Speaker 1: So we'll get to some news. Obviously, there's some news
to talk about. But I spent so much time sharing
with you my plans for the seal Fit journey, and
you were so kind to ask questions about it. So
I'm gonna tell you I had my butt handed to me,
and I've never been more grateful for that. There are
so many things I would change if I already to
do this again, and I was just saying this morning,
I'm leaning very very hard towards doing this again because
my why has changed. It has to do with the
men on that team, on my team. So I'll go
through the embarrassing moments, I'll go through the inspiring moments,
but I'm not going to give away a lot of
detail about the workouts or the rules, because I feel
like that should be the province of people who actually
go through what they call the crucible cocral the fifty hours.
I'll tell you about my teammates who secured, meaning got through,
They thrived, They did it, and I can't communicate clearly
enough how blessed I feel to have had my tush
handed to me on a plate. I know that's weird.
We'll talk about this with the help of alansoaps dot Com,
Slash Todd, and God Almighty.
Speaker 2: The Todd Herman Show is one hundred percent disapproved by
big pharma technocrats and tyrants everywhere. Now from the high
mountains of Free America, here's the Emerald City exile Tod Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is a day the Lord has made, and these
are the times to which God has to satur we
shall live. I've got so much to share with you
this week, observations about being in the state of California.
Meeting almost everybody down there with whom I had a
substance of conversation was a godly person.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: Utterly humbling, and it reminded me that, man, I've been
judging God something fierce. I have been just all over
judging God. I mean, he may well decide to let
California continue to decline into the mess it's become. And
meeting these godly people there reminded me that God is everywhere,
and that by having this cynical belief that California cannot
come back means that I've decided for God that He's
not going to bring it back. There's so many things
to share. This happens to people like me who do
this for a living. When we're gone and we have
all this input, let me get to a couple of
news items. So the suspected the latest, the latest guy
to try to kill President Trump. So he left a
note and he said, this is an assassination attempt. Now
it's a bizarre thing. He left it with somebody with
a box of possessions, and then the person saying, oh,
once I figured out who he was, I thought I
better turn this in. There's never going to be anything
that's going to make this make sense.
Speaker 3: But the fbis decided to release the first page, which
is effectively how he did it.
Speaker 1: Why would they do that? Do you remember this so
called transhooter who went to the Christian school and murdered
teachers and children. Do you remember how long it took
to get that manifesto? And they came after Stephen Crowder
forgetting it and a Crowder and they got part of it.
And now the whole thing is out and this guy's
it's not as manifesto. They haven't released the whole thing,
just the future part they want you to see. It
just occurred to me. Do you think they're going to
do a better job of protecting President Trump when he's president.
I mean, if God's willing, he makes it through the
vote fraud, the attempts to steal the election, and probably
another assassination attempt to three. Do you think that they're
going to do a better job of protecting him when
he's there. Why? Because then they'd have to let someone
kill Jade Vance as vice president. I don't think we
should be thinking that this ends that President Trump makes
it into office. In fact, I think they'd be even
more likely to let someone go get them if he
makes it into office. If they can't block this election,
there's nothing they won't do. And remember the way that
Kamala Harris just obliterated Trump after the debates in the
polling because she dominated the debates. So there's a new
pollout and it came from this. I mean, granted, this
is a very red meat eating conservative organization called The
New York Times, but here's what they show. This is
polling averages time SIN and polling averages in Arizona. Prior
to the debates, Kamala Harris was up plus five. After
the debate, President Trump was up plus five. If you're counting,
that's a ten point swing polling average Trump was below one.
Trump went up two. In Georgia Times Siena likely voters
Trump plus four, Trump plus four, no change, Trump minus one,
polling average, Trump plus two, North Carolina Harris plus two.
After the debate, Trump plus two polling average, Harris plus one.
And then it became even so they'd have to do something.
I mean, in addition to attempting to rig the election,
there's just one other news event. I was just reading
about this that. Remember we talked about the way that
the Kamala Harris team is using fake news, literally literally
doctoring headlines from New York Times in ABC News, changing
what they say, and then promoting them using Google ad Sense,
and no one cares. That's now illegal in the state
of California.
Speaker 3: George Soros has created actual organizations that literally create fake news,
such as pretending that Kamala Harris has received the Polish
community's endorsement in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: No, she hasn't. And this stuff is pushed and trafficked
across the web using social media ads because oh, it's
not a political organization, it's a newspaper. Guys. Early on
when we were trying to promote this podcast, I was
told I couldn't promote it on Facebook because I am
a political organization. I am a pack not a talk
show host or a podcaster, and they're getting to do
this on a massive, multi multimillion dollar scale. I don't
believe that President Trump is a God inspired prophet, but
sometimes he says things that's roopredic. I wonder how many
alarm bells went off at the CIA when he used
the word fake news, the phrase fake news. I wonder
how many people back there and say, wait, he knows,
he knows, he sends some things. When I started this
journey to go down to the Temecular area of California
to go to seal Fit, I started training in March
and the first thing I did, the first Sealfit training
I did, in fact, was a twelve hour workout, and
I think that was a huge mistake, and I want
to explain what mistakes I made. I did not secure.
I didn't get past the first day. I've left late
night on the first day, and I'll tell you why
I left. There were two things that I decided we're
going to make me leave. One was medical and the
other was if I was harming the team or putting
people in danger, because there's no, no, nothing worth putting
these guys in danger. So I'll tell you the whole
seal foot story, all of it's, even the embarrassing parts.
And I will tell you this that I am ninety
percent leaning towards going back. If I do that, there's
a whole series of things that are going to change.
