125: How Can Discipline Fail You? Excuses, Playing The Game, Good Decision Making, Jiu Jitsu

0:00:00 - Opening 0:00:19 - A "Reason" VS an Excuse". 0:10:03 - Questioning your leadership. 0:16:11 - Arrogant Jerks in Jiu Jitsu. 0:28:04 - Do Leadership principles change with major growth of a company? 0:34:35 - "Playing the Game" for success, contrasted with "Agreeableness". 0:51:01 - Good decision making VS Good outcome. 1:03:44 - Getting better at Jiu jItsu 1:16:04 - Does Discipline ever fail you? 1:18:40 - Support. 1:43:05 - 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 125 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  And we are bringing a Q and A today.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  To the world. First question.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Dang right into it. Okay, alright. What is the difference between an excuse and a reason?

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  Kind of a good question, right?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 0:32Jocko Willink?

  And the reason it's a good question because there's, there can be legitimate reasons why things happen.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  Right? And

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  so for instance, you're in a, in a sailing race, right? In a sailboat. And the mast snaps in half. Now you don't win the race. But I mean, you didn't, you know, the mast snapped. What can you do about that? Or the weather's, the horrible weather rolls in and you can't launch your aircraft, so you can't go on your mission. You can't control the weather. So you know, like what's up? How can that, that's a reason. Or you get really sick, so you can't compete in a competition. That's a reason. You know, you were sick or you do bad because you were sick and you.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  It's a reason could be called. Now. Now you could look at the situation and say, okay, if I'm going to take ownership of this. Did I properly test the mast? Did I?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  Let me ask you this. Did we have a ground based plan for the operation in case the weather came in? We were going to take vehicles instead. Right?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  That would work. If you get sick before the competition, maybe you ask yourself, were you resting properly? Were you eating properly going into the competition so you wouldn't get sick?

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  You could address that, correct?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  So, you can still take ownership of things, even if the initial reaction is like, oh, there's, you can't control that. Well, you can influence it, you could mitigate it, right? Now, can there still be legitimate reasons? Y- yes, there can, and for me, the, the, the difference, the line between an excuse and a reason is a reason you have zero control over. Right? You have ze- you just have zero control over something happening? Well, that's a reason.

• 2:31Jocko Willink?

  Did I tell you I was almost late the other day for something?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause this is borderline, this is borderline.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  I had an appointment at ten o'clock. I left, it was a twenty minute drive.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:46Jocko Willink?

  I left an hour, I left at, well, I left about nine, ten, I left fifty minutes.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  To drive twenty minutes.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  S- just so gonna make it on time.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  I get on the road, basically a couple of roads out of my house, and the one entry way to get on the freeway is lockdown. Lockdown.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Hmm, like incident, like isolate some incident.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  Incident, uh, a guy trying to kill himself.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  On a bridge.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  Shut the road down.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Incident, yeah.

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  So, no one's going on the highway, so what is it? Everyone's being channelized into marginal, what are they called, back, side streets.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Detours, rerouted.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:28Jocko Willink?

  The clock is ticking, and

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  and I made it, right? I made it. I was four minutes, I had four minutes to spare, so instead of it taking twenty minutes, it took whatever, forty-six minutes. Took more than twice as long.

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  That that could be, you know, a fairly legitimate reason. Now luckily, I had, I always, you know, I, I had planned that there could be something out of my control and it might take even longer. And that's why I leave early to go to an appointment or a situation like that. So I could have also checked the traffic prior to leaving and taking a completely different route. That would have been, I blame myself. So even in that situation, I'm kind of, I, I was thinking the whole time, what, why did you, why didn't I check the traffic before I left? I knew this could have happened. So anyways, in my opinion, an excuse is when you blame something that you could have controlled.

• 4:29Jocko Willink?

  And a reason is something that you have absolutely no control over whatsoever. You know, you think like a legit disease. I mean, sometimes people have, they just don't, you can't control that. It happens.

• 4:42Jocko Willink?

  But I think, and I think this is the important part, I think that what you will find, especially when you approach the world with an attitude of extreme ownership, and that's that you're not going to make any excuses, you're not going to blame anyone else, is that you actually have a lot more control over things than you think you do.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  We've talked about this before.

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  When I go to the airport, I get there really early because it's something that you have no control over. You're going to stand in that TSA line and those people are going to take forever. And that's the way it is. And if you want to get mad at them, it doesn't matter. You can't, you can't control, you cannot control it in any way. You can stand at the back and my flight's leaving in 30 minutes and they'll be like, whatever, you should have showed up earlier. You can't control it. So in those situations, how do you control it? You show up early. You take ownership of it. You show up early. You don't just, oh, I don't know what happened. The traffic was bad. I mean, it's, there's a million excuses you can give. If you get that attitude where you're not going to make excuses, then you'll actually take ownership of the things and then you'll actually solve problems before they even happen.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  If I'm going to an appointment and I have the excuse in my back of my head that, you know what, if I'm late, I'll just say it was the traffic. I have much more increased chance of being late.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so what's, that's, that's one of the things that makes extreme ownership hard is it hurts your ego. It hurts your ego. It hurts your ego to admit that you have control over things that went wrong. That's, that there, it's your fault that hurts your ego.

• 6:21Jocko Willink?

  It's also effective because of that. It's effective because you solve problems. Like I said before they even happen, you solve them because you take ownership of them.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  But isn't this just a bunch of semantics though, like excuses and reasons? Really, because really when it comes down to it,

• 6:39Speaker 01

  excuse is like an excuse, like you're excused. Like the reason is a reason for sure, but it's like.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's what this whole conversation, yes, it is about semantics and the semantics are for me, an excuse is something that you could have controlled and a reason is something that you could not control.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Aren't they all reasons? So it's up to, I mean, again, look, you say tomato, I say, I get it, but come on. Hey, you brought it up. So you, okay, so I remember when I, when I was in elementary school, you get, you come late to school, you get in trouble unless you have an excuse. Now with, it's, there's a difference between, and I'm saying in the, in the field, in, in class, right? You come, you come into class. If you have just your own excuse, like, oh, my, you know, dog ate it or I don't know. That's for homework, but whatever. That's different than if you have an excuse slip, which is an official slip, you know, your parents or your whatever you went to the office and all that stuff.

• 7:39Jocko Willink?

  Your movement to get excuse slips changed to reason slips.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  Because that's what it is. It's a legitimate reason.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:46Jocko Willink?

  The kid had chicken pox, can't come to school.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  You can't come.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:49Jocko Willink?

  You, there's nothing, you got chicken pox, that's what, that's what, that's how.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how. So but now, given that, now, aren't we just talking about a very split, like a standard from case to case? So like, let's go back to elementary school. But bear with me, you want to get to the bottom of this, I'm telling you, if you, if your parents.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  If your parents had car trouble, right?

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Is that an excuse for a?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Nine year old.

• 8:15Jocko Willink?

  For a nine year old?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  It is, it is a reason for a nine year old.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  So that falls on the hierarchy of standards, but within the standard of being a quote unquote legitimate excuse, right? Cause that's really what it is. So a reason in your case, in your

• 8:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a reason is a legitimate excuse.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  A legitimate excuse. That's a reason as far as this question goes.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. In fact, I think I use the word legitimate in this when I was talking about it.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so using the word reasons rather than excuse is just like, okay, let's make the language more simple rather than, because if you have an excuse, if you have an excuse, that's by its very nature, by its very definition, you're excused. It's an excuse. You're excused from, for, for being late or being late to your, whatever. But if it's, it's weird, cause if someone else gives it to you, gives you the excuse, like you're excused, hey, the guy was about to commit suicide, I get it, man. You're excused kind of thing. It's like, that's an excuse, in this case, a legitimate one. But if you give it to yourself, that's the excuse that nobody likes, right? Like, hey, man, traffic, oh, you should have prepared for that.

• 9:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Hey, man, my, you know, whatever was going on and this and that, oh, man, you gotta prepare for that. See what I'm saying?

• 9:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  So there you go. So reasons and legitimate excuses, same thing.

• 9:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'll give you that. You could have said that like four minutes ago, but we're going with it.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, you gotta explain these things because sometimes they're hard to understand. I'm telling you.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  No. See, the more you talked about it, the less I understood it until you said the last thing.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I had to sum it up. See what I'm saying?

• 9:55Jocko Willink?

  The summary was great. I'll give you a B plus on the summary.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  All right, thanks. I'll take it. Thank you. Next question.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Jocko, hindsight is 2020, but here's a crazy thought. North Korean soldiers would have ended up with a better life like South Korea if they did not fight as they did in the 50s. When should a soldier question his leader's values?

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  That is not a crazy question at all, and the answer is very straightforward. A soldier should always question their leaders, not just their leader's values, but their leader's plans, their leader's strategies, their leader's vision. You should question everything that your leader is telling you. And if you see something is wrong, then you should raise your hand and call it out. And I would say not only is it something that you should do, it's actually your duty. It's actually your duty is to raise your hand as a soldier. And I'll tell you, this doesn't only apply to the military, it applies to any organization. And it might sound like I'm encouraging mutiny or rebellion, but

• 11:04Jocko Willink?

  actually, the opposite is true. If you have a team that questions the leader, the leader doesn't become weaker, the leader becomes stronger. If he's a good leader, if he's on the right path, if he's doing the right thing, he becomes stronger because everyone starts to understand why things are happening. They understand the vision more fully. If the leader doesn't have a good vision and he's getting questioned and he can't answer the questions, yeah, he might have a mutiny on his hands, but it's not because the people are asking questions because he doesn't know what he's doing. So, the leader can't see everything and he can't solve every problem or have every idea, but the collective mind of an organization can make that happen.

