July 23, 2025 • 62 mins
📍Are you feeling overwhelmed by the chaos of the world? You're not alone. Former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor David Rutherford shares how the core concepts of his Froglogic framework—embracing fear, forging self-confidence, living the team life, and discovering purpose—can help you survive and thrive through life's darkest moments.
David opens up about his personal battles with fear, failure, and uncertainty, and explains how embracing these emotions can actually become the key to growth. If you're looking for a clear, actionable framework to reclaim control in an out-of-control world, this is the episode you need to hear.
💥 Learn more: https://www.davidrutherford.com
🎯 Take the Embrace Fear Course Today
🔥 Follow @TeamFroglogic and @DavidRutherfordShow on all platforms
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - My Time In BUDS
09:50 - I Needed A Mental Framework For Life
27:34 - “Froglogic” Framework
33:16 - Having A Positive Attitude
38:12 - Embracing Fear
47:35 - Team Life
58:00 - We All Need A Framework
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you feeling overwhelmed with the craziness that's going on
in our world right now, week after week after week
of just endless amounts of things that are provoking fear
and uncertainty. And you will tell you what I've gone
through that myself, not only in the Seal teams, but
working for the agency and as a father of four daughters.
(00:21):
That's why this week I want to share with you
some ideas that will help you manage all of the
madness this week on the David Rutherford Show. Welcome to
the show, everybody. I tell you what man As a
person that used to be primarily motivational in nature in
(00:43):
all of the content that I delivered, I just felt
like it was time for me to bring back a
little bit of that to the audience. Jeordie, and I
know you and I are talking every day about the
intensity of what we're seeing and what's going on. So
I just thought, based on your advice, I thought it
(01:06):
would be a good idea to just give some ideas
that I've learned over the last thirty years as a
motivational performance coach, professional speaker and author and podcast hosts
that I think could help the audience.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So I think you'll help me too.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I'm gonna just selfishly claim that this is going to
be a personal therapy session for me because of a
without getting into it, I think I've handled I've seen
one too many just disappointments politically and in all the
news lately. So I need I need some help, dude,
I need a boost.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Well I'm getting that a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
As a matter of fact, I think I get a
three or four text a week being like, hey, rot Man,
we ne you going to do a show that has
some positivity involved in that, and we need a little
bit of that old school rut back.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
And so I'm I'm I'm happy to oblige for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
All right, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
We need it. You got it, all right.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So, first and foremost, one of the things that I
think takes place when when we are so connected is, uh,
we have uh we don't have a lot of time
to to take a step back and reflect on all
of the situations that are taking place, or or better yet,
what are the core emotions that.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Are really.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Adding an imbalance to our subjective perception of things?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And and you know, I think the first time that
I really started to try and understand that as was
as a young athlete growing up in all the different
sports I've played, and going in and playing in college,
and and then and then really failing pretty monumentally in
that endeavor, uh, and then recognizing that in order to
(02:56):
be able to figure myself out, figure out how to
manage all of these fears that riddle us from you know,
all these different external and really internal limitations that seemed
to present themselves in all the different forms, whether it's
in good relationships, bad relationships, challenges in our ambition, or
(03:19):
really in our inability to push ourselves to develop the
particular skill sets.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Needed to match that ambition.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
It wasn't until I went into the Seal teams that
that really emerged and became more fundamental in approach of
that development. But I'll tell you where it really shifted
for me is when I became an instructor. And you know,
after probably about six and a half years in the teams,
(03:48):
I got the opportunity, or I was forced into the opportunity,
i should say, to become an instructor at Seal qualification training. Now,
for those of you who don't understand, you know, the
famous course in seal training is Basic Underwater Demolition Seal training.
That's a seven month course. That's your indoctrination. That's you're
(04:09):
kind of the proving grounds where you really have to
expose all of these ideas, right, you know, what are
you really afraid of? And how much capture that has
on you? You know, how strong is your self confidence
a day in and day out as you're constantly being
exposed enforced into failures, and then what your team orientation
(04:32):
looks like, and whether or not that team orientation matches
a very focused approach to your purpose, which is to
become a part of a unit, an organization that's bigger
than yourself. And so all of that exposure took place
but in buds and then what happens is you are
essentially have been reprogrammed, and you've been reprogrammed in a
(04:56):
very sophisticated way. This program has been in developed, meant
for over eighty years, really starting in nineteen forty three
in the build up to the D Day invasion, and
you know, during that time is really where you know,
the most famous evolution in our training profile, the hell week,
(05:17):
the famous hellmet actually emerge and it's the one of
the very unique evolutions that's still intact today because of
the significance of what transpires emotionally and intellectually, physically and
all those the four main categories that I think are
relevant to assess ourselves right physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually,
(05:39):
And so as they leave buds, they're essentially these little
robots Geordie, I mean we were. If you would have said, hey, rot,
go run into that brick wall. Well, who yah instructor whatever?
And I go run into the brick wall. Yeah, not
even a question, not even questions. Is as hard as
I can go into the wall and that's it, period, right,
But you got to have that idea, like I. I yes.
(06:04):
And the reason is is because and this is where
people really struggle the most, is we are programmed from
day one. You're a new father, and I'm sure, uh,
even while your child was in your wife's belly, you
were playing music for that child, you were she was
(06:25):
reading stories of that child, you were speaking to the child.
Now that your child has been born, I'm sure you're
developing patterns of uh protocols that reduce her her fear, right,
because that's the core emotion she runs off of, fear.
UH safety right within that context, and then the the
(06:45):
sense the sensation of love, right, those are those really
core emotions fear and love, right, is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
What I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm taking a lesson from our previous guest, the legendary
coach Swider. I'm already out. I'm telling her I love
her every single day. She don't understand a word I'm saying.
But I feel like there's some connection there.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
And that's what we do.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We program, right, and that's a programming imprinting whatever word
you want to talk about, But that's that's what's taking place.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And so you know, dependent upon how.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
You're raised obviously, that nurture environment, right, what you're exposed to,
what different types of training, sophisticated training programs or protocols,
and that comes as a result of Montssori school or preschool.
It comes in you know, do you have your child
watching the videos about site words, do you are you
teaching multiplication tables? You know, how early are you exposing
(07:41):
them to group sports or or to activities outside or
hiking or camping or phishing or whatever you are going
to try and program your child, And that takes place,
and then there's you know, the non focus programming the
result of watching parents fun or trauma, or or your
(08:02):
own debilitating circumstances. Let's say you come from you grew
up in an impoverished family with a single parent, right,
maybe you had multiple siblings that had were problematic within
the family. So all of that is programming. So you know,
really and where it really starts to manifest, I think
(08:23):
is going through that pre pubescence and puberty. Now, all
of a sudden, you have this system and you're trying
to understand your own personal identity, but you're still not
sure about the world because you just don't have enough reps.
And so what Buds does, in my opinion, Buds takes
that system and forces you to either press pause on it,
(08:45):
which is most likely what it is, and then to
compartmentalize all those pre existing ideas or imprinting or skill
sets that give you a framework and operating and forces
you to set it off to the side and say,
all right, we're going to teach you this new system
because in the very uh near future, you're we're going
(09:06):
to want you to put yourself in situations where people
want to kill you and then you want to kill
them more importantly, right, and so that's that's the development
process that's taking place. Well, once you're through buds Man,
you you've you're all in. You have uh completely allowed
(09:27):
that programming to take place, whether it was whether you
were broken down, and most guys you're broken down in
that first phase through how we can particular and then
all of a sudden you're kind of ready for that
next level and so you start to consume the imprinting
at a much more sophisticated and tolerable and long lasting way.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Right, that's where the programming shifts.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Well, once you finished, did you did you notice a
big difference in yourself pre post buds Oh monument.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's it's difficult to describe it really is. The guy
I was prior to buds was. I was essentially a
college dropout, art hippie, right, who had a pretty air
extant probably, Oh, I had long hair, right, I had
these horrible sideburns. Right. I was probably two hundred and
(10:21):
twenty five pounds.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
You know, I was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Very eccentric in my behaviors and really and also involved
in a lot of destructive behavior as well too, because
I wasn't satisfied with who I had emerged and had
what had taken place as a result of losing the
identity of being an athlete, a high level athlete. So
then I was kind of searching for what took place there.
(10:46):
That's why the decision emerged, All right, where do I
go to go kind of reassess these fears, expose those,
understand those in a deeper level, but then more importantly,
to learn a framework that can help me manage that
for the rest of my life in whatever I.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Was going to face. Because I I I, you know, through.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
The exposure to a lot of took a lot of
psychology courses, took a lot of philosophy courses, took a
lot of art history courses, a lot of English lit courses,
poetry courses, art courses.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Right and within all of the humanities.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
One of the positive things that emerges is that you're
it's about introspection. It's about understanding the magnitude of what's
available to you if you should choose to go out
in this magnificent adventure called life. But you have to
choose to go and search out these changes, right, you
have to expose yourself to the unknown and take the
(11:47):
risk in order to develop and evolve. Otherwise the world
is forcing the evolution within you and you're not in
control of that.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
So did you? So that was like explicit for you.
It wasn't like an I don't think is wrong either way.
You intentionally thought, I need a framework for handling life
going into buds, Yes, as opposed to like, I just
need the next challenge.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
What's something crazy I could do, Let's go into buds. No,
I needed a framework. Wow. And then I and I
knew it had to be centralized against something that was
that was at a higher order of purpose. Right, athletics
wasn't going to be able to do it anymore. For me,
it just because I had come to the realization that
(12:32):
I wasn't as good as I thought I was. The
illusion that I had generated that I was some elite
athlete had fallen, had fallen apart, you know, And partially,
you know that was because of my own inability to
adapt to my circumstances, which was playing at a higher
(12:53):
level where I wasn't the best, and playing against guys
that had really amazing athletic talent, and and and you know,
not accepting all right now, I got to work harder
than I'd ever worked before to assimilate into that next
level of performance. Well, I didn't do that, and then
so I was like, no, I need a framework a
(13:14):
system that can do this. And I'd always been a
fan of and kind of uh inspired by military stories
and backgrounds, you know, And I didn't know a lot
about the seal community at all until my freshman year
in college. My next door neighbor gave me a book
about seals in Vietnam. But it wasn't that it was
(13:37):
it was I knew I needed to be challenged in
a team environment, but at a really heightened level that
was going to help me reshape the way I looked
at the world, right in particularly perspective for a college kid. Well,
the lucky thing I had is that my dad was
a pretty profound intellect and so you know, we had
(13:59):
converse like that as a kid. Uh, you know, we
were not going on hunting trips and we were not
going fishing. You know, we would sit around and contemplate
and he would talk about you know, great minds and
history and talk about thinking and how you evolve in
that capacity. And and I think that was what really
(14:23):
was the seed that I needed to think beyond what
was in front of my face.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
That it had to be something.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Not kind of thrown together, but it was a focused
process that the outcome had a substantial outcome. Right.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
It was not something I could.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Walk away from, uh and it didn't have a long
lasting effect and effect on me.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Right, So you know, this was the program.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And you know, so after Buds, I was a radically
different person for sure, and you know, went through meta
training and jump school and all that stuff, went back
to a team, was on a team for a while,
did a first work up and deployment, and then in
my second platoon got you know, offered up to go
be an instructor at Seal Qualification Training. Now, at that
(15:22):
time SQT was thirty six weeks long, and now it's
it's I think it's forty nine weeks long. So it's
they they really wanted to go to a more consolidated
pipeline because what used to happen right before I got in.
