David Rutherford Show: The Case For Courage - A Navy SEAL Opens Up
4/6/202665 mincomplete
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0:33T's and C's apply. We're living in difficult times, and there's one thing that you
0:38can call upon to help you fight the negative insurgency, and that's courage.
0:44Today on The David Rutherford Show.
0:56Over the last few months, I have found myself entrenched in one particular concept.
1:04Whether I'm out on the road speaking to hundreds of people every week, or I
1:11get behind this microphone and try and bring context to the craziness of the world
1:17around us, or even in our nonprofit that we run trying to help operators deal
1:27with operator syndrome, or raising four teenage daughters, or having a healthy relationship with my
1:34spouse. This one concept always keeps coming back to the forefront of my focus, and
1:43that concept is the idea of courage and what it means for me as I
1:50face those multiple negative insurgencies, those doubts, those insecurities, that anxiety, that depression, really all
2:03the different ways that under pressure we have a propensity to collapse if it goes
2:10unchecked, encourages the thing, is the sword that we use to confront that insurgency.
2:19And so I want to start this show by painting a few pictures for you
2:24in your mind. And I want you to think about that 19 -year -old Marine
2:30who's on board a ship over in the Middle East right now.
2:37And I want you to think about him as he goes through different types of
2:41drills or sits in different types of briefs about what he might or might not
2:47be doing in the coming days or weeks in Iran.
2:53What it means to, in the middle of the night, jump on a helicopter with
2:58his kid on, 150 pounds of gear, right, with his plates and his night vision
3:06and his weapon system, sitting next to his friends as the helo spins up on
3:12the flight deck. And that idea of when that bird takes off and starts moving
3:17across the Straits of Hormuz or wherever he might be positioned, dropping him off in
3:24a foreign land that he's never been before, maybe he doesn't know that much about.
3:31But what he does know is he understands his training and he understands his love
3:38for his teammates. And he feels a deep sense of patriotism in his heart.
3:44And in the midst of all those things, he's still in some either slight slivers
3:51of truth or maybe it's all consuming.
3:55He's thinking about whether or not he's going to live through the experience.
4:01Now, I want you to think about that 21 -year -old 82nd Airborne kid who's
4:07stationed on some base, maybe next Iran or near Iran or some other place.
4:14And they're talking about what his mission might be in the next coming days or
4:19weeks where he's going to jump on the back of a C -130 with his
4:24full combat equipment loadout. 150, 160 pounds of gear, right, with his weapon system tied
4:34to his leg and a big, huge rucksack with what he'll have to live out
4:38of for a week or two weeks before he might get resupplied, where he's going
4:44to have to jump in behind enemy lines in an area unknown to him.
4:49But maybe the intelligence they're receiving is that this is a heavy, strong IRCG stronghold
4:58or a Quds Force stronghold.
5:00Maybe he's going in to secure an airfield that we'll have to use in order
5:04to make supply runs or to drop vehicles or artillery pieces in order to support
5:10the next phase of the invasion if it's coming.
5:15And think about the same things that I'd mentioned for the Marine going through his
5:19head as well too. Perhaps the 26 -year -old Navy SEAL.
5:25who's already had a deployment overseas or two, who's more seasoned, who's more trained, who's
5:31more dialed in, maybe in a space where he's more determined, more pumped up, if
5:37you will, in order to get into the fight against the great Satan.
5:43Maybe his bravado or his focus, whether he believes this is a religious war, maybe
5:50he feels himself as to be a modern -day crusader, turning back the tides of
5:55radical Islam and the Shia radicals that have sponsored terrorism all over the world for
6:01years and years and years.
6:04But there's still a sliver in his mind that exists too.
6:09Lastly, maybe I want you to think about that pilot, the F -15 pilot, who's
6:16out there on E &E, trying to survive in a landscape of people that are
6:21hunting him down. Like a dog.
6:25And what he's thinking about, is he following, is he an E -plan?
6:29Is he thousands of miles from safety?
6:33Does he hear the rescue missions overhead flying above him?
6:38Does his radio even work?
6:41Does his sat phone work?
6:43Does he see the patrols of civilians out in the fields looking for him?
6:49Does he see the soldiers that are out there looking for him, or the drones,
6:53the buzzing of the drones that are constantly in the air around him?
6:58What's going through his mind?
7:01What is he thinking about?
7:04Is he ever going to see his children again or his wife or loved ones?
7:14There's a lot of people right now that are serving in our military and our
7:18intelligence world or as contractors for something that are out and having these thoughts that
7:26they're processing day in and day out.
7:28And there's an uncertainty of what's going to happen.
7:33And so that uncertainty always provokes fear.
7:37And so they're having to dig down deep and find those things that give them
7:41courage. Right? Those moral ideas or their religious commitments or just their faith in their
7:52family and their children and wanting to see them again.
