70: Overcoming Unspeakable Darkness. Protecting Children. How to Support a Military Spouse. Living a GOOD Life. With Iris Gardner

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:32 - Intro to Iris Gardner. 0:23:40 - Sexual Assault--First incident as a child. 0:39:59 - Tips to prevent abuse. Why it's hard to come forward. 0:51:16 - Iris growing up with her abuser. 1:01:24 - Resulting relationships, the wrong path, and more Darkness. 1:13:11 - Bouncing back. The beginning. 1:26:50 - Being a Military Wife - Emotional Independence, and tips to be have a successful relationship. 1:47:12 - How to Live a Happy Life after Abuse. 1:57:00 - Jocko's letter to his daughter. Appreciate your mother. 2:13:30 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, Amazon https://www.amazon.com/?&tag=jocko20-20&camp=216797&creative=498533&linkCode=ur1&adid=1DKYGWXQBV0KNEZ3MZZX&, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid http://amzn.to/2n9k6I9, and The Muster002 http://www.extremeownership.com 2:40:28 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 70 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  Now I was gonna start off tonight with a warning that tonight's episode is gonna contain things that are not appropriate for children.

• 0:28Jocko Willink?

  Then as I, as I put together the notes, I realized that maybe the opposite is true.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  And that maybe this is an important episode that children do need to listen to.

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  But I would say, listen to it alone, by yourself first, without your children, and then decide if and when they are ready to listen to this.

• 1:04Jocko Willink?

  And unfortunately, I will tell you that I think the time is likely sooner than you think. And it is most definitely sooner than it should be.

• 1:21Jocko Willink?

  Now, normally, I am talking about war.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  And in that light, I have covered some of the most heinous

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  and horrible things that have happened in the world.

• 1:45Jocko Willink?

  Evil things.

• 1:48Jocko Willink?

  Like evil people.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  And the things that I'm talking about are things that happen on a large scale in, in war. Battles between nations and armies versus armies and men against men.

• 2:14Jocko Willink?

  And in those situations, on that global stage.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  Of war. As I always say,

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  we see the best of human nature

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  and we often see the worst.

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes the worst of human behavior, the most evil of human behavior does not occur on the battlefield.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  And it is not driven by war. It's not brought on by the madness of combat.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  It's not the result of men trying to kill other men.

• 3:19Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  the most evil side of human beings

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  sneaks around in the dark.

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  Lurking.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  Waiting.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  Preying on the weak,

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  the scared

• 3:43Jocko Willink?

  and the defenseless.

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  Preying on

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  children.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  And often, it isn't some archetype of evil.

• 4:05Jocko Willink?

  Like the picture you have in your head of some sneering predator with a sadistic look.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  It can often be

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  a trusted neighbor

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  or a family friend

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  or even a relative.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  And to talk through some of this with me tonight.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm honored to have a special guest on, an amazing person.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  That I admire.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  For her toughness and courage, incredibly strong woman.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  Loving mother.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  And extremely hardworking and highly productive farmer.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  And last, but certainly not least. An incredible wife to one of my. Very close friends who has done multiple combat tours overseas, leaving this wonderful woman. Back on the home front. To handle the business at home.

• 5:27Jocko Willink?

  And her name is Iris.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  And my first. Solid memory. Of Iris and I'd met her before this, but you know, I didn't really think too much about it, but. I was driving out to see her husband. Out on a farm, out on their farm that they live on and I. I, I pulled up. In my vehicle. My minivan, I'm quite sure. And I'm looking across this spance of land. And out there. In the field. Fully nine months pregnant.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  Guiding a horse drawn plow. Right? I'm talking, it looks like it's 1729 out there. Horse drawn plow.

• 6:19Jocko Willink?

  In the field, in the summertime and in the valley, in the, in the inland of. Southern California. So it's hot and dusty and she sees me and she like ties off the, the horse. And then she comes walking over to me and she's wearing. The actual spurs like you see in a Western movie, that jingle jangle, like no kidding.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  And she's a small framed woman, you know? And she took off, she had a pair of leather gloves on that looked like they were passed down from the Marlboro man. It just all worked and she took one of those off and it gave me a handshake and her, her skin was basically as tough as the leather gloves she was wearing. And she, you know, said, hey, and pointed me towards her house where I'd find her husband who was in there. Like watching TV or something in the air conditioning and then she turned around and walked back and headed back out field. Again, she was nine months, straight up nine months pregnant.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  And I thought to myself, damn.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  What a, what an awesome woman. So

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  years later,

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  I would say maybe five, four or five years later. I was

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  extremely moved and angered and disturbed and thankful and awed, all at the same time. When she posted an article online about something she had experienced as a child.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  And here is an excerpt of what she wrote.

• 8:21Jocko Willink?

  I was only five years old the first time it happened.

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't feeling well, so while everyone else went down the hill to cut firewood. I stayed back at the cabin in bed.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  I remember him coming back. Coming through the door and telling me he needed to get a chainsaw file.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  He then came over to the bed. Told me to lay still and pulled my pants down.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  I was a shy child and would never, ever have questioned an adult at that age.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  He inserted his fingers into my vagina and I remember it hurting and I was just petrified.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  I had no idea what to do.

• 9:24Jocko Willink?

  He said things to me like, "Doesn't that feel good?" And, "You like this, right?"

• 9:35Jocko Willink?

  I was unable to say anything. Or, "I don't know," I may have even mumbled agreement with him because that's what I thought I was supposed to do.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  I just remember that it hurt and I was scared and I was confused.

• 9:57Jocko Willink?

  The sound of my parents' truck pulling up the driveway stopped him and he carefully pulled my pants back up and went over to the sink and washed his hands.

• 10:10Jocko Willink?

  As if washing away the evidence.

• 10:15Jocko Willink?

  He then pulled me close and told me that this was a secret. Just between us.

• 10:25Jocko Willink?

  It was so cliche, it amazes me now that that's what he said. And how well it worked.

• 10:43Jocko Willink?

  Now

• 10:45Jocko Willink?

  I have faced fear. I've faced horror, I've faced evil, but I faced it as a full-grown man.

• 10:59Jocko Willink?

  Who spent pretty much my entire life being trained to fight and to kill and prepared to die.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  And furthermore, when I was in those situations, not only was I a full-grown man, I was with my brothers in arms to my left and to my right.

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  But to face this kind of evil as a child,

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  as a little girl, and I have three daughters,

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  as a little girl scared, defenseless, and alone.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  This is almost impossible for me to comprehend.

• 11:57Jocko Willink?

  And I know that I can learn a lot

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  from the type of person that can survive this kind of abuse. I know we can all learn a lot, especially from a person with the strength to confront this evil and overcome it.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  And then put together an amazing and beautiful life with an amazing and beautiful family. We can all learn from this.

• 12:28Jocko Willink?

  And with that in mind,

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Iris, welcome to the show.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  And thank you so much for coming on.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Wow, thank you, Jocko. It's really an honor to be here.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  And like all of our guests, now, you have to tell us about the beginning, where you came from, what was going on in your life. And your life is very interesting. I remember when your husband first met you, and he was kind of telling me about this girl he had met, and I was... You know, when you hear your story, you just think, damn, that's awesome. And so, tell us a little bit about that, about your childhood. You had a lot of very cool experiences in your childhood, and grew up in a almost completely unique way that I don't think I've ever met anyone else that grew up like you did.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I never realized it was really unique until I was an adult and got out in the world a little bit more and realized that most people anywhere near my age did not grow up the way that I did.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  So, we lived in the mountains in Northern California. My dad was initially a miner, a gold miner.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  And he would go into old mine shafts and bring out ore that they would crush in a in a small mill and then refine the gold down into bars that they would sell. And eventually he became a timberfowler and a logger. Um, back in nineteen eighty-seven, I was seven years old. There's a huge forest fire that burned through Northern California. And I remember it vividly because one night there was just this wall of fire rolling down on our house. And luckily, our house was spared, but a lot of our neighbors lost their homes. And after that, a lot of logging came into the area because there was so much burned.

• 14:35Jocko Willink?

  But, um, so a lot of people have parents that might be working in mines. They might have parents that are working as, you know, loggers or lumberjacks. But they still might have things in their house like power and heat and, and electricity. So you guys were like off the grid, right?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, the whole area. So, so this place is probably one of the most rural places in this country still, unless maybe you get up into Alaska. Um, it's in Northern California in the mountains. There's this gorgeous river valley there. And it still doesn't have electricity. Um, the people that live there still just use some solar now or, um, generators, but no one had that back when I was a kid. So, yeah, we grew up with, um, no power, no telephones, no television. We used the old school, um, kerosene lanterns with the little thin glass globes and you

• 15:44Speaker 01

  would carry those from room to room. If you needed light, we would take them to bed with us at night and read by kerosene lantern. And we had a wood cook stove that we cooked on um just to get hot water. Our wood cook stove had coils that ran through it that the water would run through. And warm it, so you would have to start a fire in the stove to have any hot water to to warm it.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was a it was it was interesting. I I take power and things like that for granted now, but back then it was just normal.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say it becomes normal for kids. I I know that for instance, when my kids were little, they just thought that everyone did jujitsu. Cause we did jujitsu all the time. They just thought, oh, yeah, well, you know, doesn't everyone do jujitsu all the time? But just no, no power. And that's kind of there.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  It's hard for people to even imagine that nowadays. When you're a kid and you don't have an iPad to entertain you. You don't have a TV to entertain you. Well, the creativity has to be there, right? It has to develop.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause what did you do for fun?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Well, we had.

• 17:03Jocko Willink?

  Rocks.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  I know, see, when I was a kid, I when I was a kid, it was like everything, every stick you could find turned into a machine gun. And every rock you found turned into a grenade, and that's what we did. Did you even, how would you even know what a grenade was? Or, you know, how would you know what a doll was?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, we had a few toys, but you know, I see the toys that kids have now and definitely is.

• 17:29Jocko Willink?

  Kind of different.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Is is very different. Um, we had a few, a few old toys, but mostly we just lived outside. We just, outside was our, that was our playground, our toys.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  And then where were you guys getting food from?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  We always had a big garden. My mom um grew a grew a grew a huge garden and canned and froze. Or well, didn't freeze. We didn't have electricity for a freezer, but canned and dried food. And we had our own milk house.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  We raised pigs, which that, that was kind of interesting too. My, we had a lot of pigs. My sister and I used to sleep outside in this, um, in the summers when the weather was nice. There was this old stone root cellar with like a loft that had open ends. And we would sleep up there whenever the weather was a little bit iffy. And it was right over top of the pig pen. So we essentially grew up in a barn.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Um, we would wake up in the middle of the night with pigs squealing and turn our flashlights on and shine the lights down there and watch like litters of piglets being born. And these weren't even normal pigs. They were like wild boars that we'd caught and bred. And so they were all hairy and long snouts and they weren't like your fat pink pigs that you get that most people raise.

• 18:55Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, and did you, was there any kind of school up there?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  There was a tiny little school that we went to. When I lived there, it was sort of the height of the population. There's less people there now, but there was the mining and the logging had brought in a few more people. And so the school that I went to had about 25 kids from K through eight. So there's maybe a couple of kids per grade. And we were all in the same, it was, there was like two rooms, the big kids' room and the little kids' room. And we were so close because there were just a few of us. And we were just, every, all of the kids that I grew up with had a very similar upbringing to the way I did. So there are at least 25 other kids out there in the world who grew

• 19:43Speaker 01

  up exactly the same as I did. But we were this pack of just feral children, really, um, that just lived in the woods and swam in the river and, and, um, did everything. And I have wonderful memories of that, which offset a lot of the not so pleasant things that happened in that same time.

• 20:05Jocko Willink?

  Did you, uh, what about books? Did you guys have a ton of books? Did you read? Was that sort of your one escape from the reality that was around you?

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we didn't have television and in the summers, we were mostly outside in the river. In the woods. We would go down to the river in the evening and watch the bears catch salmon and...

• 20:31Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like a, you know, pretty normal afternoon for a five-year-old.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  But in the winter, when it was cold and rainy, we read a ton. And I've got the best big sister in the world. She's a couple of years older than me. And she was reading these just ridiculously age-inappropriate books. I remember her reading these huge novels when she was like 10 years old because we didn't have any money and it wasn't like our parents went out and bought us the the newest children's books or anything to read. We just read whatever happened to be laying around. And oftentimes that was not what you would typically give a 10-year-old to read. But so she would, she started reading to herself and then she would read to me

• 21:19Speaker 01

  before I was, you know, and eventually I became a very avid reader too. But yeah, that was, that was a big part of her life. In fact, Cormac McCarthy is also one of my very favorite authors, if not my favorite author. I think I, I read All the Pretty Horses and the Crossing when I was like 15. I'd read Blood Meridian by the time I was 16. I've read them all numerous times. But I remember, uh, this wonderful old neighbor lady that lived down the road from us gave me this box of, a big cardboard box full of old Louis Lamour and Zane Grey novels.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Which for anyone who's not familiar with those, they're, they're westerns. They're all westerns. And that was, you know, the way you talk about being a kid and sort of wanting to be a soldier, wanting to be in the military so bad. And that was like, you were focused on that and that's all you were gonna do. That was me, but with horses. That was the only thing I cared about. And so I, I just gobbled up all of these old westerns and lived in that world of imagining myself being like a cowboy riding across the plains with my bedroll and but I didn't have a horse. So, um, you know, I lived in the woods as much as I could. I, I,

• 22:50Speaker 01

  we, we foraged, we found, um, we hunted for wild mushrooms all the time, which is still one of my very favorite things to do. Um, and I used to read mushroom and plant field guides like other kids might read, you know, fantasy novels or something.

• 23:10Jocko Willink?

  So it's a, it's a definitely unique and a lot of really, I mean, that's just an unbelievable experience and it sounds like you, you definitely a lot of positivity. You know, there's so much positivity to that, the way you grew up.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  It was a very idyllic childhood. I would say that I, I have a lot of darkness in that same time, but I wouldn't trade the way that I grew up for anything.

• 23:39Jocko Willink?

  So let me talk a little bit about that, that darkness.

• 23:47Jocko Willink?

  And I kind of talked about in that, in that opening of, of how it started and, and the first time it happened to you, this, this abuse that you suffered. Now I'm going to go back to this article that, that you wrote.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  And here we go.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is, this is the, this is from a five-year-old.

• 24:12Jocko Willink?

  "I was confused mostly.

• 24:16Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it ever crossed my mind to tell my parents.

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  I just knew that I had been instructed not to tell anyone, so that's what I did."