You would go to a team and do your next
level training before you went into a platoon, and every
(15:43):
team did it differently, and so guys were at different
stages in their career and it was it was really disjointing.
You might go over to Team three, go through STT
in a couple months and then be in a platoon,
whereas team one year probationary period could last six seven
months before you finish and started up.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And so they wanted to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Make UH get a conformity to it that made more
sense for the community itself. And that's why SQT emerged
into into uh UH. And now it's even it's even
advanced even further now, so now it's a straight two
year pipeline. But what was I found fascinating about SQT
(16:27):
was it it was really this unique thing because we
had these robots, but what we needed to get them
to do is to start thinking independently again, right to
be free thinkers, because that's really what a commando is,
right as sea era and land commando, what seal means.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And so you.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Wanted a free you wanted a free thinker, but that
could think, you know, in the moment, unique creative thinking
within the context of of how the operational environment was
emerging in the kinetic nature of war, that they could
make real time calls that kept the advantage, the tactical
(17:06):
advantage in place for the unit, right for the platoon,
for the fire team, for the butt swim buddy, whatever
it might have been, that was in the engagement.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
And so I very quickly.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I had some really amazing guys that supported me because
I was just a one platoon wonder. I had only
done one platoon. And your measured your reputation is measured
by how many workups and deployments you do, and you
call that your platoon, right, And so I was around
guys that had four, five, six deployments and platoon workups,
(17:39):
and so here I what's this, you know, green dude?
In fact I was I was probably still still defecating
buds chow to a certain degree. Right, That's how relatively
proximal I was to my own training experiences.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You just you just got your whole identity in your
almost your personal to some degree just decimated and broken down.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Not decimated, not decimated, just subdued. So do who I
was before is subdued, Like it doesn't erase completely, but
all of the pre existing things to which you manage
fear and confidence and team orientation, they're subdued because a
lot of that is is impeding on what they want
(18:26):
you to become, which is to completely have the self
sovereign to the team. That's the essence of our culture.
That's the essence of all great teams. And what the
culture needs to be is you train the individual to
for the self, which is very natural or or complete
framework of the world itself is selfish in nature.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Right, is to be subservient to what the team needs
to have happened in order to be accomplished, which is
so they do because.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
They just brought this so they subdue all of the
self centered part of you.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
But all I'm thinking is at that point, before you
get to that qualification training, you've got to feel a
little lost because they just took away what you've used
to navigate all of these different challenges in life, or
at least subdued them. But they haven't yet given you
the training and the solution yet.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Well, what they have given you is the context of
grit right and determination, you know, one of them the
most common things and we heard it with you know,
both doctor Craft and coach Gatz. What what they're trying
to get out of those athletes at Penn State is
grit right. Well, nobody teaches grit bether in special operations community.
(19:46):
I mean, the whole context is about grit. It's it's
when when when it sucks, and I mean sucks, you're
not going to quit on your teammate. Why Because you're
not going to quit in your teammate, right, because you
don't want your teammate to suffer.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And in our case it's die. So you you rise
up right.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's what my friend Derek calls the ambition of shame, right,
and so you utilize this construct of shame to perpetuate
harder work, a greater endurance, a greater capacity to manage pain,
a greater capacity to compartmentalized fear, a greater capacity to
(20:31):
idealize what it means to be an operator. And what
that is is not look at me, look at me
and my kit, look at me and my quad nods,
look at me on the bad assets. No, it's like,
look at me next to the guy next to me,
look at me next to him, look at what I'm
going to do for him. And that's all of a sudden,
(20:52):
like the people, the peers that are managing all this,
the instructors, your platoonmates that are senior to you, like
that's what they're looking for, you know. Eddie Gallagher talks
about this in a really great way. I just was
watching a recent podcast of his. He had a Delta
guy on, I think and and a Green Bray and
they were talking about this, like it's the attitude you
(21:15):
bring to the team that speaks volumes to your character
and who you are and whether or not they want
people want to work with you, and so that takes place.
So you finish that and like that's the whole thing.
It's like you are loyal to beyond measure to that principle,
Like I'm going to crush myself so that my buddy like,
(21:36):
oh yeah, I trust him with my life.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It's just really ordering things like there's almost no personal concern.
It sounds like there's no personal concern that would trump
the needs of the mission in your team.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
There's nothing that could happen to you because you'll die.
You'll die for the team.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Perreres, I'm tired, I'm in pain, I'm scared, I'm whatever.
Those are completely underneath what the mission of the team
needs one.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Hundred percent and more so. They'll even individualize it quite
a bit in training, like instructors will be like, hey, rut,
you're gonna let Sandy down right now, you're letting your
your swim buddy, or you're letting Henry down, or you're
letting Joe down, or you're letting Rob down right now
by your behavior. I want you to look at his
(22:22):
face while you're whining, while you're bitching, while you're moaning,
while you're complaining, while you look like you want to quit.
Right now, look at your teammate's face, and I want
you to see what you're doing to him in your
and your weakness, and you're like, yeah, whoa. So you
take that and you move into this sense of SQT
(22:44):
and now it's like all right. As an instructor, it
was very It's like I started thinking that that's the
way I needed to instruct very quickly. Had you know,
my mentor Bruce Cottingham, other amazing guys that were senior
to me that real We're like, all right, Ron, look
at this way. You don't necessary Yes, there is a
place for being hard on somebody, but the idea is
(23:07):
to extrapolate the best of this individual so they can,
you know, the individual nature of them, can now bring
back some of that stuff that had gotten them to
the decision in the first place to join that creativity
and implement that now in a grander context. Right, Psychologically,
(23:27):
it's not just about the robo response of being hard,
but more so like, all right, how can I also
support my teammate emotionally? How can I support the mission
being more creative? How can I support right? And so
it's like, all right, now we got to infuse a
(23:48):
greater context that it's not just about following the order
or what's laid out in front of you.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
And that's what really is unique about it.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And so you know, that's where I really started to
what I saw was like in particular post nine to
eleven because I was I was an instructor when nine
to eleven took place, and prior to that, there was
a different mentality, not because guys weren't committed or didn't
work their asses off, but there there wasn't There wasn't
(24:18):
this conclusive acceptance that everybody's going to war now, right,
And I think that was a real monster psychological shift,
and not only our community, but I think all communities
in particular where it was like.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
All right, you're going to war now.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And so after that it was like the responsibility of
the instructor. Stuff really increased because it's like, all right,
what are the fundamental mechanisms that we now need to
teach these young men as they're preparing to go for war,
to go to war very soon? Right, it was like
(24:56):
they showed they graduate SQT, they get farmed out to
their tea teams, they get in a platoon, they do
a workup, and they're going and then before you know it,
we were in Iraq, you know, by three. So now
you have two fronts. Now there's it's guaranteed, everybody's going
to war. You're not escaping a period.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And grit is necessary. Grit's necessary, but it's not sufficient.
It sounds like like you need the grit, you need it,
but you're that's not everything you need.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, I firmly believe that the operator that can think
under fire is the most dangerous human being on a planet,
right use. The person that under an incredible amount of
stress can still think and analyze their emotions without the
emotions getting the best of them, still think, analyze their emotions,
(25:46):
and then work in a confident way in a team
environment to come up with solutions based on the team objective.
That's the greatest form of the operator, right, it's it's
it's the thinking. It's a thinking man's game, right the most.
That's why we have such reverence for great generals in history,
whether it was Alexander the Great or General Lee or
(26:08):
or or whomever. It's why it's because under pressure, under fire,
chest Puller, right, Admiral Nimitts, under fire, real fire, these
people don't lose their cool. They keep control, they maintain
operational focus, and they're able to finish the mission.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
In the objective.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And those are that that's when you're lethal, when you
start to incorporate that, and I think that's what really
was supposed to emerge in this time. And then by
the time you got you left SQT, then you get
to a platoon, you do a year long work up.
That's where you're refining it as much as you can
as a new guy, right, And then that in that case,
(26:50):
now you have the pure evaluation of the guys you're
going to combat with, which is even more professional in
nature because you're still a student and there's still is
that student instructored a lot. But what you know, it
was during that time where I really began to understand
that there are some fundamental ideas that really need to
(27:10):
be explored and to help the students begin to recognize
that these things are playing a major role and their
ability to grow into that next version of themselves, right
to become the operator who can shoot, think, move, and
(27:34):
can communicate right, or think, shoot, move and communicate however
you want to divide it up. And that's where for
me the frog logic was born. You know, people every
now and then they hear me say that term, they're like, well,
what does that mean? And initially the whole thing when
I started frog Logic in two thousand and five into
two thousand and six, it was basically to expose people
(27:57):
to these core principles that I think are are underneath
the main psychological formats that they implement the development of
of of of a frogman, of a green beret or
whatever like. There are some fundamental core concepts, these principles
(28:20):
of whatever particular mindset you need to have to be
a member of a group like this, And and really
that's where the frog logic concepts emerged. And the first
one that I really focused on was the idea of
self confidence. Now a lot of people are like, well,
(28:41):
you know, how to self confidence play a major role like,
I'm pretty confident person.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I can you know, I can. I can handle myself.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
But you really got to ask yourself, like is your
self confidence that intact?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Now?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
One of the things that we see and I would
see with students. You can bang on a student, but
if you bang on a student long enough, they're going
to be defeated, right, And that's like the American public
right now, I think, and you know, you bang on
them long and hard enough and they'll either walk away,
(29:15):
check check out. And you know, I think we you
and I talked about that quite a bit. You know,
people are just over it. They're just not They're done
paying attention. They can't keep up with the new cycle.
They can't keep up with the intensity of being lied
to and the corruption and all that. So a lot
of people will just check out. But again, as you
and I both know, if you check out, the problem
(29:38):
only gets worse, right, And so you.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Think under the fire, the thinking under fire thing you
just said, I mean all these concepts.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm just thinking about it right now. That be self confident.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Okay, it sounds easy, like great, I'm confident, but it
actually doesn't matter unless there's some force fighting against it,
like yourself of confidence only really matters when you have
every reason to not be self confident right now, when
you have getting beaten down by life, when you're incessantly right,
that's that's really when it actually only when it really matters.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Well, think about it, right you?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
You you wake up every day and put your feet
on the ground, right, you check out your posable thumbs,
You take a deep breath air, and you're like, fuck,
all right, I'm good, this is good. And then you
move into the day and your first phone call you
get is from your boss going why are you late?
When you get in you're I'm gonna hammer this not
at or when you get to work, you know, someone
(30:34):
else gets a promotion and you don't.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Or when you go to uh, you know, eat whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You know you can't afford eating at this, so you
got to go each other and it's just you know
you can that's whatever I mean. Or you get dumped
or you're in a bad relationship, or you have generational trump.