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  And that's why as a leader, if I'm in a leadership position, I want my subordinates to question me. I want them to question me. And like I said, if I don't have a good answer, I either need to find one, and if I can't find one, then maybe I'm actually doing something wrong. That's entirely possible. And now from a, if we want to talk about like a moral or an ethical perspective, then absolutely. And there was a group of high-ranking soldiers in Nazi Germany that tried to kill Hitler. And unfortunately, they failed, but they did the right thing in trying, in trying to kill him, they did the right thing. Like not only did they question him, they, they knew he was wrong and they said, okay, we're gonna kill him. Now, do you put yourself at risk when you ask these questions?

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm sitting here saying, yeah, I want my subordinates to ask questions. There's people that don't want their subordinates to ask questions. Not good leader, not good leadership. That's not a good way to lead. I'm sorry, I'm telling you the truth.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  I mean, and it so it so there's a risk is if your leader doesn't want you to ask questions and you raise your hands and ask a question and you do it in an untactful way and you do it in a way that defends your leader, well, then you might end up getting fired or if you try and kill Hitler, you might get killed yourself because that's what Hitler did. After his assassination, he went and killed a bunch of people, including Rommel, his best general. Because he thought he was involved in it. So you you're definitely taking a risk, but then you have to ask yourself, what is the alternative? So in a moral or ethical situation, what's the alternative? And I'm not saying there's no alternative because sometimes maybe you'd be better not trying to kill Hitler, but rise in the ranks and get to a situation where you can have more control and mitigate the damage that he's doing to the country, right?

• 13:32Jocko Willink?

  That's a possible consideration to take. Maybe you say, OK, you know what, Hitler, I'm going to be your guy and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do things so that way you can rise up in the ranks and be in a position where you can stop his bad decisions.

• 13:47Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to if you try and kill him and you fail, you you you know, I mean, obviously once you're dead, you don't have any influence over the organization. Same thing if you're in a business where there's something going on and you want to raise your hand. And yet, if you raise your hand, you know that there's a risk that you might either A get fired, or you might get demoted, or you might get put out of your leadership position, and now you're letting down, now you can't have an influence over the scenario anymore. So that's that's something to consider as well. Takes a significant level of moral courage to stand up in those situations and

• 14:24Jocko Willink?

  you have to be tactful. I think that's important to say, you have to be tactful. You have to have, you don't walk in and just start questioning your leadership immediately. You have to build a relationship first. You have to grow your trust between each other and then, once you have that, you can then tactfully bring up questions and try and get

• 14:48Jocko Willink?

  to the bottom of why things are happening or why things are being done a certain way or another way. Question your leadership. And if you're a leader, don't get offended when you get questioned. Be happy. Be happy.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Even when your kids do it.

• 15:04Jocko Willink?

  Even when your kids do it, especially when your kids do it.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  Cause you always wanna take that easy out. Just do what I told you to do.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, do what I said.

• 15:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm the dad.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  It's it's different than, it's not what I say. You caught yourself.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 15:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang. Self policing over there.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:19Jocko Willink?

  Outstanding.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  What about when they always add the kids, when they always say why? And then, here's the thing, you gotta be careful, I'm speaking from experience. You know how, you know the old, this is old school, like, oh, why? Oh, because of this, why? Why? Why? And then, it gets fun to them just to say why. They don't even wanna know why, now it just becomes a game. Then what? Just shut it right down.

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  Well, no.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  That's when you should, you just keep, oh, it's me against you now.

• 15:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no. Just, just go jujitsu on them. You, they ask why? You ask them a question back. Why do you think it goes that way? And then they'll say, well, I don't know, well, why? Why don't you know? Just, just one sweep.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  Mental sweep. Yeah, it's a good one.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a real good action.

• 16:04Jocko Willink?

  Speaking from experience, I got four kids.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Alright, good. Thank you for that. Next question, Jaco, you say jujitsu makes you humble. Why do some jujitsu instructors and many jujitsu practitioners act like complete arrogant jerks?

• 16:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. That's a good one. That's a great question. And we haven't really talked about, have we talked, I don't think we've talked about that. Now, I've talked about how, um, some like, there's bad, there's bad apples in the jujitsu community for sure. But the way that, the way that I talk about the jujitsu and the way we talk about it, like, everybody that does jujitsu should be some Buddha-like enlightened being at one with the universe. And totally free of any ego, right? Cause that's what we talk about jujitsu, but, um, like I said, I've talked about the fact that there's definitely bad people in jujitsu, and that's why you need to be careful when you're, you know, jujitsu should not be a cult.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you should not be worshiping your instructor. Your instructor is a human being. Uh, there's been jujitsu people that have been wrapped up in all kinds of terrible stuff. That, every kind of crime you can imagine. So, again, just like a person in the military, just like a SEAL, just like being in the SEAL teams doesn't make you a good person. It applies to everything else. Jiu Jitsu, just because you do Jiu Jitsu, just because you're a black belt in Jiu Jitsu doesn't make you a good person. Yeah, like here's a good one, just because you're a priest doesn't mean you're a good person. There's plenty of malevolent people out there that wear the cloth of God, but actually practice the work of Satan.

• 17:49Jocko Willink?

  So you have to apply that rule to everything, and it's definitely the same with Jiu Jitsu. And Jiu Jitsu, Jiu Jitsu is a power, it's a position of power, right? When you're good at it, you have some power over other people, and some people are going to abuse that power.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  If you have the right mindset, Jiu Jitsu is extremely humbling.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  Because you realize, what you realize when you do Jiu Jitsu is that you can be beat by other people. That's what you realize, and it, for the most part, as a broad generalization, if another human has been training longer than you, they can beat you, and this is especially in the beginning of Jiu Jitsu, right? Once you have, once you get further along, it's, that, that gap closes up. But in general, if someone's been training six months and you've been training one, you're gonna get beat. There, there's very few exceptions to that. If you've been training for a year and someone's been training for one month, you're gonna beat that person that's been training for a month. That's just, and, and that covers a huge, that covers all kinds of weight classes and, and athletic ability and all that stuff.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  A great athlete, total stud, can, if you've been training for one month and you've got someone, someone that's been training for a year, year and a half, it's gonna be a problem. So if you realize that, when you start, that makes you humble. And if you remember that as you get better, it will keep you humble if you don't forget that. But what happens is, sometimes people forget that it's Jiu Jitsu that gives them the power to submit other people, and it's not their power. Right? It's not their power. They believe that they...

• 19:33Jocko Willink?

  Are the power of jujitsu. They think it's them and so they think they're better than anyone else and that what that is is that's arrogance. That's what it is and it's ugly. And I think really if I was to drill down. I would say it's caused by people that are number one insecure. Right? They're insecure so they just they get this thing that they're that they can dominate other people and they they relish it. Or. You know, also, uh, people that are just like not that smart.

• 20:05Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:06Jocko Willink?

  They don't realize they don't they don't put two and two together that like, oh, the reason I'm better. The reason I can choke this person is because I've been training longer than them.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:17Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't make me a better human being.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  It just means I'm better at this one aspect of being a human being. So I would say those are.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those are those are some of the reasons and if you end up at a school where people are arrogant, just don't train there. Go to a different school.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:34Jocko Willink?

  Unless it's like the only school option you have.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if it's getting in your way, I mean, because there's a difference. Let's face it like being.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Arrogant is kind of strong, but you know, being not humble in these teeny tiny little ways, you know, you run into that all the time. Just these small ways, it's still within the jujitsu community though, you know, so you know, this guy. May always talk about how good his triangle choke is or something like this, you know, this kind of stuff and that's not to mention like.

• 21:00Jocko Willink?

  That's not offensive though.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  Is it?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Exactly, no.

• 21:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm not offended by that. Like, I probably say, yeah, you do have a good.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. But you know how guys will brag and you know, be like, oh, it's kicking ass in that tournament or I don't know, something like that. It doesn't scream humble, you know, it doesn't necessarily. So maybe like that expectation, whatever. Okay. I think you you kind of got to make a concession for those sorts of things.

• 21:22Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, this is something I I talk about. It's a dichotomy of leadership. It's a dichotomy of the ego, right?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  You you don't want to go to a school where no one cares if they win or loses. You want to go to a school like where hey, when we train here, we're training to beat each other. Like, we're training to to win.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you win, you're happy.

• 21:38Jocko Willink?

  There's ego on the map for sure. My ego's on the map. I don't like to lose. I don't like to tap. I don't, you know, it's like, great.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:43Jocko Willink?

  But, I mean, at the same time, I love to tap because that means I'm learning. But you don't. So that's that's acceptable. Like, that's of course. Yeah, you want to train a place where there's competitiveness in the school.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:54Jocko Willink?

  But this is totally different. This is, you know, when you get people that are just arrogant jerks and they're definitely out there.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:59Jocko Willink?

  But most. I don't know, I don't wanna say most. That's the way it should be. They haven't learned jiu-jitsu correctly.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:06Jocko Willink?

  That's not what jiu-jitsu is meant to be.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  I think you're

• 22:08Jocko Willink?

  In my opinion.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Hundred percent right when you say it's like an insecure person. And not the kind of like broken insecure. It's just, you know, like someone who's just a little bit insecure, you know, someone comes in, like especially if you're in like a certain type of instructor and you're used to like everyone just listening to every word you say. And then, I don't know, a student or someone comes with something different than what you said, or the opposite of what you said, or something that kinda indicates that what you said isn't hundred percent correct. It's like boom, you're gonna defend that little position that you've kinda grown accustomed to, you know? Especially if you're even a little bit insecure, you're gonna at least have those feelings, so.