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  I really didn't understand what he had done or why, but I definitely knew that what had been done was wrong and it might be something that I would be punished for.

• 24:42Jocko Willink?

  From that moment on, my life became one big game of cat and mouse.

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  I tried to avoid him and he pursued me and took every opportunity to get his hands on me. He had plenty of opportunities because he was a beloved and trusted family friend.

• 25:07Jocko Willink?

  Even right in front of my parents and other people, he would regularly slap my butt and pull me onto his lap.

• 25:17Jocko Willink?

  I would always squirm away as quickly as I could. I remember being left home with him. I remember throwing fits and begging to go along with my mom and my sister. My mom just thinking I was acting out and being a brat and would tell me to stay with him until they got back.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  The fact that no one realized what was happening by simply observing the situation still bewilders me.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  So this guy, like you said here,

• 25:59Jocko Willink?

  this guy had full access to your house, full trust of your parents.

• 26:08Jocko Willink?

  Why is it that you think, or expand, you kind of talk about a little bit, but what is it that makes a kid hold that information in when something bad is happening like this?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  So I think it started happening with me when I was so young that I just, I didn't understand it. I did not understand what was even going on. No one had ever told me that something like that might happen and...

• 26:38Speaker 01

  I was told not to say anything by an adult. And so I didn't. And I think I definitely had a feeling that I knew something was wrong and that this was not what should be happening. But I was, a lot of it was probably just my personality type. I was a shy, quiet kid and

• 27:03Speaker 01

  I wasn't inclined to express my emotions that much anyways.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  And I, you know, I think people who do this sort of thing, they look for a specific type of kid.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  They're not stupid. They know how to single out just the right kid. And that was me in, in the time and

• 27:35Speaker 01

  I just had, I had a lack of understanding of what was even going on.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  I didn't really know that it was definitely something that I should tell other adults.

• 27:48Jocko Willink?

  And I'm thinking that in your, in your situation, in your upbringing, you're seeing, you're seeing nature, right? You're understanding that pigs are having babies. I mean, you're seeing this kind of thing take place, but it wasn't something that your family talked about, the birds and the bees or anything like that just didn't come up.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, not really. And definitely not in. I, I think that it's hard for people to believe that their best friend or close family members would ever harm their children. And so I don't, I, I suspect that my parents felt like they kept a pretty good eye on me and that I was fine. Because they didn't look where they needed to look.

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  I think that's and I'm sure Echo has some kind of bias, psychological bias for this, but you know, anytime you're in a situation where there's something that you simply could never imagine and couldn't believe, and if that's, if that's, if something that you could never imagine and couldn't believe happening, and you're not being told about it, what would plant that in your mind, you know, to make you think that it's going on? From your parents' perspective, you know, it's like, it's like me looking at one of my close friends, I would never have that thought, and so where would it come from? And you kind of see how it would not show up.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  And you'd probably think that your kid would let you know if there was a problem, right? You would be like, "Well, I would be able to tell if something was wrong because my kid would let me know somehow." And that's not necessarily the case.

• 29:33Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go back as you continue this, back to your writing here. "We moved into our own house, and I would have some moments of peace, but he was always around, always visiting, and even parked a trailer on our property to live in for periods of time. He stalked me like I was his prey. I never, ever felt safe from him. He would watch me constantly. I would look up from playing with toys and see him standing in the doorway of my bedroom staring at me. I would wake up to him watching me. When I would have friends over, I would suddenly jump up and announce that we needed to go

• 30:18Jocko Willink?

  outside and play right now, because I would notice him watching us through a doorway or a window."

• 30:32Jocko Willink?

  Again, I can't even, I can't even imagine what that had to feel like for a five-year-old, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old. And again, I picture my own children and their pure innocence that they live in, thankfully. And I can't, I mean, this is like a horror movie, you know? You're a kid and you're looking up and you're playing with your toys and you're reading your book or whatever and you look up and you see this predator, you know, just, just stalking you all the time. And, and the discomfort that you had to just feel constantly. And, and no way to escape it. Do you think there's, was there anything else that you, that you can think

• 31:17Jocko Willink?

  of that you tried to do or tried to send a, a, a signal? Or was it, were you just so sort of enveloped by the situation that you didn't, you know, just like I was talking about, maybe your parents couldn't imagine what could be happening? Is it, was it like you just couldn't imagine this not happening?

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. I think because it started when I was so young, it just was part of my life. And it was so consistent. It wasn't like something that happened and then didn't happen for, it was just like a daily part of my life. And so, I don't think I really ever tried to signal. I remember one time, there was a couple of girls, some friends of my parents came and visited and they had a couple of girls, a little bit older than me that came. And I remember the one girl who was probably 12 at the time, telling me, they spent the night, they slept outside and she told me that, um, when she woke up in the morning, this, my abuser had...

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Like crawled up onto her bed and started touching her leg and she like jumped up and told him no and ran away and she also didn't go tell a grown up she came and told me that this had happened and I remember telling her what happened to me and that's the only time as a child that I ever told anyone and I remember us sitting there kind of discussing this I was probably eight maybe at the time and we're like wow that's yeah I don't know why he does this that's that's weird I don't know you know and we just kind of discussed

• 33:08Speaker 01

  it and then never told anyone even though she was even older and hadn't grown up with it and I don't know if later on she told someone but at the time she definitely didn't go tell her parents or my parents or anyone which reaffirms the fact that your kids aren't necessarily going to tell you.

• 33:30Jocko Willink?

  I know I know with my kids you know if they do something that they think is gonna get him in trouble especially in that five six year year old seven year old they're not gonna tell you they don't volunteer that information if they think it's something that they did wrong or think so so that's another little trap that occurs. Back to your writing here. He was old and was missing all of his teeth. He wore dentures sometimes and sometimes he didn't. I remember him pinning me up against walls and counters and kissing me with his soft

• 34:14Jocko Willink?

  toothless mouth and fingering me with his dirty hands. I wanted to vomit.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  I would never tell him no, though. Never tell him to get away from me. Never acknowledge that he was doing anything to me.

• 34:34Jocko Willink?

  I would just slip away from him as soon as an opportunity presented itself and mumble that I was going outside to play or down to the rock piles, my secret labyrinth of tangled blackberry brambles and boulders.

• 34:48Jocko Willink?

  He would follow me to the top of the trail, saying things like, "Come back, you like what I'm doing."

• 34:55Jocko Willink?

  Or, "I don't think your mom wants you to go down there while she's gone."

• 35:01Jocko Willink?

  But he never followed me down into the rock piles. It was my safe zone.

• 35:07Jocko Willink?

  It was the place I could cry with no one seeing me.

• 35:13Jocko Willink?

  I remember someone accusing him of molesting another little girl.

• 35:19Jocko Willink?

  I heard my parents talking about it, and then my dad pulling me aside and asking me if Mike had ever touched me. I was caught off-guard and totally unprepared to deal with what saying "yes" would mean.

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  So I said "no."

• 35:39Jocko Willink?

  As soon as it was out of my mouth, I wanted so badly to change my answer, but no one ever asked me again.

• 35:47Jocko Willink?

  I'm convinced that if I had had a little time to think and had been asked again, I would have spilled it all.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  Remember that. It's important.

• 36:03Jocko Willink?

  But at the time, I said "no", and the woman who made the accusation was discredited as being crazy or a drug addict and having ulterior motives.

• 36:15Jocko Willink?

  And that was that.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  So there's a clear example. And I could, I could see now going from the perspective

• 36:32Jocko Willink?

  of a parent who's all uncomfortable to go up and ask this question in the first place. You know, it was probably the weakest form of questioning too, you know, like, "Has Mike ever made you feel weird?" And you know, "No." Okay, he's good. Now dad's like, "Okay, see, I told you this is no issue. She's a liar. She's a drug addict."

• 36:55Speaker 01

  They want that answer. They want to hear "no."

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Any parent wants to hear "no" when they ask that.

• 37:05Jocko Willink?

  And, and yet,

• 37:08Jocko Willink?

  you gotta ask again. You gotta put it probably in multiple different ways of asking the question. Not just, "Does he make you feel comfortable? Does he touch you?" You gotta ask that in so many different ways to get, to open up the mind to the kid. You know, obviously without asking leading questions, you know, that's gonna, that's gonna make, put somebody, you know, i- in another weird situation.

• 37:38Jocko Willink?

  How do you ask your own kids?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  So,

• 37:46Speaker 01

  I think that you have to, you have to talk about it casually, hopefully before something happens.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Make them aware of the fact that this does happen and people think that they're protecting their kids by not telling them that horrible stuff happens.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  They, they feel like they're protecting them by shielding them from this. And meanwhile, their kids are being molested and don't know how to tell anyone because no one's talked to them about it.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  And so you can start talking to them when they're really young, use simple terms and express that sometimes people do bad things and there's something. I tell my kids that there's something broken in some people's brains that makes them do something that normal people don't do, but that they're out there. And when you, I think when you question a kid about this, you have to ask it once. And then give the ti- give the kid time to think about it. And then bring it up casually again, a couple of days later. Hey, you remember that thing we talked about the other day?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  I was thinking about it some more. Um, do you have, you know, is there anything else you want to talk to me about with that? And do that a few times, especially if you have any, if you suspect anything for sure. But even if you don't, bring it up once, bring it up again, a couple of days later, bring it up again, a couple of days later. Give their little brains time to process what my, and then make sure to tell them that if anything happened, even if they're not telling me anything did, they are not going to be in trouble if they feel like they want to tell me something.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Now, some kids are just vocal and will talk fine, but other kids won't. And that's the kind of kid that you have to eke it out of.

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  And if you think about this, you could actually develop a pattern with your kids where they're, they're not talking about molestation, but if when they tell you something, you punish them because they told you the truth?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Jocko Willink?

  Because they took a cookie, dropped the cookie jar, spilled milk, and they could have kept it a secret, but they told you and now you punish them? You're, you're doing the same thing. You're setting them up for, to keep secrets and keep things inside.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  I always tell my kids that they'll get in more trouble for telling me a lie than for whatever they did. In the first place.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  My, uh, my kids absolutely know that. And, and that's the same with, not, never mind kids. When I was in the teams, that's the standard.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  Was, hey, you tell me what happened. Don't lie to me what happened. If you tell me something, you did something wrong. There was an incident, something bad happened, we'll handle it. But one thing we can't do is if we try and cover something up and we get caught, now, now there's going to be hell to pay. So, yeah, that's a.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Another thing that I do with my kids is I got, there's some great books out there about talking to your kids, about abuse and stuff. And, um, there's one that I read to them sometimes. And, and it's not, those books aren't meant to just read once and never pick up again. They're a perfect opportunity to bring it up casually in conversation. There's a book, uh, it's called, I Said No, and it's written by Zach and Kimberly King. And Zach is a little boy and his mom, Kimberly King, and they wrote this book together. And it's really great. It ta, it talks about people as being like red flag people.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  And those people can be the sort of people who just give you a strange feeling. They, they unsettle you. They make you feel a little bit odd. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they've done anything wrong to you, but you should be able to pick out those red flag people and then talk to an adult about what is making them uncomfortable.

• 42:11Jocko Willink?

  Now, now is that, is that because the, this red flag person did something that, that gave them a red?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  A red flag person is.

• 42:19Jocko Willink?

  Things that I told my kids, especially now that my daughters are older, you know, uh, one of my daughters was going on a trip somewhere and I, and I was giving her the talk, you know, listen, you need to watch out. And, and my daughter said something to me like, dad, I'm not going to be, you know, going and hanging around with some weirdo. And I stopped her right in her tracks. And I said, it's not the weirdo, the guy that looks weird. It's not the guy that looks like a predator that you need to watch out for. The guy that you need to watch out for? Is the guy that seems like a nice guy, the guy that just, you know, helped you with your luggage is the guy. Uh, not all of them.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  But you need to watch out for that. I mean, if you look at some of those serial killers, you know, uh, I think it was, I, I, I think it was Ted Bundy, but he had the whole thing where he had his arm in a cast. And he would ask someone to help him. He would ask a woman to help. Hey, I need to get my groceries in the car or whatever. And they'd see this kinda, and if you ever saw a picture of him, he looks like a nerd. And he has his arm in the cast and he's got a collared shirt on. He looks like a white collar guy and he's got a car. And, and you know, next thing you know, as soon as they, you know, help with the groceries, boom, the arm's out of the cast and he's, he's abducting them. And so, so. What, how do they identify like the red flag?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  It's more about your, your gut intuition. If there's something that just. Makes you feel a little bit weird if they say something, you know, it's lis-, it's about listening to that internal voice that might be. Telling you something's a little weird, but he's a really nice guy, you know, he's. And, and learning how to identify that and listen to it.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Because yeah, that's like I said, pedophile, sexual predators, they're not stupid people. Most of them aren't stupid people. They're very calculating. And they look for the right opportunities. So you've, yeah, you've got to teach your kid. Specifically that.

• 44:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it seems like you need to teach your kids specifically the, the I said no part, right? Cause even you as a kid, you don't know how to say no, you don't know how to scream, you don't know how to tell someone to stop. And, and also how to identify what, you know, kids don't know where the line is. If you don't teach them. What's right and what's wrong in terms of physical contact with them, then how, how are they gonna know? How are they gonna know?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  That's a good point now you you don't want to scold the kid for making a mistake and you know how you hold lying is in higher regard as far as violations go where if this environment is kind of created that what you say doesn't mean that much so be careful with what you say you know but if the environment is hey you can come to me with anything and you demonstrate that don't just say like once a month say hey you can come to me with anything next day they come to you with something you're like hey I'm busy or hey grownups are talking you know so if you actually provide that environment consistently they'll come to you with anything anything that's off they'll be like hey mom what's this hey there's a rabbit in the backyard you know see

• 45:35Speaker 02

  even something that small so some weirdo or some red flag person comes and they're doing something strange out of the ordinary they're gonna come to you way more likely you know

• 45:46Jocko Willink?

  yeah you know we talk about inoculation when it comes to training for combat and you know you inoculate yourself to stress and and one of the things I talk about like with self-defense for especially for women is if you train jujitsu you get inoculated to the fact that someone's gonna be grabbing you touching you grinding on units and so you're over that you're over that but it seems like this is the same situation you do with kids where you inoculate them to the uncomfortable conversations so they're okay talking about stuff that let's face it you know there's your kid is not gonna be comfortable talking about some things unless you inoculate them and you get them used to it and they understand what's right and what's wrong

• 46:28Speaker 02

  I think it's correct on what you said it's the parents are typically the ones gonna be more uncomfortable like the key you'd be surprised what kids will just talk about like we're say if unless you made it uncomfortable for them they'll talk about some weird stuff especially five six but if they the parents hey you know in your scenario where they'll ask you something you give them answer they say good that's the answer I want let's don't talk anymore because they're uncomfortable

• 46:55Speaker 01

  and it's on the parent to initiate these conversations it's not on the little kids to come to you and tell you something big has happened it's on you as a parent to initiate these conversations my daughter is she's she's shy and she doesn't

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Express her emotions very well. She's not the kind of kid who comes and just tells you stuff. And I don't, I don't want this to sound like I'm beating this stuff into my kids' heads every day and terrorizing them with the thought of scary things that might happen to them because I'm not. You know, I talk about it casually enough, I think that it gets through to them. But she had, she's in kindergarten and she had a little issue. And she told me that a boy has been coming up to her on the playground and she, I, I always use correct terminology because that's another thing I want, I feel like kids should be comfortable talking about their bodies.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  And she told me, and it was hard for her to tell me, she didn't want to tell me and I could totally see it because of her personality. She came up and she's, she told me that a little boy was coming up every day on the playground and like poking her in the vagina and then asking her to do the same to him. And she's, I think she's five. She told me that and I was like, okay, what I'm doing is working. Because knowing her personality, she didn't want to tell me that. But she did. And so, and that was also the perfect experience to sort of teach, like, okay, cool, not a big deal. He's five years old.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  You know, they, little kids do that and they don't know what they're doing, but let's go talk to your teacher and make sure, you know, and I immediately took action and showed her that I wasn't gonna let anything happen to her if she was uncomfortable with it.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Without blowing it out of proportion.

