The world changes all the time, and these changes make our previous knowledge outdated and useless. And being useless is worse than being slave. We will need to change, and knowing how to get it done is essential to any process of change, whatever the purpose. Knowing how to get things done is something common to all successful people, in any field of human endeavour.
Philosophy, history, biology and other branches of science make it easier to understand life. Some of the solutions proposed by philosophy, which were incorporated into mythology and religion several millennia ago, are now scientific realities. All of them are the result of successful experiments, and for this reason they have achieved an almost dogmatic status, told in stories and idioms. The journey is made easier by trying to understand how human behaviour is influenced by these practices, in addition to the importance of some of them when it comes to changing lives.
100,000 years ago, there were less than 5,000 humans on the savannah in East Africa. They were an insignificant species, constantly attacked by the most diverse predators. Their ability to adapt, their creativity and, as a result, their ability to cooperate and organise defence practices not only enabled them to survive, but also placed them above all other species.
If we take a deep dive into the historical documents that tell us about the training methods that prepared humans to win their battles, while hunting stronger predators or conquering the territory of other tribes, and if we compare these methods with the methods of war training, from ancient times to present day, we can affirm that these training schools are dedicated to “knowing how to get it done”, and that the methods used in all of them share the same essential tenets.
The wisdom in these methods can now be backed by science. They are the result of billions of years of learning and struggling for survival.
These methods train appropriate and necessary behaviours to preserve life.
These schools specialise in using the human biological kit. Their training is based on the intelligence of the homeostatic system. It increases the thresholds of alertness that regulate the balance of health, reshape beliefs, develop some habits and discard others. And this is only possible because there are powerful possibilities hidden in our brains, no matter how one calls them: instinct, the unconscious, the collective unconscious or non-explicit intelligence. We can even try to understand it through quantum physics, as Professor Manuel Sans Segarra explains.
Our neural network learns in a multisensory way. By directing energy towards what one wants, one can turn the survival instinct into confidence, fear into courage, arrogance into humility, limiting beliefs into overcoming. What we do know is that these training methods produced positive results for millennia and continue to do so to this day.
Living is a war, it is never easy
Today’s savannahs may be much friendlier, but the threats are still there. There are no longer lions to attack us, but there are our beliefs—which often produce stress, anguish and depression. I do not intend to delve into a comparative analysis of training practices here, because that can easily be done by consulting specialised literature, through the library that everyone carries in their pocket. But it is wise to know that the best way to survive and make progress is to be prepared for the war that exists in day-to-day living.
Training behaviours
I want to focus on the main methods of the schools that I am talking about. These are not the schools for top athletes or the military in general, but the schools that train troops for war. There are important differences between them. In the former, the aim is to earn money, to acquire prestige or to train forces capable of ensuring law and order, and their personnel are generally made up of volunteers, or people chosen on the basis of certain parameters.
In the latter, the aim is to win the war. The troops are drafted from men of all backgrounds, cultures, and physical and mental conditions.
The training programmes are identical. They train behaviours. However, in war training, the purpose that drives all the actions is much clearer, the degree of tolerance for error is much more limited, and thus the results are much more consistent.
When one clearly knows where they want to go, all the training practices become self-explanatory: if there are any doubts, they are addressed between equals, in their spare time, by sharing their experiences and the resulting feelings. There is no need to convince someone every step of the way. All this convincing is achieved by realising that each tactic indeed works.
Trust is built.
Repetition takes place until each of these practices is converted into a habit.
In the training of conscripts, there is initially no motivation, no willpower and no passion for the profession. There is only fear. The quality of the results obtained with this method makes it clear that these supposed requirements are actually not determinant.
Training methods work with the human nature. They use our brain’s ability to adapt, to imagine, to change reality, to anticipate scenarios, to build relationships, to focus on threats and to feel pleasure in the process.
All these faculties, on which the homeostatic system has worked for billions of years, together make up the intelligence that has ensured our existence.
The first step is taken when one arrives at the barracks, when everyone clearly leaves their comfort zone. Today, neuroscience has data that shows how important this is.
According to Dr Mario Alonso Puig, when we leave our comfort zone, “there is an increase in blood flow in the prefrontal cortex, the neurons start to connect in a different way, which means you become smarter, you gain intelligence. There’s also another recent discovery, product of a collaboration between the Karolinska Institute and the Salk Institute in San Diego. The stem cells, located in the cavities of the brain, when you cross the threshold of the comfort zone, when you are inspired by the possibility of going beyond your limits, these stem cells migrate from the ventricles—the cavities of the brain—to the hippocampus, which is an essential structure not only for learning, but also for fighting fear; it’s a structure that can reshape your brain, that can change your very identity, thus enabling us to reinvent ourselves.”
In a school of war, it is not from thoughts that behaviours are induced. Behaviours are trained, under strong emotion, generating feelings and reshaping thoughts which, in turn, support habits that are suitable for the necessary performance, thus strengthening esprit de corps and confidence. One does not receive information—one receives training. No gifts or amenities are given, resources are scarce, everything is minimalist.
Behaviours are the best tools for shaping brains.
I am a war veteran. In this book, I analyse, based on evidence, the things that my training has taught me, as well as the things that history and science have to show in terms of the methods that work best.
Adapting these methods to the battles that one needs to fight to achieve a meaningful, comfortable and happier life is not only possible, but necessary. If, on the one hand, there are fewer external threats in ordinary life, on the other hand, there are more internal threats.
Wishing to reshape “beliefs” is not enough if we do not know which commands (thoughts) are capable of persuading our unconscious to change course, or to change the tune of the instruments in the great orchestra that lives in our “genes”.
How to make the life we seek out of the things we have
There are those who believe that, in order to achieve the life you seek, you must look for some hidden talent within yourself, or the profession of your dreams, or some genetic predisposition, or some magical opportunity.
To most, this translates to hiding behind the impossible in order to justify a mediocre life. This is facing the choice between all or nothing and going with nothing.
The important thing is to start with the life you have now and get to the life you want.
That is the point. To be able to walk this path, you only need one virtue: having the courage to change behaviour.
Changing life is only possible by changing behaviour, because our behaviours shape our experiences and results. When we change our behaviour, we change the way we interact with the world around us. This includes changes to our habits, attitudes and actions.
It is important to remember that changing behaviour is a gradual process, and it requires effort and commitment.
Life does not teach you to have courage. It forces you to have courage.
Courage is the energy to get things done. It is the tool that can obliterate any obstacle and pave the way for any purpose, any dream.
The life that you want is, in short, your purpose. And the only way to fulfil it is to “do” what has to be “done” to get there.
Every action can either help or hinder your desires. The small actions of each day are the things that matter, for they are the true seeds that will grow into the forest of your life.
You are the product of everything you have done or failed to do in the past, and your future self will be the result of what you do or fail to do in the present.
That is why it is important to “know how to get things done”.
The world is divided into those who “know it”, those who “get it done”, and those who “know how to get it done”. Knowledge, if not applied, is worse than ignorance—it often creates insecurity and frustration.
Knowing something is not the same as knowing how to get something done.
Knowledge is in the domain of the conscious mind. And once it is applied time and again, it turns into profound knowledge. It is then recorded in the unconscious, where a great deal of information can be processed at infinitely greater speed than the conscious mind.
You can read a book, attend a lecture and consciously understand everything, but you may not be able to “get it done”.
To get things done is to bring about confidence, enlightenment, energy and results.
All this is science. And here we shall deal in science.
What can we do, beyond the things we do?
We will explain what to do: the things that always work; why to do them: the reasons why they work; and you will work your way towards figuring out how to do them, i.e., your own recipe, your strategy for each action.