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 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, and 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.
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 Todd Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is a day the Lord has made, and these
are the times to which God has decided 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. It was 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. 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 seal Fit 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'm left late at 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 I'm 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,
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code todd. 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 hydro bar and I got a an IV it's
called the Meyers Drip, and I had to did the IV,
a vitamin treatment, et cetera. And it was all about
being hydrated because it just gotten up an airplane that
no two days before. I knew 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
the 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, the second the only two female coaches
that I met at seal Fit. And Milanie 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 to 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 waist 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
loved these guys. So coach looks at me, goes, Fancy
Tattoos Herman, yeah, coach, it's the uh, it's the team,
is it. Fancy Tattoos looks at one of our teammates.
He goes, man, look at those pants. 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
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 was
not giving up total control. We'll run until Coach has
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 on running,
and he did it again, and I'm I'm now I
ignored everything Coach Divine'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 rattle snakes. 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 gonna, dude,
you're gonna weigh this team down. You are gonna 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 to stop.
Someone count one thousand and one to me, two thousand
and one. That's how long you have to 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 poorn water nists, 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. Mike
Lindell was a guy who sold pillows. He was a
wacky guy who sold pillows. He had pillows and all
sorts of retail stores, he'd worked up to My Pillow
being in bed Bath and beyond, as I recalled, these
big stores and you got a better price online and
you got to work directly with Lindell at his company
My Pillow. Then it wasn't his support for Trump, it
wasn't his support for Conservatism or the Lord Jesus. It
was elections and that's what made him persona on Groude,
even on places like Fox News, where he has now
not really been able to appear. So Mike keeps going.
He's an energizer, Bunny. This is a guy who's a
former meth addict and alcohol addict and a gambling addict.
To talk to him about that. But recently they did
it again. There's been a pretty big setback for the company.
There was a big retail store that said, yeah, we're
going to cancel, just hitting up to Black Friday. We're
just gonna cancel. It's hard to view this is anything
other than a get back at Mike Lindell. So Lindell
does what he does, is going to take this hit
to his company and offer it to us as our opportunity.
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pillow dot Com slash Todd. 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. They're gone 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 requests.
And we're an hour into this. I didn't even know
I was that week. And so coach Mail comes up.
She goes, stand there, stand over there. I'll walk over
this place. She goes, no, no, no, don't stand over there.
Come and sit down on this stretcher. I sit down
and she goes. She goes, I want to feel sorry
for you, but she told me you 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 going to 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.
Speaker 3: This happened.
Speaker 1: I looked up. Everybody was struggling, not to the degree
to which I was, and some guys were flat killers.
I never saw a couple of 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
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,
you needed rest. 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 focusing onnother'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 4: 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
expel 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 stupidity 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
sand and Coach Clint says, you're going to 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 Rob brought 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 gonna say in what form we carried him,
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 influence,
I 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 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 gonna 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 had the view behind us, so I could
see everybody six and I saw I saw a coach
Rob walking up guys coaches her coach coaches here. 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 packs, and 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
Rob 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 re lined 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 this is calm,
come over here, you 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 is to be secret to
seal fit, but it was an implement I've never used before,
kind of a sacred implement, honestly. And the sand bags
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 tie a knot
and this this canvas bag, or not canvas, but this bag.
And he's not getting it done and his hands are
starting shaking because herman, what am I doing wrong? Got
to spin it more, man, it spin it more on
the bottom and the seals 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 sandbag, but under that pressure, and
I'm watching and watching him shake, and then we had
to pay the man because thirty seconds went by, and
for some reason, to my utter shame, this brother somehow
made the decision to bear call 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.
Speaker 4: It for us.
Speaker 1: We failed them as a swim buddy. See, you never
go anywhere alone ever, And here's his brother out there
on his own. So the sand bags are filled, they
go on our pack. Now we begin this evolution of pulling,
you know, doing these bare crawls through this ridiculously deep
sand sandy dirt, and pulling these sandbags 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 then Coach Rob was actually really nice.
I mean it was like, what what dude, what happened
to you? And Coach Rob sid herm remembered knee across
the line, that's all he 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. I'm having
this morning. This would be oh gosh, let's see twelfth
twenty four. This is my Alex is laughing, my producer, Alex.
This is my thirtieth ounce, no, thirty second ounce of
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a pretend is sniffer? What do you all wine people drink?
What's the fancy wine things called like wine glass? I
don't know it's a fancy wine glass in this hand
of fake one because I don't drink wine. But if
it did drink wine, it would have bone Frog cellars
and I would go and I'd swish it around. And
that's called legs. Does it have legs? I learned this
from my friends who are wine snobs, wine wine experts.
It has legs, and then I would test the bouquete
like smit up my beak. You can do that with
coffee too. You could also do that with root beer.