• 22:43Jocko Willink?

  And it's interesting how that even that this jiu-jitsu once again reflects leadership in life. If you get a guy, if you get an instructor that gets shown a move, but it's not his move and he gets mad about it.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:54Jocko Willink?

  Like, your respect for the instructor goes down, it doesn't go up. If you get a guy that goes, wow, that's awesome. Let me see that again. Let me learn that. Let me incorporate that in my game. That's a great thing. Thanks for showing me.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:03Jocko Willink?

  Your respect for that teacher goes up.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  Because you recognize that they're humble, that they're evolving, that they wanna learn, that they have an open mind, which is what you want to see in your leaders and in your jiu-jitsu instructors. Boom.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So funny, Adam Mazin.

• 23:15Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  A Mazin.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  Coach Adam.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Coach Adam, yeah. So, he, I came in one time, he's teaching this move. And he, you know, he teaches really good. I was like, yeah, it's a good move, you know? And he's teaching it. And when he explained what this move was, it was a move that he just got beat with in a tournament that someone else did and obviously was really good. And to me, that

• 23:41Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember the move?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was like, um, it was similar to the, okay, I remember back in the day Frank Mir got this guy named Pete. Pete, big tall guy, Pete, this is old school UFC.

• 23:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Pete, what was his last name? Maniac.

• 23:55Jocko Willink?

  Wasn't it the maniac? He twisted his arm, right? He's like an Americana in an arm lock position.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, overhook, you know, from the guard. Yeah. It was kinda like that, but it was a straight arm lock.

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And the guy's name was Philippe.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really? Wasn't it Tim Sylvia?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  No, it oh, in the UFC was it was um Frank Mir did it to Pete, I think his name is Pete, he was a San Diego guy, actually.

• 24:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  He was old school.

• 24:17Jocko Willink?

  I thought it was Tim, I thought it was Tim Sylvia.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  No, Tim Sylvia's, he broke his arm in a shallow arm bar. That you might be thinking about that, but um nonetheless, when Adam got hit with it in the tournament, it was against a guy named Philippe Gracie Baugh, anyway.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  So to me, when Adam decides to teach that move, that was like the opposite of what this arrogance is.

• 24:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  It's not like, oh, and make a bunch of excuses and dismiss it, cuz I'm dope, you know, and that was just so, you know, once in a lifetime. He was like, man, this is a legitimate move.

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  It worked.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it worked on me, by the way. And that's not to mention getting over the fact that you lost in a tournament and then now you're gonna kind of revisit the whole situation by glorifying the move, kind of thing. So that's like the ultimate in humility, in my opinion.

• 25:02Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  But it makes sense, I mean, not to say it's good, or it's like an excuse, or it's fine, or not, or even acceptable, whatever, but it does make sense, though. Even like competitors, you know, like, oh, he said practitioners, but maybe competitors or whatever, where, you know, you have the competitive aspect of it, and so you're gonna talk a high game about your jujitsu, you know? That's kind of how it is, or whatever. To be an arrogant jerk, though, that uh.

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  I think that's like something that the human being brought into jujitsu, you know, and then the jujitsu kind of just mixed it, you know, mixed in. That's what I think, that's what I think, is what it seems like, anyway. But I think for the most part, when you start jujitsu, it makes you more humble than you were before, hundred percent because of that reason.

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  It really should, and if it doesn't, you're wrong.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Even, man, it's hard, it's hard to imagine how it wouldn't, even like in an exceptional.

• 25:54Jocko Willink?

  No, it's because when people start to get good at it, and then they forget what it was like, that's what happens.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true.

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  And then it comes biting you one day, you know? No, you know what, but it's, see, these guys, and here's the thing, when you've been in the game long enough, you see this super clear, too, right? So let's say you get this, I don't know, this is a straw man, by the way, so you. Get this guy, he gets humbled, right? He starts jiu-jitsu, he gets humbled, he gets good at jiu-jitsu, good at moves, he tapping everybody out. Now he's an arrogant jerk. Now, when these other big dogs start coming in, he avoids rolling with them.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  He doesn't roll with like the higher belts, he doesn't compete, nothing like that. He only rolls with the lower belts, you see what I'm saying? You can do that.

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  But here's the thing, when people do that, it's so obvious.

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  So obvious. Man, I remember in jiu-jitsu, when I started jiu-jitsu, and this was like a few, like a year, two years in, I remember being like kinda apprehensive, not apprehensive, kinda scared actually. And I was working at the club, where you kinda walk around, and you know, in the nightclub situation, it's you can't help but be like-

• 26:54Jocko Willink?

  You don't know if this guy knows jiu-jitsu.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Exactly, man, and worried, where it's like, man, I gotta just-

• 26:58Jocko Willink?

  That's humbling.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yes, 100%. And, and man, if there's not even a little bit of that in your head, it's like, man, something must be weird.

• 27:04Jocko Willink?

  Cause even me, I walk around like, hey, I'm pretty good at jiu-jitsu, but there may be somebody out there that's better.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:10Jocko Willink?

  And then what are you gonna do? So be careful who you run your mouth to.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  How's that? How much you treat people with respect? How's that? Sounds like a good idea to me.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  And that's the result of being humbled and humility in general. Man, think about it though, in the nightclub, like everyone's criticizing each other up, and it's kind of this thing, that's the climate, you know, it's what it feels like. Man, I remember thinking like, this skinny guy right here, especially a tall skinny guy, who in, if you didn't know about jiu-jitsu, a tall skinny guy is a non, you know, a non-factor kinda thing. But now it's like, man, if you get caught in an armbar or choke in, on the, you know, on the streets, so to speak, right, you're in big trouble.

• 27:46Jocko Willink?

  Big trouble.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Huge trouble.

• 27:49Jocko Willink?

  Stay humble.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Stay humble.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  But yes, that's the explanation, I agree with you 100%.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Next question?

• 27:57Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Unless you wanna talk about jiu-jitsu more, some more cuz? I could, if you want, we could, you could, I'd listen. Next question. When you grow in size, in an organization, do you have to change the principles of combat leadership from extreme ownership? Or adopt new ones?

• 28:18Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, so I but I asked this kind of weird tone like do I do you have to do any either either of these? Right. That's kind of the question. Do you have to change the principles or adopt new ones? Do you have to do that?

• 28:33Jocko Willink?

  No, the answer is no. As a matter of fact, when your organization gets bigger, the only change you have to make is to get better at the laws of combat. That's what you have to do. So as you grow, you have to work harder to build relationships with other divisions so that you can cover and move for each other. Right. That's that's that's a given. You have to get better at keeping things simple because the message has to be spread to more people. So word has to be spread that is simple, clear and concise. That makes sense. You have to learn how to prioritize and execute better because there is a larger group of people that have to shift their focus on whatever priorities coming out. It's you have a bigger ship to turn.

• 29:19Jocko Willink?

  And you have to do this accurately and quickly. And there's less room for error in shifting priorities when you have a bigger organization. And of course, for decentralized command,

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  you you have to get better at that because in a small organization, it's it's pretty easy. Right. You don't really you don't really have to do these. In decentralized command, if you've got five people working for you, you can actually just control them. You don't really have to use decentralized command. It's a place to begin it and and instill that culture. But you can get away without it because you can actually you can actually watch everyone. You can direct everyone. You can influence everyone and you can actually lead them directly when you're in a small organization. So you don't have to be all that great at decentralized command. But as you get bigger, you just can't do that anymore. So the only way to watch everyone and direct everyone and influence everyone and lead everyone, the only way to do that is through your subordinate leadership is through decentralized command.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  So you have to be better at that. Now, I will say that the the one thing that you maybe have to adjust, it's not really a principle.

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  But you you are gonna have to look at your communication methods. You're gonna have to look at your communication methods. You just aren't gonna be able to meet with everyone face to face anymore. You you won't have time when you you're organizing. When your organization gets big enough, you won't. There'll be employees there and subordinate leaders that you'll never see. Maybe some, you know, some that you've never been on on a call with. So how do you get the message? How do you get the mission all the way through the organization? We have to do it with decentralized command, but how do you communicate it? And my thing is always like you have to communicate in every available method. And the bigger you get, the more the larger your organization is. You gotta take advantage of everything. You gotta take advantage of calls, of emails, of meetings, of of

• 31:10Jocko Willink?

  physical documents that, you know, you put out and say, hey, everyone read this. And and you make videos. I'm making that recommendation a lot now to big, larger organizations that I work with is why aren't, you know? I'll ask them, how often are you having an all hands type meeting? Well, it's really hard because you can't really get face to face with everyone because we've got multiple different, not only multiple different areas, but we got multiple different time zones. So if we want, you know, you got someone on the other side of the ocean. Hey, we want to have a meeting at a reasonable time. It's impossible to have everyone at a reasonable time. So what do you do? Okay, eventually it's okay. Well, why don't you make videos? Make it make it make a four minute video that everyone can see and understand and see where the vision's going. So all these, every different communication methods that you can hit all the different types of people, because there's some people that like to read emails.

• 31:55Jocko Willink?

  There's some people that won't watch a video, but they'll they'll read an email. They'll read a document. There's some people that will not sit in a conference call, but they'll go through the notes that get sent out. A bridge notes. So there's all kinds of ways to communicate, and my advice is to use them all. But the fundamental principles of leadership itself don't change. So don't just stick to them. Actually get better and pay more attention to them. Check.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Decentralized command. That seems like the one, but actually now what now that you kind of explain it. They all seem pretty important.

• 32:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, they are all important and there's and they are. It's interesting. They're, they're actually in order.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  What?

• 32:39Jocko Willink?

