What's Missing from a College Degree? The Primal Skills.

How to live a meaningful life. 

The Primal Skills are the intuitive and foundational skills we learned to survive and thrive over a million years of evolution. What are the Primal Skills: Situational Awareness, Run/Hide/Fight, Personal Responsibility, and Mental Toughness. These skills are curiously absent from a college education. Teaching the Primal Skills at SDSMT and runs in precisely the opposite direction of the popular safe-space culture that has become prevalent on college campuses. This is important, because life does not occur in a safe-space.

Train. Train Hard. Train Every Damn Day. Because there are no safe spaces.

Situational Awareness and Run/Hide/Fight.

Stay off the X. If you get caught on the X, then own it. 

The X is where bad things happen. The X is dynamic and depends on any number of circumstances. No location  is always safe all the time. A few adjustments can make a big difference between becoming a victim or sidestepping high threat situations altogether.   

Personal Responsibility and Mental Toughness

Keep what works. Shit-can the Rest.  --Mark Divine, 8 Weeks to Sealfit.

Discipline. Discipline is the foundation of strength and courage. Discipline underpins the humility needed to listen and extend kindness. Look to others for guidance and learn what you can, but the burden is yours. Get after it with unrelenting discipline.

Ownership. Who is responsible for Your Successes? Your Failures? Look in the mirror. Nobody owes you anything. Breath intentionally, calm your mind, and take ownership of your life.

Resiliency. Can you take a hit? Failure creates space to grow. Take ownership of your failures, learn from them, and use them to grow.

Positivity. That burden will crush you if you let it. Look up and own it. Laugh at it. That is the path forward (see The Basics #4 below).

Dress Code. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Every moment is an opportunity for a first impression. Is today the day that you run into the President on campus? Good thing you decided to dress like a professional and ditch the fishing shirt and Crocks.

The Basics. Get your own house in order before you think about engaging the rest of the world. The foundation:

1. Physical. Do something physical, something hard, every day.

2. Fuel. Eat clean. Eat like a Neanderthal. The rest is poison.

3. Hydrate. Drink water. The rest is poison.

4. Breathe. The most undervalued basic requirement. Deliberate breathing counters panic and creates the calm needed to broaden your field of view. This combination of physical breathing and intentional detachment -taking a step back to look around creates space for you to make a deliberate advance from the chaos. 

5. Sanitation/Hygiene. Keep yourself and your surroundings tidy and clean.

6. Rest. Get rid of the time sinks and carve out time for rest and recovery.