The Navy Seal's Power of Mental Resilience

Get ready to be blown away by the remarkable story of resilience exemplified by our guest, Colonel Harbough. He shares the story of his friend, a Navy Seal, Mustang officer, and a true warrior, Clay Pendergrass, who has experienced the extremes of physical and emotional rigors, battling through surgeries and near-death experiences to return to duty. His story illuminates the resilient mindset and unyielding spirit seen in special operations personnel and athletes. We take a moment to explore the power of perseverance and the human will to overcome adversity, taking inspiration from Clay's journey.

Now, what if you could cultivate this resilience in your own life? Building resilience is not just about surviving the harshest of adversities, it’s about thriving amidst life's routine challenges. We explore techniques that can help you develop resilience, from the power of controlling your thoughts and slowing your breathing to practicing physical activities like yoga and meditation. Notably, we delve into how embracing different perspectives and learning to debate them amicably can further equip you to strengthen your mental resilience.

But resilience doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We explore how the bedrock of resilience is optimism, goal setting, and the thrill of achievement. We contrast the optimist and the pessimist mindset and discuss their impact on resilience. We also examine how the pandemic has shifted societal attitudes and how optimism can boost productivity. Urging you to break away from the comfort of mere consumption, we challenge you to harness the power of productivity, thereby becoming an active contributor to your community. Join us in this revelatory discussion and unlock the power of resilience within.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Elevate Media podcast with your host, Chris Anderson. In this show, Chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, Chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Yeah, colonel, I would love, if you're open to it, just maybe sharing a story or two about someone you knew that had that resiliency, that speck up warrior mentality, to just show what that is like.

Speaker 3: 0:41

The many tales to tell. Chris watched it time and time again with warriors that were not willing to let the circumstances of their injuries prevent them from moving on, whose resilience was very apparent, their will to fight through whatever those injuries were and their extreme desire to get back to the team, which is when you go to the mentality of the special operations, which is hard to get making on the team in the first place, making it through the assessment, selection and training crucible, qualification crucible, getting to the point where you made the NFL. You made major leaks of at least military activities it's certainly in combat activities and now you're a coach for a wound, illness or injury and you are trying to stay on the team, get back to the team but at the same time looking at the future, your quality of life, looking at the impact on your family, all these things weighing on you as you're going through this, I bet. Dear friends, one of my dearest, clay Pendergrass, is like a brother to me. We've known each other over 20 years, served multiple tours, include, deployed Together a Navy Seal. He is now a. He just made full captain so he reached my grade and rank, also a Mustang officer like me. He'd done in listed time before he became an officer he had been thrown about 40 feet by an IDD in combat. That really messed up his spine badly. He tripped on through the mission and in fact through the deployment but later and start to ability him and affect him physically and emotionally to some degree. He ended up having to go through an awful lot to repair and I would tell you he's never really he's never getting fully repaired. He's got a block of metal in his spine, basically about that long. It's about six inches long, building together vertebrae. He went through all countless surgeries beyond account what the number of times. And he had near, near death experiences in those surgeries where one time he got an infection in the membrane surrounding his his spine and the spinal fluid leaked out. His doctor was a whole Navy doc, actually carried him out of his apartment and got into an ER and eventually into surgery and was able to save his life. But Clay went through then. Clay continues to fight. He got back to duty. He got back to to to serving. He is still on active duty pending retirement himself up here this next year. But having to work through those injuries, it for him it was never. And as well, I can begin with if I related other stories. It was never an option to not get back, okay, to not get back to some level. If physicality, if you looked at Clay, you would say, oh, this guy's a tough guy. He is a tough guy, okay, he's got some limitations, he's got draw foot, he's got some basic cobbles, he hurts and he aches and he's in pain a lot, but he just feels with it. But again, that's where that mentality and, as we talked before, the, as we try to translate that to civilian sector attitude now, I would have honestly argued that special operators have got that eight attitude they've not been recruited ultimately made it through that assessment, selection, qualification to get there if they didn't have that and I was going to ask that.

Speaker 2: 4:08

I started to interrupt, but that was curious to me. So there is an assessment process, so I was going to my question. Going on my head was so do these individuals, these special operations, individuals, have something a lot of people don't just innately, or is a lot of that resiliency, mentality, trained as well, or a combination?