  They're actually in order. Well, they're in order. The way we wrote them in the book, the way I originally talked about them.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  It was like, number one, cover and move. If you're not doing that teamwork, if you're not doing that, you, you're not gonna do anything. Number two is you gotta keep things simple. Like, you have to do that, because you can't cover and move for someone else if you don't even understand what's going on, right? So it's gotta be simple. And then prioritize and execute. Well, there's gonna be things that are changed, things that are dynamic, and so the next thing you gotta worry about is like, when things change, how are you gonna prioritize what's changing? How are you gonna handle these problems? But then, the, the last one is, is decentralized command, which is now that you've got those other four kinda stable, now you can start really leading properly. But, but for your, to your credit, if you flip those upside down, in order of sort of broad organizational importance,

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  decentralized command is the most important one. Now, you're not gonna have it without the other three.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  Prioritize and execute is the next important one from an organizational perspective. Keeping things simple is then the next one, and so if you flip them upside down as an organization, the level of importance inside the organization is, is reversed, but the way that you have to implement them. And the, and you, the bottom line is you'll never get to decentralized command if you can't keep things simple, you don't cover it. So you can't get there. But, in order to build them, so in order to build them, you have to kinda use them in order, but then when you look at them, when you look at them from the importance of how well they make a team function.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 34:04Jocko Willink?

  Again, if you can't cover and move at all, or you can't keep things simple, you'll never get to decentralized command. But when you have someone that's working them all and they're all doing well, well then the most important one is decentralized command. Decentralized command is the one that takes you to the highest level, right? It'll have the most impact on your organization. You'll never get there without the other three, but once you have those three and you, you implement decentralized command, you'll be absolutely, that'll be the most powerful thing in your organization. You can't do it without the other three. It's the strongest, but it's, it doesn't matter without the other three.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Next question. Jaco, how does your quote-unquote "play the game",

• 34:43Speaker 01

  play the games in terms of completing the goal fit in with Jordan Peterson's agreeableness in terms of career advancement? Is it a case of right time, right agreeableness?

• 34:55Jocko Willink?

  So this comes from Jordan Peterson talking about how people that are more agreeable have less success in promotion and salary than someone that is more assertive. So it's a really good question because this person is taking what I talk about, which is play the game, right? And, and thinking that that means agreeableness. And it does to some extent. It absolutely does to some extent. And so that's a, this is a really good question. And the answer is that there's a dichotomy to this, that there, like, like all of life and like all of business and like all of leadership, there's a dichotomy because while, while

• 35:39Jocko Willink?

  someone that is agreeable, like, like very agreeable certainly has less of a chance of career advancement than someone that is assertive.

• 35:48Jocko Willink?

  Right? That, that makes sense. Like if you never say, "Hey, I'll do that," or "Hey, let me, let me handle that project." If you don't ever do that and someone says, "Hey, no, I'll do this." And you go, "Okay, that's fine." And you, "We're gonna promote this guy." "Okay, that's fine." You know, if you're that agreeable, well, yeah, it's gonna be problematic. But also when in, when assertiveness turns into overly aggressive, the chances of advancement start to go back down again. And when you take someone that's, when you get to someone that is ultra-aggressive and rubs people the wrong way and won't do any compromising, that person's gonna be at the same person, same level of advancement as someone that's super-agreeable, or at least in the same ballpark. They'll be close, if they still have a job at all, by the way. Cause someone that's, you know, overly aggressive and won't compromise with anyone and calls

• 36:30Jocko Willink?

  everyone out, the, if they're the complete far end of the spectrum opposite to agreeableness, that's gonna be a problem. So, so when I talk about playing the game, I'm, I'm definitely talking about being agreeable because I'm telling you to be more agreeable, right? When you don't play the game, it's like, "Hey, we're, we're gonna think this, we're gonna run this new project." That's, "Project is stupid."

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, an agreeable person would say, "Okay, well, that sounds good. Where are we going with this?" Now, an agreeable person that's too agreeable might go down the road of something that's not a good plan. But if you're overly aggressive, if you're not playing the great game at all, you're not gonna get past go. Right? So,

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  when I say play the game, I am talking about being agreeable. Now, I was talking to someone the other day who's pretty hardcore and he was feeling some heat from his boss in a company that I was working with, and he wanted to fight back.

• 37:23Jocko Willink?

  Wanted to fight back. #Resist. And he wanted to fight back. He wanted to go beyond that. He wanted to go beyond resist. He wanted to go like into the aggressive mode. And I told him, "Don't fight back." I said, "Play the game." And he sort of got aggressive because, like I said, he's a pretty hardcore guy. He started getting aggressive with me and started saying like, "Oh, that's what I should do now? Bow down? Kiss the ring? I'm not gonna do that. I'm a man." Right? He came at me with that, with that angle. And then he said this, which was interesting.

• 37:54Jocko Willink?

  He goes, you know, he said something along those lines, "But you wouldn't take this kind of crap. Why should I?"

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  And I stayed quiet for a minute. And I heard him say that and I was like, "Oh, you just served me a bowl of softball."

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, I took a big breath and I'm like, "You have no idea. You have no idea the things that I have done, the pride that I have swallowed, the dumb jokes I've laughed at, the idiotic plans I've supported, the insane lengths that I had to go through throughout my career, my entire career, to win. To win in the end. That was my goal. And in order to win, you gotta play the game. You gotta massage some egos. You have to accept some things that you normally might not accept. You have to eat some humble pie, some, from time to time. And what you're doing and why you do those things is so that you can build, so that you can build confidence with your boss.

• 38:52Jocko Willink?

  That's what you're doing. So you can build trust with your boss.

• 38:56Jocko Willink?

  And you do that so that in the end, if your boss is not a good guy, you can actually beat the boss. You can win.

• 39:06Jocko Willink?

  But you can't win if you don't play the game. You'll lose before you even start. So play the game. That's what I told this guy, right? Now, can you, do you have to balance this? Yes, you absolutely do because if you become a sycophant and you just become a brown-noser. Am I talking about becoming a brown-noser? No. Because if you do that, you're losing clout and influence with your, with your team, or with your subordinates, or with your peers. Because you're brown-nosing the boss and you're losing clout there. So you have to, and you won't win because those guys are gonna get pissed at you. They're not gonna support you. So I'm not saying you go overboard. You have to have balance. You have to know when to say yes, when to appease.

• 39:50Jocko Willink?

  When, you know, I built so much clout. I built clout by doing things that people wanted me to do that. Like maybe I was kind of a weird project, or they want me to try some piece of equipment out. It's like, cool, yeah, I'll try it. We'll write you a good report about it. You know what I mean? Like, oh yeah, you want me to try some new tactic? Cool, we'll give it a try. I, in my mind, I'm thinking this is dumb. But you know what? Hey, let's give it a try. Oh, you know what? We, it didn't work as well as I was hoping it would, but you know, here's some points we took away from it. Okay. The guy at least, as opposed to saying that new tactic is stupid. Your plan is dumb. Okay, I'm disagreeable. What's that gonna get me? It's not gonna get, I'm being too assertive. I'm being too aggressive. So you have to, you have to balance it.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  You have to know when to tactfully stand up and disagree with someone. Instead of being totally agreeable all the time. And I'm not talking about being agreeable all the time. I'm talking about balance. That's what I'm talking about. And that's playing the game.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:47Jocko Willink?

  So, playing the game is not being a submissive, agreeable baby, right? That's not, that's not playing the game.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  Playing the game is playing balance, is knowing when, is building trust. It's, it's doing some dumb things. Showing respect. Just playing the game. And you're playing the game to win. That's what you're playing the game for.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, you, yeah, and, and I, I get it, you know, like, playing the game, you know, maybe got viewed as like being agreeable. But when Jordan Peterson talks about agreeableness, he's talking about a personality trait. He's not talking about like some action you took to do something, you know?

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, but agreeableness has resulting actions. If you're an agreeable person, you're gonna be-

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Fully, but when it comes, when it stems from a personality trait, that means just like how you said, like you're gonna be agreeable for the most part regardless. Like, I, I forget what the, the, the other trait was, is called about, you know, success when he was talking about that. But, um, nonetheless, like if you're talking, you're talking about playing the game, meaning sure, you might have to display some agreeableness every once in a while to kind of size it when you have to or when you, you know, when it's useful. That does not mean you're an agreeable person as a personality trait. It's way too, two different, completely different things.

• 42:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm definitely not, I'm definitely not saying that you're gonna be able to train your, change your personality.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm not a very agreeable person. I agree with people all day long.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:13Jocko Willink?

  Why? Cause I'm trying to win.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  That's the point. Exactly right.

• 42:16Jocko Willink?

  I actually disagree with eighty-nine percent of the things that I hear on a daily basis.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Dang, bro.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm, I'm literally trying to figure out right now, as I'm thinking about this, so many things I disagree with. There's two things that are going on. Number one, this is, this is straight up. Number one, if you give me an idea. And I go, that's dumb, Echo. Number one, I'm arrogant, I'm not listening, I'm, I'm shutting the idea out. When, your idea might have some good traits to it. Number two, you're pissed.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:44Jocko Willink?

  Right? I didn't gather any clout with you. We, I didn't build our relationship at all. I just said like, hey, that's a dumb idea. No, so instead I'm gonna be like, okay, well, tell me about it. Tell me about, like, how would, how would you implement this idea of yours? Cause maybe it could have some good benefit. I could see where you're coming from on this.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, now I'm, I'm building our relationship and you're thinking that, hey, this guy listens to me and that's what I like and someone I work with, someone that listens to me. So those are the kind of things that we're talking about. I'm not talking about changing your personality. I'm a disagreeable, I'm a disagreeable human being, but I don't show that very often. I don't, there's something, I was talking about, I was talking about this, who was I talking to? I forget who I was talking to, but I was talking about how

• 43:25Jocko Willink?

