Years 20 to 23 This was the shift. 🔱🇺🇸 My early 20s were when it stopped being a job and became a craft. Early mornings. Late nights. Cold, wet, tired and miserable. Long training days. Deployments. The banter. The bullshit. The culture. It all started to make sense. It felt rhythmic. Natural. Dangerous. Fun. Worth it. I was coming off the backside of tragedy, surrounded by war and patriots, and for the first time I was not just trying to survive it. I was falling in love with it. Not the chaos, but the process. This is when I started going pro with my mindset. Polishing the craft. Building routines. Studying the men who were better than me. Watching how they moved on the flat range, in the kill house, under canopy. How they thought. How they trained. How they carried themselves. Then my greatest mentor walked into my life. For the first time, I saw the full picture of what a professional looked like inside that element. Clean. Repeatable. Well rounded. Intentional. I knew immediately that was the path. If I have one regret, it is that I did not lock in sooner. If I could go back, I would hand 17 year old me the blueprint I found at 20. Show him who to chase. Teach him how to build a routine. Teach him to go pro early. I only blame myself. But once I saw the full picture, I never looked back. Show up early. Stay late. Go when no one expects you to. Surround yourself with people better than you. Do the work, especially when no one is watching. Looking back now, I think I was finally starting to slow down just enough to appreciate it. But it still felt like chasing a shooting star. Like riding a train moving a thousand miles an hour, never catching the front, never able to slow it down. Most days, I was just grateful to still be on it. What an incredible time to be alive. Living out a childhood dream. Doing something very few ever get to do. If I could tell that younger version of me one thing. Take better notes. Guard your time. When people show you who they are, believe them. And when you find a true believer, keep them close. The true believers never lead you astray. 🔱🇺🇸 “For Something Greater” #military #fyp #djshipley #devgru #navyseal - @talesofseals