Speaker 3: 4:28

Definitely a combination. Okay, because a lot of times individual does know how resilient they ultimately can be. Okay, you don't know what it should. Face it, I would say athletes probably have the, especially in sports that have extreme physicality requirements. Understand that If you're a, I was a long distance runner. I trained in, trained in Ram, the Olympic trials in 1984 with the marathon. Wow, I didn't make it. Obviously you know my name better, or I you, but the Frank Shorter and Kerry Arbonne. I didn't mind it close, but but the fact is that endurance athletes football players, baseball players, professional athletes have that understanding. Hockey players, where they you have to what you, what it takes to be able to survive this for and move up to progress in the sport. Right, they had to have a neat skill in order to make it. You can't take somebody who's just totally unfortunate, doesn't have the basic muscle mass, attitude and physicality to be able to turn it. Rudy was great to see him get a play in the Notre Dame game, but he got a play right. Yeah, what he had was a huge torque. That was the whole story. Broody, when you ever seen him over here, read the book. That's his story. But that's not He'd have it to progress the starter and have it to go into the NFL. Our business, the NFL is the special operations. The ADA has varying levels of obstrate in that too. The very, very elite units in the special mission community even harder to get into the basic special forces or the ACO. So each of those kind of things just getting through that takes an individual that already has willingness to try and to persevere. And yes, there has to be some kind of willingness to do that. But I think most human beings have that to some degree. If you watch how the American public dealt with 9-11, the basic citizens on the street in the midst of that rushing into buildings to help, along with the police officer and other first responders environment that so many of them lost, so horrible, you saw people helping going in. You hear about the guy who runs into traffic to save a kid or runs into a burning house. There are people that have that who are willing to do that, whether or not they've been in the military or not. So I think it's in us, it's a matter of finding it and one of the things that assessment, selection and qualification does in special operations is it helps you find that and foster it and grow it so that you aren't going to be more resilient when you face true adversity Gotcha.

Speaker 2: 7:15

So what are some things they use or utilize to find that, pull that out, enhance that in those soldiers to get them to be able to be even more resilient than maybe what they're innately already about?

Speaker 3: 7:28

A few things. Physical stress, obviously, is principal amongst those, and it's not, for our operational activities, both in training as well as in actual operations, are physically challenging Already have that but also mentally challenged, and there's things like basic food in minimal quantities and food and water loss, of lack of sleep. We put all those kind of stressors on ourselves when we go through that. Now, same kind of things that I think you can see if someone went through a, is doing triathlons or is like you watch Survivor or some of these shows or these reality shows. Yeah, but with stresses. So are there are things, and I'm saying people should go home and start themselves. They're not sweet. I'm saying that taking up activities, though, if you're trying to build resilience of this sort where you face stress, but putting yourself under stress, which comes in a variety of formats, is the way that you ultimately strengthen yourself. It's a muscle, resilience is a muscle, okay, and we have to think of it that way and we work out our muscles and try to sneak physically right. I don't. I've never been. I've been a endurance athlete my whole life and I'm not trying to build bulk. I'm about the same size I was. In fact, I'm within seven pounds of what I was when I joined the army 41 years, or 42 years ago this day.

Speaker 1: 8:43

Wow.

Speaker 3: 8:44

Okay, but what do I do? I keep myself active and for me it's like total doble up check my nose, that's yeah. For others it's heavier weights or other things, but it's the stretch and put on yourself. It's a routine. And I think with building resilience and being a resilient person means working those muscles. So, working your mind, becoming informed, read, reading the great philosophers, straightening your mind, that all helps making your mind more resilient. Develop techniques and you understand it. Debate makes you more resilient. If you are, especially what we deal with in today's world, if you are one-sided in your thinking and only wanting to hear things that make you happy, you're not going to strengthen yourself, because then, if you watch how people deal with the current political climate, anything that's not making the pappy stresses them out to perfection and sometimes misbehaving Right. Yeah, You're going to just look at what happened in January 6. Yeah, you're going to say, okay, we lost, we had some people lose control of those people. Yeah, how do you then get into it? Where you build that resilience, where you can handle that? I would like to thank the most members of the military, certainly the people that I've known in my career, my long career, my friend network. We're going to beat. When it comes to that, we're in a moment's stick. Okay, got it. Democrats won this time. Next time maybe a republic, whoever? Okay, all we want to do is whatever is right for our country. A resilient mind is able to deal with that and debate it on a friend within a friendly way.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Yeah, it's like when you hear the saying like those who anger you can control you kind of thing. If you are, if you're so rigid that when people make you upset that it lists a response from you in a negative way, then they almost they control your.

