After 15 years of preparing individuals for SOF selection programs, we have seen many mistakes and their consequences. This podcast covers the most common mistakes we've made and sees trainees make before they start working with us. In this episode, we won't discuss training specifics, like sets and reps. While those things matter, they are far less important than a robust strategy.

While we cover the consequences of a poor application of each strategy, we also provide principles you can use to have a more effective mental model of the training process. 

Even if you're not preparing for a SOF pipeline, the principles discussed in this podcast apply broadly to many areas of life.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:23 Intro
• 00:01:47 Interactions matter more than outputs
• 00:04:52 Don't oversimplify 
• 00:08:09 Identify and target limiting factors
• 00:12:51 Quality, not intensity, sets the path of quantity
• 00:16:06 Don’t mistake trajectory for a phase
• 00:18:49 Look for the root cause, don’t treat symptoms
• 00:24:06 Outro

Dr. Douglas Casa has been the CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute since it was founded in 2010 and has been a professor of Kinesiology at the University of Connecticut since 1999. 

The mission of the KSI (ksi.uconn.edu) is to provide research, education, advocacy, and consultation, to maximize performance, optimize safety, and prevent sudden death of athletes, warfighters, and laborers.

Dr. Casa has written several books and authored many papers on maximizing performance and safety while training or working in the heat. He has treated hundreds of cases of heat stroke with zero fatalities and has served on the International Olympic Committee’s Adverse Weather Impact Expert Group, where he helps to ensure the safety of athletes competing in extreme heat during summer Olympic games.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Casa about his work at KSI, the science of heat stroke and how to manage it, how our bodies adapt to extreme heat, and how factors like saunas, hydration, and electrolytes affect our bodies in the heat. 

Timestamps:

• 00:00:25 Intro
• 00:02:01 Origins of KSI
• 00:03:19 What Brought You to KSI
• 00:04:42 What Does KSI do
• 00:06:09 The Science of Heat Stroke
• 00:09:34 The Consequences of Excessive Core Temp
• 00:11:09 How to Recognize the Signs of EHS
• 00:13:52 How to Treat EHS 
• 00:19:19 Common Misconceptions
• 00:22:20 What Conditions Create the Greatest Risk
• 00:28:41 Objective Environmental Factors 
• 00:30:23 Performance Clothing
• 00:32:49 What Can an Athlete Do to Acclimate to Extreme Heat
• 00:35:11 How do You Know Your Core Temp
• 00:36:41 Type of Thermometers Recommended 
• 00:37:19 Plasma Volume Expansion
• 00:40:03 Train For Heat Adaptations at Home
• 00:42:49 Sauna Guidelines
• 00:43:22 Infrared Saunas 
• 00:44:12 Manage Hydration
• 00:47:36 Hyponatremia and Electrolyte Balance
• 00:52:45 What do You Recommend For Hours Long Stressful Events
• 00:55:02 Hydration Recommendations
• 00:56:27 Are You More Likely to Get HS if You’ve Had it Before
• 00:58:20 How do You Sign up For The Course
• 00:59:20 Average Range of Cost to Work With KSI
• 1:00:19 Outro

We often think of leadership, particularly in special operations, as manifest in the form of some big heroic act. That can be the case; the military is full of those examples. 

But far more often, a person’s character is revealed in the small moments that will never find space in the trailer of an action movie. 

Much of the respect and loyalty earned by somebody in a leadership role comes from their actions in these small moments. 

This episode discusses real-world examples of how that principle played out on a Naval Special Warfare deployment. 

To learn more about Dan Cnossen, who we mention in this episode, go to www.DanCnossen.com

This is the second half of a two-part episode with Sebastien Lavoie. Please check out the first episode if you haven't listened already. In that episode, we discussed Seb’s early career, his time on the Emergency Response Team and how that shaped his perspective as he grew into a leadership role as an operator, his work in designing his unit’s combatives program, and his perspective as a member of the selection cadre for the Emergency Response Team. 

In this episode, we’ll discuss Seb’s training advice for people going into challenging selection courses and his work at Raven Strategic, where he teaches leadership and mindset principles. 

You can learn more about Seb and get in touch with him on his personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slavccmdr/

Timestamps:

• 00:00:23 Intro
• 00:01:08 Tips Going Into Teams
• 00:06:45 Predictability and Control
• 00:09:48 Mental Obstacles
• 00:15:21 ERT Trait Selection
• 00:18:38 Raven Strategic
• 00:22:49 Getting More Involved
• 00:28:08 Need For Raven Strategic Consulting
• 00:35:29 What’s Next
• 00:37:09 Collective Podcast
• 00:41:00 Learn More About Lavoie
• 00:42:58 Outro

Sebastien Lavoie, a veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Armed Forces with over two decades of dedicated service, is now the CEO of Raven Strategic Inc. after retiring as BC Divisional Sergeant Major from the RCMP in 2021. 