Most of it in my mind. Most of it in
my mind, because it was my mind that failed me
to a large degree. I mean, the fifty seven year
old body didn't help. But I'm also not going to
throw away many of the prep things I did. I
talked to some of the guys down there who were
seals after the event, guys who've served our country in combat,
and we just got to talking about injuries and what
it's like. And there was a guy down there who's
sixty years old and still beats that the young guys
in seal training. He's a buds instructor. He still beats
them swimming. And if you looked at this guy, you
look at his body, it is twenty eight, just unbelievable athlete.
And I mentioned my shoulder surgeries, and I told this
guy about renewed healthcare and what they do down there,
and he said this is something that combat vet should know.
I said, I agree, because so many guys who served
in combat have so many problems that have caused inflammation
in their bodies. Injuries. You know, there's that whole thing.
Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane can screw a
guy up. Yeah, particularly when you land in a tree
before the shoot's fully deployed. That happens, and getting shot
a couple of times, so sometimes flat screw up your body.
It can also be work related injuries, construction injuries, even
athletic injuries like mine. You're told it's surgery or pills.
That is not true. Check out renewed dot Healthcare and
they're ethically ethically sourced stems only from placentas and umbilical chords.
The strain of cells I use and I've used it twice.
Have never ever been near a modified RNA injection because
that strain was created before those injections came out. It
isn't surgery or pills. They will tell you if they
can help. You got to renew dot Healthcare and tell
them you're part of the Todd Hermann Show podcast Indoor
Radio show family. It's renewed dot Healthcare. I'll cut to
the quick. When I arrived in Temecula to go do
this event, I went through a series of steps to
get there. One of them was I got extra hydrated.
I thought. I went to a place and I had
nothing against this place. I met the owner, He's a
fantastic guy. I went to the hydra bar and I
got an IV It's called the Meyers Drip, and they
added to the IV a vitamin treatment, etc. And it
was all about being high because it just got enough
an airplane that day. No, two days before. I knew
that that the hydrate too, even if you drink a
ton of water and electrolytes. So I'd made all these
attempts to be hydrated. So we show up early in
the morning at seven thirty, and I get to meet
my teammates and I'm clearly oldest guy, and uh, and
I don't know that I'm gonna use names because I
don't really have these guys permissions to use their names,
although I guess, I guess first names don't matter. So
Brian was the second oldest, and then probably Connor, and
then Carlos and then Teddy. Teddy was definitely the youngest.
And we're standing in there's parking lot and coach Melanie's
there and she's one of the the only, no, the
second the only two female coaches that I met at
Seal Fit. And Melanie has been through the Cocoro program.
She's done the fifty hours. She is a flat star,
and she starts to ready us kind of mentally for
what's going on. But it was Brian who really he's
been through this program a lot. Brian and Will Will
Will is an unbelievable athletes, unbelievable man, and Will and
Brian have seen this thing, so they're kind of giving
us a heads up. And they kept saying like when
a truck, okay, here it comes this storm starting. Those
are the Seals, And I'm starting to build up in
my mind, like, oh yep, so this starts right away,
like the attitude starts right away. And we went and
did some jogging warm ups. And one of the things
I didn't do, and this came back to just destroy me,
is for whatever reason, I didn't warm my push ups up.
I'm doing all these things, but I didn't warm up
my push ups. Stupid, stupid. I didn't then push ups
in a week. Finally it is time and a seal, well,
two of them. One guy in the lead walked up
and he looked like if you were to take a
bodybuilder and make him an athlete and make him just
under six foot tall but about six feet wide at
the shoulders. He walks up, and another coach is behind
him a little shorter, but you're talking about a waiste
of probably twenty eight inches in a chest of something
like one hundred and twenty eight inches. And the one
guy took the lead. He walks up to us and says, hey, guys,
those of you wearn't hats. Take them off, instill them,
and maybe you'll earn them back. He looks at me,
and I'd written down my whys on my hand in
black sharpie ink, and I'd recently written the first initials
of my teammates on my arm. I made that decision
when I met these guys and realized, Man, I already
love these guys. So coach looks at me, goes fancy Tattoos. Herman, yeah, coach,
it's the uh, it's the team.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Fancy Tattoos looks at one of our teammates. He goes, man,
look at those pants, so it's tight pants. You can move
in those. And already it's on. It's already on. And
I'm standing there, and Brian had warned me about this,
and I'm not going to tell you the details because
I think this should be private to the crucible. But
there's things you're not supposed to do with your hands.
Brian warned me, don't do these things with your hands.
And so the seal looks at me and he goes,
it's okay to stand, but don't stand like this guy's standing.
And he goes, that's your one warning that came back
to haunt me. That So here it is, and now
it's I don't know what time. I mean, they took
our watches. I have no idea what time it is.
And coach says, I'm going to run you down to
the grinder. And the grinder is ext exactly that. It's
a grinder. So we start jogging and I realize I
have no idea how long we're jogging. Now I knew
this was going to be the case, but I thought
I was prepped for it, but I.
Speaker 2: Was not.
Speaker 1: Giving up total control. We'll run until coaches stop running.
And he's at a gentle pace. I mean, I don't
think it was even a ten minute mile, maybe nine
and a half. And we're jogging down and then he
stops us drop don push ups, and all of a sudden,
like my push ups are gone. I hadn't warmed him up,
and I'm thinking, oh, dear God, this is push up,
central up. And we're back and we're running, and he
did it again, and I'm I'm now I ignored everything Coach
Devine's books talk about. I was totally self centered, totally
in my own head, not seeking the help of my teammates,
not speaking on their behalf, not who yaws. I got
in my own head. So we jogged down to and
I don't know how long it was. I'm gonna guess
it was probably not, probably a two mile job. And
we get down to the grinder. Now here's what this was.