7:59Now, I want to shift a little bit too away from the people that we
8:03have almost an expectation that has courage because it's been trained into them because of
8:09this unbelievable selfless decision to raise their right hand and put themselves forward into the
8:15fight. I want you to think about that 21 -year -old or that 17 -year
8:22-old high school kid who's getting ready to graduate, who hasn't been accepted to any
8:28college because they don't have the money to go.
8:31And now that AI is going to wreak havoc on many jobs out there, not
8:39sure what they even want to do or where they want to go or even
8:42if they believe the system is there for them at all in any way, shape,
8:47or form. Maybe they've been pulled into a particular type of radicalized ideology that capitalism
8:56in America is the great Satan.
8:59And they're believing the things they're reading on the Antifa 4chan websites or other websites
9:05that are perpetually talking about the scourge of Western ideologies.
9:11Maybe they've consumed so much false socialism that they actually believe that there is some
9:19way a utopic society could deliver to them if they would only become the insurgency
9:26themselves. How about that 21 -year -old kid who's about ready to graduate from college
9:34with a degree in marketing, who's looking at the other places and around where you
9:41used to be able to go, whether it was Los Angeles or Miami or New
9:46York, and earn a relatively decent living.
9:49But now it sees that marketing firms are no longer massive groups of people.
9:57It's an AI coordinated. It's somebody that knows how to teach or tell or prompt,
10:04right? The person that can produce 60 ,000 stories in under a second, right?
10:13What is that young person?
10:14How are they going to afford to leave their town and get out and explore
10:19the adventure of a lifetime?
10:22How about the 24 -year -old kid who's in law school, who's just realized that
10:28in the future, all legal decisions will most likely be made by an AI type
10:34of judge. So there's no subjective interpretations of what the law says.
10:42And so all this dedication, this desire, because maybe their father was a lawyer, mother
10:48was a lawyer, that they could move into this noble profession.
10:52To uphold the very thing that really makes the American system function and work, which
10:59is a legal system, which they've seen for the majority or heard from their young
11:03lives that is broken in many different facets.
11:06But they were going to come in and they were going to change that.
11:08They were going to bring a nobility, a courageous nobility back to the law, only
11:14to discover perhaps they might be obsolete in the next three to five years.
11:20Or how about the 32 -year -old person that's had an amazing job in technology
11:26in the tech sector for the last six or seven years, working out in Silicon
11:32Valley or maybe in Austin, Texas, or some other hotspot where technology has rooted itself
11:39as a cornerstone of the economy.
11:43And they're seeing other companies that have led the charge in the past in technology
11:48lay off 15, 20, 40 ,000 employees because their jobs are no longer relevant because
11:56AI can do the work for them.
12:00Does that 32 -year -old with two children who's just about at that place where
12:06they've amassed enough money in order to put down a down payment on a new
12:13home, small home, out in the suburbs, 40 minutes away from where they work.
12:20But it would be the very first thing that they actually owned, a piece of
12:24the American dream, a piece of that liberty and that freedom, so to speak.
12:29But now that dream's in jeopardy.
12:33Where do they find courage to face that?
12:38After processing all these different ideas over the last few months and seeing where we're
12:45at in particular, the catalyst of spending time with Joe Kent and Sean Ryan about
12:52a week ago and listening to him and what he was, the courage he had
12:57in order to face what inevitably has become a perpetual onslaught against himself, his character,
13:06his legacy, his children, his new wife, and even his gold star wife who died
13:13fighting for what this country says it believes in.
13:19How does Joe wake up every day and have the courage?
13:24What is courage for you and how do you think about it?
13:28Is it something that crosses your mind regularly?
13:30Is it something that you think about as you're in a fit of despair or
13:35you're so frustrated you can't see straight?
13:38Does it pop into the forefront of your mind and say, stop it, rut, be
13:43courageous in this moment and fight through?
13:47And what are the things that you determine that you rest upon?
13:50What are the tools? What are the swords, the armor, the shields that you present
13:55forth in order to beat back that negative insurgency that's flooding into every recess of
14:01your mind, that sits there in the shadows waiting for your weakness, waiting for your
14:07fear to overwhelm you in a space so profound that it seems like all is
14:13lost? Courage is the mental and moral strength to confront danger, difficulty, pain, fear, uncertainty,
14:25or intimidation while preserving toward a worthy goal.
14:31It is a derivative of the Latin word core, meaning heart, originally evoking the idea
14:39that the heart has the seat of all feelings, the spirit, and the thing that
14:45gives you resolve. Now, one of the things that you have to recognize is that
14:52courage encompasses both our own physical courage, that what we stand and fight against or
14:59we run away from, right?
15:01It's the moral courage. It's the things that we stand up for, these belief systems
15:06that we hold as the framework for how we perceive, right, the world around us.