• 48:51Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, because a lot of times the what kids are embarrassed about from age, whatever, until, yeah, is they don't want to tell you because you know, dad, you know, my, my seventeen year old will do that, as will my seven year old, dad, dad, you know. So I think that's another thing is how do you make sure that they realize that you're gonna be, you know, without blowing it out of proportion. Which, which I agree with you, you know, it's a five year old kid, it's a five year old boy.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  They're doing, like you said, they're talking about stupid stuff that they don't understand and they're doing things that they don't understand yet. That's like, okay, but, but. Let's now teach them.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  Let them learn at that.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that gave me a lot of confidence that if something, because I, because she dealt with that in a great way. If something bigger were to happen, I now feel like she would be much more inclined to come to me. But what you're saying about not wanting to make a scene, I think as I got older and, and understood what was happening to me a lot more than I did when I was little.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  I didn't want to make a scene. This is somebody who was my parents' best friend, was deeply involved in our life, had been with us forever. And imagine what telling would look like. And that wasn't something that I was prepared to handle. Even when I was a teenager and I knew exactly what was going on and I knew exactly how wrong it was. The scene that would ensue if I said something was not something that I was willing to deal with.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  That's even hard for adults to do. Any kind of like confrontation that's gonna cause these big ripples, it's like, man, I gotta weigh all this out now. You know, like, can I strengthen myself up versus, you know, create this big scene? I'd rather deal with strengthening myself up and dealing with it almost.

• 50:42Jocko Willink?

  Especially because you have no idea, in your mind, you probably made it even a bigger, crazy scene. You were probably thinking that they were gonna have to make a choice between you and this guy, you know? Maybe in your mind, that's their best friend, you know? Now you gotta convince people and it just becomes easier to just not say anything.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  You don't know if they're gonna believe you. You don't know if he's gonna go to jail. You, you just don't know.

• 51:06Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  What the consequences are going to be. And it's much easier to just be like, alright, I've dealt with this, I can keep dealing with this, I'm not gonna cause any ripples.

• 51:19Jocko Willink?

  So as you grow up, I'm gonna go back to your writing here. "As I grew older, I got better and better at avoiding him. His hounding of me did not decrease, but I rarely let him get his hands on me. I was incapable of just telling him to get away from me if he got me cornered. I'm not sure how to explain what this is like. This constant pursuit and hounding that you are unable to avoid when you were a child."

• 51:50Jocko Willink?

  When I was 12 years old, we moved. It was over. Seven years of stress and fear and pain finally replaced with an empty discomfort.

• 52:04Jocko Willink?

  A weight was lifted from my shoulders.

• 52:08Jocko Willink?

  I got a horse and felt more freedom than I ever had.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  And then he followed. He bought a piece of property just up the hill from us, and that was the beginning of dealing with him as a teenager. I never let him touch me again. I tolerated his crude comments and ate dinner next to him at the dinner table. I laughed at his jokes and I dutifully rode my horse up the hill to check on him every couple of days at the insistence of my parents.

• 52:43Jocko Willink?

  He would always come out of his trailer, lay a hand on my thigh, invite me to tie up and come inside.

• 52:52Jocko Willink?

  I still couldn't look him in the eye, still couldn't tell him to fuck off. Instead, I would just change the subject and ride off with a hollow pit in my stomach.

• 53:15Jocko Willink?

  So you move away and then he follows you there?

• 53:22Jocko Willink?

  And...

• 53:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, you talk about how hard it is to explain this hounding that you got. And you're trapped, you can't, you don't feel like you can say anything to your family, you can't get away from him. And this has just gotta be, I mean, you say a hollow pit in your stomach. And this has just gotta be eating at you.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:52Jocko Willink?

  And you find, finally, some comfort in horses, which was already your dream, and now you finally get, you finally get your first horse.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was um

• 54:08Speaker 01

  the best thing that ever happened to me up until that point, at least, maybe ever.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  There was a neighbor lady that lived close to us who had this horse that she didn't have time for, and she let me bring it home and start riding it. And I didn't, my family never had horses. We knew nothing about horses, other than my just insane desire to have one.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  And so I just started riding it, and this horse was half-broke at best, and I would fall off constantly. I, I just would smack my head on the ice and get back on and fall off again. And I remember my dad one time, standing there and just telling me, "You gotta stop. You can't, you can't, I'm not gonna let you sit here and kill yourself trying to ride this horse." And, you know, of course, back then, I didn't, I didn't have a silly thing like a riding helmet, or even a saddle.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  I just, I just had this desire to ride this horse, and i- if it was gonna kill me, it was gonna happen. And so I did. I just kept after it and finally wore the poor horse down, and he, he gave up, and he ended up being, you know, the, by my side for, for many years.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  And

• 55:42Speaker 01

  so that, that gave me this whole different level of freedom. I wasn't, you know, constrained to my feet anymore. I could go out and get just miles and miles away from it all. And, you know, home wasn't

• 55:58Speaker 01

  It wasn't a comforting spot for me to be. So I was much more comfortable being out in the mountains by myself with my horse.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  And some people might have an issue with this, but by the time I was 12, I was carrying a .30 .30 rifle on, in a scabbard on my saddle.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  And I had a little Ruger 22 that I carried with me, you know, one or the other usually when I was out riding because my parents felt like I was safer with a gun than without a gun. Even though I was 12 years old, I'd grown up around guns and was comfortable with them. And since I would head out in the mountains, and I think the, the only rule I had was that I had to be back by dark. And, you know, when you're on a horse and you leave first thing in the morning, you can cover a lot of ground. And if something had ever happened to me, I, I don't know how anyone would have even found me. So I was, I had to be responsible and self-reliant to make sure that I was as safe as I could be out there.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  And I give my parents a ton of credit for allowing me that freedom. They had a daughter who had this passion to be doing what I was doing. And it was dangerous and they let me do it. And that is a large part of what built me into who I am today. And so that, you know, that's something that I also try to do for my own kids as much as I can, you know.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  You know, I'm, I'm pretty cautious with them, but I still try to always allow them a lot of freedom. I remember one time I was, I think I was fifteen, I was riding, uh, away from home a little ways. And I was down in this creek bottom. And I heard this commotion down there, this like barking and noise and I thought there were neighborhood dogs who would chase deer. And I thought that the dogs had a deer down, down in the creek bottom. And that was what I, you know, what through my, went through my head. And I ran my horse down through the brush into this creek bottom, thinking I was gonna scare the dogs off this deer. And I came out of the brush

• 58:31Speaker 01

  literally from me to you, like five feet away from this mountain lion that was just in full snarling, crouched, attack mode. And it was squared off with, I didn't, I didn't know this when I had, was riding, but one of my dogs had followed me and I hadn't seen it. And it was down in this creek bottom with this mountain lion and they were face to face, just snarling and crouched down at each other. And I, I came out of the bushes right on top of them. And you know, I didn't feel any fear at all, I just reacted. And I just knew I had to get a little space between myself and the lion. And I spun my horse around and got up the hill just a little ways and then stopped to

• 59:16Speaker 01

  watch the situation. And the

• 59:21Speaker 01

  dog was this big wolf chow cross. It was a big dog, but she, she got scared and she cut and ran. She decided she'd had enough and she turned and to run from this cat. And the second she turned to run, the cat had her. It just threw an arm over her back, reached under, bit her throat and she just went limp. And then the cat just picked her up and carried her away.

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's because you're not supposed to turn your back on the

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, don't ever.

• 59:51Jocko Willink?

  So even when you kind of rode away, I was kind of like, oh.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  I, and the reason I did that is because the cat was

• 59:56Jocko Willink?

  Engaged.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  distracted.

• 59:58Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I wasn't the threat to the cat, I was the side thing. The threat was this dog. And thank goodness, my horse was just a rock and didn't dump me right in front of this cat. Because had that happened, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have been attacked.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  But you know, things like that, that was, that was my life. Things like that happened and I was young and I had to be able to deal with those situations. How old were you at that point? Fifteen.

• 1:00:26Jocko Willink?

  And there's, there's also this really, really strong dichotomy here is that you're out in the wilderness on horseback packing heat, you know, confronting mountain lions. And even with all that,

• 1:00:46Jocko Willink?

  you didn't confront this abuser. And, and that's another, you know, sign and indication to people of how hard it is psychologically for someone that's as strong as you were as a teenager, that's out there on your own, like I said, riding around the mountains with a pistol and a rifle, ready to, you know, get after it. And yet this, by this point, kind of an old man is still has this level of control over you in your own home.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  That's just, um, a- a- and, and I would say then,

• 1:01:28Jocko Willink?

  at this point, maybe to fill that hole or to release some of that tension,

• 1:01:36Jocko Willink?

  you start going down a path that's not a good path for you to be going down in life.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when I was also fifteen, I um, met someone that lived a few miles away from us, who was, uh, I think he was in his thirties. He was an Indian guy and he rode around the mountains on his horse as well and it was, um,

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  I developed a relationship with him. And, you know, it was, he was not the kind of person that you would want your fifteen year old to be dating. But to me, he was, it was just this romantic thing and it was this escape. It was, it was something different. It was someone that paid attention to me in a time when I was really struggling with um, my home life and, and who I was. I think the, the molestation abuse stuff got harder for me as a teenager as I, even though it wasn't actively happening anymore, really, physically,

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  it was messing with my mind a lot more because I understood it better. And so, I started dating this guy who, um,

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  you know,

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  was

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  a distraction to me from that. And, you know, in the way fifteen year olds will, I just became madly in love with him. And,

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  you know, you can make your own conclusions about a thirty something year old man dating a fifteen year old. Um, I certainly feel a lot different about it now than I did then. He wa, he told me that he wanted to marry me, like it was, it was very serious in my mind. And,

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  then, one morning, I was riding away from home down this dirt road. And I remember a neighbor rancher pulled up alongside me and asked me if I'd heard what happened. And he told me that this man that I was in love with had been shot and killed.

• 1:04:08Jocko Willink?

  What was the, what was the genesis of him being shot and killed?

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  It was, like I said, he wasn't, he wasn't the most upstanding person and it had to do with marijuana and guns. And it, it was just a mess and it was tragic.

• 1:04:33Jocko Willink?

  Kind of a drug scenario.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, he wasn't a drug addict, but he led a life um of, well, I'll just say it, he would steal people's marijuana plants from them and sell them. And

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  it got him into trouble.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Um, and I look back now on the road that that relationship could have taken me down. And while it was this horribly tragic event for me at the time, this sent me into an even deeper tailspin.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Now, as an adult, the way I am, I'm almost thankful that it happened because I think that had that not happened, who knows where my life would have gone.

• 1:05:26Jocko Willink?

  And so what, you know, there's, there's, first of all,

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  I can see how fifteen year old Iris, who's dealing with this stuff at home and meets this guy that's, you know, thirty one and you know, thirty one year old is, I don't care if he's a total idiot, he can manipulate the hell out of a fifteen year old all day long.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Jocko Willink?

  And but, but regardless, you're end up, you're in just a super vulnerable situation because of your mindset. And you end up here, you know, in this relationship with this guy. Now he gets murdered. And, and you go, i- it's you, you end up just going even worse at the time.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a, that was a hard thing for my fifteen year old brain to process. And shortly thereafter, my parents separated. Not in an amiable fashion. My sister went off to college, so I was especially on my own because she was, you know, my rock.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  And I just really went into a, a cycle of depression and misery and

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  by the time I was sixteen, I was dating a thirty-two-year-old cop. Which again, you know, I have very different feelings now on what a thirty-two-year-old cop is doing dating a sixteen-year-old. But

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  he was this safety zone for me in a big way. He was this, you know, strong, brave person who wasn't gonna let anything bad happen to me. And

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  I really latched on to that when I was just trying to find something in life to hold on to.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  And that ended up being a long on and off again relationship, which definitely was not healthy for me.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  And at that point in time, I started self-mutilating. I started cutting and burning myself.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  I was definitely very depressed.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  And it was not something that I knew how to communicate to anyone. I just was sucked into misery and self-pity, really.

• 1:08:08Jocko Willink?

  And when you start hurting yourself, is that at that moment, is it just so much anger and frustration that it somehow feels good to feel that pain or inflict pain on yourself? Or is it more of a hey, everyone, look here, I'm doing this to myself. Maybe you should pay some attention to me and help me? Or is it a little bit of both? Or is there something that I don't know and understand?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  I would say it's definitely both. It's definitely.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  It's a funny thing and it's hard to understand. It's sort of an addictive behavior.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  And, you know, I've read about it some and they say there's chemicals released in your brain and stuff when you feel physical pain that makes the emotional, that dulls emotional pain and things like that. But it also for me, I will absolutely say that, yeah, I think it was, it was a cry for help. It was like

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  somebody realize what, you know, and as all teenagers do, you think that you're some rare exotic creature that's no one else has ever experienced anything you've gone through and nothing anyone says to you

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  matters because they don't know what they're talking about. But

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  for me, a lot of it was, was a cry for attention to, to have someone and, and I got it. The thing is, is I got the attention.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  The, the cop that I was dating told my parents that I was doing this and people kind of freaked out and everybody thought that there was really something the matter with me and I was really depressed and I wouldn't, even though I was getting the attention and people were actually asking me like, what's going on? What's, why are you doing this? I wouldn't say, I would not tell anybody. I just was shut off. And it's like, I wanted the attention, but then I still wouldn't say what. And maybe part of it is that I didn't even know, but I think what we talked about before

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  of the not wanting to make a scene. I was not going to make a scene. This, at this point, my abuser was pretty old, but he was still alive and he was still in our lives. He still, you know, all the time. And people were asking me, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And I was not going to say.