  I never, ever, like, there's some things that really bother me

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  in the world, and I never tell anyone what they are. I will not. I'll go to the gr- maybe I'll put like in my last will and testament, things that bother me.

• 43:38Jocko Willink?

  But I would, but, but, but I don't tell anyone.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  Why? Well, the main reason is because when you're in the teams and people know what bothers you, they're gonna get it. They're gonna tear you up with that thing. So you will never, I'll never say it. Won't tell my kids, won't tell my wife, nothing. When something happens that really, really bothers me. Cause I'm disagreeable. I don't like that kind of stuff.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Is it like pet peeve kind of stuff?

• 43:59Jocko Willink?

  Both.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Or is?

• 44:01Jocko Willink?

  Personality traits I don't like, the way people communicate sometimes I don't like. Little pet peeves that I have of things that people do that I don't like. I don't, no one knows any of them. No one knows any, they're all deep undercover. And I will never tell anyone what they are.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  You wanna, I feel like you should kind of tell me just so I avoid these things because I'm very agreeable in that way. Where I don't want to do that stuff. Like if I'm saying, you know, people say, I don't know, know what I'm saying? Or like, if I say like, I say like a lot. Do you not like that? Is that one of the things?

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  I'll never tell anyone.

• 44:31Jocko Willink?

  I'll never tell anyone.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 44:32Jocko Willink?

  What these things are.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Alright, cool.

• 44:35Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're, the target list for you, it's not that big.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm at low risk. Alright, I'm still on the radar though. Alright, hey man, you know.

• 44:43Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, hey everyone, play the game, play the game. I know it's, everyone wants, that's the funny thing is everyone thinks like, Jocko's hardcore, I don't take no crap from nobody. And it's like, no, actually, I'm gonna play the game. Cause you know why? I'm gonna win. That's the difference. I'm gonna win.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was kind of part of your story too, when, when, when the guy was, was that a face to face thing? When you're talking, you're talking about the guy who said?

• 45:04Jocko Willink?

  It was.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  So there was like a built in assumption right there.

• 45:07Jocko Willink?

  Built in assumption.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  You wouldn't take that crap.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  You wouldn't take that, would you? Oh, actually, let me tell you what my life has been like.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:13Jocko Willink?

  And you, and of course they're looking at me now and they're thinking, well, he just, he just aggressively crushed everyone on his rise to the top. Right? It's like, no, not true at all.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:24Jocko Willink?

  Maneuvered.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like.

• 45:25Jocko Willink?

  Played the game.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:28Jocko Willink?

  Nothing wrong with playing the game.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, again, this isn't, we're not talking about like you just become a kiss ass. That's not what I'm talking about.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:38Jocko Willink?

  Being a kiss ass is equally bad.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:41Jocko Willink?

  It's equally bad. You lose just as much respect, not only from your peers, not only from your subordinates, but also from the, the person that you're working with.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:49Jocko Willink?

  They even know you're a kiss ass and they'll run roughshod all over you. And when it comes time to emotion, they're like, you know what? I want to promote the other guy because it doesn't really matter. This guy was gonna, gonna kiss my ass regardless.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're too, you're too agreeable.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Jocko Willink?

  So I'm not talking about this. This is a dichotomy.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that, yeah, man, so you, again, the point that I was making, that I think there might have been a misunderstanding, given the question, like, play the game isn't the same as this agreeableness that Jordan Peterson is talking about. It's different, they're not the same thing.

• 46:20Jocko Willink?

  No, they're not the same thing.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like the question that he thought it was the same thing.

• 46:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he, exactly. He thinks that playing the game is being agreeable.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  It's not.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:30Jocko Willink?

  It might sometimes be acting agreeable, it might be agreeing to some things that make you a little bit frustrated, but you roll with it.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  You roll with it.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know what? You're playing to win, you're playing the long game. This is a joke, this conversation we're having, with my, with my boss or with my supporter. Like, it's a joke, that thing doesn't matter to me.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't care if I win this argument, I'm playing this long game over here.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Like, uh...

• 46:51Jocko Willink?

  Playing to win.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  You ever watch Survivor?

• 46:53Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Come on, bro, you ever watch Survivor?

• 46:54Jocko Willink?

  No, I mean, I've seen shows of it.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So, I don't watch Survivor. Well, I do. I mean, my wife does, so hence I do.

• 47:01Jocko Willink?

  Is it still on? I didn't know it was still on.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  I, I think it's still on, yeah.

• 47:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  So, Survivor, playing the game, and that's a term that is all up, all up in Survivor, playing the game, so...

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Okay, when Survivor, take too long on Survivor, but it's, it's totally in line with what you're talking about. So, Survivor, you, you know, they throw, and here's what the basis, just the prime raw basis of Survivor, you throw a bunch of people on...

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  I know, everyone knows the basis.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Thing, yeah. You do some challenges.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  Vote each other off.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  You vote each other off with certain, um, you know, uh, advantages, you can win and whatnot, right? Rewards, whatever you mean. So, and how it turned itself, like, what it morphed kinda into, just by nature, is like this little political game within the game. Right? And now it's just a huge overt part of Survivor, the political game, I'm playing the game.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  I'm building alliances, I'm doing all this stuff or whatever, it's the exact same thing, man, exact same thing.

• 47:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  I'm building relationships or whatever.

• 48:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Let me tell you what the huge difference is. And this is a huge difference. In that game, you're playing the game to win for yourself.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  And what I'm talking about, and this is a, this is a such a huge part of the way I think, that I didn't even talk about it because it's just embedded in the way I think. If you're playing the game to further yourself and further your own career, you're, it's not gonna work for you.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:23Jocko Willink?

  Because when you play the game like that, it's the same thing as like kissing ass. It's the same thing as you're, you're doing things because you want the advantage and people will identify that. If you're making, if you're playing the game so that your team can win, so you can accomplish the mission, that's when this works. That's when playing the game works. Otherwise, if you're doing it to promote yourself, it's not gonna work. And it might work once or twice and it might get you one promotion, but everyone that saw you get promoted after you kissed ass, they're all pissed at you, they're gonna undermine you, and you're gonna go down.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Bruh, you know what's so, it's so interesting about what you just said there is that you're absolutely right. Survivor is like the one guy, right? So playing the game, I'm playing the game, right? Anytime someone says that like, "Hey, I'm playing the game," they do it in this context where it's like, and that's okay. We're here, it's a game, so it's acceptable. I'm playing the game. But they'll always say it in, as an excuse for like lying to someone or backstabbing someone. And it's so weird how that, you're exactly right. That's the nature of the game. So when you play the game in, in this kind of, you know, in at work or the way you're talking about, it's always a good thing.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  As long as you're doing it for.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  For the team, yes, exactly right.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  So it's not always a good thing, because there's people that play the game and they play the game so that they are going to, you know, I've, I just said this 10 times, I was like, "I play to win." But yeah, I play for my team to win. I play for us to be able to accomplish the mission.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:39Jocko Willink?

  That's why I'm playing the game.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  If you're playing the game so that you can get the promotion, or that's not gonna, and like I said, it might work once or twice, but it's not gonna be, it's not a long-term solution.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:49Jocko Willink?

  Guarantee it's not a long-term solution.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:51Jocko Willink?

  That's a strong statement. I guarantee it's not a long-term solution.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  Now, what if you, now here's an example, just taking this one step further. You could play the game. To get that one promotion and then you could go, okay, now I can play the game to help the team.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:06Jocko Willink?

  But you had to do some maneuvering to get into a spot where you could help. That's a tricky one because people still think you're a jerk.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  Because of what you did.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  But then you get there and it's going to take you a long time to build that trust back up because you maneuvered and you got collateral damage around there.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:20Jocko Willink?

  It's not a good thing. It's not hard to clean up that collateral damage.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. So you.

• 50:23Jocko Willink?

  Can't always do it, actually.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:25Jocko Willink?

  Be careful.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  You know how you say you'll lose a battle to win the war kind of thing?

• 50:28Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  So now in your little example right there, you're like, you, you lost a battle to win a little mini war to essentially lose a bigger battle to win even a bigger war.

• 50:37Jocko Willink?

  These are things that could happen.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Like all this little.

• 50:39Jocko Willink?

  It's just like in jujitsu, you sacrifice a position because you know you're going to end up with a area of the game that you're really good at.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  Right? I mean, what, think about pulling guard. What's pulling guard?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly what that is.

• 50:49Jocko Willink?

  You're sacrificing being on the bottom because you're good at it.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:52Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah. For, for, for a bigger victory.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  This game goes deep, man.

• 50:59Jocko Willink?

  This stuff goes deep indeed.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Playing the game. Alright. Next question. Hey Jaco, I'll be heading to Marines OCS soon and I know how crucial leadership is for success at OCS, TBS and as a Marine. My question is, what happens if you make a decision as a leader that you can rationalize at the best, as the best decision for the team, but the result is not a good one? Will my superiors want to see that I'm making quality decisions or producing the best results?

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I know good decisions usually lead to good results, but when it doesn't, what's the next best way to handle that situation when under evaluation at OCS?

• 51:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, like you said, if you make good decisions, generally the outcome's going to be good. But you, but it is a correct statement that sometimes you make good decisions and they have bad outcomes. And in combat, that can definitely happen if you decide to go left instead of right. If, if you look to the left and you look to the right and the left has better cover than the right, and so you go to the left and then the, the enemy happen to be, happen to have mortars dialed in, in that area. And so as soon as you go to the left, even though there's better cover, you get overhead fire, indirect fire and people get blown up and people get killed. That may have been a good decision, but the result was bad and there's no way you could have known that. So what do you do?