And I wanted to have pictures for this, but we
didn't get them ready. I'll share some with you. We're
at this campgrounds outside of Temecula, and you saw the
YouTube videos, maybe you've seen some of the images. It's
the topography of the high like the desert in California,
and there's all sorts of hills and Sandy Hills, and
there's warnings about rattlesnakes, and then we go down to
the grinder, and the grinder, there's the pull up bars
set up, there's the ice tubs set up, and then
there's this block of terrible dry dirt and that's where
they put us. And that's where the butt kicking began.
And there were two things I said that would make
me quit, one harming or endangering the team, two medical.
And when this assault began and these guys created the
circumstance of chaos and war again, I forgot everything that
I was mentally taught. My breathing was gone, and most destructively,
I was only thinking about myself. And right away that
big big seal came over and goes, hey, you're not
looking good. I'm looking at a performance drop. Here, I'm
looking at a performance drop. You got to bring it up.
And then you are going, dude, you're gonna weigh this
team down. You are going to really really punish this team.
And I'm talking about burpies and a movement I can't say,
but it has to do with monkey. I'm talking about,
of course, push ups and bear crawls and backward bear crawls,
and as we're doing the bear crawls, diving into ice
water and I'm used to that, but didn't dive in
and dive out and then do the next one, and
then plank and push up and then flutter kicks and
then v ups and I mean, all these movements are
known seal movements, so I'm not giving away things here,
but it is there's no rhythm, there's no predictability, and
then there's the stop. Someone count one thousand and one
to me, thousand and one. That's how long you have
who get down when I say get down, and get
up when I say get up, now down up, And
I'm just lost to myself. In Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen,
we read it is not good that man is alone,
and I made myself alone. Everything they teach us, well
not everything, but there's so much about focusing on others.
Part of that is to observe your teammates. And God
bless these guys for beginning to focus on the team
and a lot of times on me. And as my
push ups continue to suffer, I am beginning to think
I can't even string together five quality push ups here,
and that's in my head. I can't. I can't. I can't.
Instead of get warmed up, see Coach Divine would teach us,
Commander Divine, I'm getting warmed up. Fantastic, I'm getting warmed up.
I'm here and there's you know, spraying water on us
and poor wat artists. And quite frankly, that was welcome.
That wasn't a bad thing. That felt fine. But then
this creeped into my mind because I heard it again
from one of the coaches. Man, you were weighing this
team down. I'm glad you're not on my team. And
I'll tell you the most embarrassing part of this. And
I've even included the email in the show notes that
I sent to coach mail afterwards because I want you
to see complete transparency and I can't wait to share
with you what I got back from team members. So
I'll tell you the most embarrassing part of this in
just a second. I can't even believe in gonna admit this,
but I will because I'm going to be honest with
you about this experience, because I want you to know,
because it spent so much time talking about it. Now,
let's get to the ugly truth, the truth right now
in our world is very very ugly. Commander Divine, very
legendary seal He's the guy who started Seal Fit and
runs it to this day. Commander Divine asked us at
one point, are you concerned about the things going on
in your world?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: You should be. And I won't go into more what
Commander Devine said, because again that was a private event.
But that's I mean, it's it's who's not concerned about
the world. My friend Zach Abraham, chief investment officer Bull
at Capital Management, is doing a free live webinar that's
coming up on Thursday, and what Zach is doing is
he's going to talk about the world events and how
this is affecting people's portfolios, particularly if you're five, ten,
fifteen years from retirement. Your retirement portfolio was not built
for a world where figurehead Biden uses or the people
who run him uses Air Force jets to fly Zelensky
into Pennsylvania, a battleground state, to campaign on behalf of
Kamala Harris. That's an unprecedented event. Everything is unprecedented right now.
There are no rules, and current events are going to
smack upside the noggin, just like I got smacked seal fit.
They're going to smack upside the noggin. These these retirement
plans that were created for a time of peace, which
is kind of what I created for myself and my
training peace. Huge mistake. So this is a free live
webinar etz Act. We'll talk about Couple of management's risk
management strategy and how they use active management of every
portfolio which can reduce risk and volatility. That's how they
manage risk. He'll talk about your portfolios and that's what's
happening in the marketplace. This is a free event, but
you have to register to attend. Go to Know your
Risk radio dot com. That's know Know your Risk radio
dot com. And now a kind word from my friend
Russh recorded this because the government said you have to.
It's an advisor.
Speaker 4: The opinions expressed in this programmer for general informational purposes
only and are not intended to provide specific advice or
recommendations for any individual around any specific security any references
to performance of security, so it thought to be materially
accurate and actual performance may different investments involved risk and
are not guaranteed. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Track
twenty fourth zero weighted.
Speaker 1: So here I am, I'm wet, I'm muddy, and the
thing that been has been solid for me, and ask
my training partners push ups have been solid for me.
Speaker 5: They're gone.
Speaker 1: And it feels like they're not coming back. And this
all adds up into here and coach say, I'm glad
you're not on my team. Guys. I stood up and said,
drop on requests. I couldn't believe that those words left
my mouth. Drop on request. And we're an hour into this.
I didn't even know I was that weak. And so
Coach Mail comes up. She goes, stand over there, stand
over there. I walk over to this place. She goes, no, no, no,
don't stand over there. Come and sit down on this,
on this, on this stretcher. I sit down and she goes,
She goes, I want to feel sorry for you. But
she told me A trained for this. I said, no,
Coach mel, I trained for this. She goes, Then, it's
not your body, this is your mind, Todd, it's your mind.
You have fifteen seconds to get back in there, decide,
decide you're gonna leave your team. That's hurting your team.