• 1:11:00Jocko Willink?

  I'm going back to your writing.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  By that time, I was already damaged by so many years of abuse, heartbreak and death, painful and destructive relationships. My parents were divorced and angry. My sister had moved away.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  I was in a spiritual, I was in a spiral of self-destruction and self-pity. I had taken a cutting and burning myself, scars that I still carry to this day to remind me of the way my life could have continued.

• 1:11:37Jocko Willink?

  And that's what you just talked about. And then at this point, you're 17 or 18 years old, and your abuser, who you just said was now an old guy, he dies.

• 1:11:52Jocko Willink?

  Then I'm gonna continue. I'm not sure exactly when I woke up.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  When I shut off the self-pity fountain and realized that I was strong and indestructible.

• 1:12:05Jocko Willink?

  Somewhere in my early twenties, my twenties was a slow rebuilding of my life, the way I wanted it.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  I traveled, wandered, worked as a horse wrangler around the West, had relationships with men who were kind and decent, got married, got divorced, made friends, built up a reserve of strength, and found myself little by little.

• 1:12:35Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, one of the reasons that you're sitting here today, one of the reasons that I know you, is that despite all that darkness that you got sucked into, you somehow, in some way, at some point, realized that you were going in the wrong direction, and you turned around and started to... And I know we've talked about it before, it wasn't like you woke up one day and said, "Today, I'm gonna change my life." You transitioned, you transformed over a period of time, you can't put, like, you know, you're not gonna put a day on it, you didn't have a eureka moment, but you slowly

• 1:13:17Jocko Willink?

  started seeing yourself from a different perspective and realizing that the path you were on wasn't a good one.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  So, as soon as I graduated high school, I left to start working on ranches. I went to Montana, and I remember,

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  clearly, I was eighteen, I guess, and I was working on a ranch in Montana. And someone had left laying around this dusty old copy of D. H. Lawrence's book of poetry. And I read this little poem, and it just stuck with me. And I'll read it here, it's, "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  And I read those words, and they just, they just hit me in the right place. And I'm not saying that that in particular is what really started to make a change, but,

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  I read some more things, and, you know, I was growing older, and I was thinking about things differently. And my abuser had died. And that was probably the biggest weight that I've ever felt lifted off of me. Because now what I realized is even if I did choose to tell someone, it wasn't going to cause the kind of scene that it would have before. And I still didn't really choose to tell anyone, but that in itself, not having him actually be present, was, was a big thing for me. And I realized that I'd just been damaging myself, and I'd really been hurting people in my life.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  My, my parents, my sister, they were just confused. They didn't understand why I was where, why I was doing what I was doing to myself.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  And I realized that I was just in this, I was being selfish and self-centered, and just feeling sorry for myself.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  And I stopped.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  I just gained a little bit of perspective. And made myself stop.

• 1:15:52Jocko Willink?

  That that perspective piece is so important. What's crazy and I know we all have seen and everyone's seen. People that are in the downward spiral. They're just caught in the downward spiral, whether it's a relationship, whether it's booze, whether it's drugs, whether it's behavior, you can see it. And when you're on the outside of it, it's so obvious. And you want to grab that person and I'm sure everyone, I I have literally grabbed my friends that I've seen in that downward spiral and shaking them and saying, get out, come out, come here. All you have to do is come over here, step over here with me and look back and see what what situation you're getting, you're in and you're the the direction you're heading.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  And unfortunately, you can't pull them out. You can't pull their head out and let them look back at themselves. They have to step out. They have to come to that recognition themselves. And that's one of the hardest things as a friend or as a family member to watch that person. It's like watching a train wreck and and you know, all you could do, you know, you could press the brakes. You you realize how easy it would be to just say, hey, press the brakes, press the brakes, stop. And yet we can't, we can't do it. We can't help people.

• 1:17:13Jocko Willink?

  Can't. You have to help yourself. And and so, I mean, obviously, I that poem, you know, seeing that was a form of you starting to take a look at it, starting to take a look at yourself from a different perspective. Maybe your abuser dying helped you start to look at that from a different perspective.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Definitely. It was, it was a long, slow process for me, though. It didn't just happen overnight. I mean, I, I think I'm been made a very conscious decision not to hurt myself anymore. But you have to teach yourself how to think and feel. And that takes time to teach yourself to have the right kind of thoughts and feelings about things. And.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  One thing that I wanted to say while I'm here talking about this is that just because I'm sitting here saying that I did this, that I woke up and stopped, doesn't mean that everyone who's experienced something like this should just get over it. If you have

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  listeners, if you have a girlfriend, or a wife, or a sister, or someone who has been through something like this, or maybe after listening to this show will confess to you that they've been through something like this, maybe they've never told you before.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  And maybe they'll tell you something that doesn't even seem like that big of a deal. Maybe it's not years and years of abuse, or

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  violence. Maybe it is something that you know, happened to them when they were young, and it's a sucky situation, but it's not horrible, it's not horrific. But she still feels violated. And it's this personal process that you have to go through, and friends and family and people that know someone is struggling with this definitely need to support in every way they can.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  But you also don't become a crutch.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Just because someone has gone through something like this, doesn't give them the right to drag everyone else down with them into their pit of depression and misery.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  So you support the best you can without enabling

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  the bad behavior, because that's really what it is. It's bad behavior. There's people who've gone through much more horrific things than anything I have ever been through that have come out fine.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  And it's just getting your mind in the right place and taking control of your, your thoughts.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  And I know, you know, you have, uh, obviously experienced being, being married to a military member. And I would say along the lines of what you just said, is that people are gonna handle things differently. Then you can have two guys that were on the same exact combat deployment and did, you know, pretty much the same things. And they're just gonna have to deal with it in a different way. And maybe one guy gets over it pretty quick, or maybe one guy barely even reacts to it. Maybe one guy, it really hurts him and it takes him some time. And it, it sounds like it's the same thing with, with what you're saying. We have to be

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  open to, hey, this may take some time and it may take a different course. And at the exact, again, to mirror what you just said, there's, there's guys that just because they had some rough combat, that doesn't give them the right to, number one, drag them, drag themselves down the wrong path. And number two, drag their family and their friends down the wrong path. And, and I think definitely, you know, saying, hey, look, I, I don't claim to understand what you've been through. But I do know this, your behavior is not gonna get help it, right? The, the, the bottle isn't gonna help it. The self abuse isn't gonna help it. The skipping work isn't gonna help it.

• 1:21:45Jocko Willink?

  So I, I think those are, those are, those are fairly similar. Again, I don't, I'm not trying to say they're the same thing. I'm just saying that there's, that dealing with them has a lot of similarities, both guys that have been in combat trauma and people that have suffered this type of abuse. It seems like there's some similarities in the way that

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Jocko Willink?

  that there's varied ways that, that they get handled.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  There always has to be accountability for your own actions, no matter what you've been through. You can't just say, "I've been through something horrible, so I can act like this."

• 1:22:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, case in point, before we pressed record today, you and I were talking about, you know, Colonel Reader, who came on the show and who was a POW and-

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  He was amazing.

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  And you just think, that guy, you know, just has been through, and he's been through hell, and then he sits there during the podcast and says the same thing that you just said, which is, "Look, I had it rough, but there was plenty of guys that had it way worse than me." And, and, you know, I think, I don't, I can't think of anything worse than a two-foot-tall bamboo cage in the middle of the, of the jungle with rats eating my wounds, with my feet shackled into a bamboo shackle.

• 1:23:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, that is just, that's just unbelievable. And to your point, he comes on and says, you know, "Number one, other people have had it rougher than me. And number two, I'm happy for what I've got, and let's move forward."

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  So, it really wasn't until my kids were born that, I mean, this was, this was in my mind all the time. I probably, I would say into my mid twenties, this is how prevalent it was. I probably thought about the abuse at least once every single day. It was always in my mind.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  And eventually, I learned that I didn't need to waste my thoughts on that and learn to spend less time thinking about it. But it really wasn't until my kids were born, I think, and my daughter was five years old.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  She was just this little girl, just this little girl. And she was the same age that I was when I was already dealing with abuse.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  And that just made me burn with rage. And I realized that I felt that I had an obligation to speak about this. That it happens to so many kids, it's so prevalent in not, you know, girls, but also boys. It's not just girls. This is hap- it happens in a higher number to girls, but it happens to both.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  And I felt like what I'd been through and what I had, you know, I think I've come around and am a pretty well-adjusted person now. And that I had an obligation to talk about this because it's something that doesn't get talked about. It gets swept under the rug and even people who have happened to get treated like there's something wrong with them. And there's, and they're embarrassed and they don't want to talk about it. And it's time for that to stop. It's time for us to start talking about it. And I'm, I feel like I'm resilient. I grew up with this really close proximity to nature.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  And I've seen animals suffer horrific wounds that should kill them.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  They don't have doctors, they don't have medicine, but they've got fire in their hearts and they don't feel sorry for themselves. And they survive.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  And I credit a lot of my resiliency to my upbringing in nature and observation of nature. And how it's cruel and it's beautiful. And creatures survive in the most difficult and challenging service situations and they flourish.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  And if they can do that, so can I.

• 1:26:38Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's awesome. That is just awesome. And you know, you kind of um went right to talking about your kids, went to talking about your daughter. You, you uh, you know, as you got out of that bad time of your life, you ended up meeting your, your husband, my friend, your husband. And my note here is that you meeting your husband was the best thing that ever happened to him.

• 1:27:09Jocko Willink?

  And, and now, and that's another reason why I, you know, I really wanted to bring you on and have you share some of your experiences. Obviously, the abuse and your, your survival and your attitude about all that. But bringing also that strength to, and you know, people have always asked if I would bring my wife on, and you know my wife. I do. She's wonderful. She's wonderful. She's not coming on the podcast. It's not her, it's not her deal. But you know, people always want to know because there's a lot of young military families out there. And you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this right now. I'm gonna talk about military families. And, and in the background, I just want everyone to think, first of all, that also applies to,

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  you know, cops and first responders and firefighters, maybe not to the, in fact, not to the same degree. But also, just normal, you know, hardworking Americans, men and women, who, you know, you've got someone that's working hard and gone a lot, dedicating a lot to their jobs. So that, that applies across the board. But that being said, you know, you're a military wife. Um, my wife's a military wife. And you, you ended up in this situation, well, you, you met your, your current husband who's a, you know, like I said, a good friend of mine and, and we, I was on my, my very first deployment ever back in the day, had to fit that one in. Was, he was on deployment as well, and I think it was his second deployment.

• 1:28:36Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, we met and hit it off immediately. He kind of grew up. He grew up in California, I grew up on the east coast, but we grew up with a similar kind of background in that we were both kind of into hardcore music and metal and punk rock and we were just into the same kind of stuff and we recognized that immediately about each other and so we became friends back then. Then we spent many years at different teams and but we we ended up being together at SEAL Team Three, he was in a different task unit than me, but anyways.

• 1:29:10Jocko Willink?

  You got a guy, you ended up being married to a great guy, but who's a military guy deploying all the time. You didn't come from a military background, you didn't have military in your life.

• 1:29:23Jocko Willink?

  What was that like? How was it like being welcomed into the military family and the harsh realities of a being married to a military member during a time of war?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I definitely not from a military family. I don't, I barely knew what a Navy SEAL was. I wasn't impressed particularly with the fact that he was a Navy SEAL.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  I think that I'm fairly well suited to the lifestyle because I'm pretty independent and I'm, I don't tend to be someone who frets a lot over what might happen. I know that he loves his job and he's as well trained as he can possibly be to do the job that he does and so, you know, that's really, that's really all there is for me. And, you know, of course, there's moments where you feel a little bit sorry for yourself and think,

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  gosh, what if something happens? What if he comes home without his legs or with half his face shrapnelled or something? But, you know, I don't, anymore of that stuff doesn't get into my head much and so I don't, I just don't really worry about it.

• 1:30:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, one of the, you talk about being independent and I know obviously you're independent person, you can get along by yourself and, and my wife's the same way, very independent in terms of her day to day. She doesn't, she doesn't need me to actually do anything for her. But I, I wrote down a note just to talk about another level of independence and that's emotional independence, which I think is very important. I think it's something that, you know, spouses need to find for each other because I think there's spouses that become emotionally dependent on each other. And that works in a day to day relationship if you're seeing each other all the time. But if your husband or your wife goes on deployment and leaves you for six months to 14 months to 18 months, if you're in a long deployment

• 1:31:41Jocko Willink?

  cycle, you are not going to have that emotional shoulder to lean on. It's not going to be there. And so you have to learn how to be emotionally independent. Now, what's scary about this is that obviously, if you get so much emotional independence that you're no longer, you could lose connection, right? And so that's what you have to watch out for. And I think what you see with, especially with younger married couples, the emotional independence from one person leads up to, leads to some kind of emotional dependence on some other person that they meet and next thing you know, we have a bad situation. So I think that emotional independence is something if you talk about with each other

• 1:32:25Jocko Willink?

  and you, you know, my wife was, one of the best things about my wife is I would, I wouldn't even talk to my wife. You know, just not, you know, I wouldn't send her an email. It'd be a week, two weeks, three weeks, no email, nothing. Because I'm overdoing my job. And, and she wouldn't think to herself, oh, he's not talking, send me an email. Why aren't you emailing me? Send me, no. Hey, he's busy. You know, she wasn't dependent on me for her emotions. So I think that's another. Important piece that you need to talk about with your spouse if you're in a military situation.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, uh, my husband's pretty good actually about staying in touch with me and communication on deployments. But it's not because of emotionally being dependent on each other. That's just the way he is. He values my opinion on things a lot and we talk about things. And, um, you know, so, so we do communicate quite a bit. But, uh, yeah, I completely know what you mean about the, a- and as, as being a wife, sitting at home with your husband gone, like you can't just sit there and pine over them being gone and wait for them to come home.

• 1:33:39Jocko Willink?