• 52:23Jocko Willink?

  In those situations, you made the best decision that you could with the information that you had at the time. And it turned out to be a bad result. As a matter of fact, in Ramadi, when they had a phrase to describe, if someone took a shot at what they presumed was a bad guy, but it turned out to be, let's say, a civilian. They would say, and they would investigate heavily to find out what happened. And depending on the situation and what happened, most of the time, they would call good shot, bad result. Meaning a soldier, marine, someone was looking down a street and they see something and they see something suspicious.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  And then they see an actual individual out there carrying out enemy tactics, techniques, or procedures. And they judge the situation to the best of their ability and all of a sudden pressure arises and he sees something else that also is enemy activity or enemy procedures.

• 53:27Jocko Willink?

  And then sees a friendly force approaching and say, okay, these guys are in danger. I gotta do something, takes a shot. And it turns out that what the person was doing, once they investigate, you know, someone goes and, you know, sees what the person was doing. They were doing something that was not nefarious. This didn't happen a lot, but it definitely, it definitely happened. And so the, the term that they would use would be good shot, bad result. And as long as the, as long as there was logic to the decision that was being made. And the people that, the person that took the shot owned it and said, here's what I saw. This is the shot that I took. I, that's what happened. I own it.

• 54:07Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, the upper chain of command would then say, okay, well, number one, is there anything we can learn from this? Is there anything that we could learn to, to prevent this from happening again? And if we can, then we spread that word and tell everyone what happened and why it happened. And if there's any way to improve the decision-making process. Now, the biggest mistake, so that's what you do. You own it, you see what you can learn from it, and you move on. And your leadership or your instructors are going to see the same thing. They're going to see that you had a logic. If you can explain why you made a decision. Now, your explanation might be bad. You know, your explanation might be bad. You might have prioritized wrong. You might have read the terrain wrong. You might have assumed that the enemy was going to do something and they did something else.

• 54:51Jocko Willink?

  Those are bad, bad things that led to your decision. Those are bad choices, those are bad assessments, those are mistakes that you made. And so those, what led to your, your logic may be faulted.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Would that be a, like a ding against you in a, in a good shot? So it wouldn't be a good shot?

• 55:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because if you said, "Well, I thought that the guy was, um, I thought there was a curfew." In the area. Well, there was no curfew. Why did you not know that? You know what I mean?

• 55:21Speaker 01

  So not a good shot in that case?

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  That's an excuse, right? That's not a good shot. You, you took a shot that your logic doesn't match up.

• 55:30Jocko Willink?

  But the other big mistake, or I'd say the biggest mistake, of course, that people make when they make a bad decision is, or things that don't make sense, is that they defend them. Or they blame other people, they blame other circumstances, and that's what they say. "Well, no one told me." "No one told me that that..." Or, "The sergeant was pointing in that direction, so that's where I told everyone to go." Like, no, don't do that. Don't, don't make excuses, right? Don't make excuses. It's like saying, "Well, I did a perfect job, but the, but the enemy used mortars, and that's out of my control." It's like, no, instead of saying, so like the first case, like if you, if you went left instead of right and you ended up getting mortared, and you know, you're saying, "Well, I didn't expect the enemy to use mortars. That's, that's not my fault." Instead, you should say, "You know what?

• 56:14Jocko Willink?

  I should have done a better job assessing the mortar threat."

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  And I should have had more space between my troops because that's another thing that I screwed up is my troops are too close together. And so we had multiple get wounded with one mortar round. That shouldn't have happened.

• 56:28Jocko Willink?

  And we could have moved quicker through that area, which I failed to do. So those are the things I'm going to fix next time. And there you have it. There you have it. Don't make excuses. If you own it and you explain what you can do better. The instructor is going to agree and they're going to move on. And if you make excuses, the instructors are going to eat you alive. And by the way, if you make bad decisions continually and you keep owning them. Well, let's say you keep making bad decisions. And so you start thinking to yourself, well, I can't take ownership of this anymore. I'm going to get kicked out of here. Well, guess what? So then you start making excuses for them. You're really going to get kicked out of there then. You're really going to get kicked out of there. So that's something to keep in mind. Also, keep in mind that the instructors know everything that's happening.

• 57:13Jocko Willink?

  They can see so much more than you can. And I know this because I was an instructor for a long, I was running the training for a long time. You can see so much. One, a classic example, when you go through officer candidate school, you're not allowed to look at your food. And when I first, they say, don't look at your food. So I sat down the first meal. And I'm like, well, no one's going to know if I'm looking at my food. How can they tell? And so I just glanced down at my food. Instantly, there's drill instructors all over you yelling at you. Who told you not to look at your food? You're weak and all that stuff. I'm thinking, how the hell did they know? 13 weeks later or 12 weeks later at Officer Candidate School, you're, you're a candidate officer, which means you're now kind of in between the recruits and the drill instructors. And so you're allowed to walk around and you're reinforcing. And you go to the one of the tables where there's

• 57:57Jocko Willink?

  30 recruits sitting there or officer candidates sitting there. And you look down the line and when someone glances at their, at their food for a millisecond, it's completely obvious. It's so completely obvious. You can't hide it. I'm talking just their eyes are moving, but it's so obvious. And that's what it's like with everything. When you're going through tactical training, the instructors can really see a lot. They can't see it that much because it's a little less control, but they can see a lot. And also they have things planned and part of the plan is that you're going to fail sometimes. They're going to set it up that way. And they want to see how you react to that. They want to see how you handle the stress, number one of an unwinnable situation. And then when you fail, how do you react to failure itself? Do you just blame everybody else? Do you not, it wasn't my fault? Because if that's what you're doing, it's going to be problematic.

• 58:42Jocko Willink?

  And the last thing I'd say to this guy here, um, dude, relax a little bit. Right? Cause you haven't even gone to OCS yet and yet you're fearing judgment. You're fearing not being considered to be perfect and you're not gonna be perfect and you're going to be absolutely judged. It's okay. Be humble, do your best and have a great time. It's awesome. Military training is so fun.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Interesting. I've heard mixed opinions about that, buddy. I get it. I'll tell you, you know why, you know why it's easy to see you looking at your food. I'll tell you why. It's an anatomical thing. When you look down, your eyelids and eyelashes, all that stuff goes boom. They just, they shift down and it's super obvious physically to see.

• 59:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Notice that. If you look side to side, not much, only your little eyeball or whatever, but if you look down, but you can't look down without doing your eyelids. See what I'm saying? Like you gotta kind of, like when you look down, your eyelids just, and your eyelashes.

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  All I know is that it's real obvious.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:38Jocko Willink?

  Real obvious.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  It's funny though.

• 59:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Cause I, I thought the same thing.

• 59:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, you can't.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  And it's not like you can act like you're looking at something else and they, you can't do that. Cause you know.

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  You gotta look straight ahead. It was actually so funny how, how I got so busted and how cocky I was thinking. How, how are they gonna stop me from looking at my food? I'll just glance down and they just are on you like white on rice.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  Other guys by the way.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you look down, they just jump on you. It's crazy.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  It's funny. I feel like the, this, this kind of thing may be a good way to look at it and I'm only going on based on kind of what you said, but like any, any decision, like situation where you gotta, okay, I gotta make the right call or the right, you know, um, you know, tactics or what, you know, to get a certain result or whatever. It, it really, when you kind of think about it more, when I do anyway, it, there's always an element of chance, right? Remember how like, okay, so I'm going to the post office, right? I'm driving. There is like, okay, so me saying, okay, I'm gonna go to, go the safest route to the post office. Let me get there, but boom, I'm gonna deliver or mail my thing. I'm gonna come home. The chance that I get killed in one way or another, car accident, you know, whatever,

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  whatever, is there, very small, but it's still there. So, and not to say, you know, not to say the, how big or small the chance of these things are, I'm just saying, there is an element of chance, regardless of how big or small, of something getting in the way of your success, even if you make all the right decisions.

• 1:01:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Or if you make the wrong decisions, there's a chance just involved in general.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  Here, you just made me think of something that can, that can jam people up, as you like to say.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:01:15Jocko Willink?

  And this is something that guys used to say to me, and so you need to try and avoid this. People would say, "I was trying to make, I was trying to do what, what I thought you would want me to do."

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  Right? Like, "I thought that's what you would want to see," that's what they'd say. "Well, I thought that's what you want me to do. I thought, I thought that's what you want to see." So if you start playing that game, like, you start assessing what's going on, and then you start adding a layer of like, "What do the instructors want me to do right here?"

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Jocko Willink?

  The chances are, that that's not gonna turn out well. Because you're trying to predict what, what you should do is look at what's happening and make the best decision possible, from your, from your, um, perspective. The minute you start to think, "Well, they, you know, they just taught a class on, on breaking contact. They probably want me to break contact right here." So you call a break contact, and then everyone runs away, and then they go, "Why did you break contact? There was one guy with a rifle, and you had a forty man platoon. What's wrong with you?" And they go, and then, and then what you say is, "Well, I thought you wanted us to." No, we want you to run a good tactical situation.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Jocko Willink?

  Don't do what people, what you think people want you to do. Don't do that, generally. I'm not saying don't weigh it at all, because they're teaching you something.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Jocko Willink?

  But, don't be stupid.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't be stupid, that's good advice. But yeah, but see, see what I'm saying, though, that, that chance is always there.