There's there's so many different aspects that your self confidence
can take a beating on that it's critical right to
how do you recooper rate that?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
How do you recover?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
And so one of the things that I really try
to understand is like, what does the recovery look like
for the individual and do people have a system in place.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
On how that works?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
And so, you know, fast forward when I launched frog
Logic and really in earnest in the spring of two
thousand and six after working at Blackwater for a couple
of years.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
You know, I started with kids.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
That's where I wanted to folk, but the primary focus
was self confidence. I really wanted to teach young kids
ten to fifteen how to recognize that as identity. They
were trying to figure out who they were in a
very peculiar setting, right You know, it's crazy. I watch,
you know, four teenage daughters and I'm watching them in
their social environments and it's always like they're trying to
(31:52):
figure out, right, are they full of it right now?
Or how am I supposed to react in this moment?
And they're unsure of themselves. And I think young boys
are the same way too. It's a little different how
it emerges. There's a physical nature in it, I think
with young boys, but say it's very similar, how do
I fit in right now? And what about me as
(32:12):
I see myself as relevant to making the group want
to bring me into the group in whatever.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Format that is, right, the.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
A priori hierarchies of those subgroups and subcultures that exist
within all the different types of organizations we participate in
our familiar organization, our scholastic organization, our work organizations, whatever
they may be, our team organizations, and there's always trying
to figure out where you fit on the hierarchy. So
(32:43):
just that nature of that evaluation alone can really be
invasive on you know, having a very strong sense of
self confidence. So that was where I started first, and
try to figure out a system in place, right, and
you know they're training modules, but I call missions, and
so what I the idea is like there would be
(33:06):
four one topical mission and then four subsetets that help
support the development of that overall mission and to reinforce
the idea behind what it means to be able to
rehabilitate or maintain self confidence. So, like mission number one
in forging self confidence is have a positive attitude, right,
(33:27):
and that one thing alone, I swear, I swear to you, Jeordi,
that one concept alone has been the most transformational thing
for me in my entire existence. Right, And this is
the one thing that is undeniable, you know, And a
lot of people will debate me on this, said, well,
(33:48):
what if somebody has chronic depression, or somebody has you know,
bipolar or multiple personality disorder, or is on the spectrum
or whatever every human being. I'm not gonna say every Obviously,
there's a three to five percent that are psychopaths. There's
fifteen percent that are sociopathic in nature. Let's let's for
discussions purpose all the people, the morewhelming majority of people
(34:13):
respond in a positive way when there's a sensation of
a positive assessment of their world right right, when they
think they're in an environment that has relative positivity intact,
And that's in a form of safety. That's the form
of positive relationships, right feedback, that's in the form of
(34:36):
some even limited sense of meaning or purpose. That's in
the form of of you feeling like you have some
some control of where you're the direction your life has headed, right,
something to aim at, as Jordan Peterson would say. And
so that that idea of a positive attitude, like you
(34:58):
can do that every day. You don't have to pay
to have a positive attitude. You don't have to pay,
you don't have to download your positive attitude. You have
a choice to be positive or negative or neutral. I mean,
that's your choice every day and it's on you. And
there's you know, categorical proof that people in the very
worst situations that can be uh manifested within the human
(35:21):
condition in terms of being locked in a concentration camp
or a goolog, being grown up in perpetual violence or trauma.
You know, there's a place that anybody can conjure you
know that that there is a semblance of positivity.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Now, I also recognize that.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Through a lot of uh, very intense psychological abuse, you
can break human beings. Obviously, you know, the mk Ultra
program is one of the most known examples of that.
You come, you break somebody into dissociation, and uh you
can have manipulate them in any in any way you want.
(36:01):
But the overwhelming majority of people existing normally is like, man,
you can be positive every day.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
So that's step mission number one.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And well, I want to comment on that real quick,
which is I just want to like emphasize when some
people here have a positive attitude, at first glance, it
can look way less serious.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Or heroic or.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Dare I say, badass than it actually is because I
think the operative word there is have have about positive attitude.
Don't just like hope you're happy, right, because good luck
with that strategy. Right, But you know, you wake up
in the sunshining, everything's fine, You just got paid today.
Have a positive attitude easy, Like that doesn't really mean anything, right,
(36:49):
But you got fired. You just yelled at your kid
that morning when you shouldn't when you shouldn't have. You
just got a random tax bill for twenty five thousand
dollars you didn't prepare for right same day, your marriage
is hanging on.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Have a positive attitude.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Now, Well, I'm glad you brought that point up because
that was the dramatic shift in the evolution of where
frog logic went right. Because you know, after I spent
several years teaching this uh to you know, and talking
about this to about seven thousand kids from two thousand
and six to two thousand and eight, you know, I
(37:28):
in that exposure, you know, kids are the greatest thing
because there's there's such genuineness, there's such honesty, and their
reflections and their attitudes and their actions very you know,
fulfilling to analyze and to evaluate. Right, I began to
realize that there's another component. There's a layer that really
is that is UH, that is a preface or that
(37:55):
exists before confidence, even emergency, that's on a mark, a
quarter level. Right, this is something that's that's you're wired for.
And I wasn't able to put my mind on it
until I spent four years at the agency. You know,
I ended up writing my first adult book. I'd written
a children's book about self confidence, and when I worked
(38:16):
at the agency, I wrote an adult book on self confidence.
And as I was writing this, and then when I
left the agency and started speaking again, the question always
came up, Well, you know, were you afraid? Were you
afraid when you went through Hell Week? Were you afraid
when you went to combat? Were you afraid when you
were overseas where you're afraid? Were you afraid?
Speaker 4 (38:38):
You know? And then I began.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
To realize, Wow, there's there's an underlying component that supersedes
the idea of the construct of confidence, right, of self confidence.
It's that and it's that this innate thing, this thing
that's woven into the framework the wiring UH and the
emotional framework of of who you are from from birth right,
(39:03):
And that's the idea that's the emotion of fear. And
all you got to do is look at, uh, you know,
the way you're You're set up right on a on
a biological level within your limbic system in terms of
stress hormones and and and and positive hormones, which which
you know, you've got dopamine, oxytose, and serotonin, and then
(39:26):
over here you've got epinephrin nor epinephrin, uh, adrenaline and cortisol. Right,
and so you're you have this biological war that's being
waged every single day, which generates one of I think
the primary emotion that we have to manage throughout our lives.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
And that's why what spawned.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
This this this this show is fear and you want
to I mean, fear is fundamental in every way in
every human being. And so you know, from basically after
being asked this question at nauseum, I it was like,
you know, and I didn't know how to answer it.
Initially I kind of gave these kind of flipping answers,
(40:05):
like you know, how dare you ask me if I
was afraid in combat? I was like, you know, what
gives you that? Right? And I'd give stupid answers but
eventually I was like, no, people really want to.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Know, like they genuinely want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And so I spent about a year year. This is
because everybody's afraid. Everybody's afraid.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
They didn't want to know that if if even that
navy seal was afraid, then maybe they're not crazy, right, And.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's the thing, because you can't defeat fear. I hope
you're enjoying the show so far. Sorry to cut in,
but I had to give a shout out to one
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(40:52):
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(41:13):
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(41:34):
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Speaker 4 (41:54):
As we speak. So go to Firecracker dot Farm. Who yut,
It's just it's an impossibility. You can't. You're wired from it,
and you've been taught it your whole life. It's a
part as you can.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
They're not afraid. It is lying. This is lying.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Well, I mean, you know there's this idea, oh, that
dude's fearless. And I know guys, I mean one of
my friends has almost eight hundred combat missions and I'd
ask them, hey, dude, were you afraid your last deployment
is like rut, I was getting shot at. What do
you think? Of course, I'm afraid. I just know how
to manage it better through these these other ideas that
are woven into our training and my own psychological development
(42:31):
through Maine, through to an idea called stress and oculation,
but also through the deep introspection of you know and
I and for what a lot of guys talk about
it is if it's my time, it's my time. It's
the acceptance right that fears an integral part of my job,
my existence. And so if I allow fear to overwhelm
(42:52):
my aptitude to deliver skill sets under these pressure environments, then.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I'm not going to be what I want to be.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Well, that happens to everyday people too. I'm sorry to
interrupt you, but it have as in every d people.
It doesn't have to be just you're shot at, right,
I mean even I just got a small dose of it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, you have a kid That've got people who.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
When you before your kid came.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Absolutely yeah, because you realize you start thinking about, oh,
I'm gonna you got I gotta provide for my family,
I gotta do all these things, and immediately you go, okay, well,
what do I need to do to do that? And
then the next stage is you just picturing all the scenarios.
And here's the thing. It's not even that you're being
over overly paranoid. Sometimes you think of all the scenarios
(43:38):
that could get in the way of you protecting and
providing for your family that you are now up against, right.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
By the negative insurgency, the negative surgy.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
I lose my job, I lose an arm, I die,
I whatever, lose my mind to flip out, I can't
regulate my emotions. I make a wrong decision about some
just decision inside of a hospital that turns out bad. Right,
there's so many things you start realizing, and it's not
even crazy because you could do those things right. It
actually could go wrong. I could mess out. Let me
(44:10):
correct that I will mess up as a husband, and
I will. That's right, And so those are and then
and then also that's real, actual real world consequences for
the people that you love and depend on you. It's
actually real. And so this isn't just like hey, be
positive and you'll be happy. It's like, no, be positive,
(44:31):
like your life depends on it, and the lives of
the people who depend on you depend on it.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Well, and that's what I really tried.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
That's what emerged out of this right what fear it's
you know, you can't talk and and and you know
innuendo and metaphysics, you know about fear, Like you've got
to give people a concise way to address it. And
so that's what emerged next was really this idea of
(44:57):
teaching people to embrace their fear right because one of
the things you learn in the program is that you're
going to be afraid every day because every day you're
doing things that are high risk, you know, training evolutions.
Every day there's you make one long move and you
could be seriously wounded or killed.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Every single day. It's no avoiding it. So you have
to embrace it.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And if and if when you bring it in close,
if you're not sure what it is and where it
comes from, then it controls you and then it can
get the best. So you have to learn to embrace it.
So what did I do Based on the research, I
created five missions for learning to embrace fear. You know,
Mission number one is search for search for the truth
of your fear. And that's what I think people aren't
(45:39):
doing at all, Like I asked this one, you know,
and I give you know, one hundred hundred and twenty
five speeches a year to audiences and all across the
United States and around the world. And and I ask
you know when I give the embrace fear seminar as
I you know, step one, as you know mission one,
search for the truth of your Step one is write
(46:00):
down every single fear you've ever had as a child,
as young adolescents, young adulthood, at all your fears you
have right now and all the fears you have in
the future. And I asked the audience, I go raise
your hand if you've done this before. And and the
average and this is, let's say the average audience I
speak in from two hundred to three hundred people. The
average response to that is one person in the audience,
(46:25):
all right, And I AA.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Steps like admit that you have a problem sort of thing.
