when I was a Navy SEAL platoon commander
my number one focus was helping my
platoons get prepared for over a hundred
and fifty different kinds of missions we
spent years preparing for these missions
so when the time finally came to get to
go overseas and answer the call
I felt pretty prepared for pretty much
everything except when my commanding
officer the day before we’re gonna leave
calls me into his office and he says
Mills don’t leave me with nothing but a
flag to give to your next of kin I want
your letter and you want you to know
that that could be the last piece of
written communication that they’ll ever
have from you so make it good what I’m
26 years old I’m not thinking about
dying he’s talking about writing a
just-in-case letter if I die that goes
with a flag to my mom my dad and my
brother what do you say well I had a few
false starts on that letter and I
finally cobble something together and I
got this sentence that I started this
letter with it and went like this dear
mom dad and Andrew if you’re reading
this letter please don’t cry because I
died doing what I loved how cool is that
how many people get to say that and then
I go on and I tell him how grateful I
was for their love their support
their guidance and then I tried to make
amends my brother tell him hey I’m sorry
for throwing that rock at you and hit
third grade that was a messy day but I
left on a positive note I tell my
brother I want you to go after your
dreams don’t listen to the people that
say you can’t just focus on the ones
that say you can you can do this go
after it and give it all you got I
believe in you I love you I wrote three
of those letters as my time as a platoon
commander and then I didn’t think
anything about him for a few years until
one of my buddies he came back on his
shield and I know that that letter was
going with a flag to an 18 month old son
that wasn’t gonna know his father
coincidentally about four months earlier
Jennifer brings my first child into our
life Henry I’m looking at Henry and I’m
thinking what did my buddy say to his
son and it gets me thinking you know I’m
gonna start writing a letter to Henry so
I get out of pen and just like the first
round of letters I had a whole bunch of
false starts but thankfully Jennifer
gave me three more reasons to write
these letters with Charlie and John and
William over ten years it took me to put
this letter together for my four boys
and the whole theme of the letter was
about going after their dreams about
reminding them that their life is up to
them and that these dreams these dreams
are the ones that come with a dark side
they come with a side where you don’t
know if you can really do it if you know
you can do it and you know what it takes
that’s not the dream that’s a task I
want you to go after those dreams the
ones that push you way outside the
comfort zone the ones that force you to
take a risk
and then I wanted this letter to be this
reference point for them I knew that the
tone wasn’t going to be about comfort it
was going to be about inspiration but
giving them some tools some tools that
they could use in their darkest hours
and some of those darkest hours are
included of mine in that letter but a
tool that I used a lot was the one about
harnessing the forces that will help you
overcome those scary days the forces
that hide in here and in here
connecting the head and the heart
you see they’ll make you or they will
break you and they speak different
the head head whines the head whines at
you and said why are we doing this
Japanese people really done this before
you really think you do you know how
long this is gonna take oh here will
drive you nuts inside like a little baby
bouncing around in there and those
demons will rip you apart
before you even start and I have seen a
lot quit right as they walk up to the
starting line and I didn’t want that for
my boys but if you can connect them if
you can connect these and make them a
team make them play together then you
can get some magic going and I would use
this tool I would run these movies in my
head I run these movies that called
outcome movies that fast forward them to
what happens what would it feel like
when I got this dream accomplished and
it wasn’t just visualizing me
accomplishing it I would feel it and
then I wouldn’t just feel it I put the
closest most important family members
with me my mom my dad my brother my
aunts my uncles they be all right there
and I’d watch them experience what I had
done
and I would see that impact and how good
it would make me feel and sometimes that
wasn’t enough sometimes I’ve run the
opposite side I’ve run this painful
movie this painful movie where one other
person would show up sometimes a bunch
of them people that would say I told you
so I knew you wouldn’t make it you’re a
loser and then that would eat away at me
and I’d be thinking about that I say my
life if I don’t get through this and one
of these dreams I put in a storyline in
the letter and it was a whole series of
dark days it was the sixth week of a
Navy SEAL training so I’m call it the
toughest week of military training in
the world it’s called hell week and SEAL
team and it goes from Sunday all the way
to Friday and they keep you up in total
to give you about three and a half hours
of sleep from Sunday to Friday
they’ve got instructors around the clock
and this first night I’m the only
officer left standing there and he’s
looking at me and he’s from Boston and
he’s standing between me and my dream
and it goes something like this
hey it’s a mouse what are you doing your
classmates go get in that water it’s
time for my first quitter
that’s right surf torture now yeah
that’s good go sit out there take six
that’s good Lee calms you guys are going
to sit in that water until somebody
comes up here and gives me the magic
words so you sing your song you do
whatever it takes but you ain’t getting
out of there until I get my quitter now
we had been surfed tortured quite a lot
before that but it always been in the
daytime you could look up you could see
the Sun it would warm you never even
though the water was cold and it was
December the Sun always seemed to keep
you warm but not tonight
there’s no Sun out there hmm you can’t
even see the waves crashing over your
head you’re cold before you get in the
water it’s raining outside we’re
blinking our arms and before you know it
your hands the hands are the first
