#1248 The Soul Force of Consistency

The other day I was preparing for a discussion I had with a Navy SEAL Mental Performance Working Group led by Captain Robert Schoultz.

(He’s the guy (to Emerson’s left in this pic) who generously gave us the lifetime-highlight tour of the SEAL facility. Thank you again, sir!))

Captain Bob went to Stanford on a Navy scholarship then served as a SEAL for three decades. He ended his career at the U.S. Naval Academy where he served as Director of Leadership and Character Development.

He’s also a lover of wisdom who creates his own Notes on great books. Check them out here.

Bob and I had a great chat over the weekend and, as he articulated the fact that his “ultimate mission” was to create better men (and women), we narrowed in on the theme of Areté for our discussion.

We also planned to talk about integrating physical excellence with work excellence so I shared our Genius Work equation with him.

You know, the whole Genius Work = T x (E x F x W.I.N.)^C

Since sharing that equation in the Work session for our Carpe Diem Module, our Head Coach Michael pointed out that the equation is really a SOUL FORCE equation.

I agree.

If we want to show up with as much eudiamonic Soul Force as possible in our Energy + Work + Love, I think we’d be wise to remember:

Soul Force = (Energy x Focus x W.I.N.)^C

It all (always) starts with our Energy. We’re going to have a hard time giving our best to anything if our Energy is at a 0.

Then we need to cultivate our ability to Focus—eliminating distractions and bringing the full power of all that Energy we’ve cultivated on What’s most Important right Now.

E x F x W.I.N. for the Soul Force win.

Recall the math on that:

If we can get our Energy to a 100 and our Focus to a 100 and put that focused energy on our 100 What’s Important Now task (whether that’s working out or leading our team or changing a diaper), we can score a 1 million on the ALL IN awesomeness meter.

Nice work.

But…

The REALLY important variable is actually the final one: Consistency.

That’s our exponentializer.

If you raise that 1 million to the power of 100 you get INFINITE power. (Literally. The math is awesome. I highly recommend you find a scientific calculator and do the math.)

But…

If you raise that 1 million to the power of 0, you know what you get?

ONE. (btw: Thank you, math nerds out there, for correcting me when I previously said the answer was ZERO. lol. 🤓)

In other words, if we can’t figure out how to CONSISTENTLY show up, we don’t have much power.

But…

Then I re-did the math on what happens if you take a modest 10 x 10 x 10 but raised THAT to the power of 100.

Imagine that: You never get your Energy quite where you want it. In fact, it’s only a 10. Same thing with the Focus. And the WIN.

But…

You show up.

Day in and day out.

You’re a 100 out of 100 on Consistency.

You know what 10 x 10 x 10 to the power of 100 is?

Well, 10 x 10 x 10 is, of course, 1,000.

Literally 1,000th the power of the 1 million we get at 100 x 100 x 100.

But…

If you raise that 1,000 to the power of 100 we get a 1 followed by 300 zeroes.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

I smiled when I saw the “300” in the result: “1e+300.”

As we’ve discussed many times, our U.S. Navy SEALs are basically the modern-day Spartan warriors. The most elite fighting force in history.

And, we all know about those 300 heroic warriors who gave their Soul Force at the Battle of Thermopylae.

And, well… That’s Today’s +1.

Consistency.

It does a heroic Soul Force good.

Let’s practice ours.

Today.