You're gonna leave your team. And I could like I
got up, and I went back and I got in,
and no one said anything, even the coaches didn't say anything.
And man, they could have destroyed me. At that moment,
I couldn't believe I did that. But then something happened.
I remembered the team, and as we're going through these
movements again and again and again, and they're getting harder
and he's introducing more of them, this happened. I looked up.
Everybody was struggling, not to the degree to which I was,
and some guys were flat killings. I never saw a
couple brothers there. I don't think they. I mean, it's
hard to make him struggle. They are so solid, so strong.
A couple of us were, including a couple of guys
I looked up to, and I look up to everybody
in that team. I began to focus on others. One
of the teammates got pulled out of formation. He was
made to sit on a log. And I don't remember
the exact words because it wasn't aimed at me. But
all of a sudden, one of our teammates is pulled
out of formation. He's made to sit on a log
and enjoy a cool drink of water while he counts
out commands to us, and one of the guys in
the team still information, said come back, come back, come
back into the team, and he says, coach, can I
go or sir can I go back? No? No, I
saw that you were dogging it. You needed rest, so
you drink your water. But you count out those commands
and don't you go easy on them. And my teammate
starts to stand there. He goes, no, no, no, no,
you sit down. You need rest, You rest while your
team works, Amanda, brother, it's not like this. And here's
the other aspect to this. Now, as I began to
look at that like, oh my gosh, look what they're doing,
and it won't say his name, Look what they're doing
to him. And then they just got all over another
guy and I mean I'm talking about two seals surrounding
him and they're on him, and that focusing another's thing.
Then had this the ability to say you got this,
the ability to look at a brother and here I am,
and my pushups have been gone saying to a brother,
you got this. And then will Will said to me,
out of breath, muddy dirty, I'm so glad you're back.
Speaker 5: You're important. To the team. Wow, important to the team.
Something changed.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was, except I can
explain it this way. We bonded to that obviously. Eventually
the assault ended. I don't know how long it went on,
probably a lot shorter than it felt like. And then,
having faced that moment of stupid and desperation and what
I would refer to as cowardice, no one said anything
about it. We just proceeded the way this day unfolded,
and the events that went through it showed me something
about myself and my training that really, in one hand,
disappoint me. On another hand, really really informed me of something,
and it's why I felt such utter gratitude. The day
went on, it got hotter, the movements got harder, and
we eventually went for a yet another run, and once again,
and this was Coach Clint who was leading this. There
were two coaches down there, Coach Robin, Coach Clint. Coach
Rob the bigger of the two, and Coach Clint leads
us on this run and again it's I'm going to
run you somewhere and you'll just stay with me. So
they run us to a point where we go and
we eat lunch, MRIs and it's sitting down in the
sands and Coach Clint says, you're gonna have I think
you said twenty five to thirty minutes to eat, so
eat it all, and they demand that you eat all
your food. Now here's where I should have been queued
into something, but I wasn't. At lunch, we had a
chance to talk as guys and to assess some things
that had gone on and gone wrong. Here's a couple
of them. I kept violating that hands rule. And every
time you violate a rule, Coach Robert it down in
a book and then it's pay the man. Now that
doesn't sound like a lot. Oh, you're gonna have to
do ten extra burpees and you might have to stop
and do these monkey movements I can't see in the show.
And you're gonna have to stop and do this on
runs or carrying these huge weights and I'm not going
to say in what form we carried them, because but man,
it was incredible. You do that for fifty hours and
all of a sudden you have fifteen violations. That's one
hundred and fifty more movements, which doesn't sound like a lot.
And tell my brothers who made through this event fifty hours.
We're still paying paying the man for my infractions still
and for things I did. And I asked Coach rob
And when we were getting in for lunch and say, hey, coach,
is there any way I can earn that back? Can you?
Can you take that out on me? Can I pay
the man? He is Nope, nope, nope. One team member
messes up, everybody pays. Sorry. No, he didn't say sorry.
She doesn't say sorry. We sit down and eat and
we're kind of comparing food, and it was an amazing
mental relief that the coaches were gone. And I'm sure
this is on purpose. This is the Okay, we just
beat the garbage out of you, and we're gonna let
you breathe. After lunch, having drunk somewhere on the order
of three quarters of a gallon of water and having
hydrated all morning long, having showed up had thirty cups
of electrolytes, I couldn't pee. I don't know what time
it was. I'm guessing noon. I don't know. I couldn't pee,
and that could serve me a little bit because I'm
a guy who generally peas a lot. Sorry for the
detail we started to talk about how we could improve
as a team and internally. A young man named Teddy,
and he and I had an exchange in the parking
lot before we began, and so did he and Brian
because we felt like the Seals were really going to
target Teddy something. He made a decision that changed the
course of this event for me, and I am so
utterly grateful to Teddy, youngest guy on our team. I
felt like a kid, a little boy, because I was I.
I had the view behind us, so I could see
everybody's six and I saw I saw a coach rob
walking out.
Speaker 5: Guys, coaches here, coaches coaches here.
Speaker 1: So we clean up lunch and we and I don't
remember how we disposed of it, but we stand up
and and well, this was something that happened back back
at the I should have mentioned this back at the grinder.
They gave us our gear, our our packs and are
our dows which they call weapons. They gave that to us. Okay,
go put those out, Go put those out in the grinder,
and we set them down and come back and Coach
Robb says, look at that, look at that arrange that
the right way. And at that point we didn't have
a class leader. Who's the leader? Who's the leader? I
don't remember which one of us stood for that. I
know it wasn't me. Someone took lead, and we went
through and religned the bags and I'm talking to the
logo goes on this side, the handles, going this side,
make sure that everything is lined up, and it's five
four drop drop boom, back into I don't remember what
exercise is. Back into the screaming, oh fix them, fix that,
and so we arrange everything, and then there is calm.
