Mental Strength:Special Operations Force, Frogman Corps

By Kim Østergaard and Jens Hansen

What is mental strength? How can you achieve mental strength?

This coaching technique is described in this book. On the face of it, you might think that training of an elite unit in the military is a world away from ordinary everyday life but the difference is not very large when it comes to method. Most of us live under pressure. Even though our tasks rarely involve danger to life and limb we need mental strength and the everyday life wisdom that will make it work.

Fundamentally, the idea of the book is that the reader becomes (or continues to be) a happy and wise person with a robust self-esteem. The more there are, the more there will be of such people. That is the mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jesper Toft Fensvig
• Release date: Jun 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9788717044630

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Background and Book Concept

Book Objective

The objective of the book is to introduce concepts that will bolster the reader’s sense of self-worth, happiness and personal insight. The more there are, the more there will be. – Motto of the Danish Naval Frogman Corps

The practices and methodologies of the Naval Frogman Corps while combat proven under the harshest conditions can be applied to personal and professional venues that do not pose a threat to life and limb. In fact, we are confident that the content of this book can and should be applied by every reader. This book is designed to give the reader an insight into what mental strength is and how it can be reached and nurtured through personal coaching. Our practice descriptions are primarily based on the Danish Naval Frogman Corps and its training school. The life and death nature of elite unit operations makes mental strength and interpersonal relationships a critical component of mission success and survival.

The conceptual distance between elite military units or special operations training and an ordinary workday in a civilian job, on the sports field or thfe stage may seem somewhat long, but method-wise, the distance is not as great as one might think. While the Frogman Corps represents an extreme, as is often the case, extremes serve to illustrate more clearly a concept or point that may be applied universally. Often it is the case that the more extreme situations become, the clearer the points seem to be. Besides, we live in a time when our country is actually involved in wars or warlike situations with the dispatch of soldiers even to remote parts of the planet.

Even though few of these soldiers are special troops, many aspects of mental strength will, to some extent, also apply to them. All soldiers on dangerous missions are exposed to stress and mental injuries.

We almost have a civic duty to try to put ourselves in their place and treat them with care. He or she may be your neighbor’s son or daughter.

The authors

The authors are psychologist Jens Hansen and Kim Østergaard (Voyeur). Jens Hansen has 30 years experience working with athletes, musicians, businesspeople, actors, the Danish Naval Frogman Corps, social educators, the police, politicians and others who seek institutional and personal transformation. Kim Østergaard (Voyeur), a Frogman since 1994, is the former director of the Danish Frogman Corps’ Training School, where he was intimately involved in formally introducing and applying the principles contained in this book under the unique and extreme conditions of perhaps the world’s hardest training. The authors have worked together for more than six years providing coaching and mental training to the Danish Naval Frogman Corps and numerous other individuals and groups in Denmark and the United States. The years of practical application of these principles have allowed them to refine and clarify the mental concepts that have culminated in this book. The vast and diverse backgrounds of the authors have resulted in a book that should inspire all readers with their insight, knowledge and experience. The process of writing this book was extremely educational for both authors and has thoroughly convinced both that mental strength is not only necessary for the one who has to do something extraordinary, but for all.

We All Need to Perform

Most people in today’s society are under pressure. Some of today’s so-called lifestyle diseases like obesity and stress demand mental strength as a kind of counterbalance, especially when people suffer from such diseases. Also those who are unemployed or who receive welfare payments and who, at first glance, are not considered to be at risk may feel that they are under performance pressure in their everyday lives. Nearly all of us have to perform every day in order to be happy and satisfied with our lives.

In our experience, one’s performance (i.e. the mental strength) that is required to cope with the small and big challenges of life can be increased with a little help from a good friend, or a mental coach or mentor.

We have gradually started using the concept mentor instead of or parallel to mental coach or just coach as we sometimes find it more adequate for what we do than the other names. We will use the word coach, but will, on the other hand, not stick to one single word or concept. The contents are what count.

The trend is that everybody must have a professional coach or mentor, maybe because we do not use our loved ones or friends well enough. More or less, we all need to test our thoughts or ideas with somebody, and we become both more sure and competent with an active contribution and challenges from an expert. It does not have to be a formal mentor or coach. It may also be friends, family members or good colleagues, etc.

As with physical activity, self-training and guided coaching are also possible in the mental area. For most of us, it will be a combination of both.

The primary responsibility for personal development will always rest with the person being coached. A person who is not motivated or does not want to co-operate cannot be helped.

The actual coach – or mentor role will be dealt with in chapter 9.

