Not everyone can be a Navy SEAL, and Stew Smith is among the chosen few who made it into the elite team and served our country well. Despite having already hung up his uniform, Smith has made it his life’s work to prepare young people who, like himself at one point, want to serve their country by being a member of Special Forces teams.

In an e-mail interview, the fitness author and former Navy SEAL shared his own story.

His journey towards becoming a Navy SEAL began at the Naval Academy, which provided him with among the best education available in America, as well as a plethora of opportunities after graduation.

He shared how meeting a few Navy SEALs ignited a desire to become part of the Navy’s elite: “First, it was the challenging workouts we did at the Naval Academy, and preparing for one of the hardest military training challenges in the world seemed like the perfect thing to test myself. Team work – after being a team-playing athlete for over a decade prior to going to the USNA, the team work of being on a SEAL Team was what I wanted to do.”

Being a SEAL also meant that there were an unlimited number of things for him to do after his service. Smith did not stray too far. In his first book, “The Complete Guide to Navy SEALs Fitness,” he still stayed true to his Navy SEAL roots. When asked about his decision to embark on a new career, Smith shared: “As the son of an English teacher and a newspaper journalist/publisher, I knew I wanted to be a writer one day, but never really knew what I could write about. Until, that is, I made it through SEAL Training and was soon helping others prepare for military PFTs as a hobby.”

“I happened to have completed a book on the training I used personally to prepare for the Navy SEAL fitness test and by chance bumped into a publisher who was starting a military fitness section in his company and a writing career was born.”

His writing career, however, is not the only thing that keeps him busy. More than ten years ago, Smith founded Heroes of Tomorrow, an organization consisting of Veterans and other experts, much like Smith himself, “who donate their time and share their experiences to prepare Americans who have made the heroic choice to serve our country and communities.”

“I started Heroes of Tomorrow… over ten years ago when I turned my personal workouts into invites to local kids seeking to prepare for military and spec ops professions,” Smith shared. “We do our training for free. I have donated over five thousand hours of training in the past ten years but these are my own workouts each day, but I just offer to teach the future military, police, fire fighters how to prepare for their jobs.”

When asked for tips to share to Navy SEAL and other Spec Ops hopefuls, Smith suggested building up on one’s strong points, while at the same time covering one’s weaknesses.

You can support Stew’s organization by participating in a fund raising raffle held by US Navy SEAL Store for the benefit of Heroes of Tomorrow. You can also win a free pass to the SEAL Adventure Challenge ($179 value). Click Here to learn the details.