15:18As one scholar used to say, it involves, quote, deliberate choice in the face of
15:25painful or fearful circumstances for the sake of a worthy goal.
15:31So what's your worthy goal?
15:35As you sit in this moment where you're not quite sure what to be courageous
15:39about, that's where you have to constitute what your worthy goal might be.
15:47What is the reason why you're going to rise above the ashes of your own
15:52defeat and step forward onto the breach once more?
16:02There's a physical construct of fear or of courage, and I wanted to try and
16:07break this down into a way that might make sense.
16:09It's a different way to think about it, right, across these different planes, philosophically, metaphysically,
16:16behaviorally, theologically. What is the reason why you're going to rise above the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
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16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of
16:20the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of the ashes of And so, you
16:21know, when I thought about the philosophical construct, you know, Western philosophy itself has long
16:27treated courage as one of its core virtues, right?
16:32One of the things that really you build your entire philosophical worldview around, right?
16:40This immovable thing in your consciousness that gives you the ability to endure.
16:47And when you think about Plato in terms of Lachius and Republic, right, he defines
16:53courage as a form of knowledge specifically, quote, wisdom about what is and is not
17:01to be feared, end quote.
17:05Now, it's not raw fearlessness, but the trained judgment that correctly values what truly matters.
17:15Right. But this doesn't happen easily in our lives, unfortunately.
17:21How do we generate the thing that gives us the correct values?
17:28And how do we judge the world around us?
17:30Certainly, if you're a young person and you're judging the world around us right now,
17:34you'd be like, well, what the fuck?
17:36Everything's crazy. Pedophiles go on on on arrested and prosecuted.
17:42We have unlimited corruption. And so I'm going to work my whole life paying taxes
17:48just so corrupt politicians at every level can steal and manipulate and become rich with
17:54as I grind. And they give my my my call, my my my my time,
18:00my energy, and they just hand it away to their friends and themselves.
18:05Or how about the fact that I see the moral interpretation is is is is
18:11being decimated by this postmodernistic belief and that the attack on Christianity and the attack
18:18on faith itself is unlimited in its capability, unlimited in the in the the war
18:25that comes against me as a Christian.
18:30Now, for Plato, also, courage is the preservation of the opinion formed by education.
18:38What is your education that's going out and living your life, finding out the truth
18:43of your existence in your day to day routine?
18:47Not sitting in bed, smoking a bowl, playing video games and escaping from the realities
18:54of your existence. That's not courageous.
18:59Or allowing your belief systems to be manipulated by some algorithm that only wants to
19:05consume your time, which is your greatest asset to go out and develop courage to
19:13consume your time in order to set to sell your your your your electronic behaviors
19:21to the highest bidder. Not even anybody willing to pay for your data.
19:36Now. One of the things that's critical to understand is that courage is not just
19:43simply valor on the battlefield.
19:46It's not just your actions and in themselves, but it's a habitual disposition.
19:52That contributes to human flourishing.
19:58And so when you think about the negative insurgency, its mission is to force you
20:03to not flourish, to keep you in a prison of fear.
20:08That's what's taking place day in and day out.
20:11And when you fail and you fail repeatedly and sometimes an epic proportion, that insurgency
20:17feels like it's winning. And so as you start to analyze philosophical antiquity or modern
20:28philosophy, if you will, right, this idea of courage is perpetual in its reality.
20:35Right. Aristotle noted that true courage requires self mastery.
20:42One faces danger without being consumed by it, recognizing that peace, not war, is the
20:50higher good. Self mastery looks like you being able to understand courage across the many
21:04different planes that it exists.
21:06Obviously, physical courage comes with eating healthy, sleeping right, working out, pushing yourself, getting out
21:16there, as Eric Schwalm said, as in run your marathon or joining a jujitsu gym
21:22and getting tested on the mats day in and day out.
21:26Or just simply eating right, being healthy, right, don't consume, over consume too much THC
21:37or destroy your body with alcohol or other drugs, right?
21:41The courage is to rebuild every day after the beat down you've taken through the
21:47stress of. The courage is to rebuild every day after the beat down you've taken
21:47through the stress of. of the unknown, right?
21:49Because if your body's not able to manage the need, the necessity that drives courage
21:56physically into the physical world, man, that's in and of itself going to be, feel
22:02like a massive defeat. So physical courage, right?
22:07Metaphysical courage. What does that look like?
22:11Metaphysical courage concerns the fundamental nature of reality itself, existence, and being.
22:20Existential philosophers locate it at the heart of human freedom amid absurdity and anxiety.
22:28What does that mean? The reality is you were born, you're going to live, and
22:35you're going to die. Anyway, that's your reality.
22:38That's an inescapable existential reality.