That's always a step one, right.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
One hundred percent. And I looked at AA right.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
I don't even know how many different training protocols and
profiles I've looked at as I was trying to figure
out the best way to deliver this information, because you know,
I wrote curriculum and SQT. I wrote curriculum at Blackwater,
I wrote curriculum at the agency, and I've written a
ton of curriculum for companies. I've written a ton of curriculum,
you know, for what frog logic concepts are too. So
(46:57):
I wanted something that was palatable for everybody to understand this.
So you know, all of most of the curriculum is
journal based. It's it's really just doing some introspection about
yourself based on different sequences or experiences you've had. And
then there are also some other activities that propel you
out to go at and evaluate yourself in real time
(47:19):
under different stressful situations or environments by choice. And so
the embrace fear one I discovered, all right, that is
the first thing. So what I did is I moved
it over here and I was like, all right, embrace
fear comes first once you go through those five missions.
The next is you learn to forge your self confidence.
(47:39):
That's eight missions. Then what emerged all around that time too,
was all right, everybody wanted me to talk about team orientation,
what makes a great teammate, what makes a great follower,
what makes a great team. So during that time, I
went out and I created the team life training concepts, right,
and in that there's four missions and either I believe
(48:02):
there are like four core concepts behind living a team life,
you know, a really dedicated you know, Mission number one
is defining your level of commitment, right, because if you're
not committed, forget it. You know, it's just and you
know we've been hearing this since we were little kids.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
Everybody. You know, your coaches, your teachers.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You know, R.
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Rutherford.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
You're not being committed. You're not you're showing up late,
you're not working hard, you're half ass in it. You're
not doing your homework, you're not giving it your all,
you're not participating, you're not committed. So it's this word
that's firmly integrated into our development as human beings, right,
as this core understanding. But yet, when you ask people
how they define commitment, in particular, if I set up
(48:46):
a team, which I do when I work with with
UH with teams, whether their corporate teams or professional athletic
teams or college teams, you know, one of the things
I ask is like, all right, you know, independently, I
want you to write down how you define commitment. Now
you write down how you define it now, and then
I take these and I read them off, and yeah,
there's certain similarities, but there's a lot of stuff missing,
(49:08):
right because what happens over time core ideas and principles
or belief systems, they becommuted, they become cloudy, they become
convoluted with other you know, internal desires, wants or wishes,
and the orientation around the team is not there. And
so you know, really try and teach that essence that
(49:29):
the self is sovereign to the team in this So
you know, mission number one. Step one is define yourself
physically and how you're committed to being better. And that's
as specific as you know, how strong are you, how
fast are you, how much endurance, how far can you walk?
Speaker 4 (49:47):
How many pushups? How you know, how far can you swim?
How much?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
How much do you exercise? Because all of that, I believe.
You know, we're physical in nature, We're rooted in our
physicality as human beings. It's the essence of really what's
south operated us I think from so many other species
is that we're physically superior. I mean, we could wrong
longer distances, we have sweat glands, we have these opposable
thumbs and and you know, so they're really powerful. So
(50:12):
that's the first one. Then, you know, and then obviously
mentally and spiritually emotionally comes a follow But so you know,
after I had those three in place, it's like, all right,
this is the formula that I think really can help
people when they're under that duress, when they're in stress
or there or they're seeking a greater, more heightened level
of ambition and what they want to achieve in their lives. However, ah,
(50:38):
I hit a point where it was really when Simon
Senek really began to explode on the scene, and it
was like, what's your why? Right? And and that was
a fascinating question to me. And you know, I always thought, well,
you know, the why emerges, you know, when you seek
to improve yourself. But the actual opposite is true, right,
(51:00):
why is a fundamental thing? Now it can emerge as
you focus on these other pathways too. But what I
also believe is is, you know, the ultimate question that
a human being can ask yourself, there's two of them,
Who am I?
Speaker 4 (51:16):
And why am I? Here?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Therein lies a purpose to try and figure that out. Right, However,
I don't believe that people can really genuinely figure out
what their purpose in life is until they understand their fear.
They've embraced their fear, their self confidence is strong enough
to when they fail, they don't collapse, right, and whatever
(51:39):
aptitude they're engaged in, and then they have to have
a great team around them to support what the mission
ultimately becomes, and that purpose changes, it evolves. Right, all
of my buddies that I went through buds with, they're
living completely different purpose driven lives right now right there.
(52:00):
They're focused on different things and that's the beauty of purpose.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
It evolves as you evolve.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
But this is the core idea behind the frog logic concepts.
And so you know what I recommend to all of you.
If you're in that space where you're troubled by what's
taking place, you're struggling to manage the stress of your
stressors of your life, whatever they may be, man just
(52:30):
just pick one of these concepts. And even if you
don't want to see how I do it, or how
I break it down or anything like that, just pick
a concept. Just start with your fear, try and understand
what you're afraid of, right, Just start with that exercise alone,
Like why is this stuff make you afraid? And then
(52:51):
you know, from there can emerge all these next different
sequences or whatever sequence that you want to spin off into.
But without understanding your fear and really why this stuff
is getting to you, you know, you're kind of just
wandering in the woods or wandering in the desert to
use a biblical framework. And you know, there's some really
(53:13):
fascinating uh theologic theologians who've evaluated that that whole idea
and why did they wander so so long? And a
lot of people believe that, you know, and I kind
of agree with this. This theory is that these people
were slaves for so long that they lived in a
slave mentality. And the slave mentality is you're taught what
(53:34):
to think, you're taught how to act, and if you're
not sure, you're waiting for somebody to say do this,
do that, think this, think that, and that you're always
enslaved if you live there, and where are you most
a slave too? The fear of not knowing what's coming
next because you're waiting for life to to to to
happen to you. And that's essentially the negative insurgency that
(53:58):
I talked so frequently about that's the insurgency placing you
on the anvil and working you over and you have
no control over that. But when you take hold of
that and you start with understandable, I know what I'm
afraid of and I know why. Then now of a
sudden you're like, all right, what am I going to
do about it? That's placing yourself on the anvil and
(54:19):
you're working on yourself. And that's where I see And
back when I was an SQT instructor, that's kind of
loosely what I was trying to do is to get
these kids to admit, to recognize.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
You chose this path.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Now what are you going to do to evolve in
the next capacity in it? What are you going to
do to become the best version not only of yourself
as a seal, but what are you going to do
to become the best version of yourself as a person.
And that's something I struggled with immensely why I was
in the team. I was so uncertain of what it
(54:53):
was meaning, where I would take it, how I would
emerge it. And thankfully, towards the end of my career,
I finally got some people that were really able to
inspire me to to go down some better paths than
I had chosen previously. But you know, again we recognize,
you know, Jordan and I were in this every day
(55:14):
thinking about, you know, what is the best way to
deliver this information, and it was to mitigate all that
in you, to lower or reduce the anxiety of that
tsunami of information, or to help you deconstruct it and
pull it apart so you can take one piece out
(55:35):
of time and assemble h you know, a perception that
best fits where you're at, that that that doesn't degrade
your faith in the teams you're part of, that doesn't
degrade your self confidence, and most certainly that doesn't provoke
a heightened sense of fear and and by all of
(55:56):
these these metrics or these ideas that we're trying to
expose you and in the way in particular it should
you want to choose to utilize frog logic. You know,
that's the intent. That's really the intent about why Jordan
and I are doing this. It's the intent why I've
done what I've been doing for the last thirty years,
(56:16):
is to give you some type of formula that I
have invested quite a bit of a time experiencing myself
through my own evolution as an individual, as a human being,
as a man, as an operator, whatever you want to say,
as a father, as a as a Christian, you know,
(56:38):
and mostly and then to share it and in order
to kind of help you manage this tsunami of fear.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
So I hope I enjoyed that too. Yeah, I say,
real quick, is I think that's great?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
Is fascinating because I do think something I didn't realize
for a long time is that I do think men
need a framework. I think you need a framework because
otherwise you're going to try to make up your own framework.
And I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but you're going
to fail. And I don't know what kind of There's
(57:15):
a lot of different frameworks you you can go off
of it in different situations in your life, right Like
it could be the Navy Seals, sign up for the
Navy Seals. It could be learning from mentors through something
like frog logic. It can be Christianity, it can be anything, right,
a lot of different things. But something I didn't rest
for a long time was that I actually needed a
framework that I could actually you know, I thought I
could figure stuff out of my own figured out and
(57:36):
looking back, it's just pure pride. It's just pure pride
getting in the way of everything. And yeah, I think
having a framework is everything. So I'm glad that this
is that this exists basically and people can get help
from it.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
You're right, I mean from day one, right, you have
a framework, you have a framework how to perceive everything
you do. There's a a system, a process, and so,
you know, the hardest thing I think is as any
human being that really is has the propensity to think
(58:11):
that there's more to life than just consumption. There's more
to life than just excess. There's more to life than
than you know, uh, being selfish and seeking your you
know these you know the deepest desires you have, right,
and that's to contribute. And so how do you best contribute?
How do you best contribute, uh, you know, to your team,
(58:34):
how do you best contribute to your family, to your
loved one, to your children? And and you're right, it's
a framework and and and that was the whole, the
whole reason, uh, the whole impetus behind wanting to create
something that was rooted not in some mythological uh uh
self help stuff out there at all, but really based
(58:56):
on what life is really about, I believe, which is
how it's fundamentally imbued with suffering and pain. Uh, and
there's no escaping it. Uh and less and less you
alter your perception to be able to in the midst
of those moments of pain, to uh hold on to
(59:20):
the things that make us feel truly blessed and and
that that all of this is worth it. Uh. And
that's those connections, those those deep intimate relationships not only
with those we love most and hopefully with God and Christ,
but but more so with yourself.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
So you're right, we need a need framework.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah dude, yeah, man, exactly. That's it.
Speaker 4 (59:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
Well, I just want to say thank you to everybody. Hey, listen,
if you're digging the show, please what we need is
we need you to like subscribe on all our different platforms.
We really could appreciate comments say, whether you love us
or hate us, everything's good. We feedbacks great. You know,
(01:00:07):
if you have any ideas for shows for us, go
ahead and reach out at the Dave at Davidrutherford dot com.
You know, you please follow us on all the different
social media we're on x that's at d Rutherford Show.
All the other platforms is at David Rutherford Show. That's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon.
(01:00:33):
If you want to join us on Patreon for two
dollars a month, we give some extra content. We're getting
ready to release an actual speech I gave that that
is about this, which is the frog Logic concepts. It's history,
the core, the fundamental So you can find that on
our Patreon account. If you want to follow me specifically,
it's just at teamfrog Logic.
Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
You can follow me on all and mostly I'm on
x and Instagram. If you go to YouTube, we have
a YouTube channel, rumbert channel, TikTok channel for video. We
also post the whole show on all those places as
well too. If you are interested in this curriculum we are.
We have the Embrace Fear course available. We will soon
(01:01:15):
have the Forging Self Confidence quickly followed up I Live
the Team Life course, and then probably by the end
of August or into September, we'll have the Live with Purpose.
So all of the core Frog Logic concept course and
curriculum will be a bit available to you, and we
are going to have a special for those coming up
(01:01:36):
here soon. Not quite sure when, maybe mid August or so,
but pay attention. But if you want to just get
going automatically, you can take the Embrace Fear course immediately.