  That's the point.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  You have to have your own life. You have to

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  carry on while they're gone. And that's the best way you can support them, I think, if you're, you know, ha- making them feel bad for not calling you every opportunity you get and then laying a guilt trip on them about, you know, the fact that they're not giving you enough attention and stuff when they've got, y- y- yeah, you, you can't do that. You've gotta, you've gotta just take charge of your own life and, and do that while they're away.

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  Now, when they're away, obviously, that's some things you deal with when they're away. And then you have other things that you have to deal with when they come back home, especially during a,

• 1:34:33Jocko Willink?

  during a hard deployment. Now, I, I, I know a lot of civilians listen to this show as well. And it's important to recognize that there's different types of deployments. And even during the same time period, exact same deployment cycle with two groups of people or a hundred groups of people. There'll be some people that are in an area or in an area of operation or will have a mission set that will allow them to completely coast and, and, and enjoy themselves and have plenty of free time and a- and that can happen. And then the other end of the spectrum is you can go on deployment and you can think, y- y- you can end up in total violence and chaos and mayhem. And I, I just thought of this. My first deployment to Iraq.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, we did a lot of operations. It was cool. It was fun. They were really good operations. And when I got back, when I was there, I was thinking, man, I wish I would have brought my guitar. Because, you know, I had some time, you know, I'd be like, maybe I could have probably played guitar for, you know, half hour a day, maybe forty-five minutes. If a couple of the guys would have brought their guitar, we could have had some little jam sessions, right? And, and we were working a lot, you know, our op tempo was high. We were working, we were probably, you know, we were doing probably a mission every one, two or three days. We were out. So my next deployment, I said to myself, cool, you know, bring a guitar, you know, with time, get, work on the, work on the riffs.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:35:58Jocko Willink?

  Go back, and this deployment was to Ramadi. And I think Leif, Leif and I played guitar.

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  Not so much time.

• 1:36:05Jocko Willink?

  We played, we played guitar one time when there was like three days left in deployment. We broke out our guitars and there was another task unit there now, we were turning over, but that, that shows you the difference and we, we literally did not have any time to do any of that. And, and obviously the, the, the pressure of combat in my second deployment to Iraq was a thousand times more intense. And I know that your husband has done multiple deployments as well and they varied in stress level and they varied in amount of combat and amount of direct combat and his leadership situation. But I know that, you know, not too long ago, he went on a deployment that was definitely high stress and they, they saw a lot of hard combat.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  And when he came home from that, you know, what was that, what was that like? What did you notice? And what do you think other people should look for?

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  So the very first night he was home from that deployment, I woke up in the middle of the night and he was standing over the bed, holding a gun. And that sort of shocked me a little bit and made me realize that I was dealing with something a little bit different. I talked to him on deployment and over the course of the deployment, I could hear his voice changing. I could tell that he was

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  He was changing. It was, it was strenuous and there was a lot of engagement. And when he came back, he just, you know, when he woke up in the middle of the night, his immediate response, he just heard a noise, a dog's barked or something, and he just jumped for a weapon. He just startled easily and that was his reaction. Um, he had definitely a shorter temper. Little things that he shouldn't have been getting mad about were setting him off. You know, just, just dumb stuff. Somebody would say something or do something and he would get so mad about it.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  And it was like, you know, take it down a notch. He started, um, you know, I don't want to make it sound like he was doing this in a terrible way, but he definitely started some self-medicating with alcohol. Uh, he was like relying on sleeping pills to get to sleep. He's never been much of a drinker. I'm not a drinker at all. And so when I noticed him drinking more than he normally would every single night, uh, you know, that immediately was a red flag to me. And then the sleeping pills, you know, this, this, um, Ambien

• 1:38:55Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  is powerful stuff and, and can really be a bad, a bad road to go down. And

• 1:39:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, guys definitely get on that Ambien road. And I, I, I've seen guys go down that road and it's just like all of a sudden they can't sleep without Ambien.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  And it messes up your sleep cycle and everything else, so.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:39:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and I, I guess that there's times when people need it.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:19Jocko Willink?

  But I think, I think guys in the military slip real, really easily from a guy that needs it to a guy that's just doing it because they're starting to rely upon it.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  And it's weird that you talk about, I mean, we just had, you know, Dave Burke, who was an Anglico guy, forward air controller on the ground with, with my, did a lot of work with my task unit in Ramadi. And, you know, he was, he was an F-18 pilot. He was You know, Top Gun, you know, Echo just thinks he was straight up Tom Cruise. But he was on the ground with Lessen Ramadi for a hell of a deployment and saw a lot of stuff and in some very intense direct combat. And exactly what you just said, like a couple of things, you know, he said when he, he was talking about when he got home. And he got in the car with his wife and, and his mom. He was in there for 10 minutes and they were having a normal conversation. All of a sudden he yelled at him like his temper was just short.

• 1:40:13Jocko Willink?

  So there's the temper, the increased temper. So that's one thing people definitely get. And the other thing, you know, the startle response, which was, which Dave talked about as well was, you know, he heard a, uh, air gun for putting the, putting the, working on a car. He was walking by a garage and somebody fired off an air gun. And he grabbed his wife and threw her to the ground, right?

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  And he was like, he said while he was doing, he already realized what am I doing, but it was too late. So those are things to watch out for. And then what about, what about the, I know you talk about the sleep pattern.

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he definitely wasn't sleeping, um, normally. And so, you know, I started to, to see this stuff and I was like, this isn't, this isn't a road that we want to go down. And so I told him that I thought he really needed to go see a psych. And luckily in the SEAL teams, there's good access to that. And also fortunately, my husband,

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  listens to me.

• 1:41:15Jocko Willink?

  Luckily for him.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  He, he, he values my opinion. And if I say something is amiss, then he believes that something is amiss. And so he went and saw the psych and I think, um, Doc Parsley, I think you've talked about him before. Helped, helped him to get on to, um, just a healthier sleep cycle, cut out all the, the medication. He doesn't take any medication at all anymore. Never, never any sleep pills or anything. Started taking like some herbal supplements and stuff and, um, he takes some Alpha Brain now.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  a- a- and, and it didn't take long. He, he, you know, he made a few appointments with the psych that definitely helped him to. Realize that, yeah, he was wasn't acting normally because I don't think when these you guys come back, you don't you've already been used to operating on that elevated level for a while and you don't realize that you're not you're now home with your wife and your kids and you're still trying to operate on that level.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  It's like that, you know, the boy la frog thing, you know, where you just that's normal to you. It's normal. You don't sense it when you're overseas. You just are getting ramped up and ramped up and you're staying in this heightened state all the time and everything is intense all the time. But you don't notice it. And so when you come home, you don't notice that it's shouldn't be like that right now.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And that's where it's really important for the family spouses and stuff to, you know, keep an eye on these guys and hopefully channel them in a good direction when they get home as opposed to, you know, had I not stepped in and, I mean, my husband's he's he's been a seal for a long time. He's he's been through a lot of stuff, but,

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  you know, he definitely could have gone down a road that wouldn't have been healthy for him or his career.

• 1:43:18Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about that. I just remembered this when I think when it was either right after you met here, met right after you moved down here, I think. I was talking to him because I was talking about where you guys were living, you know, out and you guys had property. You hadn't bought property yet, but you were renting a big property and you had horses and everything. And I said, oh, man, well, you know, what what made you move out here? You know, this is this is awesome. And he's like, yeah, my wife told me she wouldn't come down here unless I got her a property with horses on it.

• 1:43:49Jocko Willink?

  And here we are. It's like, awesome. That's killer.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:53Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, you talked a little bit about your kids and how that.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  How that helped you, but you, you, in the meantime, as you were having kids, when you got down here, you started straight up farming.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, that was a condition to him having me was that I was not gonna put my horses in a stable and go see them once in a while. Like, they were gonna come with me and we needed land for them to be horses, wild horses like they were used to being. And so

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Conditions.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  He, he made that happen. He made it, he did, he made it happen. And we got a great 18 acre piece of property and we've got five fat horses now out in the field every time I look out. And I never farmed before. I'd always been a horse wrangler. And

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  I started just growing a little garden. And I was like, oh, I love this. And I heard about a CSA program, which is basically where you grow a, like, you grow a bunch of stuff and you sell a box of whatever your farm is producing every week to people who pay, you know, they'll pay to get their box of fruits and vegetables. And I was like, oh, I could do that. I could get a few people and start to do that. And so I did. I started out with like 10 families that I'd do boxes for and realized that I really liked it. And it gave me a lot of focus. When he was deployed, it gave me a lot of something to really throw myself into and focus on.

• 1:45:31Jocko Willink?

  She wasn't gonna pick like knitting.

• 1:45:35Jocko Willink?

  Or playing in cards. I'm gonna run a farm. How you like that?

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  And then, you know, we, we had kids kind of right, right around that same time. And so that was, that was a little challenging in itself to be trying to like, get this farm up and going and being, you know, in the beginning, you talked about me being like nine months pregnant out there, working and um, yeah, that's what I did.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  But it was awesome, you know, I loved it and I've I've managed to build up a pretty decent little business and um there's nothing that I find more rewarding in life than growing good food. There's something about it that's and and for my husband too. Like I do most of the technical farm work. He's more of my farm boy, maybe.

• 1:46:25Jocko Willink?

  Labor.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  it's very therapeutic for him, I think, when he comes back from deployments and stuff and he will he can just kind of let all that go by being in this natural surrounding with physical labor to do every day. You don't need, I think you've talked about this before, you don't need sleeping pills when you work yourself hard.

• 1:46:53Jocko Willink?

  You don't have to, you don't need sleeping pills when you're married to Iris working on the farm. You're gonna go to sleep at night tired.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  You're gonna go to sleep at night.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  I've sent my, I've sent my boy out there like when her husband's on deployment, I'd send my boy out there just to, just to do slave labor out there and get after it. Let him, let him learn about an honest day's work.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:10Jocko Willink?

  Sleep outside. It's legit. It's um, you know, I, I, one of the things you, you had written, and this is you know, different topic, uh, different, the different article that you had written and I'm just gonna read a little, a little chunk of it. Because I love it. Here we go. This is about, you know, being on the farm with your, with your now this is when you just had your, your one daughter.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:38Jocko Willink?

  Here we go. My garden helper turns one year old this week. I remember when life was simpler, when I could work in the garden all day uninterrupted, when I could sleep when I wanted and be out of the house by the early morning. But I didn't laugh nearly as much. My heart wasn't as large.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  I was more selfish.

• 1:48:02Jocko Willink?

  These days are slow, this baby and I. There are so many little breaks we take, things we get distracted by, things that must be learned. I feel lucky to accomplish one or two small tasks in a day now.

• 1:48:20Jocko Willink?

  That is enough, though. We manage. There is nowhere she would rather be than in the garden.

• 1:48:28Jocko Willink?

  Makes me happy to see her dirt-streaked face smile.

• 1:48:34Jocko Willink?

  I have gotten past everything having to be clean. Let a child be a little wild. Let her experience the taste of dirt, the feel of leaves, mud, and water. Let her grow in the garden like an artichoke, rambunctious and beautiful.

• 1:48:56Jocko Willink?

  She laughs out loud, throwing her head back to point at the birds. She squeals with delight when she gets a hold of the cat and crawls like mad to get out of the way of the sprinkler.

• 1:49:09Jocko Willink?

  This is nothing that can be replaced by toys, nothing that can be learned from books, or videos, parks, or playgrounds.

• 1:49:19Jocko Willink?

  This is my sweet child.

• 1:49:22Jocko Willink?

  Sweet as the honeysuckle blossom. Dirt and all.

• 1:49:33Jocko Willink?

  Lots of good stuff, bringing those kids up on the farm.

• 1:49:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:39Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, continuing down that and kind of bringing it up to the present. You wrapped up the article that you wrote about abuse, and you kind of talked about where you're at now. And I'm gonna hit that.

• 1:49:58Jocko Willink?

  The person that I am now, I'm fairly proud of, considering. I carry very few scars from my past, other than the physical ones that are carved into my skin. I am comfortable talking about abuse. I can look at pictures of my abuser and feel very little.

• 1:50:17Jocko Willink?

  I am married to a kind and courageous hero of a man. I've built up a beautiful farm. I've got two amazing young children who I will protect with my life.

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Which is really where this story begins.

• 1:50:34Jocko Willink?

  The children.

• 1:50:37Jocko Willink?

  Look around you, please. Look at your own children and other children that you see.

• 1:50:44Jocko Willink?

  Look at your friends and relatives and watch their interactions closely.

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  We fear so many ridiculous things in life, but we don't fear the most common dangers to children nearly enough.

• 1:51:00Jocko Willink?

  We like to think of child molesters as strangers, not the people we know and let into our lives daily. Stay vigilant. Trust your gut instinct if something seems off. Remember, even very young children can keep tremendous secrets.

• 1:51:19Jocko Willink?

  This is uncomfortable. But sometimes uncomfortable things need to be handled head-on until they no longer have the power that secrecy and silence gives them.

• 1:51:33Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for listening. Please share and keep the children safe.

• 1:51:42Jocko Willink?

  And then, and we, you know, we've talked through some of this, but I kinda wanna just, you, you kinda laid out, and you've talked about it already, you know, just in what we've discussed so far, but I think it's worth covering again from your perspective. Your thoughts on, on how to keep children safe and some of the things to watch out for and some of the things to do. Here we go. I think the best answer is talk about uncomfortable topics early and often. Don't just have the talk with kids. Talk to them on a regular basis about their bodies, sex, predators, consent. If they never hear you talk about it, it's going to be harder for them to bring it up to you.

• 1:52:24Jocko Willink?

  I know communication is difficult in many families. Remember, it's not up to the kids to do it. As an adult, you have to initiate hard conversations regularly.

• 1:52:35Jocko Willink?

  Don't ever assume your kid is too young for something to have happened to them. It can literally happen in a few minutes with a friend or family member when you are out of the room. Ask them if they've ever been touched inappropriately and were in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. Then ask them again and again a few days later. Bring it up casualty the second time. Hey, I was thinking some more about that conversation we had the other day. Give them time to process and decide if they can handle telling you. Do not push kids to hug and kiss people if they are resistant to it, even family members.

• 1:53:16Jocko Willink?

  This is a topic that they should be familiar discussing with you. Everyone treats it like it's this dark secret that we can't talk about. That makes kids feel like they can't talk about it either. Take every opportunity to bring it up in conversation, a news story, a Facebook post, a friend dealing with issues. Talk about what's going on and why.

• 1:53:39Jocko Willink?