The training objectives

The personal objectives in the Frogman Corps have been very clearly defined (the pyramid below defines the desired profile). Via an exceptionally demanding training and personal development, a frogman must become able to act as rationally and composed as possible in all assignments/situations both as a group and as an individual. The Corps must train its frogmen to become robust, rational, responsible and reflective. This is a matter of developing the mental profile in a frogman, as characterized:

Frogman Profile:

Description of the words in the pyramid

The two bottom layers – the foundation – must be an inherent characteristic in a recruit prior to the commencement of frogman training. As a rule, the foundation becomes bigger and stronger concurrently with realization and training. The other layers must be ‘self-supportive’. There may be holes, but the layers must not collapse. The holes are filled in during the education.

?: The Question Mark

The unique personal traits that the individual person brings and adds to the Corps are unknown beforehand; therefore the question mark. The uniqueness of the individual may benefit the whole. It makes both the Corps and the individual richer.

This also means that the Corps is not a static entity, but something that is developed and reshaped by a continuous mutual influence/interaction between the Corps and the individual frogman. Thus, each individual person makes a difference.

Result Oriented:

The objective of an action must always be clear to you. You must be ready to prioritize and reorganize (cut away something in time to reach your goal). Focus one-sidedly on the result and do not evaluate the process until afterwards. Be aware of your objective and continuously analyze things in such a way that what you do is in keeping with your objective. Focus on what is important in proportion to the time and other resources available.

Directly it can be put in this way: Only the result counts.

Critical full acceptance:

You have to be positively critical before accepting the solution. When you have given your acceptance, you must support the solution. Do not receive orders without being able to see the whole picture of what you are doing. You have to be able to intervene, however, if what you are doing is obviously wrong or dangerous.

It is a delicate balance on the edge of the knife that has to be trained in many, many exercises. This means that the participants in an operation have a say (if possible in practice) during the planning, but when going into action they act in accordance with the plan agreed upon or in accordance with the leader’s order.

Self-Awareness:

What can I and what can I not do. Where shall I take responsibility, and where am I in the way when it comes to solving the task. You have to know both your strengths and limitations. You must be willing to readily offer your expertise whenever the opportunity presents itself. Sitting on the fence or adopting a wait-and-see attitude is undesirable. On the other hand, you also have to be ready to withdraw if the nature, time or place of the task requires that another person with better qualifications solves the task. This decision must be taken if there is no time to develop/train the first one chosen for the task.

Self-awareness is developed through innumerable exercises and through continuous feedback/evaluation/coaching. But it is not static. It is also about continuously being willing to move one’s own bar (limits/challenges) in order to educate oneself and become better.

Emotional Intelligence:

You must strive to understand and recognize your own and others’ emotions in any situation. You must be able to put yourself in other people’s places in order to understand their motives, thus facilitating the ability of individuals to act as a unified element. You have to place your feelings where they belong and must not take along a feeling from one situation to another. It is not enough to be a passive observer. You have to contribute to a constructive and positive atmosphere.

Therefore training and coaching are about getting to all the relevant corners of a person’s emotional life both alone and together with others.

High Stress Tolerance:

Stress tolerance is being able to focus on and complete a task even under chaotic conditions where new distracting elements are added all the time. An ability to manage stress becomes even more critical when there are extreme physical and mental strains (i.e. lack of oxygen during diving/swimming operations, exhaustion, and risk to life and limb during training or combat, etc.). The ability to shut off everything that does not relate to solving the task increases one’s ability to successfully complete a task. This ability is well captured by Zen-Buddhism.

One has to be able to focus so much that one is the task.

Mentally Robust:

Keeping one’s integrity and being able to withstand hardship, isolation and injustice without ‘breaking’.

One wants to succeed and ‘come again’ no matter what one is exposed to.

High Pain Threshold:

Place the pain where it is. Accept the pain without letting it interfere with your performance.

Again the task is so much in focus that the pain is ‘forgotten’ and does not control your consciousness.

Seek Challenges:

If there is something you cannot do or dare not do, seek to learn or overcome it. You will set your bar high because you discover that many limitations are not real, but an inner inhibition.

Test Boundaries:

You perform physically and mentally so that your boundaries (i.e. limitations) move.

You must have the will and courage to test yourself.

The Ability and Desire to Acquire Skills and Knowledge:

You have a desire to learn and retain a high level of awareness. If you have the abilities, you also have the duty to learn so that you can contribute to the team’s success.

Self-Motivating:

Is about focusing on what is important at the moment. You must constantly work with short-term and long-term objectives to reach your goal. Be delighted in your successes and find meaning in what you do. If you can do that, you can overcome anything. Do not be dependent on external motivation like praise and rewards.

Persevering:

Focusing on the goal and keeping up one’s efforts until the goal has been reached. One decides to postpone important decisions and personal needs (i.e. putting one’s foot down