ABSTRACT
Fear is overcome through courage, drift and inconsistency through focus, and savagery through alignment. Each solution is a form of selflessness. When business leaders talk about culture, they are really just saying they wish their team had a healthy sense of selflessness. One of the most important and least understood forces in the wilderness is the will to live. In the daily minutiae of communications, great branding is still selfless branding. When a brand communicates, consumers implicitly understand that self-interest is baked into the equation. The company must benefit from the transaction; otherwise, it goes out of business. The traditions of BUD/S training, including Hell Week, sleep deprivation, hypothermic conditions, and mind-breaking toil are all purposely constructed to destroy a sense of self and rebuild a soldier's purpose around the good of the team.
