Want to Be a Badass? — Start Taking More Responsibility for Yourself

Delta Force teams take tough to a new level that you can emulate

When people in Delta Force make mistakes, people die. That’s why it’s imperative for each member of this elite military unit to take on radical self-responsibility — for his own good as well as the good of the unit. Imagine the society we could have if everyone did more of that.

A while back I read the book, Kill bin Laden, written by a former Delta Force commander who led the hunt to find and kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. It was a mission that was ultimately unsuccessful for a complex set of reasons. The book is a fascinating look at that, but also at the inner workings of what it takes to be a part of such an elite fighting force. If you’ve ever read Tom Clancy, this story is like that, only better written, and more interesting because it’s what really happened featuring actual people.

Naturally, these guys have amazing physical and mental toughness — traits that they have intentionally honed, but they also have something else that is pretty badass as well — a culture of ongoing self-responsibility. As Dalton Fury notes in his book, “In Delta, egos need to be checked at the door.”

Mission debriefs always include the responsibility of each unit member to identify any mistakes that he may have made and to say what he should have done differently. This can’t be easy to do, to admit to your team how you screwed up, as well as to listen to input from leadership about that in front of everyone, but it’s necessary for good cohesion and improved operational success. That sort of vulnerability not only builds trust, it saves lives.

Every operator is expected to pony up to anything he did wrong during the mission. Whether it was poor judgment, a mental lapse, or a physical slip-up, you could bet it would be discussed. No infraction was too small, and any operator worth his salt would man up to not meeting the Delta standard. If he didn’t, you could bet someone would bring it up before the meeting adjourned. It always impressed me how a Delta team leader with six or seven years in the unit could tactfully tell a new troop commander — an officer — how screwed up he had been during an assault. Of course, some were more tactful than others, but it all had to be said. If you kept an open mind, you could really improve your performance. If you did not, then you weren’t long for the Unit.

Fury, Dalton. Kill Bin Laden (p. 27). St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Fury further notes that these so-called “hot-washes” were vital to Delta’s success and that they were always run by senior non-commissioned officers who had been on the mission. Officers participated but generally sat at the back. Hot-washes took place after the more formal after-action review, once anyone not on the mission had cleared out. It’s easier to be radically self-responsible within a container of trust and mutual support.

So, what might that look like in our culture, one where always striving to look good and never wanting to look bad is much more the norm? People who are particularly insecure or who don’t have much fluency with their emotions may find themselves lashing out or otherwise having their wounded places running them from behind the scenes. We suffer from that society-wide and people from socially dominant groups often do this so as not to have to actually listen to the concerns of those who are more marginalized. That’s not strong, that’s not tough, it’s unbelievably weak.

If you want to be an actual badass, you have to own your shit, even if it’s uncomfortable at times. Courage is about walking towards something that is difficult or uncomfortable, not avoiding it because you have the power to do so. It’s about caring about others besides just yourself.

So, if you were willing to be more self-responsible, how would you evaluate whether or not your wounds were in play in any given situation? The first place to look is at conflicts or upsets of any kind. If something doesn’t seem to be going smoothly, take some quiet time and ask yourself:

1. What’s really going on in this situation. Why did I become angry or upset?
2. Who does the other person involved remind me of and am I reliving another older conflict or wound through them?
3. Am I feeling unheard or otherwise undermined and is that truly taking place right now, or is that an old dynamic raising its head that is getting projected onto the present situation?
4. What am I afraid of right now that is causing me to lash out?
5. What is keeping me from really listening to and trying to understand someone else’s experience or perspective?
6. Where can I take responsibility for myself in this situation? Do I need to make an apology or give an explanation to someone?

Learning to do this is like building any kind of muscle or skill. It takes repetition and a willingness to dig a bit deeper the next time as you begin to get the hang of it. You have to make friends with your fears and your hurts and to look at them as an outside observer of them. You have to be emotionally healthy enough to acknowledge that you make mistakes or aren’t in complete control all of the time.

The payoff is that then you tend to then be involved in fewer “drama” situations. You begin to be able to communicate better and that leads to better relationships of all types. If most people in our society had these skills and valued taking responsibility for themselves (rather than reflexively blaming others) we could transform the culture for the better.

Cultivating a safe container with other people you trust is a good incubator for growing these valuable skills. Being able to tell a therapist, a coach, or a trusted friend about the ways you wish you’d handled something better allows you to both get in the habit and move through any feelings of shame or defensiveness with some support. That makes it easier to branch out to family members or work teams next. Looking at breakdowns or missteps with compassion, both for yourself and for others involved, can help take some of the sting out of admitting that you could have done better or you made a mistake.

Because we are so geared to always trying to look perfect and in control, failure to do that can bring up a lot of shame. The truth is, human beings all make mistakes — even highly trained, intensely competent Delta Force members, and there is no reason to internalize that to mean more than it does. If you screwed up somehow, that doesn’t make YOU a screw-up. If you said something you wish you hadn’t, it doesn’t necessarily make you an a-hole. Clean it up and move on.

Taking responsibility for the things you say and do, for the way you impact the world (with your silence and your inaction as well) — all of that is what strong people do. You don’t become a badass by pushing weaker people around or deflecting away places where you do bear some responsibility, or wallowing in your ego.

Take a page from the Delta Force playbook by being unflinchingly self-responsible — that’s how you become a real badass!

© Copyright Elle Beau 2023