  We may think that we are doing our kids a favor by keeping this horrible stuff from them. But the statistics and the women who have spoken out here prove that most likely your child or grandchild will have to deal with it alone if you aren't proactive.

• 1:53:57Jocko Willink?

  If you have four female children or grandchildren or nieces, chances are at least one has or will be molested.

• 1:54:07Jocko Willink?

  Some kids just will not talk no matter what. Be observant and if anything ever seems slightly off, follow your gut instinct. If a child or teen tells you they haven't been touched or molested, don't take their word for it.

• 1:54:25Jocko Willink?

  Kids can be amazingly good at keeping secrets.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's, I think that's just a great list for people to think about, to put into action and really a good, a great example to live by so that you can be aware of this stuff ever happens.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  I want the subjects to be normalized a lot more than it is. You know, yeah, it's a horrible thing to talk about and it's hard to talk to your kids about it. But we have to make it more normal, not only for kids, but for the millions of adults that are out there who've been through it and still don't talk about it. When I first posted what you read, I posted on Facebook, and I had a ton of people send me private messages telling me their own horrible stories.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  People that I knew, people that were friends of friends, people that I didn't know at all.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  And I was shocked by a few of the people that I knew who had horrible stories. Kids that I went to high school with, that I knew during the time that their abuse was also going on, told me some things. And

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  everyone just deals with it and doesn't feel like they can talk about it. And that's, it's, it's not right. And so I hope that my coming on here and, and bringing this to light and being the person that I am and saying, hey, let's have an honest conversation about this will help someone else, even if one or two other people

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  decide that they can change their life for the better because they hear someone addressing this honestly. Or one or two other people look at their

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  kids and the interaction that their neighbor or their friend or their grandpa, uncle, somebody has with their kids and realizes that there's something not quite right.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  Then everything that I've been through is worth it because I will have used my experiences to help someone else.

• 1:57:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, definitely appreciate that. And I know we focused a lot on that today. And again, I, you know, you as a, as a military wife, I also wanted to take a, a moment to recognize all those military wives out there that hold the line.

• 1:57:32Jocko Willink?

  While their husbands are, you know, deployed overseas in harm's way. And I, I wrote something for one of my daughters. And at this point, one of my daughters was, quite frankly, not treating my wife with the kind of respect that my wife deserves. You know, it was typical teenager stuff, a roll of the eyes, a flippant comment. Basically, young adolescent girl with young adolescent attitude. What you talked about earlier, no, no one can tell me anything. I know everything. And in her mind, you know, my wife was just some lady

• 1:58:17Jocko Willink?

  that did the laundry, got the groceries and cooked dinner. And that's how she treated her. And so I, I wrote this for my daughter. But I, I wanted to read it for everyone. And I, and I want to dedicate it not just to my wife, but to all the military wives out there, holding the line on the home front. So this is what I wrote to my daughter.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  Your mom.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  I wanted you to know a little bit about your mom.

• 1:59:06Jocko Willink?

  Your mom was a champion horse rider. She rode cross-country races, show jumping, and she did fox hunting. She cared for her horses every day, cleaned them, trained them, and took care of them.

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  She won many victories.

• 1:59:25Jocko Willink?

  Your mom worked since she was little, starting in restaurants, first peeling potatoes, then bussing tables, then cleaning, then waitressing to make money.

• 1:59:38Jocko Willink?

  Your mom went to an extremely good college. Her parents didn't pay for it. She worked through college as a waitress to pay her own way.

• 1:59:49Jocko Willink?

  When your mom got done with college, she took the money she saved and backpacked around the world.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  She went to Thailand, Malaysia, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other places.

• 2:00:06Jocko Willink?

  While doing that, she worked as a waitress and other odd jobs so she could make money and pay her own way.

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  When your mom got done traveling, the economy was bad and she couldn't find a job, so she went overseas. And worked at an airline as a flight attendant.

• 2:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Which is a hard, thankless job, serving ungrateful passengers on planes. She didn't like it, but she did it.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  When I met your mom for the first time, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

• 2:00:51Jocko Willink?

  And when I talked to her, she was the nicest person I have ever met.

• 2:00:58Jocko Willink?

  And she was funny, and sassy, and sweet, and I knew immediately that I wanted to marry her.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  So your mom picked up everything and left and came to be with me in America. She moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with me. She was wonderful, she was adventurous. She surfed with me and she trained jujitsu with me every day and worked out with me every day. She got her blue belt in jujitsu. She worked as an executive assistant in a real estate office and got a real estate license.

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  We went skiing and hiked mountains and camped under the stars in the mountain. And we went dancing at night.

• 2:01:42Jocko Willink?

  She was amazing.

• 2:01:45Jocko Willink?

  I got orders to move to Virginia. She instantly packed up everything we had and quit her job and moved across country.

• 2:01:54Jocko Willink?

  When we got to Virginia, she got a tough job working for an insurance company.

• 2:02:00Jocko Willink?

  Of course, I was in a SEAL platoon, so I traveled all the time and was gone all the time and she never complained.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  One day she told me she was pregnant. That was you.

• 2:02:14Jocko Willink?

  She was so happy.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  And then the day after you were born, I left on deployment for seven months. She did everything by herself. I was gone. She never complained. And she sent me a picture every day of you.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  When I got home from deployment, she was already back in shape and looked amazing.

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  The Navy gave me orders back to California. Without a word, your mom packed away all of our stuff, quit her job, and we moved back to California.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  I worked and went to school. I never got up in the night to help take care of you. It was always your mom, every time.

• 2:02:56Jocko Willink?

  She changed every diaper, made every meal, dried every tear, read every goodnight book.

• 2:03:03Jocko Willink?

  I worked, went to school, and trained jujitsu. She never complained one single time.

• 2:03:10Jocko Willink?

  Soon she told me she was pregnant again. That was your first sister. When your first sister came, now everything that your mom did for you, she had to do for your sister too. Every diaper, every meal, every tear, every little book read. I was working and going to school and training.

• 2:03:31Jocko Willink?

  She walked you both and read to you and took you to parks and playgroups and dancing lessons and swimming lessons and craft fairs. She did everything for you.

• 2:03:42Jocko Willink?

  She didn't get to surf anymore, or do jujitsu anymore, or work out, or hike with me anymore. She devoted all that time to you, her kids, who she cherished.

• 2:03:55Jocko Willink?

  She never complained, or whined, or asked for anything.

• 2:04:03Jocko Willink?

  Then she got pregnant again. This time it was your brother. She kept doing everything for you when she got her morning sickness, throwing up, dizzy, and carrying around a baby in her belly. She didn't complain, ever.

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  When she was in the bathroom, sick and throwing up, she would apologize to you and you and your sister that you girls had to see her like that.

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Then the war started.

• 2:04:36Jocko Willink?

  I went back to the SEAL teams.

• 2:04:39Jocko Willink?

  I went to Iraq for six months. I was working so much that I barely got time to write.

• 2:04:46Jocko Willink?

  Your mom always wrote me. She never complained about anything. She did everything by herself, everything. I was taking care of my SEAL platoon and she took care of you three little kids. She cleaned everything, made every meal, changed every diaper, dried every tear, took you to lessons and parks and doctor's appointments and read to you every night and made your lunches and got groceries.

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  She did this all by herself. No in-laws to help out, no grandparents around, just her alone.

• 2:05:23Jocko Willink?

  When I came home, things didn't get any better. I just started getting ready to go back to Iraq again. She didn't complain.

• 2:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Some guys had to worry about their families. Their wives would complain and cry and file for divorce and fight over the kids. I never worried about that at all.

• 2:05:42Jocko Willink?

  Your mom took care of everything and never made me have to worry about you kids or her or anything else.

• 2:05:53Jocko Willink?

  My last deployment to Iraq, I was gone almost seven months. I left your mom alone again with you three kids.

• 2:06:02Jocko Willink?

  Some of my men were wounded and killed.

• 2:06:07Jocko Willink?

  Your mom went to the hospital to visit the wounded men and went to the funerals of my friends.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  Your mom knew at any time it could be me that was wounded or killed.

• 2:06:23Jocko Willink?

  But she never complained. She cried with the moms of my friends. She gave support where she could, but she never asked me to stop or come home or leave early or even be safe.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  Never.

• 2:06:43Jocko Willink?

  She never asked me to give anything to her. She knew I had men to take care of. She told me not to worry about her or all you kids. She only told me to do my best at my job and take care of my friends on the battlefield.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Most SEALs get divorced, almost 90%.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  There is too much pressure and separation and distance and too many challenges and many women can't take it, so they leave.

• 2:07:22Jocko Willink?

  Your mom never wavered. She never had an issue or a complaint, no matter what happened, or when I came home, or when I left, or what I did.

• 2:07:35Jocko Willink?

  She supported me always, and she took care of you kids every day, every night, every moment.

• 2:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Every need you had was her responsibility.

• 2:07:49Jocko Willink?

  She never asked for thanks or appreciation, and when it was her birthday or our anniversary, she would tell me not to get her anything, so we could save money.

• 2:08:04Jocko Willink?

  When I got home from my last deployment to Iraq, your mom got pregnant again. That was your youngest sister, and she did it all again. Morning sickness, diapers, sleepless nights, puke in the bed, pee on the floor, chicken pox, lice, tears, scrapes, bumps, bruises, teacher conferences, school lunches, everything.

• 2:08:30Jocko Willink?

  She never complained about it.

• 2:08:33Jocko Willink?

  I was still working, preparing men for war, and traveling all the time, and she continued to take care of you kids, so I could do my job.

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  Your mom has stuck with me through hell.

• 2:08:51Jocko Willink?

  It has been hard. Your mom has been married to this hard-headed frogman for seventeen years. She's been through multiple wartime deployments. She has helped me when I was sick or injured, and she has done the same for you.

• 2:09:07Jocko Willink?

  She has done it because she is strong and determined, and she loves our family more than anything in the world.

• 2:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Your mom is an incredible person, an amazing woman, and I worship her.

• 2:09:23Jocko Willink?

  She is everything I ever wanted.

• 2:09:30Jocko Willink?

  So, when you get the chance, you should tell your mom that you love her. That you know how much she has done for you and for our family, and that you appreciate everything that she has done for us and for you.

• 2:09:50Jocko Willink?

  I hope you grow up and have some of the same qualities that she possesses. Strength, honor, intelligence, dignity, selflessness, respect, determination, and kindness.

• 2:10:11Jocko Willink?

  That's your mom.

• 2:10:15Jocko Willink?

  And I hope you realize how blessed you are to have her.

• 2:10:31Jocko Willink?

  And that's the note that I wrote to my daughter.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, there's some people

• 2:10:43Jocko Willink?

  that say a woman can do anything that a man can do.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know if that's true or not.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  But I can tell you this, I don't know of too many men

• 2:11:01Jocko Willink?

  that can do what my wife has done and what thousands of other military wives have done.

• 2:11:09Jocko Willink?

  And I want to recognize

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  how blessed we are as a nation

• 2:11:17Jocko Willink?

  to have these women out there holding the line on the home front.

• 2:11:24Jocko Willink?

  A job, and yes, it is a job, that is under-recognized and overlooked all the time.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  And Iris, like my own wife, I think you are a stellar example of this.

• 2:11:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:11:49Jocko Willink?

  No, thank you for what you have done for your family, but also what you have done for our country in supporting your husband and your family.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  And

• 2:12:07Jocko Willink?

  thank you. And obviously, thank you for coming on here today to, to teach all of us about a subject that we all need to know more about, not just abuse, but also determination. And on top of that, determination to overcome what you experienced in your life, but the determination to keep a family together and protect the protectors.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  Well, it's been a, it's been an incredible honor to be here and, and thank you guys for stepping out of the box a little bit with me and getting this out there and, and talking about some of this stuff. And I love, you know, what you wrote to your daughter and your wife is still stunningly beautiful and very kind.

• 2:13:03Jocko Willink?

  She is indeed. And it's, you know, having you on the podcast was a no brainer. I, I probably waited three or four months to broach the subject with your husband. I was waiting for the right moment and he said something to me about it and I was like, you know, hey, if, if she ever just happens to want to come on, let me know. And, and he answered me in 30 seconds. And it wasn't his answer. He said, I just talked to her. She's good to go. I was like, yes. So it's been a great having you on the podcast.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  Huge honor. Thank you guys.

• 2:13:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, speaking of the podcast.

• 2:13:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:13:43Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, I mean, if somebody wanted to support this podcast.

• 2:13:48Jocko Willink?

  Is there any way they can do that?

• 2:13:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is actually. This is kind of the, you know, we talk about these heavy things. This is kind of the, the time to decompress a little bit, right?

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  A little bit.

• 2:13:58Speaker 02

  We can talk about supporting the podcast.

• 2:14:00Jocko Willink?

  That's a good way to decompress.

• 2:14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. Most of the time.

• 2:14:07Speaker 02

  Let's talk about supporting ourselves now, you know? Cause actually, a lot of it, like being like a strong military wife and all this stuff, even, even just a normal.

• 2:14:17Jocko Willink?

  And you know this, I'm gonna say this too. I didn't say this. There's military husbands as well.

• 2:14:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:23Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 2:14:24Jocko Willink?

  And, and they're, they're doing all that stuff that I talked about. I was talking about wives, cause that's what I deal with. I dealt with my wife, you know, and, and you're a military wife. The guys that are out there holding down the fort, and also there's guys that are married to police officers. There's, I know that that gets flipped sometimes and, and respect.

• 2:14:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Respect. Equally challenging for, for anybody that's, that's holding down the fort at home, so.

• 2:14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the, the concept, right?

• 2:14:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:14:54Speaker 02

  You know, a lot of times, especially when you're dealing with kids and, oh, the responsibility is on me or whatever. And I, I mentioned this before where it's easy to fall into that kind of mindset where you're making it about yourself now. You know, where you have kids and it's like, hey, uh, I gotta change, I changed the diaper last time, you know? But if you notice, you're talking about yourself now. The diaper gotta get changed regardless. But you're like focusing on the fact that you had to do it, you know, kind of thing. So, not that you're wrong, but you chose to make it about yourself. So the less you make it about yourself and more about the mission, the family, the, whatever it is that you're doing, the stronger you're gonna have the, um, like the capability to be, you know, you can like solve the problems, you know, accomplish the mission. Anyway, so, that being said.

• 2:15:41Speaker 02

  Let's make it about ourselves for a second by supporting ourselves. So this is kind of a flit. You know, he's switching. You know how like in the, in the airplane, they say support yourself before you support the kid.

• 2:15:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta put the oxygen.