Speaker 3: 10:36

They got you under control, it is and it's the degree of brainwashing maybe an overstatement, and then a degree of that through the media, in particular as an exercise, because we polarized ourselves up with the sake of, I don't know, economics. Whatever's driving that. We're allowing the side of the argument to basically be presented to us and it's the other side is for an evil, no matter which one you listen to, right? We don't sit in the middle anymore and are willing to debate that in a friendly way, and debate is argument, and even argument if you look at it from philosophical terms. Argument is not, does not have a tone of anger to it, okay, argument is seeing both sides. Gotcha, this is what you should hear and then try to find. Truth is always found in the middle, or almost always found in the middle. There are some pure trees, yeah, but it's there and it's apparent. Why argue with truth? Yeah, why seek it and find it? I think resilient people do, okay, and as people are able to hear both sides and balance that and be able to, even if they don't like or even if it isn't where their true heart and proclivities go, it is, they're willing just to listen to it.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Okay, that's a good point. So being able to see both sides and take it in, studying, obviously, like you said, the philosophy and those ancient, like older philosophers, what can people do besides maybe having those conversations and reading in their everyday lives to start building that resilience mindset? Are there actual physical things they can forget? Well, they went off. Or people like that who do the ice submersion and like ice baths, submerging for and controlling the breathing is? Are those kind of methods that people could implement, like cold showers in the morning so they control their feelings or response to that?

Speaker 3: 12:30

One of the things actually we do in spectral opposite. People would know that we have a lot of guys who have it up as yoga, meditative activities where you're using your mind and focusing your mind. I think you're very effective. I've used it to some degree and found it. I'm not really good at the stretching part. I don't bend Too old to bend 62 is not an age of your mind but the meditative qualities of that and meditation to take various forms that can also be prayer of your religious can be lots of things. It's where you're able to go inside yourself and think things through. I do that. I isolate myself to some degree, so I think isolate ice baths, each bot, if you're looking at a hyperbaric or some of these things isolation chamber, a ceiling, float tanks I've seen all kinds of stuff to use to help guys, especially if you're trying to quiet your mind, dealing with post-traumatic stress or other things. It might have some effectiveness. But I would think more along the line of just being able to quiet your mind and what I would say is a physical way to address your developing a better mindset, along with then applying the stresses, the mindset, and I think that again, having been an endurance athlete. You make things through that lens and also most of special operations. These activities are endurance activities and it's training is oriented around having that endurance. So putting yourself in those kind of things applies. It's impossible to run a really long race without using your mind. You can run 100 meters or 200 years without using your mind. There, you just get out there and you throw it all down. You're not in your mind. You're trying to beat the guy next to you, right and left, running 10,000 meters or more. You're in a different breed. You don't have to go into your mind because you have to think things through and you're always thinking about your pace. You're always thinking about where you are. You don't have to quiet your body and not think about the stresses on it and all those things. And I think that's where and you can apply that to cycling, apply that to a lot of different activities have that endurance component and I think that you find those are good ways to not only work your body but also work your mind.

Speaker 2: 14:39

Yeah, that's a good point. I think being able to quiet your mind, control those thought processes, is a big way to just build that resiliency and impairing that. While you're talking about the endurance athletes, I saw a marathon runner as well but applying it to those stresses, those stressors, those things that are going to stretch you mentally, physically and then during those, incorporating just the slowing of the thought, okay, I'm going to control the situation. I'm in this situation and how am I going to respond to these stressors I think are huge.