And where can they find that? At David Rutherford dot com.
Everything will be on Dave Road for a count. Come
all right, everybody, God bless you, good luck. I want
(01:01:56):
to thank Christ, I want to thank my beautiful wife,
my children, and I want to thank you Jeordie man
and Uh, I feel so blessed uh to have you
in my life. Brother, thank you, Amen, same to you
and thank all of you. God bless who Yah
Are you feeling overwhelmed with the craziness that's going on
in our world right now, week after week after week
of just endless amounts of things that are provoking fear
and uncertainty. And you will tell you what I've gone
through that myself, not only in the Seal teams, but
working for the agency and as a father of four daughters.
(00:21):
That's why this week I want to share with you
some ideas that will help you manage all of the
madness this week on the David Rutherford Show. Welcome to
the show, everybody. I tell you what man As a
person that used to be primarily motivational in nature in
(00:43):
all of the content that I delivered, I just felt
like it was time for me to bring back a
little bit of that to the audience. Jeordie, and I
know you and I are talking every day about the
intensity of what we're seeing and what's going on. So
I just thought, based on your advice, I thought it
(01:06):
would be a good idea to just give some ideas
that I've learned over the last thirty years as a
motivational performance coach, professional speaker and author and podcast hosts
that I think could help the audience.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So I think you'll help me too.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I'm gonna just selfishly claim that this is going to
be a personal therapy session for me because of a
without getting into it, I think I've handled I've seen
one too many just disappointments politically and in all the
news lately. So I need I need some help, dude,
I need a boost.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Well I'm getting that a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
As a matter of fact, I think I get a
three or four text a week being like, hey, rot Man,
we ne you going to do a show that has
some positivity involved in that, and we need a little
bit of that old school rut back.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
And so I'm I'm I'm happy to oblige for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
All right, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
We need it. You got it, all right.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So, first and foremost, one of the things that I
think takes place when when we are so connected is, uh,
we have uh we don't have a lot of time
to to take a step back and reflect on all
of the situations that are taking place, or or better yet,
what are the core emotions that.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Are really.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Adding an imbalance to our subjective perception of things?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And and you know, I think the first time that
I really started to try and understand that as was
as a young athlete growing up in all the different
sports I've played, and going in and playing in college,
and and then and then really failing pretty monumentally in
that endeavor, uh, and then recognizing that in order to
(02:56):
be able to figure myself out, figure out how to
manage all of these fears that riddle us from you know,
all these different external and really internal limitations that seemed
to present themselves in all the different forms, whether it's
in good relationships, bad relationships, challenges in our ambition, or
(03:19):
really in our inability to push ourselves to develop the
particular skill sets.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Needed to match that ambition.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
It wasn't until I went into the Seal teams that
that really emerged and became more fundamental in approach of
that development. But I'll tell you where it really shifted
for me is when I became an instructor. And you know,
after probably about six and a half years in the teams,
(03:48):
I got the opportunity, or I was forced into the opportunity,
i should say, to become an instructor at Seal qualification training. Now,
for those of you who don't understand, you know, the
famous course in seal training is Basic Underwater Demolition Seal training.
That's a seven month course. That's your indoctrination. That's you're
(04:09):
kind of the proving grounds where you really have to
expose all of these ideas, right, you know, what are
you really afraid of? And how much capture that has
on you? You know, how strong is your self confidence
a day in and day out as you're constantly being
exposed enforced into failures, and then what your team orientation
(04:32):
looks like, and whether or not that team orientation matches
a very focused approach to your purpose, which is to
become a part of a unit, an organization that's bigger
than yourself. And so all of that exposure took place
but in buds and then what happens is you are
essentially have been reprogrammed, and you've been reprogrammed in a
(04:56):
very sophisticated way. This program has been in developed, meant
for over eighty years, really starting in nineteen forty three
in the build up to the D Day invasion, and
you know, during that time is really where you know,
the most famous evolution in our training profile, the hell week,
(05:17):
the famous hellmet actually emerge and it's the one of
the very unique evolutions that's still intact today because of
the significance of what transpires emotionally and intellectually, physically and
all those the four main categories that I think are
relevant to assess ourselves right physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually,
(05:39):
And so as they leave buds, they're essentially these little
robots Geordie, I mean we were. If you would have said, hey, rot,
go run into that brick wall. Well, who yah instructor whatever?
And I go run into the brick wall. Yeah, not
even a question, not even questions. Is as hard as
I can go into the wall and that's it, period, right,
But you got to have that idea, like I. I yes.
(06:04):
And the reason is is because and this is where
people really struggle the most, is we are programmed from
day one. You're a new father, and I'm sure, uh,
even while your child was in your wife's belly, you
were playing music for that child, you were she was
(06:25):
reading stories of that child, you were speaking to the child.
Now that your child has been born, I'm sure you're
developing patterns of uh protocols that reduce her her fear, right,
because that's the core emotion she runs off of, fear.
UH safety right within that context, and then the the
(06:45):
sense the sensation of love, right, those are those really
core emotions fear and love, right, is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
What I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm taking a lesson from our previous guest, the legendary
coach Swider. I'm already out. I'm telling her I love
her every single day. She don't understand a word I'm saying.
But I feel like there's some connection there.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
And that's what we do.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
We program, right, and that's a programming imprinting whatever word
you want to talk about, But that's that's what's taking place.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And so you know, dependent upon how.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
You're raised obviously, that nurture environment, right, what you're exposed to,
what different types of training, sophisticated training programs or protocols,
and that comes as a result of Montssori school or preschool.
It comes in you know, do you have your child
watching the videos about site words, do you are you
teaching multiplication tables? You know, how early are you exposing
(07:41):
them to group sports or or to activities outside or
hiking or camping or phishing or whatever you are going
to try and program your child, And that takes place,
and then there's you know, the non focus programming the
result of watching parents fun or trauma, or or your
(08:02):
own debilitating circumstances. Let's say you come from you grew
up in an impoverished family with a single parent, right,
maybe you had multiple siblings that had were problematic within
the family. So all of that is programming. So you know,
really and where it really starts to manifest, I think
(08:23):
is going through that pre pubescence and puberty. Now, all
of a sudden, you have this system and you're trying
to understand your own personal identity, but you're still not
sure about the world because you just don't have enough reps.
And so what Buds does, in my opinion, Buds takes
that system and forces you to either press pause on it,
(08:45):
which is most likely what it is, and then to
compartmentalize all those pre existing ideas or imprinting or skill
sets that give you a framework and operating and forces
you to set it off to the side and say,
all right, we're going to teach you this new system
because in the very uh near future, you're we're going
(09:06):
to want you to put yourself in situations where people
want to kill you and then you want to kill
them more importantly, right, and so that's that's the development
process that's taking place. Well, once you're through buds Man,
you you've you're all in. You have uh completely allowed
(09:27):
that programming to take place, whether it was whether you
were broken down, and most guys you're broken down in
that first phase through how we can particular and then
all of a sudden you're kind of ready for that
next level and so you start to consume the imprinting
at a much more sophisticated and tolerable and long lasting way.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Right, that's where the programming shifts.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Well, once you finished, did you did you notice a
big difference in yourself pre post buds Oh monument.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's it's difficult to describe it really is. The guy
I was prior to buds was. I was essentially a
college dropout, art hippie, right, who had a pretty air
extant probably, Oh, I had long hair, right, I had
these horrible sideburns. Right. I was probably two hundred and
(10:21):
twenty five pounds.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
You know, I was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Very eccentric in my behaviors and really and also involved
in a lot of destructive behavior as well too, because
I wasn't satisfied with who I had emerged and had
what had taken place as a result of losing the
identity of being an athlete, a high level athlete. So
then I was kind of searching for what took place there.
(10:46):
That's why the decision emerged, All right, where do I
go to go kind of reassess these fears, expose those,
understand those in a deeper level, but then more importantly,
to learn a framework that can help me manage that
for the rest of my life in whatever I.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Was going to face. Because I I I, you know, through.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
The exposure to a lot of took a lot of
psychology courses, took a lot of philosophy courses, took a
lot of art history courses, a lot of English lit courses,
poetry courses, art courses.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Right and within all of the humanities.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
One of the positive things that emerges is that you're
it's about introspection. It's about understanding the magnitude of what's
available to you if you should choose to go out
in this magnificent adventure called life. But you have to
choose to go and search out these changes, right, you
have to expose yourself to the unknown and take the
(11:47):
risk in order to develop and evolve. Otherwise the world
is forcing the evolution within you and you're not in
control of that.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
So did you? So that was like explicit for you.
It wasn't like an I don't think is wrong either way.
You intentionally thought, I need a framework for handling life
going into buds, Yes, as opposed to like, I just
need the next challenge.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
What's something crazy I could do, Let's go into buds. No,
I needed a framework. Wow. And then I and I
knew it had to be centralized against something that was
that was at a higher order of purpose. Right, athletics
wasn't going to be able to do it anymore. For me,
it just because I had come to the realization that
(12:32):
I wasn't as good as I thought I was. The
illusion that I had generated that I was some elite
athlete had fallen, had fallen apart, you know, And partially,
you know that was because of my own inability to
adapt to my circumstances, which was playing at a higher
(12:53):
level where I wasn't the best, and playing against guys
that had really amazing athletic talent, and and and you know,
not accepting all right now, I got to work harder
than I'd ever worked before to assimilate into that next
level of performance. Well, I didn't do that, and then
so I was like, no, I need a framework a
(13:14):
system that can do this. And I'd always been a
fan of and kind of uh inspired by military stories
and backgrounds, you know, And I didn't know a lot
about the seal community at all until my freshman year
in college. My next door neighbor gave me a book
about seals in Vietnam. But it wasn't that it was
(13:37):
it was I knew I needed to be challenged in
a team environment, but at a really heightened level that
was going to help me reshape the way I looked
at the world, right in particularly perspective for a college kid. Well,
the lucky thing I had is that my dad was
a pretty profound intellect and so you know, we had
(13:59):
converse like that as a kid. Uh, you know, we
were not going on hunting trips and we were not
going fishing. You know, we would sit around and contemplate
and he would talk about you know, great minds and
history and talk about thinking and how you evolve in
that capacity. And and I think that was what really
(14:23):
was the seed that I needed to think beyond what
was in front of my face.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
That it had to be something.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Not kind of thrown together, but it was a focused
process that the outcome had a substantial outcome. Right.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
It was not something I could.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Walk away from, uh and it didn't have a long
lasting effect and effect on me.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Right, So you know, this was the program.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And you know, so after Buds, I was a radically
different person for sure, and you know, went through meta
training and jump school and all that stuff, went back
to a team, was on a team for a while,
did a first work up and deployment, and then in
my second platoon got you know, offered up to go
be an instructor at Seal Qualification Training. Now, at that
(15:22):
time SQT was thirty six weeks long, and now it's
it's I think it's forty nine weeks long. So it's
they they really wanted to go to a more consolidated
pipeline because what used to happen right before I got in.