You can do that with a blowney sandwich. I don't
know why people do it with wine, but they do it.
That's what you do. Then you take a little bit
of it and you drink it. You put it in
your mouth, but then you open your mouth and your
nose and you breathe. Fuck tru as you're testing the wine.
I think you do that in a little bit more
aerodyite form, a little bit more genteel.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 1: I don't drink wine, but I turn to my friends
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As we began this evolution, and we were going through
these bare crawls through the sand, and then every round,
every round, we had to be as fast or faster
than the previous round, or we went another round, or
we're gonna 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. Now, 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've 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'd be came Johnny organized the bags
like this. Somehow this got my thing. Wait, wait, no
logos this side. Wait no, it's not six inches apart.
So we're jumping up off the ground and I have
my hands hands asks 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 work out details.
But we did some passing of sandbags a seventy five
pound bag and a fifty pound bag around this circle.
And the 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 burpees 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 just the purpose 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, urman. 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 an I'm guessing here, probably one,
probably one eighty five, maybe two hundred pounds, and Coach
Rob says.
Speaker 4: Pick it up.
Speaker 1: 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 black top 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 weight 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 switch. 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. Lower the
lower my side, a lower my side, and we'll look
at me. And he 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.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: 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 off 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, I'm guys, guys, guys
on the fence line. Let's organ these things. 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 it was hands hands yep. Okay, right,
we take the sandbags 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.
Speaker 4: It's just work.
Speaker 1: Like, at least I can 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 on his radio. Oh, ELS's changed, guys,
back down first, guy here, leave your sandbag. Everyone else down.
ELS's changed. Now we run down and we're going to
drop the bags, and coach goes, 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 going to be? I'm gonna
paste this. Knock that off. Look around, how's the team doing?
Someone charted the chance present positive optimistic as we are
running present pauseive, 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 sandbags 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, and 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 blankers, you
squat down, you put your hands under your toes, and
then you elevate your hind 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 grin, 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? And 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 his mouth. He shut his mouth, like,
I don't wish you toss in 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 I 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 pushups. 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. My push ups are back. 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 the hill,
and every time we said it do we 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 in the 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, like guys didn't say
anything other than like, glad you're back. So I tell
you this thing, I said to coach. In a second,
then I'll talk about this hill. And then when I realized,
I think I'm in huge trouble, huge, huge trouble. We
in the holiday season, I have opportunities to communicate messages
through the gifts we give. I try very very hard
when I give a gift to someone I love to
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I know you, and I respect to and I want
you to know that I've paid attention to these aspects
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So as coach is letting us reci 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 go, wa, 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 big in me to let you earn it off
for your team, that's not gonna 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, saidd bossy, coach,
thank you. We run up this hill and he arranges
this in the order that we ended that last evolution,
and I was fourth, and he said, line up in
order of your or of your ranking and the team.
I'm like, well, well, you 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
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 I'm in last place,
not that bad, and I actually get once again from
Coach Clint. Hey you're bringing 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 break.
We're gonna pay the man in a second number and
run back down. And I decide to go pee and
I can't. 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 gonna
make me leave. He goes, you got to tell him
so walk over to Curtis. I go, hey, how concerned
should I be that I haven't pee?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 1: That's not agreement 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 you as you could be in dialysis.
Speaker 3: A boyt the end of the day. Oh, I said,
but I hydrated. Man, I've had like two gowns. I mean,
I'm now two and a half gallons of water and
he goes hermon.
Speaker 1: Again. I hate to say this, but your age makes
this harder. It's up to you. 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.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: 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. And you know
what's crazy is I am 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 Meil and I
believe this was Sunday morning when I wrote this. No,
Saturday morning. No, it is Monday morning. I see it here.
Note Deer Melanie, I've been praying for Carlos Connor and
Teddy as the crucible news the end mark of twelve
noon today, Brian checked in and if 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. It would be celebrate the amazing
men on that team. I 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 Devine and to get some pictures
and stuff that we can use on later podcasts. I
wrote them 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 in 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 to be last
on a couple of 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 global meaning for me,
the men and women in a sessile 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 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 said, 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, am I understood,
good copy, Coach. So having a couple of brothers who
had 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
robbox it because Herman, you know, none of that was personal.
Oh oh my gosh. Yeah yeah, 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, their 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. Then moments like
that ever happened in combat. He said, we should talk
about that one day, Will Conrad Carlos, Brian Teddy. If
I do seal fit again, and I'm leaning very much towards.
Speaker 3: It, it will be because.
Speaker 1: 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
e veryin 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 supported 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 kicking. I've never been more grateful to have
my butt handed me. This is a Todd Hermannshaw. 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 yeah, to my brothers who secured, and to everyone
everyone down there. Zio