His professional journey spans from being an Air Marshall to a Chief Warrant Officer, roles in which he has honed skills in crisis management, emergency response, risk assessment, and wellness strategies. Sebastien is also recognized as an accomplished martial artist, public speaker, and a passionate advocate for wellness and fitness, as seen through his Black Belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu, the founding of Sheepdog and Dogs Den Crossfit gyms, and his roles as co-owner and instructor at Ascension Martial Arts in Poco, Canada.

Sebastien continues pushing boundaries and is finishing a master's degree in international security focusing on Global Counter-Terrorism. 

In this episode, we dive into Sebastien's illustrious career, discussing his martial arts training, particularly in Brazilian Jiujitsu, and its application in the combatives program he oversaw. 

We also explore his unique perspectives on the selection process for the Emergency Response Team, his advice for those aspiring to join elite tactical communities and his dedication to fostering leadership and mindset through his work at Raven Strategic.

You can learn more about Seb and get in touch with him on his personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slavccmdr/

This is the first of a two-part episode, so stay tuned for the second half coming in a few days. 

Timestamps:

• 00:00:23 Intro
• 00:02:30 Overview
• 00:11:04 Purpose and Training
• 00:17:41 Operational Time
• 00:22:57 Career 
• 00:25:07 Jiu Jitsu
• 00:29:19 Black Belt
• 00:34:36 Gi or No Gi Jiu Jitsu
• 00:39:13 Skill Acquisition and Flow State
• 00:41:10 How To Prepare For Selection
• 00:43:46 Outro

SOF selection is an equalizer. It's an egalitarian machine designed to reveal what's inside each candidate when suffering. It's in this suffering that your character - the raw material that determines whether you have the potential to become an effective special operator, is revealed. The suffering is the point. 

It doesn’t matter how good you are. You can't out-exercise the machine. You must know and expect that you will, at some point, hit rock bottom. You must train for this and plan to move forward through that moment. The skills you have at that moment will be those you practiced in the years leading up to it. 

Don’t be so arrogant to think that you can prepare well enough to avoid this reckoning, or it will catch you unprepared and you will become another statistic. 

When we fail to examine our expectations, and they don’t become a reality, we can have strong feelings of disappointment, resentment, anger, frustration, discouragement, or resignation.

Expectations are another word for predictions. Our senses of predictability and control are the primary variables determining how strong our stress response is within any situation. A higher degree of both equals a smaller stress response.

Conversely, our stress levels increase when our predictions don’t come true. Negative emotions stemming from faulty predictions often lead to decreased motivation.

So, we can shape our stress response and performance in challenging situations by understanding and analyzing our expectations.

In this episode, we talk about expectations: why examining them is so important, and how to manage them when they arise. 

In this episode, we talk about stress, training, and adaptation. This is a big topic, so we’ve broken this into a two-part podcast.

This is part two of that series, so you might want to check out the previous podcast if you haven’t listened to it yet. 

We wrapped up part one by discussing why and how you manage stress to ensure you adapt to your training. In this episode, we discuss what specific capabilities you should target to get the best results over time. 

In this episode, we talk about stress, training, and adaptation. This is a big topic, so we’ve broken this into a two-part podcast.

To understand programming, you must first understand how and why your body responds to training. When you understand that framework, things like how much running to do, how fast, and how often become much easier to program and adjust.

Like programming, adaptation is a complex subject that people study their entire careers. This episode will discuss the principles you must understand when coaching yourself or others.

If you're interested in why certain programs work well while others don't, or you're looking to develop a deeper understanding of adaptation and training, this podcast is for you. 

SOF selection requires that you develop a close relationship with pain.

This doesn’t just mean lots of dramatic grimacing for the camera. Eventually, successful experiences teach us that pain can be just a signpost along a familiar path. It tells you something about where you are, but it’s not a stop sign or even a warning sign. It’s just a signal to be calibrated.

If the painful sensations of fatigue make you feel stressed and reactive and increase your desire to quit, then that stress response will worsen the feelings of fatigue. Pain triggers negative self-talk and shines the spotlight of your attention on your discomfort, which heightens your perception of pain, which turns up the volume on the self-talk, and on it goes.

Paradoxical intention is meant to break this cycle by having people try to do what holds them in fear. 

In this podcast, we explore this concept and how to apply it in your own life.