to his foundation – The Michael Phelps Foundation – that helps families get more comfortable teaching their children about swimming and water safety.
This was an all around feel good story – and the team all received some good publicity with over 1 million views on the swim lessons taught by a 23 Olympic Gold Medalist.
This week we’re touching on just a single element of this serendipitous partnership – the reiteration of a timeless lesson on the importance of preparedness.
Seal Team 6
On the night of May 1st, 2011 and into the dawn of May 2nd, a group of Navy Seals, Seal Team Six, conducted a successful mission to eliminate the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.
The US had been tracking and planning for this mission for over a year, and in Netflix’s recent documentary on the topic, prominent military members involved in the planning and execution of the mission outline the tireless efforts in preparing for this top secret mission.
Of note: the US military built not just one, but two, dimensionally accurate, full scale replicas of Bin Laden’s compound using satellite imagery and photographic evidence. One was based in North Carolina, the other in Nevada. Despite this inspiring level of preparation, the US military did not have an accurate depiction of what the inside of the compound looked like – they did not know what the rooms were like inside. So, leaving no stone unturned, the military escalated their preparation and built these replicas as modular units, and would deconstruct, and reconstruct them, sometimes even nightly, to provide the military units different looks at what it might look like on the interior.
The vision was simple – provide the soldiers conducting the raid an exorbitant level of preparation so that on the night of the mission, things not only went smoothly, but the team was prepared for anything...
...well, as we'll see...almost anything...
Lessons in Preparation
In the case of Phelps, he motivated the Ravens in a must listen/watch speech discussing just how important it was to never leave anything up to chance, and the attention to detail he paid in winning gold medals at the highest level.
The truth of the matter is that both Phelps and Seal Team 6 needed all that preparation to execute successfully. Both highlight that preparation is essential—but in both cases, results never went exactly as planned.
In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Phelps swam the 200m butterfly final practically blind for 150 meters of the race – his goggles had filled with water.
What did Phelps do? With countless hours of visualization practice with the help of swim and mental performance coach, Bob Bowman, Phelps knew his stroke rate, knew where the pool walls were, and had an internal sense of pacing. He didn’t need his eyes – he knew what the race was supposed to feel like. He went on to break a world record in that race.
As for the Navy Seal Team – despite well “over one hundred” training runs on the replica compounds, on the night of the raid things didn't go as planned. As one of the helicopters attempted to near the compound to drop the soldiers inside, the helicopter encountered an unexpected updraft effect from hot air inside the compound, reducing lift and forcing a hard crash landing. Close to ground level, all soldiers survived the downing, and as Admiral McCraven later recalls, the team was quickly able to move through “plans A, B, C and D” to continue the mission successfully.
Takeaways
You’re not accounting for enough contingencies. If you’re struggling with fear of what the future may hold, you need to be preparing, and more than you probably think you should.
Good performers have teams around them that force preparedness and that encourage deep thinking about obscure what-if scenarios. They prepare for ‘what if, then what, then what.’ The higher the stakes, the deeper the preparation. Whether it’s swimming blind or losing a helicopter, resilience comes from being ready for the unknown. Your anxiety will thank you.
Pro Tip: don't confusing thinking for planning – ruminating about the future isn't planning for the future. To contingency plan, you need to highlight what you think can go wrong, how it might go wrong, what you'll do to respond and then practice that response with actual behavioral adaptations.
ICYMI
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Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
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