LAS VEGAS– For independent auto dealers who struggle to make it through a tough market, things could be much harder.

A car dealer’s week of hell is not as bad as “Hell Week.”

Marcus Luttrell, the former Navy SEAL whose story was featured in the book and movie “Lone Survivor,” talked about the training that made him a SEAL during NIADA’s Convention and Expo in June.

“I started SEAL training with 164 guys. On graduation day there were 10 men,” he said. “My brother had 254 in his class. I think 14 made it.”, Luttrell describes SEAL training, known as Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) as “Beat Up Die Suffer.”

“I got all kinds of names for it,” he said.

Within that the overall 24 week program is Hell Week, which runs Sunday to the end of the week.

The first thing is they set up a tent on the beach. They make the trainees take off all their clothes and run down to the Pacific Ocean and lay down in it.

“Did you know the Pacific Ocean never gets warm?” he said. “I didn’t know that. That definitely wasn’t in the brochure.”

Then the trainers take all the clothes and bury them in the sand. Then they give the trainees two minutes to dig out their uniforms, put them on and start a four mile timed run.

The trainees would just grab any uniform to quickly start their run, leaving he large-framed Luttrell wearing he clothes of a a much smaller man.

“That’s how you start,” he said.

Training also included conditioning runs, two-mile ocean swims, “surf tortures” and even workouts with things like telephone poles.

“Anywhere and everywhere we went, we had this boat on top of our heads,” Luttrell said. “The boat’s not heavy, maybe 300 pounds. But after about a minute and a half to three minutes, you think your neck is about to break.”

Luttrell said anything a Navy SEAL can do on land, he can do underwater., including, “eat, drink, sleep, fight.”

He offered a stunning statistic about SEAL training.

“More guys die in our training than in combat,” he said. “Hell Week is designed to stimulate combat for an entire week.

“Come to find out when I was going through Operation Red Wing (the operation portrayed in “Lone Survivor”), it was real combat. The reason why I knew I could make it through it without food and without water is because I had done it before. You were tested.

“A man is only going to be as strong as the arena he’s fought in and been tested in.”

Luttrell said that’s how men evaluate other men, asking each other where they’ve been, what they’ve done, what they’ve been through. It’s a pain thing, because we all know what pain feels like.

“Here’s the great thing about pain,” he said “You know that ‘check engine’ light that everybody puts a picture in front of? It’s the same way with pain.”

Luttrell said once he was bleeding and his son asked him why he doesn’t cry when he bleeds.

“I said, ‘Son, I used to,’” he said. “Now I don’t. Because I know it’s not going to hurt me or kill me. I just push through it. In fact, I want to hammer down on the accelerator when I start bleeding. “

Luttrell said one of the coolest things about the design of the human body is it’s like reactive armor.

“So, if you hit that sucker in one spot over and over again, it will naturally toughen up.

“How about that?”

The way to measure someone is what happens when the feel pain, when they’re in chaos, when they’re humbled and when they’re humiliated.

Luttrell experienced that in the operation featured in the movie and book, where he was the lone survivor of his group of SEALS, including an initial failed rescue attempt. He suffered several injuries including a broken back. He reportedly crawled miles before local Pashtun villagers helped and hid him until he was rescued.

Luttrell said he kept going back in because he’d been through all that but the American taxpayers invested a lot in training him to do what he does.

Luttrell said the most dangerous thing on earth is an undisciplined mind. He said if you want your kids or students to react to something in a certain way, “you better program that into them.”

Luttrell pointed out that dealers and salespeople understand this concept, as they work to close a sale.

He said it’s important to close things out, stay until the job’s finished.

“Everybody’s favorite part of the movie or the book is the ending, because that’s when some of the good stuff happens,” Luttrell said.

Everyone is here for someone or some reason and that’s important to remember.

Having a great attitude will also go a long way, he said.

“Remember this, the Almighty has a great sense of humor,” Luttrell said. “You might want to write this part down. Usually what he delivers to you is going to be wrapped in something you don’t want.”

Read Part One. Read Part Two.