• 1:02:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's always a chance you're gonna-

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  And it's weird how like, when, when you, when you're successful in something, I don't know, whatever, even, even like in like, life, like if you're, you're, I don't know, you're- Career or something. When you're successful in it, you don't really talk about the chance element, you know? But if you're unsuccessful, that's when you'll be like, oh, just hey, it's just bad luck. You know, hey, these chance kind of situations or whatever. So it seems like, you know, given what you said, that his kind of objective or his kind of outlook or his way of being when he goes into the situation is, hey, man, sure, there's, there's going to be these chance, there's going to be a chance that the result isn't going to be that good. There's a chance and there's a chance that it's gonna be good or whatever, but focus

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  on the decision, sound decision, decision making. And then if, hey, if the chance comes or the luck or the probability, improbable situation or whatever, that kind of negates your good decision making with its bad result, then, hey, man, still focus on your decision making. Don't be like, oh, luck. Or it was someone else's thing that I had no control over, kind of thing. That was what she was saying.

• 1:03:41Jocko Willink?

  It's true.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:03:46Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Jaco in Jiu Jitsu. I telegraph my moves when I focus on whatever escape or submission I'm attempting. And it's pretty obvious to who I'm training with. How do I learn to work on a particular move while actually setting up another move at the same time? Essence of the Jiu Jitsu.

• 1:04:05Jocko Willink?

  That's the sub Jiu Jitsu. Dave Burke question, by the way.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Okay, so, good question and actually reveals something pretty cool about Jiu Jitsu in many cases in Jiu Jitsu, especially in like the first three to five years of training. And that, that's a pretty big span, but what's interesting about is, is that the setups for moves are actually other moves, right? So, and you actually have to attempt the other move legitimately in order for it to work as a setup. So if you're mounted on someone and you want to arm lock somebody, don't grab their arm. That's the telegraph. What you do is you go for the choke. And you don't just fake go for the choke. You go for the choke.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  You put those, you dig in, you grab some gee. You start to attack their neck and, and obviously if they don't defend. Then you choke them, which is awesome. But you, so you go for the choke for real, but if they lift up their arm. To defend their neck, which they should do. Then boom, they are locked exposed and you take it. That's the way it works. And the same thing goes with Kamiro's. Like the Kamira sweep guillotine, you know that combo from the guards, real like a basic one that you learn from the beginning. Yeah, the bump sweep, the Kamira and the guillotine from the guard. The, the defense for each one of those is the setup for the other. And, and there's so many, you know, jujitsu, like that's what jujitsu is, right? I mean, it's like triangle arm lock.

• 1:05:40Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's just, that's the way it is.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Jocko Willink?

  You have to commit to the moves. You can't just like, if you do a half-hearted attempt to do a sit-up sweep on me, I'm not going to give you the reaction that you need. To.

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink?

  Get a guillotine on me, right? Cause if you don't push me back hard enough, I'm not going to lean forward enough and not be able to grab my neck.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Jocko Willink?

  So it's not going to work. Now, as you progress in jujitsu, you, you able to start attacking other things. Like for instance, you can attack someone's balance. As a setup, you can attack their base, you can attack their posture. As a setup, you can attack their arm position. So you can attack, the better you get at jujitsu, you can attack some conceptual things.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Jocko Willink?

  Dean said something like that the other day. I was like, dang, that's smart. What he was saying was, he's like, hey, the, he said, the person on the bottom. Can't fall down.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Dean said that?

• 1:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  It sounds like something Dean would say. I know.

• 1:06:37Jocko Willink?

  It's one of those things that's profound.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:40Jocko Willink?

  Right? The person on the bottom can't fall down.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  You can't, you can't mess with my balance at all.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:45Jocko Willink?

  But I can mess with you. If you're on top, I can mess with your balance. That's one of the key things that I try and mess with. Your balance. You can't mess with my balance, I'm on the ground.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Jocko Willink?

  Think about that one.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Actually, you did say that, that Dean said that, but I don't know if he said that. You can't knock me down when I'm on the ground.

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, well, that may be just the way I put it, but that's the truth.

• 1:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Let's see, these principles, obviously, they apply not only to jujitsu, but they apply to the battlefield and they apply to business. Because if you fake a frontal assault to expose the enemy's flank, but you don't put enough firepower in the frontal assault, then the enemy doesn't have to react to it. So they just kind of keep their perimeter secure, and then when you flank them, their flank is defended.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  So it's the same exact thing.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  You have to commit enough to throw the person's, to make the person react. If you don't give them enough, they're not going to react. In the business world, if you come up with a, if you put up a new product to contend with your competitor in some market, but the product isn't strong enough that it becomes any kind of threat, well, then the competitor doesn't have to contend with it at all. And you've actually wasted effort. So if you're gonna go, go, go, get the reaction that you need. If you're gonna execute a move to set up your opponent, it has to be strong enough to elicit a real reaction. That's what you have to do.

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, you could do something that's like a little distraction. That's a little different than a setup.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Jocko Willink?

  Right? You can distract someone. Usually, the distraction is much more minor than a real setup.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Jocko Willink?

  I can get you thinking about something else while I go over here.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Jocko Willink?

  Not as effective.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  But it has its times.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, the, it's so interesting. I think Dave Burke mentioned that idea to me before. Wait, is this a question from Dave Burke?

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  That's from Dave Burke, straight up.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and here's another thing. Dave Burke's kind of early in the game, which is a good thing, because he's thinking about this stuff already.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  But...

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  I think generally speaking, like these, those types of tactics, like where I'm gonna go for this, and then when he reacts to that thing I went for, then I'm gonna really do my real move kinda thing. And, and there can be chains too, by the way. It can do one thing.

• 1:09:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz that's the advanced jiu-jitsu.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  And the next thing, yes. And the more you advance, two people get when they're rolling against each other, the more that you'll see. So, but being early on.

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  Or the more of it you won't see. I remember when Dean and I were training like maniacs.

• 1:09:21Jocko Willink?

  And people would watch us and it barely even looked like jiu-jitsu because the movements were so subtle. Like, sometimes you wouldn't even, like, I would just feel his weight shift and I would immediately shift my weight. And so there's three or four offensive and defensive moves that happen, and there's barely any movement that's visual because it's all in the weight.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So when you mean, when you don't see, it's like, it's just so subtle that you don't see it.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  You can't visually see it.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  But it's, yeah, totally still there, of course. So that's, that's kinda good that he, I think, anyway, that he's thinking that, you know, how to do that. But I think what's more important, given the stage, and this is real generally speaking, cuz people are different, but, um, learn the, the moves, you know, the crisp, like, how to do an arm lock where your hips should be and shouldn't be, and what makes a, a, a arm lock a good arm lock, and what makes an arm lock, for example, a bad arm lock, you know? Where it's like, you know how some guys can do an arm lock, but it's like, super easy to escape because you have these three details that you just didn't do, even though you know what an arm lock is, kinda thing. So, I think, I think, anyway, that when, when you start to get those things down.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  You're a real brown belt, Noah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ollie.

• 1:10:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he's got a good arm lock.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Jocko Willink?

  You gotta, you gotta watch out for that thing. But he's an example of like, his arm lock is really good. And everyone's got their really good moves.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good example.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  And, and when, when you get, you know, a handful of those down, or you're just your general game. Down in in that particular way, then you can start like leaking into that kind of way of thinking where it's like, okay, I'm gonna go for this arm lock, you know, and then.

• 1:10:57Jocko Willink?

  I I'm not sure I hundred percent disagree with you because in my mind, if you don't set things up, they're not gonna work.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Jocko Willink?

  So you have to set them up and you have to start learning where that setup looks like.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but as.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  I mean, Dave Burke is at that position right now. This this moves are not working because he's not setting them up because he's telegraphing them.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Jocko Willink?

  So he that's why he's asking the question.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Jocko Willink?

  So when you I this is the this is the answer to when that question comes, which it will, when you start training jujitsu and you start training against people that know what you know, or at least some of what you know.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna defend.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Jocko Willink?

  And it's proper that they defend because their defense is a setup for your next move.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  That's the part you gotta realize.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so considered, um, and when he asked me this before, or when he talked about it, I forget exactly when it was, I I was considering it through his point of view. Right, or in in with an experience, okay, so both his point of view and my point of view, so if I'm rolling with a white belt and like a real new white belt and he's doing the move that they learned that day. So he's doing it step by step by the way he learned and I'm like, okay, this is this, that's the ultimate in telegraphing, by the way. When you're looking at the steps that you just watched them learn kind of thing.

• 1:12:06Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  You might even have taught it to him, I don't know. So when they do that, it's, I think that's appropriate as far as the learning process. Early on, it's like, yeah, get those down.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Practice that part of it. Yeah, it's not gonna work. It in fact, it might work on another super new new guy.

• 1:12:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and and I know I've rolled with guys, Dean is one of them, um, where he he you know what he's gonna do.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Jocko Willink?

  You know what he's gonna do. He might as well tell you.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  What he's gonna do. And and he's gonna do it.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:35Jocko Willink?

  Now, sometimes you give up, like you give up an inch and all of a sudden you feel it and you go, oh, man, I'm gonna I my arm is exposed.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Jocko Willink?

  And you and you spend the next two minutes defending that arm and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Right, but and I think we both know that that's so much different in this way. Because if Dean's like, okay, man, that's so multi dimensional compared to like a white belt, white belt telegraphing his moves because Dean, okay, Dean, for example, he's like, I'm gonna get mount and I'm gonna do arm bar. So him getting mount is gonna be all these little micro like. Things in there.