Speaker 3: 15:20

Yeah, if you're as a runner yourself, you're going to run five-minute miles versus the same period, which is what the pace was in my day that I was running. You're going to run five-minute miles. You need to get inside yourself. You have to slow your breathing and your control of it. If you're gasping for air, you'll quickly wash out. Right, you'd like to gas and build up and all of a sudden your legs will be leaden and you're not going anywhere. Right, you have to again become meditated and you have to get inside it. You're thinking about things, you're eating out your pace, but you're doing it, and I would say that I know that I'm not alone in this. Anybody who's a real, serious distance runner knows that. Run at your pace and have a conversation, you could talk to a person and you would even notice that they're running. That's the way you had to get. You had to get to where you had that control. So that thing goes, and you have to now applying that back to a special operator, being resilient and dealing with those stresses. The same thing happens in the midst of contact, so to speak. We're talking about when the enemy is firing. To stop that operation, you have to be calm and cool in order to get through those kind of things. And many of my brothers have a lot more experience with this because by the time this worked I was already a senior officer, so I'm not the kind of guy that was out on battlefields in the midst of gunfight close range the same way. But those guys, but I have been around them and I have experiences of that sort in my career and I would tell you that it's a matter of poem, it's the call under stress that happens and it's an ability to concentrate and focus on your job and the tasks. So if you look at our Medal of Honor recipients, most of them thrust themselves into a situation to risk without thought of their life, risk their life by doing so to save enough. Almost every Medal of Honor recipient is tied to assisting and saving the life of one of their brothers or sisters. That's what it is. They rush into the fight, not thinking why, because they're called enough to think about, to be able to put themselves in a situation. That what their job is. And part of the job, any military activity on a battlefield, part of the job one. You got your comps. You got your chili enemy, whatever it may be, attack and destroy their capability, right. But the other piece of it is get your boys and sisters home, get your boys and girls home, or is on the mission with yeah and so it, we all come back. That's an ad we have and that's a Familiar thing that I've talked about. With, yeah, special operators, with people, for it's that that family kind of sits all right. This is why you see a saljun to rush off to get up with how then was dragging this buddy away? And he asked him in his when he's interviewed about why he, why need he running? Because they have my friend. That's why the Ron Scherl who the assembly passing cancer but metal-lawner recent from from third special forces group, who just kept going back to get his buddies he was the medic on the team, just kept going to get his points. If you saw that great movie World War two about the kid in the in open hour, shaw Ridge Tax saw rich about DOS and you see what he did, just what one more. God gets choked up, right, just think it about like I miss he on one. This kid read the citation of his metal and the story of him in his interviews Of him and the guys who say it was like one guy just kept running in, grabbing more, grabbing more and say the guys, off that rich. Just think about that, why they were his guys. That's what it is. It's what the job is. Mm-hmm, that takes incredible we're going back to the top takes Incredible resilience you built was say I'm putting it all aside in order to do this. Okay, yeah, and I know I'll be back. I know they eat me and I'm yeah, that's and it's.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So, yeah, and. I thought we need more of that. It's just because we see so much just society going in the opposite direction, I feel, and maybe it's just because that's what portrayed a lot on social media in the media, but so many people are not really resilient and we got some hard things coming if we can't be resilient and have that mentality.

Speaker 3: 19:34

Why should you dealing with this pandemic? Just think about it now. I'm not suggesting that people that are losing their lives to it or more resilient right, there are plenty of that very tough people that, yeah, put down by this, because it's hard to know what's in your body as a ticking time box. Yep and how your body would react to the virus. But the fact is that, um, dealing with the pandemic and the isolation created by it, the having to work from home constantly yeah, dealing with that takes takes a resilient mind and not letting it get the best of you to work for us, great suit, and we all had to. We all had to live that. That's what it is. It's nice to ignite, to finally get rid of masks. It's nice that you think virtually where we don't have to talk through one. We're having a limited world where that's required, yeah, and where it will be the norm for a theory long talk. I'm hopeful that this. I got my vaccines recently and so I've had both my shots and I'm like, oh, five days away from being called safe. I'm happy that to have that feeling, but until the whole herd is safe out there, we all can't get back to normal and we got a lot of people who are not our anti-vaccine or whatever it would be, and right my perspective. I don't know why. Yeah, you just really want to wear a mask and rest of your life or where you go.

Speaker 2: 20:52

And yeah it. You have seen it a lot with these, with the kind of shutdowns and things like that, people just having so much issues and just struggles with it, because that, yeah, just not being able to calm that mind and direct, like, with their thoughts in a way that's constructive, positively and and yeah, it's almost like you think almost and I could be way off. But the optimist versus the pessimist, I feel like have different levels of resilient Mindset sometimes I like that.