Come over here. We stand there and he goes, look
at that. Doesn't that look nice? Attention to detail, gentlemen,
And coach looks at me. He goes, hands another one
for Herman goes in the book, I'm gonna have to
pay the man. So fast forwarding out to this lunch
and here comes coach, get this stuff, take away and
upholls a truck. Stow your gear, and we are fanatical
at this point, and I'm like, the one value at
this point I'm adding is I'm looking at guys, guys, guys,
and this has got to spread out and two inches
between the bags, and we're making sure I do not
want to pay a pill on this and the truck
is filled with sand bags and an implement I'm not
going to mention because this isld to be secret to
seal fit, but it was an implement I've never used before,
kind of a sacred implement, honestly. And the sandbags come out.
We're on this incredible sandy area and we are going
to bear, crawl, sprint and pull these sand bags up
to the point where these sand bags weighed more than
the bodies of guys like Will. But prior to this,
we had to make our own sand bags, and Brian
had warned us about this. And I'm not going to
go into detail, but I will tell you this that
one of my brothers had a challenge getting a sandbag closed.
And we have to like tie a knot in this
this canvas bag or not canvas, but this bag. And
he's not getting it done and his hands are starting
to shaking his herman, what am I doing wrong? I said,
got to spin it more, man, it spin it more.
On the bottom and the seals are all of them. Hey,
no one's waiting on you. Don't worry. It's not like
you're going to pay a tab. It's not like I
have to pay the man. You got thirty seconds. Thirty
seconds and it's tying a sand bag, but under that pressure,
and I'm washing and watching him shake it. And then
we had to pay them in because thirty seconds went by.
And for some reason, to my utter shame, this brother
somehow made the decision to bear crawl away from us.
And I think he just wanted to face Coach because
he knew it was. You know, we're gonna get into
a circle. We're gonna pay the man. Coach says, why
is he on his own?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: Why is he on his own? I mean he made
the decision to go over there. That's a separate thing.
Who told you to do that? Did you get told
to do that? Why is he on his own? And
I think it was Brian who decided to own it
for us. We failed him as a swim buddy. See,
you never go anywhere alone ever, and here's his brother
out there on his own. So the sandbags are filled,
they go on our pack. Now begin this evolution of pulling,
you know, doing these bare crawls through this ridiculously deep sand,
sandy dirt, and pulling these sandbanks that eventually ended up
to about one hundred and eighty five to two hundred
pounds and we're pulling them in the stick rope and
it was a difficult evolution and a couple of times
my knee dropped before I got to the got to
the line, and the coach Rob was actually really nice.
I mean it was like, what what dude, what happened
to you? And Coach Rob said herm remembered knee across
the line. That's all I said. The youngest member of
the team made a decision and guys, this would have
felt like pandering if it was in any other circumstance.
I'll tell you about this in a second. Despite all
these challenges and despite me getting in my own heads
and not getting the results I saw it out of
seal fit physically, I wouldn't change a thing about nutrition.
And I'm convinced of this that the routine that I
had made it possible for me to get through this.
And I lost six pounds in that twelve hours, and
I'm talking about legitimate pounds, not waterweight. It was that rigorous.
And I know that my process is getting this back
is going to be the same as it was to
get down to this nine point nine percent body fat
and it is a routine. Part of my routine is
mass zymes. This is a dynamic set of diam of
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slash todd. We began this evolution and we were going
through these bare crawls to the sand, and then every round,
every round, we had to be as fast or faster
than the previous round, or we want another round, or
we're going to pay the man. And it's fast, fast, fast.
You're talking one minute forty one minute, one minute, fifty
two minute twenty one and these are six guys. Everybody
has to pull the bag, I pull the rope. Everyone
has to bear crawl back and forth, and Teddy got
next to me purposely and despite the load on his
respiratory system. I'm with you, herm, I'm with you, herman,
I'm right here. I'm right here with you at the
beginning of that day. If he'd done that, I would
have been furious. How dare you pander to me? This
is an incredible act of love between rounds. Between rounds,
some of the guys that I think Brian started this
between rounds when we got a little bit of rest,
we pop up off the ground and everybody says hands, hands, hands.
It aimed at me. I'm the big violator and I'm
looking at going hands, hands, hands. I'm participating in this
as well, and I became Johnny organized the bags like this.
Somehow this got my thing. Wait, wait, no logos this side.
Wait no, it's there's not six inches apart. So we're
jumping up off the ground and I have my hands hands, hands,
and then this implement came out. Well, first of all,
we went and I won't I won't, I said, I
wouldn't give away the workout details. But we did some
passing of sandbags a seventy five pound bag and a
fifty pound bag around this circle. And this seals do
what they can to make it simple. But when your
mind's just like messed up. It took us a couple
of evolutions to get that right. But then we got this.
I couldn't believe we got this. One of the coaches said,
you guys are actually getting better. I forgot this back
in the grinder. Coach Clint had come over to me
during eight count burpies and said, Hermann, if you do
them faster, they hurt less. And I copy of that
Coach could copy, and I started to do them faster,
and my burpies were not great. And I found a
lucky penny. It's the weirdest thing. Wait, is that a penny?
And I'm the purple sai. I'm looking. I think that's
a penny. Coach Clint came by and he said, and
I couldn't believe what this meant to me. Good job moreman.