22:43What you choose to do over the course of that timeline, in many cases, after
22:51you've gone through whatever growth period or developmental period, and we're always developing in some
22:58capacity, but that real point where you become an individual, which means you can stand
23:03on your own two feet independently of your parents, maybe a sibling, maybe a benefactor
23:09of some kind, where you're almost isolated in the direction that you choose to go,
23:16and not isolated in a bad way, isolated in a freedom way, in a liberty
23:20way, choosing any path or direction you want to go in life.
23:25Let's say you want to go drive a motorcycle across the Mongolian flats, or you
23:30want to go get a physics doctorate from MIT, or you want to go to
23:36welding school and start your own business, or you want to join the military and
23:41go to war. The courage for the adventure, that's the essence of it, right?
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25:26T's and C's apply. Now, one of the things that you have to think about
25:29it are the things that impede that metaphysical development.
25:32And that's depression, anxiety, fears.
25:36And so, Kierkegaard saw anxiety as the dizziness of freedom, the awareness of infinite possibility
25:45and responsibility, right? Infinite possibility and responsibility.
25:51And that's profound for you to understand, right?
25:56As you allow the complexity or the anxiety you feel from the complexities of the
26:03world, the unknown that's in front of you, if that overwhelms you, that insurgency gets
26:08inside you and begins to disrupt your sense of courage or your sense of ambition
26:15or your sense of direction, right?
26:18Because we all need to be able to point to something and go after it,
26:22whether that's your sense of relationships, whether your sense of ambition in terms of meaning
26:31and job, what you want to do, or even that high order, that religious, that
26:37spiritual state of meeting the, what is it?
26:43The mission that Christ puts out for you, potentially.
26:52Heidegger built on many of these concepts and being in time and described anxiety or
26:59angst as a mood that discloses the nothingness at the ground of being, all right?
27:06It reveals the thrownness into a world without inherent meaning and calls to us, calls
27:13to us authentic dasian. or being there, right?
27:18Courage for Heidegger is the resoluteness, facing death, finitude, and the, quote, call of conscience,
27:27end quote, without fleeing into the, quote, idle talk or inauthenticity.
27:35That's something that I see young people facing at an overwhelming level, the desire to
27:44adapt to what they think is what society wants them to become, the inauthenticity, trying
27:52to mimic your favorite influencer instead of just taking a piece of what they have
27:57or pretending to be something you're not, manifesting a particular someone else's ego as your
28:05own in order to protect your uncertainness about who you are because you're afraid to
28:10go out and explore the beauty of the unknown, the adventure of what courage can
28:17unlock for you. I remember when I was in college and I had the opportunity
28:32to read some existentialism to study that, and I remember finding John Paul Sartre, although
28:38I don't believe in everything he thinks about.
28:40He's very postmodernistic in certain things.
28:42But, you know, there is some ideas behind this idea, and it's called the condemnation
28:51to be free. Your freedom allows your mind to be exposed to these types of
28:58things that are outside of your control, right?
29:02The uncertainty of your future.
29:04And I think a lot of times what these existentialists are saying is, listen, you've
29:09got one life. It's coming to an end.
29:12What are you going to do to give yourself meaning in the moment?
29:17What are you going to give yourself in this moment as you're listening to my
29:20voice? What are you going to give yourself in the moment to spark courage?
29:27Is it somebody you believe in or believes in you?
29:32Is it a particular action that you embark on every day of your life or
29:38once a week or whatever it might be?
29:40Is it your faith, right?
29:42To be courage, be courageous in a world where faith seems to not be, hold
29:48the same relevance it once did, but it always has.
29:53These things begin to affect what?
29:57They affect your behavior. And so understanding the behavioral construct of courage is essential too.
30:04Now, from a psychology and a positive psychology format, courage is measurable and observable.
30:12Now, thank God for that, right?
30:15Thank God that things I can do, I can measure, is this courageous or not?
30:22And somebody else can observe my courage.
30:28Somebody that I care about in particular, for me, it's my children.
30:32If I exemplify the thing that I'm trying to teach them by being courageous and
30:39speaking my mind, standing up for what I believe in, and I can demonstrate that
30:44vividly in my deeds and in my words, hopefully they can manifest their own behavior
30:54in a similar fashion or form.
30:59A behavioral approach, despite the experience of fear, is really what I'm talking about, right?
31:08We're all going to be afraid.
31:09There's no day you're going to wake up where you're not going to have something
31:12that triggers a modicum of fear.
31:15It's just built in, whether that's getting sick or having a baby or failing at
31:24a job or getting fired or your loved one telling you they're done, right?
31:30Fear is there. It's present, right?
31:32Regardless of what you want to believe or don't believe, suffering and pain are imbued
31:37into this existence of being born, living, and dying.
31:41It's just there. Now, there are certain research like Peter Norton who define it almost
31:50operationally. And they think about it like this.