Speaker 3: 21:26

I think that's very true and I think that also ties into what we've been talking about. Yeah, tell you, special operations. People are At least the book grant majority of them that I've known through my life are amazingly optimist. We look for the solution. We believe there always is a solution. We're problem solvers by virtue of reading and also by by practice. Makes you, make, they put you in a mindset that forces you to Work toward a goal. Okay, and achieve a goal, yeah, and it takes optimism to do that, because if you're pessimist from the start, you'll say the bull's on a cheap, but there's no reason to do this. It's not worth our time and not not what we do, and we look at possible challenges and figure out the more possible the challenge, the more satisfying it is to achieve right. I think that that is an important aspect to it. Yeah an optimism. I like to think that the way I was raised, my mother was optimistic all the time. Yeah, and, and that was the way I wanted to be.

Speaker 2: 22:27

Yeah, and I think with that too, like also having goals, like having things you're working towards, not just being like in that program Mine said, nope, I'm just gonna go work for this person, do what they tell me and then come home and do nothing. Like I think we got so many people got into that, just that routine of like I work for somebody, I come home and I just veg out and relax and they don't have any sort of external goals and so when all this kind of they had time to do nothing, it just started really do to mess with their mind almost.

Speaker 3: 22:56

Yeah, I'm on, I'm. I would agree with that. I, I there's shark myself in life, I'm constantly moving. Yeah, I doesn't mean I don't appreciate some veg time Once in a while when it's locked down, it's your show or something on on one of the streaming channels, but that, but I'm not. That's not my life, that's uh small time in my life. Uh, from the day on, from the morning on, I'm busy. I like that. Yeah, of course I had a with. The military career was busy, all that that moving into retirement changed that. But I'm making busy with my other efforts, but those are. I think it's very important to have that routine, a routine delight that.

Speaker 2: 23:39

Oh you there.

Speaker 3: 23:43

Yeah, it's just somebody tried to call it and well huh, the one of my favorite bosses, abba Bill McCraven, the famous first makes bed speech. He, he would. He would say that we do that, that we put ourselves in that routine Because it satisfies us. One of those tasks at first. Task of the day make your bed. And I follow this. I've been doing this since my mother were slapping around if I didn't, haha, but it was get up, make your bed wine. So the end of the day you're gonna see you. Already you did least one accomplish one task. Yeah, I'm gonna come back to a fresh rat, but it's is it's attitude to purvey to you. Then take it over your life is that I've got a routine delight that has positives Make my bed, do my, do whatever my physical activity is my team pt, whether it's in the morning or it's during the day, however it is. I got things that I do and I have accomplished goals and I set goals each day and think result. People do that, yeah, yeah, routinely, and I would encourage everybody to take on a routine like that.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, I think life's life's already so short. I can't just imagine Not having things to work towards, just working, and then coming home and sitting and doing nothing. Like I'm like you, like always On the go, have things to do, goals at schedule, type stuff, yeah, I just can't sit around.

Speaker 3: 25:03

Yeah, no, it's anything who wants to. Frankly, sitting around getting that center, I worry about society and I don't. I don't want to be Active to people because people could take this, could take this harshly. But remember the movie wallets yeah, do we want to become a society and come so late? If we come for a brawl, hitting the body in large and right around and what's? We've grown to where we're. We're doing nothing but but Consuming and in the law the right there around. They're all more really obese yeah, they're, and they're not productive, right. Why would we want to be that? Where is the satisfaction in that?

Speaker 2: 25:44

Right.

Speaker 3: 25:45

Yes, there are devices that can convey us. Do we want to be on them all the time? Do we want to take and this is one that's near and dear to my heart because of the working with wounded warriors for Do we want to treat routine wear and tear and this is I say this because the VA called 100% to say, because that's the terminology I View it. As I was, I I had enough wear and tear in my body. Government decided to compensate me for when I sacrificed in my military service. Okay, so they could be a wear and tear payment. Yeah, thanks, and it adds a little bit to my in the big league at offsets, the allowances I lost and I got out back to duty. Okay, it's not a ton of money, but it's a little bit to say here. This helps offset here those demands that you know what you gave up. But a Disabled means something else. We've taken that and and to the normal citizen. When you hear disabled, you think handicap. So, while I'm eligible for a disabled vehicle tag that would allow me to park in candy parking spots, I'm not doing that. I'm capable of walking.

