GRP and the Military

From the new book GRP The Golden Rule Paradox: chapter 4 GRP is everywhere.

What can the military teach us about happiness, success, and living a better life?

More than you might think.

The military provides one of the most powerful real-world examples of GRP—The Golden Rule Paradox: when we genuinely put the needs of others alongside, and sometimes ahead of, our own, we don’t become weaker. We become stronger.

For soldiers, this isn’t simply an inspirational idea. It is built into the culture.

Service members are trained to protect the people beside them—even to the point of risking their own lives. “No one left behind” isn’t just a slogan. It represents a way of thinking in which the welfare of the group becomes inseparable from the welfare of the individual.

And that’s GRP in action.

Why Soldiers Fight for Each Other

Ask veterans what they miss about military service and one answer comes up again and again: the camaraderie.

There is something extraordinary about knowing that you would lay down your life for your fellow soldier—and knowing that person would do the same for you.

The book describes soldiers enduring brutal circumstances who found strength by focusing not on themselves, but on their fellow soldiers. During the Battle of the Bulge, one paratrooper described sharing half of his chocolate bar with another soldier. The simple act of helping someone else actually helped calm him.

Another soldier serving in Afghanistan described giving away his last batteries to someone who needed them more. Instead of leaving him feeling depleted, the act strengthened him.

That’s the paradox.

Giving something away didn’t make these soldiers weaker. Helping someone else made them stronger.

The Navy SEAL Test

Few places demonstrate this principle more dramatically than Navy SEAL training.

The selection process eliminates roughly 70 to 80 percent of candidates. Physical toughness obviously matters, but the book makes an important point about those who make it through: they are the people who refuse to give up on their teammates.

Even under extraordinary physical and mental pressure, their focus extends beyond themselves.

They aren’t simply asking:

Can I make it?

They’re thinking:

Can we make it?

That distinction is at the heart of GRP.

“We Could All Succeed Together”

One of the people who helped shape my understanding of GRP was Col. Eric Kail—an Army field officer, Ranger, PhD in Organizational Psychology, and former course director of Military Leadership at West Point.

Kail wrote about an important realization he had while developing as a leader:

“I realized that I enjoyed watching my peers do well… We could all succeed together.”

That sentence captures something much bigger than military leadership.

We are often taught to see life as a competition: your success somehow diminishes mine. GRP turns that thinking upside down.

Helping the person beside you succeed doesn’t have to come at your expense. Their success can contribute to yours.

The Lesson Beyond the Battlefield

Most of us will never experience combat or endure Navy SEAL training. But the principle that makes soldiers and military units stronger applies far beyond the battlefield.

At work. In our families. In friendships. In our communities.

The military demonstrates what happens when people stop thinking only in terms of me and begin thinking in terms of us.

Soldiers protect one another. They sacrifice for one another. They depend on one another. And in doing so, they create bonds powerful enough that veterans often describe that camaraderie as one of the things they miss most after leaving military life.

That’s the Golden Rule Paradox.

The more we genuinely care about the people around us, the stronger they become.

And the stronger we become ourselves.