Same time, I found that stupid penny, and I kept
that penny, and I'm going to have it made into
jewelry or have it embedded in my skin. So they
bring out this implement and we are going to carry
what will turn out to be something started with one
hundred and thirty five pounds, which doesn't sound like a lot,
eventually became and I'm guessing here probably probably one eighty five,
maybe two hundred pounds, and Coach Rob says, pick it up,
and again it's a really sacred implement, which is why
I'm not saying what it is. And we carry this
thing as a team. There's six of us, four of
us carrying it at all at one time. Every time
we set it down, we pay the man through sand,
sand hills, over a fence, and ultimately we start walking
up this blacktop road through the campground. And now it's hot,
it's really really hot, and we're having to communicate with
each other really well. Coming up behind you, Will, I
got to wait in three two one, we switch and
we're talking to each other. Talk to me, how we
doing Even I was doing this, I weeks my grip's going,
I need a twitch. I need to switch now. And
we're switching on the fly as we're carrying this sacred implement,
talking to one another. At one point this really really
made an impact to me. Will, who is an unbelievable
force of good. All these guys are and Will never
spoke a negative word. He is shorter in stature than
most of us, but taller in spirit than me by
a long shot. And one of our guys was saying,
up on the left up on the left of this implement.
These have come up. It's leaning over it. We can't
drop these things. And I realized, well, wait a minute,
I'm I'm taller than will all lower the lower my side,
A lower my side and we'll look at me. And
goes thank you brother. I was just ashamed it took
that long. So we go up this huge hill up
into the desert, up into the desert mountains, and then
Coach tells us to set it down. Now now the
work begins. Now we're going to run up this massive,
tall desert hill, but in after the style of the
seals and the military packs a weapons down. We take
them up, take your sandbags out. These are the bags
that go inside of our packs, and we we pull
them out and again, guys, guys, guys on the fence line.
Let's or I can't do anything else, so why don't
I do this. I'll be like the Karen. I'm the
house cleaning Karen, and we're all playing these support roles.
And the second we set them down, like if it's
hands hands yep, okay, we take the sand bags out
and we go through this evolution where we have to
run up this hill and it's an easy four hundred
and maybe six hundred yards. One of the coaches is
up there. Coach Rob is up top, Coach Clint was
down below, and Coach Clint says, okay, that is a
hot lz up there. They need ammo. It's your job
to get them there. It pays to be a winner.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: That's the code word for this is individual effort. Now
you are racing each other. Teddy and Connor are great runners.
Connor is a triathlete and Teddy is just a flat
young stud. We're running up the hill and Teddy says,
should we be tactical about this? He sacrificed what could
have been more rest for him, and so did Connor,
so the rest of the team could have a shot
at being first in these things. And it was an
evolution at which I was really comfortable, I felt goods
and I came out midpack. Again. Wouldn't well, wouldn't. I
don't know that it wouldn't have happened, because that's actually
a really good event for me carrying heavy objects because
it doesn't take any skill, balance, cleverness. It's just work,
Like at least I could do this. I can carry
you know, the twenty pound football and we're running and
we run up to where Coach Rob is and then
Coach Rob's on his radio, oh LZ's change, guys back down.
First guy here, leave your sandbag. Everyone else down. Changed.
Now we run down and we're going to drop the bags.
And coach says, okay, you know what, they only have
room for one ammo at a time. Got to go
back up. And now I like, I'm resisting doing math
because what I want to do is, okay, how many
rounds is this gonna be? I'm gonna paste this? Knock
that off? Look around? How's the team doing? Someone charted
the chant present positive optimistic? As we are running, present
positive optimistic, Present, positive optimistic. We're doing this and man,
we are beginning to meld as a unit. And we
got up to the top. All of us are there.
Coach Rob has us hold these sand bags up, and
he has us hold him for a long time, and
then he says go and we run down. And I
couldn't believe it, and I want to believe it was
because teammates gave me a break. I came in I
think fourth in that we continued our climb with this
sacred implement. Now, this was at this point several hours
after lunch. It was a long climb, guys, and as
we're going up the hill, coach has to stop and
do this movement called monkey blankers monkey blinkers. You squat down,
you put your hands under your toes, and then you
elevate your hind den up and down fifty of them
and then drop into push ups. So I am doing
this and I get a full body cramp that starts
in my left leg, goes into my grind, locks up
my back, locks up my core, and I scream and
I fall to the ground and everything stops, and every
brother surrounds me, and even the seals were concerned. Herman, herman,
what's up? I just full body cramp and I can't breathe.
And the medic Curtis came over and he puts salt
tabs in my mouth and he said I was just
gonna toss up in his mouth. He shut his mouth.
I don't wish you've tossed my mouth. So I take
these salt tabs and I chew them. He gives me
these electrolytes. He goes, kill this, kill this, and I
drink it and I'm laying there like trying to stretch out,
and was wait, push ups are next, right? I go,
this is blank and blank. Now all of a sudden,
I've got the bad cursing mouth again. This is you know, hey,
I'm down here for push ups. Let's do the push ups.
You know what happened? My push ups are back because
I was loved and I started to enjoy this.
Speaker 5: My push ups are back.
Speaker 1: We do a couple of rounds of these things and
keep having to pay the man, and then Coach says, this,
you have one hour to make it back to the grinder.
One hour. We start to carry this thing down and
every time we said it do, I have to pay
the man. And then Coach stops us. That's the hill.
That's the hill, that's the one I was looking for.
So he sets it down. He lets us rest for
a second, and I said, I asked him a question,
and it was a really really interesting answer. I got.
See at this point up on the hill, I made
a couple of jokes about myself, and they're rough language jokes.
I mean, this is not a polite talking crowd godly man.
But look it's look at the environment. And made a
couple of jokes about being old and my anatomy, et cetera.