Speaker 2: 26:53

Why would I?

Speaker 3: 26:53

walk, yeah, but we have a system in our society. We've moved toward this and this is where I'm moving for Gwally, we won't toward this entitlement attitude that allows us to get the benefits and then push those forward, okay, and use those to our to convenience ourselves. I say that I live in a state Florida where 50% disabled by the VA, yeah, makes you eligible for a disabled veteran License claim that allows you to park in the parking lots. You can get 50% disability from the VA for sleep apnea fun, okay. So, yeah, white, what we have now is limited ability for our true head. Kept people, wheelchair bound, to get parking slots now at the grocery store, where were their head? Because people with sleep apnea's were able to park in that, because it's more convenient be able to park up next to the door, yeah, and that's the kind of thing that we're just not thinking through as a society and not saying so. That's why I say disability, this, a this ought to be called something else. I tell that to my so the lady of my life who's works in the VA system, that that it bothers me that it's been called that because I do not want to be treated as Disabled. I am not disabled, right, but I'm sure it's sore this mind doesn't work. Yeah, and I have. You know I've plenty of things that I understand they want to cops. My knees don't work like they used to and that's primarily from, exclusively from all those years in military service that were the things got beat up. My brain doesn't work like a yeah. I like to say I'm like to the wake-up kid from blazing saddles he's a rock but I said hey, right, it's that, and I think that yeah, as a society have to address that. Is that the? white way for us to be, and isn't it, don't we admire resilient, tough people in everything, over those that are knocked.

Speaker 2: 28:53

Hmm.

Speaker 3: 28:54

Yeah, expected in our hobbies. Who expected in movies? When we see hero, we expect them to be resilient and tough, right, right in our sport. After this, what do you mean? You got turf toe, patrick Mahold, hey yeah and Patrick. Great, he fought through that the other night yeah, unsuccessfully, but he fought through it which has living in Tampa Bay up here for the other guy but you're right at the same time.

Speaker 2: 29:17

It's one of those things that we admire that he fought through that, yeah we don't when they walk with it and why we want to wallow it in, is you know? Colton exactly, and I think, yeah, it goes back to where we just stir. We have so much things that Are make make life more of a convenience thing Amazon, two-day shipping, and if you don't get that, you're like, oh, I gotta wait five days. Like I've even said in my way, it's like what does it used to be? Like, okay, take a step back. Yeah, they'll get used to that, things like that and all these now you can order groceries and just pick it up and it's ready for you and and, yes, that can make things easier. But if we're not then using the time we've gotten back and, uh, constructive in a positive way, then it's just a hindrance, it's just hurting us then going forward.

Speaker 3: 30:03

Yeah, they're nice that there are benefits to convenience. Yeah, there's no doubt there are benefits to it that ultimately free us up to do other endeavors in life and have more time. Need more time to exercise more? Yeah, other things that are more productive. What I'm not opposed to those things? Yeah, and those industries that supply those things and they become a crunch. Yeah, yeah, yep, Yep but it's a matter of do you embrace them as an expectation so much that you give up Benefits of you doing it some things for yourself?

Speaker 2: 30:35

Yeah, yep, I like me. I could order the groceries and just go pick it up, and I'm like one if I'm going to drive there Are ready to pick it up. I might as well just spend the time walking around getting in myself, because then it gets me out of the office, out of the House, out of doing all that, and give me a like, a almost a reset. I don't have to think about work for a little bit while I'm getting groceries, and so that's how I see it.

Speaker 1: 30:54

I love shopping for groceries. Yeah, my honest.