31:53It's a persistence in high -risk situations despite fear and distinct from mere fearlessness or
32:01recklessness, right? Courage is the thing that forces you to act in a way that
32:06result in a net interpreted positive reaction, right?
32:14Even if it's pain, it induces pain or whatever, you still were courageous to face
32:20what you needed to face to make it to the next foot, the next inch
32:25of your life. Anytime I deal with certain clients that are really struggling, one of
32:30the mottos I always just repeat incessantly is inch by inch because under immeasurable amounts
32:40of fear when the world seems as if it's...
32:43sucking you into its abyss.
32:46Gaining one inch a day is often just enough.
32:53Now, one of the other things about fear from a behavioral construct that you have
32:58to think about, and these are key components, is how you do risk assessment, right?
33:03Do you have noble intent?
33:05And are you, can you exemplify perseverance in difficult situations?
33:24One of the interesting things about how psychologists have, in terms of behavioralists, what they've
33:30been able to do is that courage predicts real -world behavior, right?
33:37Right? It goes above and beyond fear and leaves that alone, right?
33:46It separates you from the fear.
33:49It doesn't delete it, but it gives you space so it's not controlling you, where
33:55the courage is the motivation.
33:56The courage is the momentum.
33:59The courage is the thing that breaks the shackles of fear, right?
34:06It buffers stress in us.
34:08It reduces post -traumatic stress.
34:12It correlates with higher life satisfaction.
34:17It lowers depression, and it ultimately results in better performance under pressure, which is life
34:25itself. All those people I listed as I started this, if they allow courage to
34:31be a component of their endeavors, right?
34:36Then their ability to persevere will be much more prevalent, even in the midst of
34:42their profound pain and suffering.
34:45As long as they have courage, they can gain that inch.
34:51In positive psychology, it is a character strength.
34:57It involves bravery. Again, perseverance, honesty, and a zest for life.
35:08It can be cultivated like a skill through deliberate practice, small acts of speaking up,
35:15trying new things, and facing discomfort to build what they call the courage muscle.
35:25I talk about this quite often when I'm talking about performance with different teams that
35:30I work with or have worked with in the past, and that's professional sports teams,
35:35college sports teams, top business teams.
35:40There's a thing that happens with iterable behavior, right?
35:46We build up a strength, and in particular if it's working well for us.
35:51There is negative iterable behavior.
35:53Think about addicts, that it overwhelms the chemistry of their brains, and so they seek
36:03out that pleasure as opposed to having the courage to defeat it.
36:06It overwhelms that component. But through a concept called stress inoculation, what you can do
36:13is you can expose yourself a little bit every day.
36:16That's where the inch is.
36:18Every day a little bit more and more and more and more and more and
36:22more until you build up that sense of drive, that sense of motivation, that sense
36:27of true focused ferocity in what you believe in, what your faith is in, to
36:38move forward by that inch.
36:43Again, behaviorally, courage is not fixed on one singular trait, but a dynamic process.
36:51It's a cognitive appraisal of risk versus value, emotional regulation, and repeated action that rewires
37:01the fear response itself. You're now going to get rid of it.
37:05There's no such thing as fearlessness.
37:07There just isn't. But what you can do is you can build up your strength
37:15to be courageous in the midst of great fear or suffering or pain.
37:22All right. The theological construct, right?
37:27In Christian theology, which is my main focus in my life, courage appears as fortitude,
37:35one of the four cardinal virtues alongside prudence, justice, and temperance, right?
37:43The Bible repeatedly commands God's people to be strong and courageous, right?
37:50Framing it not as self -generated bravery, but as trust that God's presence is real
37:57in your life and his hand is on you, helping you take that inch.
38:05I'm going to talk about this in a very personal way for me now.
38:13So the hardest thing I've ever done in my life is believing that I was
38:20deserving of Christ's love for me, that my sins could be forgiven and still can
38:27be. And so I battled back and forth that many, many years.
38:31You can hear me describe it if you go back and listen to my interview
38:35I did with Sean Ryan on the Sean Ryan Show.
38:38I talked pretty extensively about that journey.
38:41And the pain I experienced in the midst of it.
38:47Now, one of the things that this last few months has continued to reinforce in
38:52me is to be courageous in nature, to settle in in the place that I
38:57need to be, to take that inch in some capacity every day.
39:01And so what I recently did in order to be a profound reminder of that
39:07is I went out and I got a tattoo of David decapitating Goliath on my
39:14arm as a constant and perpetual reminder that there is a innocence in us that
39:23rests and lies within a conviction, a courage conviction, that God is with me at
39:29all steps, at all times in my life.
39:32And by utilizing that belief and that strength that God's inside of me, that I
39:39can always be courageous when I want to otherwise run away from the giant.
39:48Now, what's interesting is when you think about that story, there's a profound amount of
39:57messianic ideas that surround that.