You would go to a team and do your next
level training before you went into a platoon, and every
(15:43):
team did it differently, and so guys were at different
stages in their career and it was it was really disjointing.
You might go over to Team three, go through STT
in a couple months and then be in a platoon,
whereas team one year probationary period could last six seven
months before you finish and started up.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And so they wanted to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Make UH get a conformity to it that made more
sense for the community itself. And that's why SQT emerged
into into uh UH. And now it's even it's even
advanced even further now, so now it's a straight two
year pipeline. But what was I found fascinating about SQT
(16:27):
was it it was really this unique thing because we
had these robots, but what we needed to get them
to do is to start thinking independently again, right to
be free thinkers, because that's really what a commando is,
right as sea era and land commando, what seal means.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And so you.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Wanted a free you wanted a free thinker, but that
could think, you know, in the moment, unique creative thinking
within the context of of how the operational environment was
emerging in the kinetic nature of war, that they could
make real time calls that kept the advantage, the tactical
(17:06):
advantage in place for the unit, right for the platoon,
for the fire team, for the butt swim buddy, whatever
it might have been, that was in the engagement.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
And so I very quickly.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I had some really amazing guys that supported me because
I was just a one platoon wonder. I had only
done one platoon. And your measured your reputation is measured
by how many workups and deployments you do, and you
call that your platoon, right, And so I was around
guys that had four, five, six deployments and platoon workups,
(17:39):
and so here I what's this, you know, green dude?
In fact I was I was probably still still defecating
buds chow to a certain degree. Right, That's how relatively
proximal I was to my own training experiences.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
You just you just got your whole identity in your
almost your personal to some degree just decimated and broken down.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Not decimated, not decimated, just subdued. So do who I
was before is subdued, Like it doesn't erase completely, but
all of the pre existing things to which you manage
fear and confidence and team orientation, they're subdued because a
lot of that is is impeding on what they want
(18:26):
you to become, which is to completely have the self
sovereign to the team. That's the essence of our culture.
That's the essence of all great teams. And what the
culture needs to be is you train the individual to
for the self, which is very natural or or complete
framework of the world itself is selfish in nature.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Right, is to be subservient to what the team needs
to have happened in order to be accomplished, which is
so they do because.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
They just brought this so they subdue all of the
self centered part of you.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
But all I'm thinking is at that point, before you
get to that qualification training, you've got to feel a
little lost because they just took away what you've used
to navigate all of these different challenges in life, or
at least subdued them. But they haven't yet given you
the training and the solution yet.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Well, what they have given you is the context of
grit right and determination, you know, one of them the
most common things and we heard it with you know,
both doctor Craft and coach Gatz. What what they're trying
to get out of those athletes at Penn State is
grit right. Well, nobody teaches grit bether in special operations community.
(19:46):
I mean, the whole context is about grit. It's it's
when when when it sucks, and I mean sucks, you're
not going to quit on your teammate. Why Because you're
not going to quit in your teammate, right, because you
don't want your teammate to suffer.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And in our case it's die. So you you rise
up right.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's what my friend Derek calls the ambition of shame, right,
and so you utilize this construct of shame to perpetuate
harder work, a greater endurance, a greater capacity to manage pain,
a greater capacity to compartmentalized fear, a greater capacity to
(20:31):
idealize what it means to be an operator. And what
that is is not look at me, look at me
and my kit, look at me and my quad nods,
look at me on the bad assets. No, it's like,
look at me next to the guy next to me,
look at me next to him, look at what I'm
going to do for him. And that's all of a sudden,
(20:52):
like the people, the peers that are managing all this,
the instructors, your platoonmates that are senior to you, like
that's what they're looking for, you know. Eddie Gallagher talks
about this in a really great way. I just was
watching a recent podcast of his. He had a Delta
guy on, I think and and a Green Bray and
they were talking about this, like it's the attitude you
(21:15):
bring to the team that speaks volumes to your character
and who you are and whether or not they want
people want to work with you, and so that takes place.
So you finish that and like that's the whole thing.
It's like you are loyal to beyond measure to that principle,
Like I'm going to crush myself so that my buddy like,
(21:36):
oh yeah, I trust him with my life.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It's just really ordering things like there's almost no personal concern.
It sounds like there's no personal concern that would trump
the needs of the mission in your team.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
There's nothing that could happen to you because you'll die.
You'll die for the team.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Perreres, I'm tired, I'm in pain, I'm scared, I'm whatever.
Those are completely underneath what the mission of the team
needs one.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Hundred percent and more so. They'll even individualize it quite
a bit in training, like instructors will be like, hey, rut,
you're gonna let Sandy down right now, you're letting your
your swim buddy, or you're letting Henry down, or you're
letting Joe down, or you're letting Rob down right now
by your behavior. I want you to look at his
(22:22):
face while you're whining, while you're bitching, while you're moaning,
while you're complaining, while you look like you want to quit.
Right now, look at your teammate's face, and I want
you to see what you're doing to him in your
and your weakness, and you're like, yeah, whoa. So you
take that and you move into this sense of SQT
(22:44):
and now it's like all right. As an instructor, it
was very It's like I started thinking that that's the
way I needed to instruct very quickly. Had you know,
my mentor Bruce Cottingham, other amazing guys that were senior
to me that real We're like, all right, Ron, look
at this way. You don't necessary Yes, there is a
place for being hard on somebody, but the idea is
(23:07):
to extrapolate the best of this individual so they can,
you know, the individual nature of them, can now bring
back some of that stuff that had gotten them to
the decision in the first place to join that creativity
and implement that now in a grander context. Right, Psychologically,
(23:27):
it's not just about the robo response of being hard,
but more so like, all right, how can I also
support my teammate emotionally? How can I support the mission
being more creative? How can I support right? And so
it's like, all right, now we got to infuse a
(23:48):
greater context that it's not just about following the order
or what's laid out in front of you.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
And that's what really is unique about it.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And so you know, that's where I really started to
what I saw was like in particular post nine to
eleven because I was I was an instructor when nine
to eleven took place, and prior to that, there was
a different mentality, not because guys weren't committed or didn't
work their asses off, but there there wasn't There wasn't
(24:18):
this conclusive acceptance that everybody's going to war now, right,
And I think that was a real monster psychological shift,
and not only our community, but I think all communities
in particular where it was like.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
All right, you're going to war now.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And so after that it was like the responsibility of
the instructor. Stuff really increased because it's like, all right,
what are the fundamental mechanisms that we now need to
teach these young men as they're preparing to go for war,
to go to war very soon? Right, it was like
(24:56):
they showed they graduate SQT, they get farmed out to
their tea teams, they get in a platoon, they do
a workup, and they're going and then before you know it,
we were in Iraq, you know, by three. So now
you have two fronts. Now there's it's guaranteed, everybody's going
to war. You're not escaping a period.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
And grit is necessary. Grit's necessary, but it's not sufficient.
It sounds like like you need the grit, you need it,
but you're that's not everything you need.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, I firmly believe that the operator that can think
under fire is the most dangerous human being on a planet,
right use. The person that under an incredible amount of
stress can still think and analyze their emotions without the
emotions getting the best of them, still think, analyze their emotions,
(25:46):
and then work in a confident way in a team
environment to come up with solutions based on the team objective.
That's the greatest form of the operator, right, it's it's
it's the thinking. It's a thinking man's game, right the most.
That's why we have such reverence for great generals in history,
whether it was Alexander the Great or General Lee or
(26:08):
or or whomever. It's why it's because under pressure, under fire,
chest Puller, right, Admiral Nimitts, under fire, real fire, these
people don't lose their cool. They keep control, they maintain
operational focus, and they're able to finish the mission.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
In the objective.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And those are that that's when you're lethal, when you
start to incorporate that, and I think that's what really
was supposed to emerge in this time. And then by
the time you got you left SQT, then you get
to a platoon, you do a year long work up.
That's where you're refining it as much as you can
as a new guy, right, And then that in that case,
(26:50):
now you have the pure evaluation of the guys you're
going to combat with, which is even more professional in
nature because you're still a student and there's still is
that student instructored a lot. But what you know, it
was during that time where I really began to understand
that there are some fundamental ideas that really need to
(27:10):
be explored and to help the students begin to recognize
that these things are playing a major role and their
ability to grow into that next version of themselves, right
to become the operator who can shoot, think, move, and
(27:34):
can communicate right, or think, shoot, move and communicate however
you want to divide it up. And that's where for
me the frog logic was born. You know, people every
now and then they hear me say that term, they're like, well,
what does that mean? And initially the whole thing when
I started frog Logic in two thousand and five into
two thousand and six, it was basically to expose people
(27:57):
to these core principles that I think are are underneath
the main psychological formats that they implement the development of
of of of a frogman, of a green beret or
whatever like. There are some fundamental core concepts, these principles
(28:20):
of whatever particular mindset you need to have to be
a member of a group like this, And and really
that's where the frog logic concepts emerged. And the first
one that I really focused on was the idea of
self confidence. Now a lot of people are like, well,
(28:41):
you know, how to self confidence play a major role like,
I'm pretty confident person.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I can you know, I can. I can handle myself.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
But you really got to ask yourself, like is your
self confidence that intact?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Now?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
One of the things that we see and I would
see with students. You can bang on a student, but
if you bang on a student long enough, they're going
to be defeated, right, And that's like the American public
right now, I think, and you know, you bang on
them long and hard enough and they'll either walk away,
(29:15):
check check out. And you know, I think we you
and I talked about that quite a bit. You know,
people are just over it. They're just not They're done
paying attention. They can't keep up with the new cycle.
They can't keep up with the intensity of being lied
to and the corruption and all that. So a lot
of people will just check out. But again, as you
and I both know, if you check out, the problem
(29:38):
only gets worse, right, And so you.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Think under the fire, the thinking under fire thing you
just said, I mean all these concepts.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I'm just thinking about it right now. That be self confident.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Okay, it sounds easy, like great, I'm confident, but it
actually doesn't matter unless there's some force fighting against it,
like yourself of confidence only really matters when you have
every reason to not be self confident right now, when
you have getting beaten down by life, when you're incessantly right,
that's that's really when it actually only when it really matters.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Well, think about it, right you?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
You you wake up every day and put your feet
on the ground, right, you check out your posable thumbs,
You take a deep breath air, and you're like, fuck,
all right, I'm good, this is good. And then you
move into the day and your first phone call you
get is from your boss going why are you late?
When you get in you're I'm gonna hammer this not
at or when you get to work, you know, someone
(30:34):
else gets a promotion and you don't.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Or when you go to uh, you know, eat whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You know you can't afford eating at this, so you
got to go each other and it's just you know
you can that's whatever I mean. Or you get dumped
or you're in a bad relationship, or you have generational trump.
There's there's so many different aspects that your self confidence
can take a beating on that it's critical right to
how do you recooper rate that?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
How do you recover?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
And so one of the things that I really try
to understand is like, what does the recovery look like
for the individual and do people have a system in place.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
On how that works?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
And so, you know, fast forward when I launched frog
Logic and really in earnest in the spring of two
thousand and six after working at Blackwater for a couple
of years.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
You know, I started with kids.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
That's where I wanted to folk, but the primary focus
was self confidence. I really wanted to teach young kids
ten to fifteen how to recognize that as identity. They
were trying to figure out who they were in a
very peculiar setting, right You know, it's crazy. I watch,
you know, four teenage daughters and I'm watching them in
their social environments and it's always like they're trying to
(31:52):
figure out, right, are they full of it right now?