Speaker 3: 30:57

Yeah, I, I don't mind it at all. Yeah, I like it, I like, and I'm gonna pick my own damn bet. So again, and those kind of things, yeah, but it it? I visit one of those. It is a. It's something that we, that Society, the American Society, struggled with for a long time, since the development of Go back to, mind you, the post-world War two era, as more and more Conveniences became there, whether, yeah, dinners or, yeah, name it we all we took advantage of some of those things, and not all those were. Two are better, yeah, but I don't like. At the same time, I don't want to sound like I'm one of the two old guys in the moped, so I do believe that we ought to consider those things and balance them in our lives. Yeah, how much is always gonna be better? And it's going to build the ability to deal with stress better.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Yeah, down the road. Yeah, because it's a sad and scary thing because you see so many people who they'll either post something because someone said something against what they believe or or something and they didn't like how it came off and so they'll go off the handle and be irate and I'm like we can have different, differencing differences of opinion, but like for you to get that out of just Swords because it's just tracking the wrong way of everyone thinks. I Hate the easy word, but like entitled to being right or be being treated fairly and and it's just. Life's not fair. That's unfortunate as part of it and we just have to do the best to like. So, in my opinion, love one another, treat each other the best way we can, but you're not gonna agree on everything.

Speaker 3: 32:37

Yeah, I would say that the trend that I saw, but it's it. Obviously it may not be the the truest example, but oh, as I grew up, we played. I played a little league baseball, like a lot of kids when I was little. There wasn't what we didn't do that organized sports was a soccer was not a big thing.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Oh, I'm sure back then.

Speaker 1: 32:58

Yeah it's okay.

Speaker 3: 32:59

Yeah there, but we did. There was first, second, third place teams that got trophies If you were in the league and you didn't make first, second or third. Union trophy yellow. We didn't allot ourselves that. We didn't ate the first section of third, the sort of everybody gets a soccer trophy kind of thing, and I watched them. Participation broke, yeah, but we made a mistake when we decided to zone. There's one thing of not being Precipientorial and your attitude toward people because they're not able to perform tasks as well as others. Okay. There's something else and there's bullying. Things like that happen in on schoolyards and still, to this day, happen. Mm-hmm but and in addressing that and how treat people was one thing, but making people believe that they're evenly even footing at all levels of life. Yeah, yeah, because they're gonna. At some point they're gonna. They're gonna hit that varsity sports selection and they're not Continue. Or they're gonna get in a race or what are there, and they're not gonna win. Yeah, they're gonna find out. No, I am mortal and I'm not as good as I thought I was, or my parents told me I was. A Lot of this also came, with helicopter parading and other things that followed. What came in there. We're gonna buzz over a little Johnny and a little Jane and we're gonna make sure that everything in their world is perfect. We're bubble around them and we're gonna prepare them. We're gonna get them started while they're pre-k. We're gonna get them started for their Harvard education, okay, and things like that. We got into so spun-off and Society that we lost track of it could be a kid, letting failure be a lesson, and these are things again as we balance back on the top from the standpoint of where my experiences were. A military style of Smith-Balbury. That is not what we do. You have to make the team Okay, there's, tie it for she Into the assessment, selection and qualification process. Yeah, oh, you can go into some of the very specialized, go in there in in a class of 80 or produce two. It's okay, this is hard-cut. So, yeah, that team is an important thing and I would say we need to teach that to kids that you got to make the team and then One of the things that we've always said in the soft community use. Then you have to continue to try to make the team every day.

Speaker 2: 35:11

Yep absolutely.

Speaker 3: 35:12

I think I'm letting. If we're not letting that happen, we're not like yeah, with that come argument of what you were talking about and what we did was social media. We had some great things. We connected people with social media. We were able to share entertainment things and fun things top or whatever it may be. My, my younger daughter, was in that stuff all the time. I got it. There's some fun things and there's entertaining things to look at. But we louded also to make, make, make people believe that their opinions on all things Oriented right, and my feeling is I think anybody you have of any education would say I will listen to someone's opinion, provided it's informed. Okay, it does have expertise. If it's your, if it's your educated opinion, I say Rick, more and I want to listen to it better than it's just what you're. Are you parroting what you hear from somebody like yeah, yeah, yeah, or it immediate sell, yeah, and so where is this perfect and coming from? Is it backed by facts or right.

Speaker 2: 36:13

Whatever, then, that you've received for sure and I think that goes back to what you mentioned like early on in episode is just being informed and Getting both sides, getting information, learning and not just seeing a post from some in Influential quote-unquote influencer and they're like, oh yeah, like yeah, look, listen to that. We were mentioned about the trophy, participation, trophies and everything like that, and it reminds me of the quote and one of the Batman's with Christian Bale and Alfred. It's after he, I think, breaks his arm when he falls into the well. Now he said why do we fall, master Wayne? And he said so we can learn to pick ourselves back up. Right, if we don't let our children, if we don't let our peers mess up, lose, they're never gonna learn how to deal with that and overcome and then and See maybe what they need to do to win next time or to get better, or maybe pivot into something they're better at yeah, that's absolutely right and we see it all the time and In society.

