Admiral McRaven, who led the bin Laden mission: “If you want to change the world, be your best in the darkest moments”

William Harry McRaven, the retired four-star admiral who oversaw the planning and execution of Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to capture Osama bin Laden, took the stage at his alma mater, Austin University of Texas, in 2014 to give the commencement speech for that year’s graduates. He began by acknowledging that of all the things he could remember about his own graduation day, he could not recall who the speaker was nor what they said.

That in all probability is not something any of the graduates will say about their commencement speaker nor his speech. His address to them has gone down as one of the greatest graduation speeches of all time, in which he shared the lessons that he learned during six grueling months of Navy SEAL training as a guidebook to change the world for the better.

Ten life lessons for accomplishing your goals and changing the world

McRaven’s first lesson on the surface may seem like something of inconsequence, the simple, mundane task of making your bed every morning. However, he pointed out that while it seemed “ridiculous” at the time, the simple act means that you begin the day with one task completed and “it will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another.”

He said that “it will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things, right?” Not to mention if you have had a miserable day, you will at least come home to your bed made. “And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better,” he pointed out.

“You can’t change the world alone,” McRaven counseled the graduates. He urged them to “find someone to help you through life.” The retired admiral highlighted that you should respect everyone, saying “measure a person by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers.”

Life, he noted, is full of hardship and failure but you just have to suck it up and “keep moving forward.” Furthermore, you shouldn’t be afraid of failure. “You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging,” McRaven said. But that just means that you have to work harder and you will be all the better for it.

If you want to achieve great things, you cannot be afraid to take risks. And when you encounter bullies, you need to stand your ground and face them down.

McRaven then shared a story of specific training exercise for conducting underwater attacks. It requires swimming under a ship to plant an explosive on the center of it belly. It is an extremely stressful mission as there is not a speck of light to see and the noise is deafening, but one has to keep their calm and composure. That point in the mission is “when all your tactical skills, your physical power, and your inner strength must be brought to bear,” he explained. “If you want to change the world, be your best in the darkest moments.”

Likewise, when you see others suffering, even if you are too, you must raise your voice and be a source of hope for the downtrodden. And finally he said, “If you want to change the world, don’t ever, ever ring the bell.”

His inspiring speech is well worth watching and may just encourage you to take on the challenge that he gave the Austin UT graduating class of 2014, that of changing the lives of 10 people. McRaven concluded by telling the graduates that if they follow the guidebook that he gave them, “the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today.”

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