I wanted to share a story with you about a person that, although I hated at the time, helped shape many of my approaches to training and to life.
Almost exactly 30 years ago I arrived at Marine Corps boot camp Parris Island. And although all of my drill instructors were incredibly intimidating, there was one that was absolutely brutal.
His name was Sgt. Bailey.
I feared this man.
He was very creative in his methods of creating chaos and stress. But he promised us that at the end of 13 weeks we would be squared-away and sharp.
He didn’t lie.
One of his favorite tricks was to sneak into the squad bay (barracks) while we were sleeping and throw all of our boots into a huge pile in the center of the room. Then he would wake us up in a panic and expect us to find our boots and be dressed within 30 seconds.
This was impossible.
All of our boots looked exactly the same and it was everyman for himself. It was pure chaos for several minutes. And we never made it on time. So of course we were punished.
Sgt. Bailey enjoyed that very much.
But as he promised, at the end of 13 weeks, we were all working together as a team and we could in fact find our boots and be dressed and on line within 30 seconds.
The transformation was impressive if not incredible.
And as he was torturing us with his creative stressors he would repeat one phrase to us …”Boys, we will practice chaos until you develop control.”
And it worked. So I apply and honor that spirit ever since.
It seems to resonate with other folks as well. So much so that our Chaos to Control training banners are the most popular. We also get quite a few requests for shirts with the same slogan. Those are on the way as well.
But for now, if you’d like to pick up one of those training banners I created a code to take 15% off until tomorrow. There are only a few left.
Snag those here: Chaos to Control banners. Use the code JCB upon check out. That will work on any gear by the way.