And it was this humanizing thing where we started to
even relate to the coaches a little bit. And after
I got up from those cramps, my like guys didn't
say anything other than like, glad you're back. So tell
you thing I said to coach in a second, then
I'll tell about this hill. And then when I realized,
I think I'm in huge trouble, huge, huge trouble. Now
I'm gonna send and I'm getting I bet you that
the team is watching this. They all have our wills
as of this morning, they'll have free subscriptions to everything.
And I'm gonna send down to Coach Meil and Coach
Clint and Commander Divine Coach Rob. I'm gonna send down
some bone Frog coffee to them. Obviously, I mean three
of the three of those people are seals, So I'm
gonna send down some coffee from bone Frog Coffee. Tim
Krookshanks Company. Tim is a retired Navy seal. He did
three tours of duty on our behalf. He was a
BUDS instructor. I think for three years Tim will get
all of this. I can't wait to debrief with him
and I are talking later today and and the coffee
comes in a wrapper that speaks to seal, dumb God
Country Team. That's how Tim lives his life and it
is an unbelievable team focus. He hires vets every time
he can. He works int vecteral owned companies every time
he can. He didn't go out and get a bunch
of junk coffee and put a cool label on it.
Some other companies do that. He had this coffee created
for you under the tutelage of Dave Stewart, who's a
coffee legends. He started in Seattle's Best Coffee, and the
coffee speaks for itself. If you want my recommendation, there
is a light rose called Doorkicker. Though it's light, it's
the most cafeinated blend they have. It is probably my
second favorite. My first favorite is called goat Locker, which
comes from an amazing, amazing tradition in the team community.
The Navy and Brother the Navy go to Bonefrog Coffee
dot com Sash Todd you get ten percent off your
first purchase, fifteen percent off subscription coffee. So as coach
is letting us rest before we're going to go run
this hill. I said to him, Hey, coach, do I
own the record for hand violations? That I own the record?
And he goes, oh, to this camp, yeah, I go no,
I mean overall goes oh, no, I go really goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what's worse? I god. He goes, there's people
who don't care. What is it? Yeah, we get some
real blanks through here who don't care. Like you're already
begging me to let you earn it off for your team.
That's not going to happen. But there are people who
just flat don't care. I said, I bet you guys.
Want those those guys out of here. He goes, oh,
we get them out of here. Yeah, we get them
out of here. I was standing there. I started to
put my hands in place of notts to go. We're
talking about the violations. I caught myself and Coach Rob
actually laughed because, you know what, I'm gonna give that
one to you because you caught yourself, SidD boss you coach,
thank you. We run up this hill and he arranges
this in the order that we we ended that last evolution,
and I was fourth, and he said, line up in
order of your ranking and the team. I'm like, well,
you five stand here, I'll walk down the hill about
a quarter mile like in the last place. And no,
it was no no in according to the race. So
I'm in fourth place. So here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna start with number six, number five, number four,
and we're gonna see if number one can catch all
you guys. So we run up this hill and this
was probably an eight hundred meter run, but man, it
was straight up. It was brutal. And at this point,
I've got cramps all through my legs, and I promise
you I'm not making excuses. I'm describing to you the circumstances.
My hamstrings are cramped, my calves are cramped, my core
is cramped, and I'm just I'm gonna make this through.
I got to run this run. So I run, and
I get to the top and in last places not
that bad. And I actually get once again from coach Clint,
a you're it. He said, that's no, nope, nope, I
got to hear this. Oh praise God for this moment.
He goes, Okay, that's putting out. That's putting out, and
Coach Clint gives us a break. He goes, hey, take
a break. We're gonna pay the man in a second.
Num we're going to run back down. And I decided
to go pee.
Speaker 5: And I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long we were into this, but
it was a long time. And I'd finished my gown
of water, and I'd had three bottles of electrolytes and
I believe six salt tabs. And I said to Brian,
I go, man, I can't pete. And Brian says, you
have to tell the medic. I go, oh, he's going
to make me leave because you've got a tone. So
walk over to Curtis. I go, hey, how concerned should
I be that I haven't peede?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: That's not at all? Yeah, since I got here, Yeah,
that's not great. You know you're way behind that hydration.
I said Curtis, I had thirty cups of electrolytes before
I got here this morning, and I've had all my water. Okay,
it's not great. We'll do what we can do. I
can't give you many more salt tabs. You're gonna get
super sick. And he gave me some, gave me another
bottle of electrolytes, which he carries on his body for us,
and we started to climb down. We ran down, and
then we carried this implement down and then we got
to have lunch and stretch. And when I was stretching,
it came so bad that I couldn't breathe. And I'm
not wanting to put this on the team because I
know what's next. It was the one event I wanted
to do so badly because it's actually a great event
for me, and that's Murph and I know that this
is coming. I can see it, I can sense it.
Brian had told us normally when the sun goes down.
So I'm trying to stretch this out, I'm hanging on
by and I cannot breathe and the lock up is
so bad that I literally want to scream. So eventually
I went over to Curtis and I'm like, argunect this,
here's what's going on. He pulls me aside. He goes,
you're not going to hear this. I do not think
you should continue. Now from a guy who quit for
thirty seconds, I can't cry tears, but the tear ducks
are open. No, Curtis, He goes, no, Look it's up
to you at this point. But not for long. If
I see more full body cramps, I have to pull
you medically right now, It's up to you. What's the risk?
Are we talking rabdough? Rabdough is a condition where you've
broken down enough muscles, usually from small muscle groups, that
there's way too much protein and muscle matter going through
your kidneys and it can kill you. Had a friend
went through this and she had to be in the
hospital for three or four days and it was really scary.
It's a rap doough. Yeah, it could be a rabdough.