Speaker 3: 37:13

Now, if we don't address this, we're going down. We're going to the path of wall. Yeah, I use it differently, but we're going down that path because we want to be so convinced and we don't want to be told we're wrong it. So where does it go? Yeah, we are often. All of us are wrong, every day, multiple times, many times a day. For me, almost all the time. Yeah, we're wrong. Okay, yep, and we need to be told we're wrong. But we all said you'd be told we're wrong and why? Yeah, and it has to be backed by facts. Right, I'm gonna listen to it if you say okay, you're wrong, here's why that color is actually orange, here's why it's orange, then orange next to it. It's an argument over paint colors, you're right. Maybe I say that as I do a remodel and I have. But we have to be able to accept that we are mistaken or wrong and not take that as an affront or an attack on our personality or rice. Okay, we'll do that now, like you told you're wrong, oh, just a bit. And we go blow up, yeah, and face it, and we get to heart racing, respiration out of control, and here we are, heaven forbid, and now we have a heat feeling toward the person right who's telling us we're wrong. Yeah, yeah. I'm wrong, am I? You look at it, go yeah, and I'm wrong. Yeah, success, do that right now and we have to deal with that. And that's why I say Again, resilient people are able to take that, the enroll and addressing and adjust.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Yeah, like so bold and dynamic, yeah though it's so good just from everything we've talked about today, and I think it's this topic is so needed and people need to hear it because, yeah, like we don't want to become the Wally people and and everything like that, so we need resiliency, we need to build that mentality that the spec op warriors have been trained to do in some aspect, and so Learning, like just getting both side, getting the truth, information, just studying history, studying philosophy, studying different opinions on saying and then building your worldview around it, experiencing things and learning how to fail and learning how to lose in a good way to improve I think these are all huge things when building resiliency and kernel. When everything is said and done for you here on earth, what do you hope your mark is?

Speaker 3: 39:36

I would like to think that I've tried to make lives better for those in my community in particular, because the staff operations community is my family. Then I made lives better for those that were hit pretty hard and were trying to recover. If I had a tombstone marker, maybe he tried his best to help his brothers and sisters in special ops. That would be. That's my desire and, of course, why I took up this position with the Spectral Ops War Revolve Foundation as their chairman and was a co-founder of the organization Two other great veterans to help further the interests of our special operators, using the golf course as the venue but really that's just our office and it's because it's a great meeting place for people and it's a great sport to not only have some emotional and physical recovery, because it's great game that way, but also it's a great meeting place for business leaders. And so our foundation is wrapped around assisting our special operators as they transition from the military side into the civilian sector and looking for careers and opportunities to grow and expand and have the rest of their life be as productive and blessed as their military service was. And so that that foundation, which people get involved with by going to our website, wwwsodforg, or call me or email me. I'm at Carrie C R Y S O W G F or at S O W G F dot work and or call me at 813-325-1366. We'd love to have the support and helping our special operators as they make these career and life changes. We've got amazingly capable, resilient absolutely it's been the topic of this program today but we've got people with skills that exceed what most businesses are used to see and what we want to do is be able to showcase them so that you can see what a special operator can bring to your organization and potentially and then utilize them. Utilize that, that's, their skills and experience and the golf foundation allows us to do that and we run four retreats a year. Our schedule go to Ireland in April and we're looking at some options for the to do something here in the States as a fallback plan for that particular retreat. We get incredible wounded orders headed on on that retreat coming up and we're always looking at all of our wounded warriors as they make that transition and trying to assist them. So that's been my focus and hopefully down the imprint and the legacy of Terry.

Speaker 2: 42:11

Harbaugh. Absolutely, that's awesome and yeah, everybody check out just his foundation, get connected with Colonel Harbaugh and yeah, just a wonderful foundation helping those wounded warriors. So again, Colonel Harbaugh, thank you so much for being on today.

Speaker 1: 42:28

Thanks, Chris. Enjoy it anytime. Thank you for listening to the Elevate Media podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. See you in the next episode.