things to feel the cold they start
cramping up on you like this and they
take over and I kind of chicken wing
them right underneath your armpits to
try and feel some warmth and as you’re
singing your song she’s a grand old flag
it starts to get muffled after a while
because you’re clamping your teeth and
you’re holding your tongue because you
don’t want to bite your tongue because
you’re getting so cold you know and then
this instructor he’s pacing back and
forth and you finally he’s got this
electronic megaphone hanging out
underneath his arm with this cord in the
handset and he goes that dog you bring
that ambulance right over here that’s
good yeah it all been that door up let
him see let me see how soon warm it is
in there yeah come on be a doc let’s
teach the boys a lesson and I bought
Lamia the hawk walks over the dock is
not a seal the hawk is in the medical
department he’s there because the Navy’s
telling him he’s got to be there right
he’s he’s got his jacket all up and he’s
all bundled up and instructor Boston
puts that handset right in front of his
four degree drop in your body core
temperature from ninety eight point six
to ninety four yeah that’s great talk
how long they gotta be in this water
until they got hypothermia the docs is
flipping through these charts eating a
little penlight out and he says well
that would be about 15 minutes in
structure Boston oh boy
I’m looking at my chronometer right here
says you’ve been in the water for over
17 minutes look doc tell me what happens
if we stay in longer doc goes well
eventually you pass out and then you
could die say it again doc you
you could die boys come on you really
want to die for this you know what I got
in that ambulance
koko huh come on come on be honest you
don’t really want to be a seal that
badly get some first quitter walks right
out walk straight up to instructor
Boston structure Boston doesn’t want
them off the hook Petty Officer Smith
what are you doing out of the water I
quit oh sit over here boys you listen to
me real clearly did I say that I are hot
cocoa for quitters
you got nothing for quitting you hear me
you think there’s not cocoa on the
battlefield there’s nothing that what
you do get as you can get out of this
water it don’t let you get out of this
water just long enough for this dog to
check you out and then you’re going back
in because I want more quitters welcome
to hell week boys that was the first two
hours right there I had a hundred and
ten hours of that pounding on you
checking your resolve I ran those videos
again and again and I made those movies
so intense for me that I got to a point
where all I could think about was can I
take another step and
that movie and I’d see my family and how
proud they’d be me coming back in that
little town and see my son did it and
then I sometimes run that movie and I
would see those people that said I knew
you could make it you loser
ya quitter and that was all it took
I was enough to keep the fire in the
belly going and go one more step now
look I get it there very few of us that
are ever gonna go through Navy SEAL
training or ever kind of nuts enough to
go through it but the point of those
movies is that you don’t have to go
through Navy SEALs to develop the movies
you see ten years later I’m standing in
front of 37 of my closest friends and
family trying to explain to them how I
had taken 1.5 million dollars that they
hadn’t trusted in me and then learned 1
million four hundred and seventy five
thousand dollars worth of ways not to
launch a product I took four years of
hell week gone over and over again and
here it is a few investors they come
they come pull me aside and they’re kind
of instructor Boston but they’re more
like a doctor they’re not looking at a
hypothermic charts anymore they’re
looking at my financial health and it
ain’t looking too good there they want
me to survive they’re worried about me
and they say hey it’s over it’s done you
gotta go get a job okay you’re starting
to embarrass yourself you got not even
enough money to pay the lawyers and the
accountants well they were right I was
in completely uncharted waters they had
run some businesses but I hadn’t ah so I
took the movie to another level I walked
into my boy’s room in the middle of the
night
I thought I’d just try it out see how it
sound hey boys
dad filed for bankruptcy today we’re
gonna have to sell the house and we’re
gonna move I think we’re gonna move
pretty far away from here and we’re
gonna start again I’m sorry oh that kind
of makes me sick just thinking about it
right now
I couldn’t get there I couldn’t get
there and thankfully my business
partners couldn’t either we’d link arms
again and we’d get back in that water
and we’d find enough between our heads
and our hearts because we were all
connected together at this point and we
would go another day yeah we could say
hey we can do one more day let’s just go
one more day we can figure out something
we’ll do it another day and we ended up
bending this little product it was
called the perfect pushup it’s perfect
push-up two and a half years later we
end up getting this call from ink
magazine and it goes something like this
we’re looking at your financial
statements and do you realize your
company is the fastest-growing consumer
products company in the United States
how did you guys do this my partners and
I we just looked at each other and we’re
like one day at a time and what I
learned about writing these letters to
my boys it’s not how you start the
letter it’s really about how you finish
it right and the way I finished it with
my boys and then I’d say to them boys
remember these dreams are gonna put you
in really scary places and that’s okay
it’s okay that you don’t know what
you’re doing that’s normal
it’s normal to be scared go out there go
after those dreams you have to
understand that your life is up to you
the actions that you can control when
you connect your head in the heart
it not only magically starts pushing you
forward but you’ll start attracting some
other people that will buy into your
dream with you and when
that happens then you’re unstoppable
so go dream those big dreams give it all
you’ve got empty the tank so when the
big man upstairs comes knocking someday
and I hope it’s a long time from now you
can look at him with no regrets and say
I lived the life that I loved I gave it
all you go be unstoppable thank you
[Applause] [Music]