What's he go as? You could be in dalysis by
the end of the day. Oh, I said, but I hydrated, man,
I've had like two gowns. I mean, I'm not two
and a half gawns of water. And he goes harmon again.
I hate to say this, but your age makes this harder.
Speaker 5: It's up to you.
Speaker 1: But if I see more body for cramping, I'm pulling you.
I'm looking at my team and they're getting focused and
they're getting ready, and I should have gone to them
and said, guys, here's where I'm at. But I didn't
because my calculus was this, they don't need this in
their head. Okay, I drank another two and a half
gallons of water before I peed, and Curtis was there
every minute, and the guys did Murph and I had
to watch. No, I didn't have to. I got to watch. Ultimately,
three of my teammates secured. They went fifty hours. You
know what's crazy.
Speaker 2: Is I am.
Speaker 1: Just as happy this morning as if I had secured.
I don't think I could be happier. If I were
to do this again, it would be based upon a
new why, and I'll tell you about that in the second.
Right after I read you the email, I wrote to
coach mail and I believe this was Sunday morning when
I wrote this. No, Saturday morning, No, it is Monday morning.
I see it here. Note jer Melanie, I've been praying
for Carlos Connor and Teddy as the cruciber Nerds the
end mark of twelve noon today, Brian checked in and
I three bless him, and we both need to check
in with Will. My podcast on my experience would be
called Seal Fit handed me my button. I'm deeply grateful
for it. I would record it Tuesday morning and would
be celebrate the amazing men and that team, and will
be confessing all the ways a disappointed results, even the
horribly embarrassing ones from which I committed to learning and growing.
Then to make a request of Commander Divine to get
some pictures and stuff that we can use on later podcasts,
I wrote. Then ps in case you're curious, as I'm
planning the cast, this is the theme of this morning.
The only way for people like me to thrive in
that environment is to raise all previous habits and to
immediately open ourselves to absorb the strength offered by others.
The meaning for me my training is insular, self focused,
self controlled, self indulge. My mental game is ponderous and wondering.
I didn't understand that dynamic before Friday, and it got
slammed down my throat and the way I needed when
I let myself be absorbed into that team of strong men.
My push up symptomatic of my psyche, as you succinctly
and bluntly and perfectly said to my face, came back
when my team rallied around my challenges and substituted their
betterment mental focus for mine, I grew from the strength
and was able to actually contribute, not be last. On
a couple evolutions regain some center here. Good job herman
from coach Clint laugh as commander to mine and spoke
of and truly enjoy the struggle. If I make another
attempt at seal Fit, it will because because I need it,
not because I want. It won't means squat in the
world of the crucible. The global meaning for me, the
men and women in an accessile forces community are far
more extraordinary than I ever came close to grasping, even
though I'm blessed with friends from the teams. The selflessness,
the absolute drive, mental toughness, willingness to give all to
a team is a nice thing to think you have
that most of us don't and can only develop through
God's grace and through programs like seal Fit, though there
is no program like it. She sent me the most
un believable note in response, and I didn't ask her
permission to read it, so I shan't. But I can
tell you this. To be called brave and strong and
adaptable and courageous, and to have her say you went
until you couldn't and that's what we would expect, it
means a world of me to me. There was something
else that happened early in the day, one of our
teammates walked over to the area where the coaches had
their trailer set up, and Coach Rob saip it goes, hey,
this one's on me. I failed to explain that this
is our side, that's yours. You stay over here, you
don't come to this side of the street. And I understood,
good copy, Coach. So having a couple of brothers who
had to one brother had to pull out for medical
reasons too, and a brother did not succeed in an
evolution so close, dang it, I thought he was going
to get it. So we all three are out and
I'm standing there and I hear this from coach Rob Herman, Zula,
come and eat. Please, please come over and get food.
Walk over and diship some food. And I'm standing there,
Coach Rob boxsy because Herman, you know, none of that
was personal. Oh oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I'm so deeply grateful to you. I learned so
much from you, No, I, coach, I enjoyed every minute
of this. Now now, Coach Clint came over and said,
you did good. Coach Rob said you did great. I said,
I don't feel that the results were great, but he
goes you pushed, so we expect to stand there and
eat with them, to talk a bit about our families,
the careers. That moment is very high in the scale,
but one other stands higher. There's so many, so many
Connor during Murph said, I'm finishing this for you her,
but there's one moment that stands out above all of
them to me, and it was all six of us
were together. We did make our hour taking that implement
down the hill. One of the guys spoke and said,
you look at that view. The sun was going down
in California over the desert hills. There's a winery, there's
a great vineyard. Somewhere down there's the grinder. Crazy to
admire that. At that moment, I said, the coach Klin
was walking by me. The moments like that ever happened
in combat. He said, we should talk about that one day.
Speaker 2: Will.
Speaker 1: Conrad Carlos Brian Teddy. If I do seal fit again,
and I'm leaning very much towards it, it will be
because I want to be a man worthy of standing
next to you on the fiftieth hour. In fact, I
might need to be that man. I do want to
remind everin particular myself from John Chapter twelve, verse forty three.
For they love the glory that comes from man more
than the glory that comes from God. But you guys
couldn't have that strength without God. What God gave you
in your love and support of me, I felt God's presence,
and I was the one who wanted you to feel
His presence through me. Maybe my most profound failure, although
maybe you did. I haven't talked you about it. I
can't wait to talk to you tonight. Coach de Mine,
Coach Rob, coach Clint, Coach Mel, thank you. I needed
that bood kick. I've never been more grateful to have
my butt handed me. This is a Todd Hermershew. Please go,
be well, be strong, be kind, to make every effort
to walk in the light of Christ. And I know
normally just end this with the word of God. But
who yah to my brothers who secured and to everyone
everyone down there.