• 2:15:51Speaker 02

  You gotta put the oxygen, you know what I mean? Because if you support yourself, you have more capability of supporting others.

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  True thing.

• 2:15:59Speaker 02

  True story, right?

• 2:16:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:16:00Speaker 02

  That's why, like, the stronger you are.

• 2:16:02Jocko Willink?

  Echo's all excited. He's got Iris over here. She's agreeing. She's in the game with him. Echo's like blowing me off. Now you're looking at him. He's talking to Iris now.

• 2:16:09Speaker 02

  Cause she knows she mentioned Alpha Brain, all these things. And I started taking more Alpha Brain, by the way.

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  I think I noticed that today. You were sharp, man. You were crisp with the thoughts.

• 2:16:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I felt like I was a bit distracted, not necessarily here, but just in life, you know? I couldn't like focus on the thing that I need to focus on.

• 2:16:28Jocko Willink?

  Like making videos?

• 2:16:29Speaker 02

  Or what? No, I've been making videos, bro.

• 2:16:30Jocko Willink?

  I've noticed that. That's good.

• 2:16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 2:16:33Jocko Willink?

  We like that.

• 2:16:34Speaker 02

  Anyway, if you're working out, you want supplementation, you want some support in the workout, which actually I'm down for now. I wasn't a supplement person before, as I said before, but now I am because there's supplements like krill oil. You know Strong Bone? Strong Bone?

• 2:16:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:52Speaker 02

  Is that for like bones too?

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  It might be, but I just, I don't know. My bones seem strong. I don't break them very often, but my joints want help. So I take it for the, I take it for the joints.

• 2:17:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause you figure, cause usually when like your tendon detat, like, you know how I ripped my bicep or whatever? It's the tendon ripping off the bone.

• 2:17:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:15Speaker 02

  So you figure joints, maybe that's, you know, the Strong Bone is that's the part of it that makes it.

• 2:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Homework. Do some research. Get back to me.

• 2:17:26Speaker 02

  Anyway, if you want the good supplements, krill oil for your joints, that's a big one, in my opinion, in Jocko's opinion.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  My opinion.

• 2:17:35Speaker 02

  Iris's opinion?

• 2:17:36Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 2:17:37Speaker 02

  Man, essential.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  So whether you're working out or whether you're actually working on the farm.

• 2:17:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:17:43Jocko Willink?

  To krill.

• 2:17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, all up in it. Um, that's a good one. Um, but as far as supplements go, you know, you get the good ones. When you get on it once. Anyway, if you want 10% off on it.com slash Jocko. My joints, here's the thing, like all bust out krill oil whenever it's applicable in my mind. And people be like, oh, you always talk about krill oil. No, but I feel like it's kind of always on my mind. Because you know, like, okay, I'm talking to Greg, right? The other day. I don't, I don't think Greg's on the krill oils. We're talking, it's after week, he should be.

• 2:18:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:20Speaker 02

  We're talking, we're talking for a while about stuff or whatever. It's oh, it's time to go. We get up, Greg, uh, he goes, uh, like that.

• 2:18:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no.

• 2:18:29Speaker 02

  I understand. He didn't have to make that noise, but him making that noise is an indicator.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  Full indicator.

• 2:18:34Speaker 02

  That he's missing his krill oil.

• 2:18:35Jocko Willink?

  Somebody, somebody order that man krill oil ASAP.

• 2:18:38Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I thought. I didn't say nothing, but that's what I thought.

• 2:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Why didn't you say anything? That's kind of jacked up.

• 2:18:42Speaker 02

  Time and place, maybe, maybe it was like, right, it was too new, it was too fresh.

• 2:18:46Jocko Willink?

  So let's just make this just for, this whole advertisement is for Greg Train. Greg Train.

• 2:18:50Speaker 02

  Get on the krill oil.

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Do it.

• 2:18:52Speaker 02

  And you won't, and it's less about making that kind of noise or not making the noise. It's the feeling that compelled him to make the noise. That's the important part.

• 2:18:59Jocko Willink?

  What if Greg Train wanted 10% off? What would he do then?

• 2:19:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to help this along.

• 2:19:06Speaker 02

  No, man. Okay. If he chose to get 10% on it.com slash Jocko. The slash Jocko, that's the part that gives you the 10% off on, on, on all your stuff. Even if you like protein powders and whatnot, which, which is good too, by the way.

• 2:19:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:22Speaker 02

  Look on there, see what, what, you know, because it depends your lifestyle. You see what I'm saying?

• 2:19:28Speaker 02

  Anyway.

• 2:19:28Jocko Willink?

  It does.

• 2:19:29Speaker 02

  You get it. You get my drift. Okay. So that's a good way to support yourself and the podcast. And ultimately everyone around you.

• 2:19:38Jocko Willink?

  Actually, everyone in the world will be, will be more supportive.

• 2:19:42Speaker 02

  Ultimately, yeah. Like the butterfly effect, you know, like us talking, it'll affect China later. Anyway, Amazon click through, that's a good way to support too, by the way. So what that does is, you know, before you do your shopping, you click through the website, jockelpodcast.com, there's a tab on the top, banner on the bottom. Thing is, with the banner, I'm only saying this because people like hit me up about it, and they'll say, "Hey, I don't see the banner, your banner's not there on the website." If you have an ad blocker, which is a smart thing to have, by the way, just generally speaking, if you have an ad blocker, it'll block certain like things. And sometimes that banner will fall within the confines of things that the ad blocker blocks.

• 2:20:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:26Speaker 02

  See what I'm saying?

• 2:20:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know what, we could also change our whole attitude here, and make the full focus of the podcast and the website and everything that we're doing to get people to get into to give us money.

• 2:20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:37Jocko Willink?

  We're not gonna do that.

• 2:20:38Speaker 02

  Right, so like now that I'm thinking and talking to you guys about it, I'm like, "Man, I should really go change that." But when I go home, or when I go, you know, other places, I'm thinking about getting after it. I'm thinking about making videos, what have you, so you know, I get reminded by... So, and maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's a bad thing, but nonetheless, those are the facts as of right now. But it doesn't matter because there's a tab on the top, like I said, click on that one. If you want to support, it takes three seconds, small action. And that support that everyone's been giving, big reaction.

• 2:21:15Jocko Willink?

  And somehow this supports China, you were saying?

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  It can ultimately, yes, it's the butterfly effect, look into it. Look it up. It's real, yeah, it's real. You can subscribe to the podcast, and this is on any podcasting providing platform, Google Play, iTunes of course, Stitcher.

• 2:21:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can write a review too, which I've done some, I've read some live reviews on here

• 2:21:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:44Jocko Willink?

  of of Jocko White Tea, but I might do that with the podcast because there's some really good ones there too. I was actually thinking of doing a Facebook Live and reading the comments on a picture that Joe Rogan posted of me. Because there are some funny comments. Some pro comedians out there listening to Joe Rogan, so they want to make fun of my head.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:22:06Jocko Willink?

  But they're worth reading.

• 2:22:07Speaker 02

  You know, there was, um, remember that video? That we made actually long to, I don't even, it might have been before the first podcast even, maybe after, I don't know. Anyway, we made it and it was about martial arts training.

• 2:22:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:22:20Speaker 02

  And you're, you know, what, what's the best martial arts and self-defense, all this stuff, right? So I revisited that and this was a while ago. There's like millions, there's over a million views on that.

• 2:22:31Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:22:31Speaker 02

  So with views come comments, right?

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you like that, don't you?

• 2:22:35Speaker 02

  And typically, yeah, you know, it's usually not very productive to spend much time in the comments section on YouTube, but

• 2:22:43Speaker 02

  a lot of views, a lot of comments, let's see what the, and it's not like people who've necessarily followed Jocko Podcast, that's the thing.

• 2:22:48Jocko Willink?

  There's random people.

• 2:22:49Speaker 02

  So you get a cool little like variety of, of people in there. So yeah, there's some interesting ones in there. I didn't quote any or nothing or save any, but I'm just saying, generally speaking, it's interesting. Nonetheless, back to subscribing to the podcast.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of YouTube.

• 2:23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have a YouTube channel. If you like the video version of this podcast, eh?

• 2:23:13Speaker 02

  Sometime, like people know what you look like.

• 2:23:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:16Speaker 02

  And I, but a smaller percentage of people know what I look like.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:19Speaker 02

  And I'm not encouraging you to watch the video to see what I look, I'm not saying that.

• 2:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Echo doesn't look like what he sounds like.

• 2:23:24Speaker 01

  You definitely look different than you sound.

• 2:23:26Jocko Willink?

  Did you, have you ever seen him before today?

• 2:23:28Speaker 01

  I've seen pictures of you online and I was surprised when I did because you sounded sort of, well, no, I'm not going to say what you sounded like. But you didn't sound the way I, you look.

• 2:23:41Jocko Willink?

  We'll assume that that's not good.

• 2:23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that.

• 2:23:47Speaker 02

  One guy said a mixed white and Latino, not hipster, um, like skate, not skater, I don't know, something. Anyway, they got real specific, which is good, which is cool.

• 2:23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:57Speaker 02

  I, I dig it, but.

• 2:23:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess it's because you have a weird background being a Hawaiian. What do you, half-black, half-white guy?

• 2:24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, not to split hairs, but there's some Native American in there.

• 2:24:10Jocko Willink?

  And Native American. But see, none of that has anything to do with the way you talk.

• 2:24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  The way you talk is just the way you talk.

• 2:24:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  It has something to do with the way you look.

• 2:24:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it does. I don't know why I said that, but yeah, coming, yeah, growing up in Kauai, and then living here, and then, I don't know. Talking to you all the time, all this stuff. Just jumbled me up, you know? Anyway, back to the YouTube thing.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  If you want to see what he looks like, you can check him out.

• 2:24:33Speaker 02

  If you're interested in something like that, if that interests you, subscribing to the YouTube channel might facilitate that.

• 2:24:39Jocko Willink?

  Because conversely, I look like what people think I'm gonna look like. That's what I look like.

• 2:24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, exactly true.

• 2:24:48Speaker 02

  So yeah, the YouTube, also, also, my looks aside, what we do now is, and we've been doing this for a little bit, is take our little excerpts of the podcast, little lessons, and we'll put them on there as well, so you can share them, you know? It's easier than sharing the whole podcast and having people receive it, you know? Because you can't just listen to two and a half hours on a whim, you know?

• 2:25:11Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:25:12Speaker 02

  But three minutes.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  You actually have to kind of schedule that.

• 2:25:14Speaker 02

  You gotta schedule it, yes, exactly right.

• 2:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Three minutes, though, no schedule required.

• 2:25:17Speaker 02

  No schedule.

• 2:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Press play.

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  Right now.

• 2:25:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:20Speaker 02

  Lesson learned, boom.

• 2:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:21Speaker 02

  Individual lesson.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Life approved, good to go.

• 2:25:23Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:25:24Jocko Willink?

  Rock and roll.

• 2:25:24Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. So that's really the goal there, and you know, I gotta be, like, people have said, you know, I always say this, people, oh, people have been asking me this one person. No, in my case, people have been saying, like, that's good to have those ones. Because some people, they don't listen to the podcast like the first day, you know? They're like, how you said, they kind of gotta schedule it.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, even, even somebody, even, we got a lot of commuters. A lot of people listen in the car.

• 2:25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:50Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, half an hour commute, it takes you, you know, a few days to hear the whole podcast, but there might have been a little nugget you needed for work that Monday.

• 2:25:58Speaker 02

  Exactly right, yeah.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:00Speaker 02

  Some people, they'll say, "That helped me that day." Like, the college one that you talk about?

• 2:26:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:06Speaker 02

  Like, how to approach college?

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:08Speaker 02

  Legit, anyway.

• 2:26:09Jocko Willink?

  Don't you wish you had that when you approached college?

• 2:26:11Speaker 02

  I wish I had all of this, really, when I, when I approached anything in life, really. But yes, the college, yes. So yeah, subscribe to the YouTube, man, that's, that's a good one, that's a good way to support. And that's another way to support yourself, in a way, kind of indirectly. And then, if you wear t-shirts at any point, and you want to represent a little bit, we got some cool t-shirts, you know? I think.

• 2:26:35Jocko Willink?

  I think they're pretty cool.

• 2:26:36Speaker 02

  Approved?

• 2:26:37Jocko Willink?

  They are approved, quite literally.

• 2:26:39Speaker 02

  All approved.

• 2:26:40Jocko Willink?

  There's a new t-shirt out, which you are wearing at this time.

• 2:26:44Speaker 02

  I like it.

• 2:26:45Jocko Willink?

  It's, um, it's real complex.

• 2:26:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:48Jocko Willink?

  It's black and it says "Get After It" on it.

• 2:26:52Speaker 02

  Amen. Technically, it's a charcoal heather, but...

• 2:26:57Jocko Willink?

  Fashion guy.

• 2:26:58Speaker 02

  Amen. You know, it is what it is and, um, there's usually more to them than kind of meets the eye. We call that layers.

• 2:27:08Speaker 02

  Philosophical sense. Um, but yeah, you know, i- if you want to support that way, that's a good way, you know? And you get a shirt that you can wear, very wearable. That's the thing. They're not the cheap ballpark giveaway shirts. They're like good, very wearable. Multiple occasions, people say it's my favorite shirt to wear because of the fit.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  People are telling you that.

• 2:27:26Speaker 02

  People every single day, all day. Yeah, I'm telling you.

• 2:27:32Speaker 02

  Women's on there, women's stuff on their shirts, patches, rash guards. I'm gonna put out a new rash guard here pretty soon. Not that that's like supposed to get everyone fired up or nothing like that. Yeah, it's good. The hoodies are on there as well and, you know, if you like any of this stuff, I'd say, I'd say just look at it. If you choose to support, if you feel like supporting, you feel like representing, go ahead and get something.

• 2:27:56Jocko Willink?

  It's a good way to support you.

• 2:27:57Speaker 02

  Yep. And also,

• 2:28:02Speaker 02

  this, what I'm, what I'm about to tell you here could very well border on essential now. It's like one of those things where, okay, so, psychological warfare, we're gonna talk about, I'm gonna go into it. So, you know how like, let's say you're getting after it, Iris is getting after it, I'm getting after it. I start taking krill oil, Iris starts taking krill oil, Jocko is not taking krill oil, maybe someone else comes in, they start getting after it, they start to... Meanwhile, you're not taking the krill oil. We're kind of ahead of you, you know? Getting a little soft, Jocko. Conceptually, that's a big deal. So, psychological warfare, what that does is, okay, psychological warfare is an album with tracks,

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  with Jocko on there. Put simply, Jocko on there helping you through any moments of weakness that you may have on your getting after it journey. Waking up early in the morning every day, sleeping on the diet. Procrastinating, all these things. Yeah, big deal.