Or how am I supposed to react in this moment?
And they're unsure of themselves. And I think young boys
are the same way too. It's a little different how
it emerges. There's a physical nature in it, I think
with young boys, but say it's very similar, how do
I fit in right now? And what about me as
(32:12):
I see myself as relevant to making the group want
to bring me into the group in whatever.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Format that is, right, the.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
A priori hierarchies of those subgroups and subcultures that exist
within all the different types of organizations we participate in
our familiar organization, our scholastic organization, our work organizations, whatever
they may be, our team organizations, and there's always trying
to figure out where you fit on the hierarchy. So
(32:43):
just that nature of that evaluation alone can really be
invasive on you know, having a very strong sense of
self confidence. So that was where I started first, and
try to figure out a system in place, right, and
you know they're training modules, but I call missions, and
so what I the idea is like there would be
(33:06):
four one topical mission and then four subsetets that help
support the development of that overall mission and to reinforce
the idea behind what it means to be able to
rehabilitate or maintain self confidence. So, like mission number one
in forging self confidence is have a positive attitude, right,
(33:27):
and that one thing alone, I swear, I swear to you, Jeordi,
that one concept alone has been the most transformational thing
for me in my entire existence. Right, And this is
the one thing that is undeniable, you know, And a
lot of people will debate me on this, said, well,
(33:48):
what if somebody has chronic depression, or somebody has you know,
bipolar or multiple personality disorder, or is on the spectrum
or whatever every human being. I'm not gonna say every Obviously,
there's a three to five percent that are psychopaths. There's
fifteen percent that are sociopathic in nature. Let's let's for
discussions purpose all the people, the morewhelming majority of people
(34:13):
respond in a positive way when there's a sensation of
a positive assessment of their world right right, when they
think they're in an environment that has relative positivity intact,
And that's in a form of safety. That's the form
of positive relationships, right feedback, that's in the form of
(34:36):
some even limited sense of meaning or purpose. That's in
the form of of you feeling like you have some
some control of where you're the direction your life has headed, right,
something to aim at, as Jordan Peterson would say. And
so that that idea of a positive attitude, like you
(34:58):
can do that every day. You don't have to pay
to have a positive attitude. You don't have to pay,
you don't have to download your positive attitude. You have
a choice to be positive or negative or neutral. I mean,
that's your choice every day and it's on you. And
there's you know, categorical proof that people in the very
worst situations that can be uh manifested within the human
(35:21):
condition in terms of being locked in a concentration camp
or a goolog, being grown up in perpetual violence or trauma.
You know, there's a place that anybody can conjure you
know that that there is a semblance of positivity.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Now, I also recognize that.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Through a lot of uh, very intense psychological abuse, you
can break human beings. Obviously, you know, the mk Ultra
program is one of the most known examples of that.
You come, you break somebody into dissociation, and uh you
can have manipulate them in any in any way you want.
(36:01):
But the overwhelming majority of people existing normally is like, man,
you can be positive every day.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
So that's step mission number one.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And well, I want to comment on that real quick,
which is I just want to like emphasize when some
people here have a positive attitude, at first glance, it
can look way less serious.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Or heroic or.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Dare I say, badass than it actually is because I
think the operative word there is have have about positive attitude.
Don't just like hope you're happy, right, because good luck
with that strategy. Right, But you know, you wake up
in the sunshining, everything's fine, You just got paid today.
Have a positive attitude easy, Like that doesn't really mean anything, right,
(36:49):
But you got fired. You just yelled at your kid
that morning when you shouldn't when you shouldn't have. You
just got a random tax bill for twenty five thousand
dollars you didn't prepare for right same day, your marriage
is hanging on.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Have a positive attitude.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Now, Well, I'm glad you brought that point up because
that was the dramatic shift in the evolution of where
frog logic went right. Because you know, after I spent
several years teaching this uh to you know, and talking
about this to about seven thousand kids from two thousand
and six to two thousand and eight, you know, I
(37:28):
in that exposure, you know, kids are the greatest thing
because there's there's such genuineness, there's such honesty, and their
reflections and their attitudes and their actions very you know,
fulfilling to analyze and to evaluate. Right, I began to
realize that there's another component. There's a layer that really
is that is UH, that is a preface or that
(37:55):
exists before confidence, even emergency, that's on a mark, a
quarter level. Right, this is something that's that's you're wired for.
And I wasn't able to put my mind on it
until I spent four years at the agency. You know,
I ended up writing my first adult book. I'd written
a children's book about self confidence, and when I worked
(38:16):
at the agency, I wrote an adult book on self confidence.
And as I was writing this, and then when I
left the agency and started speaking again, the question always
came up, Well, you know, were you afraid? Were you
afraid when you went through Hell Week? Were you afraid
when you went to combat? Were you afraid when you
were overseas where you're afraid? Were you afraid?
Speaker 4 (38:38):
You know? And then I began.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
To realize, Wow, there's there's an underlying component that supersedes
the idea of the construct of confidence, right, of self confidence.
It's that and it's that this innate thing, this thing
that's woven into the framework the wiring UH and the
emotional framework of of who you are from from birth right,
(39:03):
And that's the idea that's the emotion of fear. And
all you got to do is look at, uh, you know,
the way you're You're set up right on a on
a biological level within your limbic system in terms of
stress hormones and and and and positive hormones, which which
you know, you've got dopamine, oxytose, and serotonin, and then
(39:26):
over here you've got epinephrin nor epinephrin, uh, adrenaline and cortisol. Right,
and so you're you have this biological war that's being
waged every single day, which generates one of I think
the primary emotion that we have to manage throughout our lives.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
And that's why what spawned.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
This this this this show is fear and you want
to I mean, fear is fundamental in every way in
every human being. And so you know, from basically after
being asked this question at nauseum, I it was like,
you know, and I didn't know how to answer it.
Initially I kind of gave these kind of flipping answers,
(40:05):
like you know, how dare you ask me if I
was afraid in combat? I was like, you know, what
gives you that? Right? And I'd give stupid answers but
eventually I was like, no, people really want to.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Know, like they genuinely want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And so I spent about a year year. This is
because everybody's afraid. Everybody's afraid.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
They didn't want to know that if if even that
navy seal was afraid, then maybe they're not crazy, right, And.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's the thing, because you can't defeat fear. I hope
you're enjoying the show so far. Sorry to cut in,
but I had to give a shout out to one
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(40:52):
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(41:13):
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Speaker 4 (41:54):
As we speak. So go to Firecracker dot Farm. Who yut,
It's just it's an impossibility. You can't. You're wired from it,
and you've been taught it your whole life. It's a
part as you can.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
They're not afraid. It is lying. This is lying.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Well, I mean, you know there's this idea, oh, that
dude's fearless. And I know guys, I mean one of
my friends has almost eight hundred combat missions and I'd
ask them, hey, dude, were you afraid your last deployment
is like rut, I was getting shot at. What do
you think? Of course, I'm afraid. I just know how
to manage it better through these these other ideas that
are woven into our training and my own psychological development
(42:31):
through Maine, through to an idea called stress and oculation,
but also through the deep introspection of you know and
I and for what a lot of guys talk about
it is if it's my time, it's my time. It's
the acceptance right that fears an integral part of my job,
my existence. And so if I allow fear to overwhelm
(42:52):
my aptitude to deliver skill sets under these pressure environments, then.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I'm not going to be what I want to be.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Well, that happens to everyday people too. I'm sorry to
interrupt you, but it have as in every d people.
It doesn't have to be just you're shot at, right,
I mean even I just got a small dose of it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, you have a kid That've got people who.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
When you before your kid came.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Absolutely yeah, because you realize you start thinking about, oh,
I'm gonna you got I gotta provide for my family,
I gotta do all these things, and immediately you go, okay, well,
what do I need to do to do that? And
then the next stage is you just picturing all the scenarios.
And here's the thing. It's not even that you're being
over overly paranoid. Sometimes you think of all the scenarios
(43:38):
that could get in the way of you protecting and
providing for your family that you are now up against, right.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
By the negative insurgency, the negative surgy.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
I lose my job, I lose an arm, I die,
I whatever, lose my mind to flip out, I can't
regulate my emotions. I make a wrong decision about some
just decision inside of a hospital that turns out bad. Right,
there's so many things you start realizing, and it's not
even crazy because you could do those things right. It
actually could go wrong. I could mess out. Let me
(44:10):
correct that I will mess up as a husband, and
I will. That's right, And so those are and then
and then also that's real, actual real world consequences for
the people that you love and depend on you. It's
actually real. And so this isn't just like hey, be
positive and you'll be happy. It's like, no, be positive,
(44:31):
like your life depends on it, and the lives of
the people who depend on you depend on it.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Well, and that's what I really tried.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
That's what emerged out of this right what fear it's
you know, you can't talk and and and you know
innuendo and metaphysics, you know about fear, Like you've got
to give people a concise way to address it. And
so that's what emerged next was really this idea of
(44:57):
teaching people to embrace their fear right because one of
the things you learn in the program is that you're
going to be afraid every day because every day you're
doing things that are high risk, you know, training evolutions.
Every day there's you make one long move and you
could be seriously wounded or killed.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Every single day. It's no avoiding it. So you have
to embrace it.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And if and if when you bring it in close,
if you're not sure what it is and where it
comes from, then it controls you and then it can
get the best. So you have to learn to embrace it.
So what did I do Based on the research, I
created five missions for learning to embrace fear. You know,
Mission number one is search for search for the truth
of your fear. And that's what I think people aren't
(45:39):
doing at all, Like I asked this one, you know,
and I give you know, one hundred hundred and twenty
five speeches a year to audiences and all across the
United States and around the world. And and I ask
you know when I give the embrace fear seminar as
I you know, step one, as you know mission one,
search for the truth of your Step one is write
(46:00):
down every single fear you've ever had as a child,
as young adolescents, young adulthood, at all your fears you
have right now and all the fears you have in
the future. And I asked the audience, I go raise
your hand if you've done this before. And and the
average and this is, let's say the average audience I
speak in from two hundred to three hundred people. The
average response to that is one person in the audience,
(46:25):
all right, And I AA.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Steps like admit that you have a problem sort of thing.
That's always a step one, right.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
One hundred percent. And I looked at AA right.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
I don't even know how many different training protocols and
profiles I've looked at as I was trying to figure
out the best way to deliver this information, because you know,
I wrote curriculum and SQT. I wrote curriculum at Blackwater,
I wrote curriculum at the agency, and I've written a
ton of curriculum for companies. I've written a ton of curriculum,
you know, for what frog logic concepts are too. So
(46:57):
I wanted something that was palatable for everybody to understand this.
