At Navy EOD Dive School, the instructors drilled a phrase into us that I’ll never forget:
You have the rest of your life to fix your problem.
That wasn’t motivational “Hoo-Yah” fake enthusiasm. It wasn’t a clever slogan on a poster. It was reality.
When you lose your air underwater, you don’t get unlimited time to figure it out. You have whatever air is left in your lungs, maybe five minutes, maybe less, to solve the problem. Fail, and the problem fixes itself. Permanently.
That lesson was burned into me, and it shaped how I’ve approached every challenge since.
In EOD, problems aren’t abstract. They’re immediate, life-or-death, and unforgiving. Lose your gear, lose your focus, or lose your air, you die. There is no waiting, no stalling, no “later.” The only option is to solve fast, solve decisively, and solve under pressure.
This principle applies to whatever you are trying to achieve in your career or life. There will be obstacles. Your problems may not literally be life or death, but problems don’t usually fix themselves. Devising a strategy for fixing them quickly and decisively will help keep you on the Green Line.
Air and Cash Flow
Now, let’s get down to business.
Air is necessary for life. In business and life, your “air” is cash flow. You need it to stay in the game.
Lose cash flow, and you suffocate. It doesn’t matter how great your work is, how loyal your people are, how solid your life goal is, or how good your strategy looks on a whiteboard. Without cash flow, you’re underwater, and the clock is ticking.
During the pandemic, our bank, out of fear, decided to call our line of credit due. They took our line of credit and converted it into a permanent loan. Overnight, we went from having cash flow to having no available cash flow. It was painful, but we figured it out.
You don’t have forever to fix a problem. You have the rest of your company’s life (or your bank account’s balance) to fix it, and sometimes that means thirty days, not thirty years.
Dive Pay: Reward for Action
Here’s something most people don’t know about Dive School: the second you breathe off of a regulator, your very first breath underwater, you start receiving Dive Pay.
Think about that.
At that point, you’ve already been taking a beating for four weeks. The instructors are relentless. You’re exhausted, being force-fed Dive Physics and Dive Medicine while being made to do copious amounts of push-ups by any and all instructors you walk past in the hallway, pool deck, or the Dive Locker. And then the moment you commit to breathing underwater, before you’ve proven anything else, the Navy gives you a raise.
Why? Because you acted.
And it doesn’t stop there. EOD stacks the rewards for risk and responsibility:
- Dive Pay
- Explosive Demolition Pay
- Jump Pay
- Professional Pay
The more risk you take on and the more responsibility you accept, the more money you make.
That’s Green Football. You don’t wait. You commit to the process. You move forward decisively, and the rewards show up because you acted.
Blue + Yellow = Green
This idea didn’t start in Dive School for me, it started back at Tennessee Tech when I was playing football.
During the off-season, NCAA rules stated we could not work during the season, but we could pick up jobs in the off-season. I took on security gigs. Because I was big, smart, and reliable, I climbed the ladder fast. One summer, I got the call to help protect Ozzy Osbourne while he was touring with Metallica in Nashville.
I tracked every job in my day planner. Jobs I had scheduled were highlighted in Blue. When I came back and logged the money I earned, I highlighted the Blue with Yellow. Blue plus Yellow made Green.
Green meant money in the bank. Proof of effort turning into reward.
That was the original Green Football:
Effort → Execution → Payoff.
Before you work through the Reality Check below, ask: Where do you think you are right now? Are you currently on the Blue Line or the Green Line?
Green Football Reality Check
This is going to hurt. You’re going to feel some discomfort and, at times, pain. Look at where you are right now. What is your one thing, the one problem you can put your finger on and say, “That’s It!” Maybe it’s a title, an achievement, or making payroll.
What can you do right now, no matter how bad the process is going to suck, that gets you where you want to be? I can promise you this: When you decide to go for it, there are people who will look at you and wish they had what it takes to do what you are doing.
What are you going to do? You have the rest of your life to fix your problem.
Green Football Drill
- 1.Draw two lines on a blank sheet of paper, one horizontal, one vertical.
- 2.Label the horizontal line “Time” and the vertical one “Achievement.”
- 3.Mark where you are right now. The bottom Left of the Chart.
- 4.You’re out of air! Write down the One Thing you could do today that would move you from the normal, long, slow Blue curve where most people operate to the Green Football, Get More, Faster curve. Draw the lines. One is mediocrity. The other is Massive Success! Fill in the words that best describe what your achievement provides you.
- 5.Do it, even if you’re scared. Especially if you’re scared.
Get To Work!
From a day planner at Tennessee Tech to a pool deck in Panama City, the lesson was always the same:
- Action brings reward
- Speed creates advantage
- Momentum builds results
You don’t have forever to fix your problem. You have the rest of your life. Whether that’s five minutes underwater, thirty days of payroll, or a week’s worth of money in your bank account, the clock is ticking.
The only question is: Are you going to leisurely crawl up the slow, blue curve like everyone else, or are you going to take hyper-focused, actionable steps to accelerate your success and fill your Green Football?
What is the “Air” that you need right now?
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