• 2:29:00Jocko Willink?

  You know what's, yeah, if you think about just the procrastination one.

• 2:29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:04Jocko Willink?

  Procrastination is one of those things. It's a massive problem with people, right? People all over the world have a massive problem with procrastination. Think of how easy it is to overcome that.

• 2:29:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:15Jocko Willink?

  It's the easiest thing.

• 2:29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:16Jocko Willink?

  It's the easiest thing to overcome. Psychological warfare.

• 2:29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  You just do, just go do what you're procrastinating and it's already, you won. It's not like you have to work to get over procrastination. You just, just crush it. Just go.

• 2:29:30Speaker 02

  It's back the other day or last week, whatever, when I said like, you gotta switch it to manual just and for procrastination, you just gotta switch it to manual for like literally two seconds. One, two, boom, and then you do it.

• 2:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Once you're starting.

• 2:29:43Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, you're doing it. You are no longer procrastinating. You know, but it's.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  What an easy battle to win and what a, what a battle that so many people face and lose.

• 2:29:52Speaker 02

  And lose, bro, it's, yeah, it's one of those psychological things that you kinda gotta declare war on. And in that case, you're engaging in psychological warfare. Nonetheless, this is a good way to, so, okay, so back to my point about when everyone starts getting after it and you're not. So I, I, I don't wanna feel that, like everyone's like, oh, psychological warfare, cause you can't listen to it. And like, hey, I don't wanna wake up, I wanna press the snooze. You can't listen to wake up. You know, one of the first jacks or whatever. You can't listen to that and then not wake up. You can't. You won't be able to face yourself. It's like one of those things, it's like, that's wrong. So let's say everyone's doing that. You're kinda left behind if you're not. That's how I feel. Like if I'm not doing it, you know? I'll do it, even if I feel like working out, I'll still listen to it.

• 2:30:36Jocko Willink?

  Give you a little kick.

• 2:30:38Speaker 02

  Little kick. Anyway, psychological warfare. Jocko Willink.

• 2:30:41Jocko Willink?

  I did, hey, I looked at, I was looking at an audiobook the other day. It's still number one, by the way. Number one on spoken word on iTunes.

• 2:30:48Speaker 02

  See, everyone's getting on it, yeah, man.

• 2:30:50Jocko Willink?

  It's been that way since it came out. So everyone that you're telling to get after it, they're getting after it.

• 2:30:55Speaker 02

  That's exactly, that's part of my point right there. Like you gotta do it.

• 2:30:59Jocko Willink?

  Also, on clicking, when you're clicking through Amazon, you can also get Jocko White Tea. And here's the bottom line, you know, we all need to deadlift more.

• 2:31:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:31:10Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 2:31:11Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:31:11Jocko Willink?

  Don't play around. If you order your Jocko White Tea, you're gonna boost your deadlift to approximately 8,000 pounds. And I was thinking about this the other day. You think 8,000 pounds is heavy? It's in another, you know, unit of measurement. It's four tons, bro.

• 2:31:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's.

• 2:31:28Jocko Willink?

  That's good, man. That's really good. You wanna do that? Way of the Warrior Kid. By the way, it's not even pre-order anymore. Because it comes out May 2nd, right? So, it's coming out soon. Boom.

• 2:31:46Jocko Willink?

  Order it now and save a child, smash a bully, save yourself, smash pull-ups. That's the, that's the overall message.

• 2:31:56Speaker 02

  Bro, I was at the Padre game yesterday, yesterday. And so, there's a playground there and the kids are just kinda running amok, you know? And a lot of times there's parents in there. And there's this one kid, he was, he was big.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:32:10Speaker 02

  And he had that look on his face. I'm not saying he was a bully, but he's, you know, walking around, he was like grabbing another kid. I don't know if it was his brother. I don't know if he was bullying him or helping him or whatever. But you could tell, like, in all the little kids' face, cause you know, there's some people, they're, like, there's a line for this little thing that, that kids get on. It's like, it's not a merry-go-round. It's a thing you sit in and it goes. So, some kids are real assertive. They'll be like, oh, it's my turn. Cutting the line, not even realizing there's a line or whatever. Then there's some kids, they'll stand in line and they'll just sort of let people just cut. And then there's some kids who are like, oh, wait. And they'll explain there's a line, you know? So you can see the different levels.

• 2:32:50Jocko Willink?

  There's different people out there.

• 2:32:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, something like this, that's gonna turn you into, you know, the person who's, you know, it's kinda like the leader kid.

• 2:32:57Jocko Willink?

  Gonna turn you into the leader. It sounds like Kenny Williamson might have been out there. Kenny Williams is a bully.

• 2:33:01Speaker 02

  Potentially.

• 2:33:02Jocko Willink?

  Now, interestingly. I'm doing the, uh, there's a lot of, I asked questions, who should read the audio for this, right? Cause it, if I was thinking, I would just read the whole thing. Then some people said, hey, you know, Jocko, you're not a kid and it's a kid's voice. It's in the first person of a kid's voice. Kid's named Mark. So I, I couldn't read the kid's part. I decided, you know what? I'm not going to read the whole book. I'm not going to read the kid's part, but there's a character in there named Uncle Jake. Now Uncle Jake, he, he was a SEAL and he's going to come and help out. And I, I decided maybe I could read Uncle Jake parts. So I did.

• 2:33:41Speaker 02

  Seems like

• 2:33:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and then we got a kid reading the kid's part. And I think you all find out who that is. And I think there'll be some layers behind that, that part even. So yeah, way the warrior kid. You can order that now. You can also get discipline equals freedom. Field manual is coming out. What's a field manual? Something that you allows you to take information and put it into action. That's what the, that's what the discipline equals freedom field manual is going to do. Comes out October 17th. Might seem like that's a long ways away, but so did May 2nd, right? But this thing's coming out around the corner. So the field manual, it's basically this podcast in a book. You can't bring this podcast into the field with you. I guess you can put it on

• 2:34:26Jocko Willink?

  your headphones. I guess maybe you can, but sometimes you need visual cues. So that's what it is. The thoughts, the things from the podcast, but then it also has very specific additional information like workouts, sleep, strategies, martial arts, you know, everything that's cool in the world. It's all in the book. So you can do that. Extreme ownership. You can, you know, by the way, why is extreme ownership still one of the top books on Amazon and iTunes and Audible? A year and a half after it came out? Why is that? Is it because of the big advertising campaign that we did? No, it's not because of that. It's purely because of word of mouth. So everyone that's listening to this right now, that's buying it for other people and spreading the word. It's

• 2:35:10Jocko Willink?

  because of you. That's awesome. Appreciate it. Extreme Ownership, Amazon. Why is it not out on paperback yet? Do you want to know why? Yeah. You know why?

• 2:35:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:21Jocko Willink?

  It's not out on paperback because people ask me, why isn't it on paperback? It's not out on paperback yet because books come out on paperback when they aren't selling the hardcover anymore.

• 2:35:31Speaker 01

  Ah, nice.

• 2:35:32Jocko Willink?

  They re-release a cheaper version. Here it is in paperback. Now it's only $9.95. They haven't done that with our book yet. Why? People still want the hardcover. It's still selling. And the reason for that is because, because it works, because people get a lot out of it. So if you don't have Extreme Ownership, or if someone that you know

• 2:35:51Jocko Willink?

  doesn't have Extreme Ownership, just like they don't have krill oil. Tell Greg Train he needs krill oil. Tell your, tell your subordinate leader, or your superior leader, or members of your team, tell them, hey, look, man, I'm gonna get you a little something here for it to help you out. Yeah. Extreme Ownership. And if you need

• 2:36:08Jocko Willink?

  some more Extreme Ownership at your team, company, contact, whatever, your, your, you can contact our company,

• 2:36:17Jocko Willink?

  Echelon Front, Leif, Babin, myself, Dave Burke, JP Denell, Leadership and Management Consultants. If you want to bring us on board, contact us, [email protected]. And also, along the same vein, if you don't know, we have the muster coming up, number 002, in New York City, at the Marriott Grand Marquis.

• 2:36:41Jocko Willink?

  Come get your leadership on. You will become a better leader, period. Leif's gonna be there. JP's gonna be there. Dave Burke is gonna be there.

• 2:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm gonna be there. Echo Charles is going to be there. And a ton of people that listen to this podcast and that we've worked with are gonna be there. Come and get it. We'll see you there. And until we do get to the muster, if you want to communicate with us, you can find us cruising on the interwebs. Now, first of all, we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. You can also find us on the Facebook key, if you can find us there. So Iris.

• 2:37:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:37:21Jocko Willink?

  For Facebook, where are you at?

• 2:37:23Speaker 01

  Uh, you can follow my farm on Primeval, it's Primeval Gardens, on Facebook and Instagram, and then I'm on Twitter at OnlyIrisGardener.

• 2:37:36Jocko Willink?

  And I just told Iris to sign up for that this morning.

• 2:37:40Speaker 01

  I'm not a Twitterer, but I will, I will.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  That's what Tim Ferriss did to me, too.

• 2:37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:45Jocko Willink?

  He was like, oh, just sign up for Twitter. No big deal. And then a bunch of people were like, asking me questions. But the cool thing is, well, that's what makes it cool, is you can communicate with all these different people. And they can give you good information. They can tell you what books to read, and they can tell you what speeches to listen to, and they can tell you what YouTube videos to check out, and they can tell you what jujitsu is good. It's awesome. It's a great way of communicating with a bunch of people. So.

• 2:38:05Speaker 02

  You know what, Twitter?

• 2:38:06Speaker 01

  I don't, actually.

• 2:38:07Speaker 02

  Because, you know, like, back in the day, they sent messages with, what, pigeons, right?

• 2:38:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:16Speaker 02

  You know, they send the message.

• 2:38:17Speaker 01

  Carrier pigeons, right?

• 2:38:18Speaker 02

  So it's like, when you send someone a message, it's called a tweet.

• 2:38:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but what does that have to do with Twitter?

• 2:38:22Speaker 01

  Pigeons don't tweet, though. They coo.

• 2:38:25Speaker 02

  I don't know the details. Birds tweeting messages, that's what Twitter is.

• 2:38:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. So it's related to birds?

• 2:38:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:38:34Jocko Willink?

  And message pigeons?

• 2:38:35Speaker 02

  Exactly, right.

• 2:38:36Jocko Willink?

  Which now that we have an animal expert in the room, they don't tweet.

• 2:38:43Jocko Willink?

  They need to change the name of Twitter to like.

• 2:38:45Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, well, no, they have to change the name of tweet tweeting, the act of tweeting to that noise. Yeah.

• 2:38:53Speaker 01

  Cooing.

• 2:38:53Speaker 02

  Tweeting.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 2:38:54Speaker 02

  But that's what it is, just little messages, you know?

• 2:38:56Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:38:57Jocko Willink?

  Echo?

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:38:58Jocko Willink?

  You got anything else for us today?

• 2:39:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, you said you, um, your dad made gold bars?

• 2:39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:05Speaker 02

  How big were the bar? Because, you know, you get the little.

• 2:39:06Jocko Willink?

  Echo's thinking, maybe that's a second career.

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  No, that was like the phrase that stuck with me.

• 2:39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, you know.

• 2:39:13Speaker 02

  Because you get little like, like, like crum, gold kind of crumbs, right? First?

• 2:39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get just little fragments of pieces when you crush up ore.

• 2:39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:23Speaker 01

  You just get, if you're like, going in the streams and creeks, you'll come out with gold nuggets, which are naturally forming larger. But when you're crushing up ore, you just get little tiny flecks of gold, and then you refine it down into a bar. And I, I don't remember, I think, you know, they do them in a few ounces to whatever sizes makes sense to sell.

• 2:39:45Speaker 02

  You hear the word gold bar, you're thinking, you know, like on the movie, you're what, three kings?

• 2:39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, not like a, not like a 10 pound.

• 2:39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:53Speaker 01

  Brick or whatever it is, but yeah, smaller bars.

• 2:39:57Speaker 02

  It's pretty cool.

• 2:39:59Jocko Willink?

  Is that your final question?

• 2:40:00Speaker 02

  That was it.

• 2:40:01Jocko Willink?

  Awesome, awesome. Iris, anything else you want to close out with?

• 2:40:05Speaker 01

  Gosh, no. Just thanks for, thanks for doing this. Thanks for getting me on here and um, love listening to the show. I, I listen to it when I'm out working, getting after it.

• 2:40:18Speaker 01

  I, I, I need a get after it shirt.

• 2:40:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I always like going over to your house because you and, you and your husband both want to expand the conversation and point stuff out to me and ask about this. So it's always awesome to have you guys listening, but.

• 2:40:32Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:40:33Jocko Willink?

  Anything else?

• 2:40:35Speaker 01

  I think we're good.

• 2:40:36Jocko Willink?

  Well,

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  obviously, thank you for coming on. Seriously, I think it's awesome. I think it's courageous and brave and really helpful for a lot of people.

• 2:40:50Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 2:40:51Jocko Willink?

  And thank you for that. Thank you for giving us a warning that

• 2:41:01Jocko Willink?

  that evil can hide anywhere. Right? Under our noses and slink around and trying to corrupt those that are closest to us.

• 2:41:20Jocko Willink?

  So thanks for telling us

• 2:41:24Jocko Willink?

  to hug our children, to hold our children and to watch our children closely. And also, thank you for reminding us once again that in the end

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  evil cannot win if we decide that we will not let it.

• 2:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Because if we confront the darkness, if we stand up with courage and we look upward

• 2:42:01Jocko Willink?

  toward the sky,

• 2:42:05Jocko Willink?

  the light will shine on our faces and wash out the darkness and bring us warmth and hope

• 2:42:17Jocko Willink?

  and happiness.

• 2:42:22Jocko Willink?

  And thank you for showing us once again that even with the evil

• 2:42:31Jocko Willink?

  and the darkness of the world

• 2:42:36Jocko Willink?

  and even with the scars that they can leave even still

• 2:42:46Jocko Willink?

  even with all that

• 2:42:50Jocko Willink?

  this life

• 2:42:53Jocko Willink?

  is as sweet

• 2:42:56Jocko Willink?

  as the honeysuckle blossom

• 2:43:01Jocko Willink?

  dirt and all

• 2:43:06Jocko Willink?

  so until next time

• 2:43:10Jocko Willink?

  this is Iris and Echo and Jocko

• 2:43:16Jocko Willink?

  out