This Navy SEAL Shows You How to Win at Scrabble and Life

​​​In the heat of competition — such as, a professional Scrabble match where every letter counts — nerves can derail competitors. They might even forget a basic word they’ve used all their lives.​

But Scrabble champion Austin Shin, 33, the only player to have won both the US and UK national Scrabble championships, has an ace in his pocket. ​Shin has learned from former Navy SEAL Master Chief Stephen Drum, 49, co-creator of the U.S. Navy’s Warrior Toughness training program. If it’s good enough for combat, it’s good enough for Scrabble.

For 30 days last summer, Shin and his wife Lindsay, also a Scrabble competitor, worked through Drum's Cold Shower Protocol, available on the app Mental, which is aimed at men and promises to “strengthen your mind.”

​The protocol guides listeners to tolerate 6 to 90 seconds in freezing water to develop mental toughness and control. Drum, a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, narrates audio for each shower session, coaching users through the process, telling stories from his 27 years in uniform, much of it as an elite warrior.

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Here is some of Drum’s advice for Scrabble, combat and life:

Imitate high-stakes moments

Drum argues that his cold shower protocol imitates high-stakes moments, which can happen in competitive Scrabble. “The cold water provides the level of stress, but carefully controlled, so people can experience a level of stress so they have to navigate and use these tools before they have to use them later.”​

​In his final posting as a trainer in the Navy, Drum realized that “being physically ready wasn’t nearly enough” and that a “mind body soul” approach to toughness was needed because “we were facing combat drastically different from the last 20 years.” ​

​Create an “on the X” performance statement​​

When things go sideways, or you feel “thrown off your game,” Drum teaches how to maintain poise and focus. He calls it “being on the X,” a term from military doctrines referring to make-or-break moments. ​

​“When you get ambushed on the street, in a gunfight, that’s the X. We all have those on the X moments, not necessarily people shooting at you.” Instead, it might be an important work call or presentation —or a big Scrabble tournament.

​​Listen to your inner world​​

The solution? “Listening to your inner world. Negative thoughts in our head are not helping us.” Once you recognize that you don’t like how you’re feeling—like in that cold shower—you can fill that noise with a performance statement instead. ​​In the Navy, Drum’s performance statement was “Shoot, Move, Communicate.” On a sales call, it might be something like “Eye contact, lip contact, pause, respond,” he said. ​