40:00And if you go through many of David, King David's psalms, he has that prophecy
40:07in many of his psalms.
40:11And so Psalm 22 in particular is one of those psalms, you know, and he
40:18describes his suffering and as, you know, of a person that sometimes feels abandoned by
40:26God, but he endures this intense mockery of his enemies, right?
40:33And the physical torture and torment from them as well too.
40:38And you break it down and it has two main sections.
40:41Verses one through 21 is about the lament of intense suffering, isolation, and apparent forsakenness.
40:49That idea of forsakenness, that's prophetic.
40:53And verses 22 to 31, there's a shift to praise and deliverance and the extension
41:00of God's salvation to all nations and future generations, i .e.
41:05the liberation that we're provided through Christ's sacrifice.
41:11Prophecy, the prophetic realities. There's also another psalm that has more prophetic meaning in it,
41:20and I'll get to that here in a second to understand why I'm doing this.
41:23And that's Psalm 63. And one of the key verses for me that leaps out
41:28is, O God, you are my God.
41:31Earnestly, I seek you. I thirst for you.
41:35My whole being belongs for you.
41:38In a dry and parched land where there is no water, that's your fear.
41:44That's your suffering. That's your pain.
41:46Where there is no water, because your love is better than life, my lips will
41:52glorify you. So just speaking the name of God or Christ, that is the quenching
42:00of your thirst, the quenching of the thing that you need, the courage.
42:06God is the courage. Speak God, and you will be quenched of this thing, this
42:13fear that is making you thirst for something that can give you that inch.
42:22Obviously, this weekend, and I'm recording this on Saturday, and I just want to really
42:28thank Jordy for coming in on the weekend.
42:30He's an incredibly devout human being.
42:32I've learned a profound amount from you, Jordy, and I want to thank you for
42:38that. But I had to come in.
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43:13T's and C's apply. Now, yesterday, as I traditionally do, I watched The Passion of
43:21the Christ, and I watched that to feel the intensity of what Christ, I can't
43:27even imagine, I can't even profoundly, but what I can do is I can visualize
43:31what I saw and then try and translate and allow myself to feel.
43:38some semblance of his pain.
43:45And throughout Christ's life, he required massive amounts of courage.
43:50Just knowing that he was the Messiah and what he had to do, stepping into
43:55that river with John the Baptist and allowing the process to begin, his missionary to
44:01begin, he knew from that moment what that meant was going to be his crucifixion.
44:08His sacrifice for all of us.
44:14He showed courage and is resisting the temptation of the devil for 40 days and
44:2140 nights, cleansing the temple itself.
44:25Imagine the courage it took to walk into the temple that his familial connection to
44:34the king of David and going in and flipping the tables, and calling out the
44:40hypocrisy of what was taking place.
44:43Imagine the courage of doing that.
44:46He had no tactical training.
44:49He had no, he wasn't a police officer.
44:51He wasn't a bully. Wasn't any of that.
44:54He was just a preacher, a rabbi.
45:00But where we really see Christ's ultimate courage in my mind is through the time
45:10where he was in the garden to the time he died on the cross.
45:15For me, I remember in the beginning of the passion of Christ, we see him,
45:20right, in Gethsemane, and we see him crying, and you see him sweating and crying
45:28the blood of all souls.
45:34How about the courage to face one of his apostles who for 30 pieces of
45:41silver betrays him and brings those guards to him knowing that it's inevitable, it cannot
45:50be reversed, knowing this is part of it.
45:53And what Judas, looking in his eyes as he receives his kiss to acknowledge to
45:59the guards, this is Jesus of Nazareth.
46:02And then what takes place and what begins after that.
46:07Through his trial and conviction with the Pharisees and with Pontius Pilate and the scourge
46:17that he took from those Roman soldiers.
46:22Think about that. Think about how many lashes with that whip filled with metal pieces
46:31and bone scourging massive chunks of his flesh from his body on every side of
46:38every inch of his body bleeding copious, copious, copious amounts of blood onto the ground
46:46while people cheer and jeer at your feet.
46:51Knowing in his head, he has to suffer for all of us.
46:55And what does he do?
46:57He keeps getting back up.
47:00And the crucifixion itself being nailed to the cross as your mother and a few
47:10of your disciples watches you.
47:17Every inch and agony none of us can even fathom.
47:26But what does he do?
47:29Christ gives us seven final statements that can be a framework for you and your
47:40courage. Christ gives us these statements in the midst of a pain and in suffering
47:47that goes beyond anything a human being can remotely even contemplate.
47:53Because in the midst of his human pain of his human suffering he is also
48:00feeling the weight of the world both past present and future souls.
48:07All of our sins all of our suffering encompassed in these few hours.