So you know, all of most of the curriculum is
journal based. It's it's really just doing some introspection about
yourself based on different sequences or experiences you've had. And
then there are also some other activities that propel you
out to go at and evaluate yourself in real time
(47:19):
under different stressful situations or environments by choice. And so
the embrace fear one I discovered, all right, that is
the first thing. So what I did is I moved
it over here and I was like, all right, embrace
fear comes first once you go through those five missions.
The next is you learn to forge your self confidence.
(47:39):
That's eight missions. Then what emerged all around that time too,
was all right, everybody wanted me to talk about team orientation,
what makes a great teammate, what makes a great follower,
what makes a great team. So during that time, I
went out and I created the team life training concepts, right,
and in that there's four missions and either I believe
(48:02):
there are like four core concepts behind living a team life,
you know, a really dedicated you know, Mission number one
is defining your level of commitment, right, because if you're
not committed, forget it. You know, it's just and you
know we've been hearing this since we were little kids.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
Everybody. You know, your coaches, your teachers.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You know, R.
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Rutherford.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
You're not being committed. You're not you're showing up late,
you're not working hard, you're half ass in it. You're
not doing your homework, you're not giving it your all,
you're not participating, you're not committed. So it's this word
that's firmly integrated into our development as human beings, right,
as this core understanding. But yet, when you ask people
how they define commitment, in particular, if I set up
(48:46):
a team, which I do when I work with with
UH with teams, whether their corporate teams or professional athletic
teams or college teams, you know, one of the things
I ask is like, all right, you know, independently, I
want you to write down how you define commitment. Now
you write down how you define it now, and then
I take these and I read them off, and yeah,
there's certain similarities, but there's a lot of stuff missing,
(49:08):
right because what happens over time core ideas and principles
or belief systems, they becommuted, they become cloudy, they become
convoluted with other you know, internal desires, wants or wishes,
and the orientation around the team is not there. And
so you know, really try and teach that essence that
(49:29):
the self is sovereign to the team in this So
you know, mission number one. Step one is define yourself
physically and how you're committed to being better. And that's
as specific as you know, how strong are you, how
fast are you, how much endurance, how far can you walk?
Speaker 4 (49:47):
How many pushups? How you know, how far can you swim?
How much?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
How much do you exercise? Because all of that, I believe.
You know, we're physical in nature, We're rooted in our
physicality as human beings. It's the essence of really what's
south operated us I think from so many other species
is that we're physically superior. I mean, we could wrong
longer distances, we have sweat glands, we have these opposable
thumbs and and you know, so they're really powerful. So
(50:12):
that's the first one. Then, you know, and then obviously
mentally and spiritually emotionally comes a follow But so you know,
after I had those three in place, it's like, all right,
this is the formula that I think really can help
people when they're under that duress, when they're in stress
or there or they're seeking a greater, more heightened level
of ambition and what they want to achieve in their lives. However, ah,
(50:38):
I hit a point where it was really when Simon
Senek really began to explode on the scene, and it
was like, what's your why? Right? And and that was
a fascinating question to me. And you know, I always thought, well,
you know, the why emerges, you know, when you seek
to improve yourself. But the actual opposite is true, right,
(51:00):
why is a fundamental thing? Now it can emerge as
you focus on these other pathways too. But what I
also believe is is, you know, the ultimate question that
a human being can ask yourself, there's two of them,
Who am I?
Speaker 4 (51:16):
And why am I? Here?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Therein lies a purpose to try and figure that out. Right, However,
I don't believe that people can really genuinely figure out
what their purpose in life is until they understand their fear.
They've embraced their fear, their self confidence is strong enough
to when they fail, they don't collapse, right, and whatever
(51:39):
aptitude they're engaged in, and then they have to have
a great team around them to support what the mission
ultimately becomes, and that purpose changes, it evolves. Right, all
of my buddies that I went through buds with, they're
living completely different purpose driven lives right now right there.
(52:00):
They're focused on different things and that's the beauty of purpose.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
It evolves as you evolve.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
But this is the core idea behind the frog logic concepts.
And so you know what I recommend to all of you.
If you're in that space where you're troubled by what's
taking place, you're struggling to manage the stress of your
stressors of your life, whatever they may be, man just
(52:30):
just pick one of these concepts. And even if you
don't want to see how I do it, or how
I break it down or anything like that, just pick
a concept. Just start with your fear, try and understand
what you're afraid of, right, Just start with that exercise alone,
Like why is this stuff make you afraid? And then
(52:51):
you know, from there can emerge all these next different
sequences or whatever sequence that you want to spin off into.
But without understanding your fear and really why this stuff
is getting to you, you know, you're kind of just
wandering in the woods or wandering in the desert to
use a biblical framework. And you know, there's some really
(53:13):
fascinating uh theologic theologians who've evaluated that that whole idea
and why did they wander so so long? And a
lot of people believe that, you know, and I kind
of agree with this. This theory is that these people
were slaves for so long that they lived in a
slave mentality. And the slave mentality is you're taught what
(53:34):
to think, you're taught how to act, and if you're
not sure, you're waiting for somebody to say do this,
do that, think this, think that, and that you're always
enslaved if you live there, and where are you most
a slave too? The fear of not knowing what's coming
next because you're waiting for life to to to to
happen to you. And that's essentially the negative insurgency that
(53:58):
I talked so frequently about that's the insurgency placing you
on the anvil and working you over and you have
no control over that. But when you take hold of
that and you start with understandable, I know what I'm
afraid of and I know why. Then now of a
sudden you're like, all right, what am I going to
do about it? That's placing yourself on the anvil and
(54:19):
you're working on yourself. And that's where I see And
back when I was an SQT instructor, that's kind of
loosely what I was trying to do is to get
these kids to admit, to recognize.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
You chose this path.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
Now what are you going to do to evolve in
the next capacity in it? What are you going to
do to become the best version not only of yourself
as a seal, but what are you going to do
to become the best version of yourself as a person.
And that's something I struggled with immensely why I was
in the team. I was so uncertain of what it
(54:53):
was meaning, where I would take it, how I would
emerge it. And thankfully, towards the end of my career,
I finally got some people that were really able to
inspire me to to go down some better paths than
I had chosen previously. But you know, again we recognize,
you know, Jordan and I were in this every day
(55:14):
thinking about, you know, what is the best way to
deliver this information, and it was to mitigate all that
in you, to lower or reduce the anxiety of that
tsunami of information, or to help you deconstruct it and
pull it apart so you can take one piece out
(55:35):
of time and assemble h you know, a perception that
best fits where you're at, that that that doesn't degrade
your faith in the teams you're part of, that doesn't
degrade your self confidence, and most certainly that doesn't provoke
a heightened sense of fear and and by all of
(55:56):
these these metrics or these ideas that we're trying to
expose you and in the way in particular it should
you want to choose to utilize frog logic. You know,
that's the intent. That's really the intent about why Jordan
and I are doing this. It's the intent why I've
done what I've been doing for the last thirty years,
(56:16):
is to give you some type of formula that I
have invested quite a bit of a time experiencing myself
through my own evolution as an individual, as a human being,
as a man, as an operator, whatever you want to say,
as a father, as a as a Christian, you know,
(56:38):
and mostly and then to share it and in order
to kind of help you manage this tsunami of fear.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
So I hope I enjoyed that too. Yeah, I say,
real quick, is I think that's great?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
Is fascinating because I do think something I didn't realize
for a long time is that I do think men
need a framework. I think you need a framework because
otherwise you're going to try to make up your own framework.
And I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but you're going
to fail. And I don't know what kind of There's
(57:15):
a lot of different frameworks you you can go off
of it in different situations in your life, right Like
it could be the Navy Seals, sign up for the
Navy Seals. It could be learning from mentors through something
like frog logic. It can be Christianity, it can be anything, right,
a lot of different things. But something I didn't rest
for a long time was that I actually needed a
framework that I could actually you know, I thought I
could figure stuff out of my own figured out and
(57:36):
looking back, it's just pure pride. It's just pure pride
getting in the way of everything. And yeah, I think
having a framework is everything. So I'm glad that this
is that this exists basically and people can get help
from it.
Speaker 4 (57:50):
Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
You're right, I mean from day one, right, you have
a framework, you have a framework how to perceive everything
you do. There's a a system, a process, and so,
you know, the hardest thing I think is as any
human being that really is has the propensity to think
(58:11):
that there's more to life than just consumption. There's more
to life than just excess. There's more to life than
than you know, uh, being selfish and seeking your you
know these you know the deepest desires you have, right,
and that's to contribute. And so how do you best contribute?
How do you best contribute, uh, you know, to your team,
(58:34):
how do you best contribute to your family, to your
loved one, to your children? And and you're right, it's
a framework and and and that was the whole, the
whole reason, uh, the whole impetus behind wanting to create
something that was rooted not in some mythological uh uh
self help stuff out there at all, but really based
(58:56):
on what life is really about, I believe, which is
how it's fundamentally imbued with suffering and pain. Uh, and
there's no escaping it. Uh and less and less you
alter your perception to be able to in the midst
of those moments of pain, to uh hold on to
(59:20):
the things that make us feel truly blessed and and
that that all of this is worth it. Uh. And
that's those connections, those those deep intimate relationships not only
with those we love most and hopefully with God and Christ,
but but more so with yourself.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
So you're right, we need a need framework.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah dude, yeah, man, exactly. That's it.
Speaker 4 (59:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
Well, I just want to say thank you to everybody. Hey, listen,
if you're digging the show, please what we need is
we need you to like subscribe on all our different platforms.
We really could appreciate comments say, whether you love us
or hate us, everything's good. We feedbacks great. You know,
(01:00:07):
if you have any ideas for shows for us, go
ahead and reach out at the Dave at Davidrutherford dot com.
You know, you please follow us on all the different
social media we're on x that's at d Rutherford Show.
All the other platforms is at David Rutherford Show. That's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon.
(01:00:33):
If you want to join us on Patreon for two
dollars a month, we give some extra content. We're getting
ready to release an actual speech I gave that that
is about this, which is the frog Logic concepts. It's history,
the core, the fundamental So you can find that on
our Patreon account. If you want to follow me specifically,
it's just at teamfrog Logic.
Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
You can follow me on all and mostly I'm on
x and Instagram. If you go to YouTube, we have
a YouTube channel, rumbert channel, TikTok channel for video. We
also post the whole show on all those places as
well too. If you are interested in this curriculum we are.
We have the Embrace Fear course available. We will soon
(01:01:15):
have the Forging Self Confidence quickly followed up I Live
the Team Life course, and then probably by the end
of August or into September, we'll have the Live with Purpose.
So all of the core Frog Logic concept course and
curriculum will be a bit available to you, and we
are going to have a special for those coming up
(01:01:36):
here soon. Not quite sure when, maybe mid August or so,
but pay attention. But if you want to just get
going automatically, you can take the Embrace Fear course immediately.
And where can they find that? At David Rutherford dot com.
Everything will be on Dave Road for a count. Come
all right, everybody, God bless you, good luck. I want
(01:01:56):
to thank Christ, I want to thank my beautiful wife,
my children, and I want to thank you Jeordie man
and Uh, I feel so blessed uh to have you
in my life. Brother, thank you, Amen, same to you
and thank all of you. God bless who Yah
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