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A Relentless Standard

I once saw a guy being interviewed asked the question: “What is it that makes you guys so good? Smiling, he replied, “It’s not that we’re that good, it’s that everyone else sucks.” I smiled too but wasn’t sure why and began reflecting on what it meant to me…

As a college baseball player, my standard was often based in comparison to the competition. I wanted to be better than the next guy to get playing time, better than the other teams in our conference, and “as good as” top 25 ranked teams. This was a good standard. As a mid-major we won our conference and finished nationally ranked in the top 25.

However, on a special operations team, this mentality was challenged and changed. I recognized that we never really compared ourselves to other units, at least in terms of who was the best. Our question was not, “Are we better than the rest?” Rather, our question was, “How good can we get?”