48:15And his first one think about the courage of this as you're flayed out flayed
48:22out barely being able to breathe because your lungs are filled up with fluids the
48:28pain the exposure of your body your rib cage being exposed from all the flesh
48:34being torn off your back you're laid on the cross and you have spikes driven
48:40into your hands and over your cross feet nailed in and then the pushing of
48:48that and as that's happening then he says forgive them forgive them for they know
48:54not what they do and what is this?
48:57this is Jesus divine love in the midst of this he has the courage to
49:06express love divine love for those that torture him to death that condemn him to
49:12death next he sells truly i tell you today you will be with me in
49:21paradise now who's he speaking to he's talking to one of the criminals that's been
49:30crucified with him who was begging the roman soldiers how dare you i'm the criminal
49:35crucify me he has done nothing wrong begging for jesus to be forgiven truly i
49:45tell you today you will be with me in paradise and that's the promise he
49:51made to him the courage in the last moments to to do something divine which
49:57which is why he's been crucified in the first place because being professing the messiah
50:04and he go looks over and he grants salvation to a criminal in the time
50:10before in the agony of his own suffering and pain he looks next to him
50:14he says guess what you will be forgiven you will be with me in eternity
50:22woman here is your son here is your mother now this is him speaking to
50:29his mother mary and one of his beloved disciples john standing on but beneath him
50:36and in the midst of his suffering once again jesus shows tender care and responsibility
50:43to his family members think about that think about in the midst of your own
50:49fears your own your own pain and suffering as your family is trying to help
50:55you or represent you or or be there for you and you're turning away from
50:59them because you don't want to expose your weakness in that moment jesus teaches his
51:07family to rely on each other through the faith they have in himself my god
51:16my god why have you forsaken me back to that prophecy from psalm and king
51:23david and the ang in this anguish cry quotes the opening of psalm 22 expressing
51:33the profound spiritual suffering of bearing the sins of the world and at that moment
51:40the father turned away as jesus became sin for us experiencing the separation and wrath
51:48humanity deserves it is not despair but a faithful lament that points towards the victory
51:56it reveals the cost of redemption and jesus's full identification within human brokenness those are
52:08the quiet moments where you're waiting for god to respond or you're waiting for someone
52:14who loves you to respond those are the quiet moments that you are seated in
52:19your own suffering seated in your own ability to summon courage that god is giving
52:26you the opportunity to summon don't be blasphemous don't be a victim don't blame others
52:37in those moments sink into the pain of your experience feel humility and feel the
52:44lesson you're supposed to learn and what you're supposed to utilize to come out of
52:50the ashes to rise above your own crucifixion if you will i am thirsty and
53:02this if this this very short statement affirms his humanity he endured the physical torture
53:10right including the extreme dehydration which fulfills another prophecy right out of psalm 69 showing
53:22us that the source of real spiritual refreshment while suffering thirst right is to quench
53:30humanity's deeper spiritual thirst the thirst that you need to to have for god itself
53:41to drink in the word of christ i am finished a lot of people struggle
53:55with this when i think as i did for many times why would he say
53:59this and essentially what it is is it it's his admittance that he has fulfilled
54:06his promise to us he has gone through what he had to go through so
54:13that god would forgive our sins that god's wrath upon us would no longer be
54:21encompassed in all of these other facets of our of our immorality of our selfishness
54:29or our own construct of what meaning is about and we're going to get to
54:33the world so so so so so so so He fulfills the whole thing willingly
54:38and speaks the truth of that.
54:43And lastly, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
54:53Willingly giving himself back to God, his Father.
55:08Courage is an incredibly powerful tool that you can use.
55:14And whether you use Christ as the embodiment of courage or you use Joe Kent
55:21as an example. Or you use some other person in history or your single mother
55:26or your father who was imprisoned.
55:29Or your family member who made a mistake, who is repenting.
55:35Or your best friend that has beaten addiction and trying to do their best.
55:40Or your spouse. Whatever that place that you can find salvation.
55:45And how you address the courage within that relationship.
55:49Man, that's the space you want to exist within.
55:53Not within the fear of the insurgency.
56:00Courage is not simply, again, reserved for heroes on the battlefields.
56:05And I know I started it out that way, but I wanted to make a
56:09point. This is the quiet force that enables our ordinary life to become extraordinary.
56:18Courage is the thing that allows us to live not with fear as a chain,
56:26but fear as a driver.
56:30Something that we tolerate but manipulate in order to gain the inch every day.
56:40Your daily courage, it can show up in you speaking the truth of what you
56:47believe in. Starting a difficult conversation that you've not wanted to do.
56:53Pursuing a passion as opposed to something you're forced to do in order, because someone's
56:59telling you it's the right thing.
57:03Standing against injustice all around you.
57:06Nothing more courageous than that.
