The Navy SEAL Munchkin Crew

There were seven of them, and none was taller than 5-foot-5.

There was an American-Indian, an African-American, a Polish-American, a Greek-American, an Italian-American and two scrappy kids from the Midwest.

They comprised the “munchkin crew”— and they were tasked with competing against taller and stronger boat crews during Navy SEAL training.

“The big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny, little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny, little feet prior to every swim,” U.S. Navy Admiral William McRaven said during his rousing commencement address at the University of Texas years ago.

“But somehow, these little guys from every corner of the nation and the world always had the last laugh, swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us.”

This fall, so many of us will be members of the munchkin crew. We’re executives at an under-funded company, coaches at a low-budget athletic program, teachers at a school that just won’t invest in basic technology.

Our competitors have higher payrolls, better facilities and what appears to be more talent.

We’re taking part in an unfair fight, and we’re forced to compete anyway.

But there’s one thing we, like the munchkins, always have some power over: our will to succeed.

We always control our own strategy, our effort levels and our mental fortitude — and often, these combined elements can help compensate for our perceived shortcomings.

It would’ve been hard to fault the munchkin crew had it given in to its lack of size, its scattered roots, the towering presence of its competitors.

But they used their apparent disadvantages as motivation to work even harder and seized on being underestimated by their competitors.

Whatever hardship we’re facing today, however unfair the conditions may appear, let’s take a moment to reflect on McRaven’s lesson and try just a little bit harder to focus on what’s actually in our control.

“If you want to change the world,” McRaven said, “measure a person by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers.”