57:10Every time you allow yourself to take the inch with courage, it's going to help
57:17you personally. It's going to develop your strength, your armor.
57:21It's going to develop your ability to foster resilience, self -confidence, and that estimation of
57:32authenticity. Ultimately, courage is the heartbeat of your meaningful life.
57:47There's no other way I can describe this to you.
57:51Without it, life will not be what you want it to be.
57:59Hell, man, it's so powerful.
58:01As I was building out my course on learning to embrace fear in your life,
58:07it's the full final chapter, the final mission, is to live with courage in your
58:14life. That's the essence of your battle against fear, is your desire to achieve a
58:23profound state of courage as you face the negative insurgency.
58:31The way I believe you can do that is first and foremost, strengthen your faith.
58:38Really dig into the word of Christ.
58:41Or better yet, dig into the things that you know, that you truly have faith
58:46in. The people that you believe are honest.
58:49The people that you believe are willing to tell you what you need to hear
58:53when you need to hear it.
58:54The people that inspire you.
58:56The people that motivate you.
58:58The people that lift you above, right?
59:02The material nature of that stuff, which makes you inauthentic.
59:12Seek that out. Seek that faith.
59:15The other one is to really stand up for what you believe in.
59:19Now, if you're not, you don't know what you believe in, that's where you need
59:22to start developing or building your courage.
59:26And I went through several different ways, the philosophy of courage, the metaphysics of courage,
59:32the behavioral aspect of courage, the theological aspect of courage.
59:36You can pick any one of those throughout human history, through stoicism or through some
59:43type of B .F. Skinner or whatever it might be in that spectrum of understanding
59:47courage. Just pick one thing and begin to dive into it.
59:51But the thing that really matters is that when you get out of bed every
59:56day, you do something that's courageous.
1:00:00Now, again, courageous. Courageous. doesn't mean you join the military and fly over to Iran
1:00:05and join the fight. Courageousness is you're a good person every day.
1:00:12You don't fall prey to the hedonism that's consuming a lot of people.
1:00:18You don't fall prey to the material aspects of what you covet from someone else.
1:00:25You don't fall prey to the incessant nature of negativism and always finding the negative
1:00:32outlook in something. The insurgency wants you to do it.
1:00:35Hell, just fighting back against that alone will develop your courage, will fortify it, will
1:00:43give you perseverance. The main way I believe you can do that is through iron
1:00:48sharpening iron. Surround yourself by other courageous people.
1:00:53Find the people around you that are seeking out that story themselves, that are seeking
1:00:59out what is courage. They're trying to find the truth of the very thing that
1:01:04allows them to confront or face the irredeemable.
1:01:11To confront or face the manipulation.
1:01:17To confront or face the evil that exists all around us.
1:01:22Surround yourself with them. And the last piece and the most pinnacle piece and the
1:01:29piece that was the hardest for me to realize.
1:01:32The piece that made it most difficult in my journey in faith.
1:01:38And that's I had to figure out how to live my life filled with love
1:01:42in my heart. And when I think about those moments where I have anger led
1:01:51by mostly fear overwhelm the construct or the tool of love that I can use
1:01:57the arm that breaks through or chips my armor of love I have around me
1:02:01that God gives me and I I portray that onto other people that are weak
1:02:06or angry or evil or whatever I can I can you know want to believe
1:02:10they are and I catch myself and I reallocate that that energy out of that
1:02:17insurgency and into courage and I try and address problems or my own suffering through
1:02:24the lens of love. And how do I do that?
1:02:28It's as easy as speaking truth to my children or my spouse or wrapping my
1:02:33arms around my beautiful wife and telling her I love you I've got you I'm
1:02:38with you I'm never leaving.
1:02:44Living with love is a very difficult thing it takes the most courage there is
1:02:49on the planet to actually pray for somebody that you believe is trying to hurt
1:02:54you to actually pray for somebody that's making horrible decisions that are going to impact
1:02:59you to actually pray for those that you love that might be out on the
1:03:04literal front lines here soon.
1:03:12courage hopefully I've made a case that courage is worth your consideration hopefully I've made
1:03:24a stronger case than just consideration hopefully I've made a case that you can develop
1:03:31a conviction in your courage that you can gain that inch every day no matter
1:03:39what you're going to face no matter what you're going to suffer from no matter
1:03:42how you're going to be crucified in the modern era because I promise you if
1:03:51you do have courage in your heart and courage in your life that the time
1:03:58you have from the moment since you're born to the time you die there will
1:04:04be meaning in that life and if you also have the courage to put your
1:04:09faith in Christ you will have eternal courage and love as well too thank you
1:04:17so much God bless you I want to thank you for listening I want to
1:04:23thank you for your support I want to thank you Jordy again I want to
1:04:28thank my family my wife but most importantly I want to thank Jesus Christ I
1:04:35love you God bless you