• 1:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Not to mention the psychological war that he just waged on you. And he's a head, by the way. So you got that, and then you got all these little things. When he goes for mount, he's just gonna, he's just gonna get mount. So to get mount, you gotta do a certain, you know, thing, in his case. So when he does those things, that's gonna be a bunch of those things that you're talking about. All this thing, I'm gonna fake this side, but then I'm gonna go this side. I'm gonna shift my weight, so he shifts his weight that way, so he, so I go here, so he does. So there's little mini things, but he's just so good at it, that he'll do, he can just do it like that.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  So I think, I mean, again, the, the point there is like, it's, it's a lot different with a guy who, Dean, when he says, I'm gonna get mount and I'm gonna armbar you, he's not telegraphing anything. He's telling you, sure, but he's not technically telegraphing like, like a white belt situation. But, um, either way, I get it, either way, I mean, everyone's different. Um, I do think that learning those steps and learning what a good, I think, getting that part down early on, early on, is, is, I think, more foundational.

• 1:14:01Jocko Willink?

  It's foundational. Once you start asking the question, why won't anyone tap to my moves? I need to set them up better? Here you go.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes, I think you're right about that.

• 1:14:10Jocko Willink?

  That's where Dave's at.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  You know, to your point, how you, when you wanna do, so it's kinda like a feint, right? In boxing, maybe a little bit more like how you said, I'm gonna, when I go for a move as a, as a setup move, you gotta really sell that move. You gotta really be going for that. So it's like bait, right?

• 1:14:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  In fact, you ever watched the movie Bait?

• 1:14:26Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Okay, so Bait is a movie with Jamie Foxx and, you know, some other people. Anyway, so one of the guys, it's, it's a long story, I don't want, so they're trying to catch this, this gold thief, right? In Bait, so this gold thief, but he's a real genius computer nerd, gold thief dude. And he's super good at hiding.

• 1:14:45Jocko Willink?

  The way you, the way you pronounce that, you're like, gold thief. I was like, okay, this is a guy that's gold.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  He's, he's a criminal, but he's like a computer guy, you know? But he's super genius, easy, like hides really well and super hard to find and all this stuff. And so the guy, the FBI guy, whoever, you know, the, the, the law enforcement dude, he's like, hey, we gotta set some bait, so this guy comes out and gets the bait. But when you set bait, you can't be some fake thing. This bait has to be real. Like a wolf, you know, when you try to catch a wolf, the bait has to be real. It can't be just some bait you bought kinda, kinda idea. So, you know, so the idea of the movie is they get this guy, Jamie Foxx, and they make him the bait. But he doesn't know he's the bait, because he has to be real, has to be, he can't be tainted with the human scent. He gotta be a real, live piece of bait.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  So that's essentially what your moves gotta be.

• 1:15:37Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  You gotta be like, hey, look, if my bait is the arm lock, if I'm gonna bait the kimura to get the sit-up sweep, that kimura gotta be a fresh, plucked out of the wild kimura attempt. And then when he goes and reacts to it or bites it, boom, I get the sit-up sweep, same exact thing. So, yeah, that gotta, the setup, uh, move gotta smell real.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Gotta smell real. That's how I like to keep all my moves smelling super real. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Anyway, alright, next question.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Does discipline ever fail you?

• 1:16:15Jocko Willink?

  Does discipline ever fail you?

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  No. Actually, discipline does not fail me. I fail discipline. That's what happens on days where I, where I veer off the path and on to the slippery slope of weakness. It isn't discipline's fault.

• 1:16:44Jocko Willink?

  It's my fault. I'm the one that's being weak.

• 1:16:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm the one that's not holding the line. I'm the one that is deciding to take the short-term gratification instead of the long-term domination.

• 1:17:02Jocko Willink?

  When laziness creeps in, it's not, it's not discipline that opened the door.

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  It's me.

• 1:17:13Jocko Willink?

  It's me rationalizing and explaining and justifying that laziness.

• 1:17:21Jocko Willink?

  When I decide to take the easy path instead of the righteous path of discipline, that is my decision. That's all on me.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  It's me deciding to cave to my weaknesses and become a slave to them.

• 1:17:41Jocko Willink?

  And when I make that error,

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  when I let discipline down, there's only one thing to do, and that's get back on the path. Get back on it.

• 1:17:57Jocko Willink?

  And then step it up and go harder and push more and pay for your transgressions.

• 1:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Cleanse yourself in the fire and the suffering of the discipline and get back on the path. The hard, unrelenting path of discipline, that path that leads

• 1:18:26Jocko Willink?

  to freedom.

• 1:18:29Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight. So Echo.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:18:39Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of the path against weakness.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:18:44Jocko Willink?

  You know of any ways that maybe you could help us down that path?

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. First, I will talk about our company. Origin. Okay. What Origin does is a lot of stuff. Actually impressive stuff. First thing they do, maybe not the first thing, but one of the many things they do is, I guess technically it's Origin Labs, right?

• 1:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  So Jaco has some supplements, Jaco Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare from Origin Labs. These supplements are for your joints and of course they're the best ones for your joints. Unless you made one that are not, is not the best for your joints.

• 1:19:23Jocko Willink?

  No, we made the ones that are the best.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  The best one, right? Yeah.

• 1:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, someone tweeted at me, I think that's the, you tweet at someone, right? That's the thing. Anyway, so they were like, hey, I ran out of joint warfare.

• 1:19:36Jocko Willink?

  Big mistake.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he was, it was kinda like just kinda expressing himself. And man, I dig it because I've done that too. That's why you get on the, the subscription deal.

• 1:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he did.

• 1:19:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Lots of, that, that's a, the joint warfare and the krill oil. Like, try it if you, if you.

• 1:19:55Jocko Willink?

  If you have any joint issues at all, try it, seriously try it, it will help you.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  It will absolutely help you, which is awesome.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and part of that, which I did mention, I think maybe last time, there's anti-inflammatory stuff in there too. Like natural stuff, not like ibuprofen or something like that, like anti-inflammatory stuff. So that helps a lot and, you know, I'm rarely like super impressed with.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  I mean, not like my standards are so high, I'm just saying like, I understand supplements are like, they're supplements, cool, I dig it kind of thing. But this is one that I was like, this is, this is an important one.

• 1:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Don't run out, just don't, don't run out. Also, discipline. Discipline is a, what we are calling officially, a pre-mission supplement. So whatever your mission is, physical, mental, emotional. Sure, bruh, there is a thing called emotional intelligence.

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  I don't have emotions, so I can't.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you see.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  Talking about that one, I don't know the effects.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Good point. Put it this way, I have never lost my temper, I have never broke down and cried. Well, debatable, while I'm on the discipline. There you go, so the proof is in the pudding. So it is an emotional enhancing situation as well. But whatever your mission is, it's, there's some nootropic stuff in there for cognitive enhancement and a little bit of caffeine, if you're into caffeine, a little bit. Microdose, as we call it, um, you know, that's a good one too. Don't run out. Also, Molk.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Molk is Molk. I had some the other day, two scoops. What is one serving? One, one scoop, right?

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, one serving is one scoop.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Molk, protein powder, eh, you know, okay, we'll, we'll, we'll say protein, but you.

• 1:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Technically, technically, it is, right? Then you realize that technically what it really is, is Molk.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Molk, yeah, you know what it is, I'll tell you.

• 1:21:52Jocko Willink?

  What'd you mix it with?

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Milk, of course, hundred percent.

• 1:21:55Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, what do you mean, do you mix it with water like a psycho?

• 1:21:59Jocko Willink?

  Have you tried it with water though?

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:22:01Jocko Willink?

  It's actually not, it's actually, like I said the other day, it's not bad with water.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05Jocko Willink?

  It's not bad, it's like satisfying, it's a ham sandwich, but it's not, it's not mint chocolate chip milkshake style.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like, um, like on Crocodile Dundee, right? When he was like, um, he was like, yeah, you could live off it or what, you know?

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea what you're talking about.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  He said like, sure, it's fine with.

• 1:22:22Jocko Willink?

  He was talking about milk?

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  No, he was talking about, I forget what he was talking about. I recommend.

• 1:22:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  The milk.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  And you know what else? If you're, let's say you're lactose intolerant.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Almond milk, no, no problem.

• 1:22:32Jocko Willink?

  Almond milk, also awesome.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Although, although they do make lactose free milk now, which is very similar tasting to regular milk, like surprisingly similar. Cause I accidentally bought some before and I was drinking, I was like, I was like, cool, but I was like, is, does this taste different? Like, you know, it's like a question. So I guarantee it, it could have been me. I maybe I brushed my teeth too soon before I drank the milk. You know, something like this.

• 1:22:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, foul.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  No, but you see, see what I'm saying though, right? You can do certain things that affects your little taste buds or whatever. It was like that. It was like, it was a question mark. It wasn't like, dang, I bought the wrong milk. Like, if you think you're drinking, I don't know, regular milk, but then it's like soy milk. Or canned milk or powdered milk or something like this.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Cause it wouldn't be in my house.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Seeing the rest of us, you know the difference. That's the point. You know the difference. Lactose free milk and regular milk, like the difference isn't that obvious in my opinion.

• 1:23:27Jocko Willink?

  So you give that one a try.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. If you're lactose intolerant, but milk nonetheless, technically is protein powder. You don't, this is why you don't like to say protein powder.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And we have, right now we only have mint, but we have, we have peanut butter coming. And the peanut butter.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  It's gonna be the one.

• 1:23:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Check.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  This is what I'm.

• 1:23:48Jocko Willink?

  Chocolate peanut butter, by the way. Yeah.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Okay. And the mint isn't mint, it's milk.

• 1:23:52Jocko Willink?

  Mint chocolate, yeah.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  Mint chocolate, yeah. So yeah, so protein powder makes it sound, what I'm saying before, the protein powder makes it sound like, oh, it's just one of these many protein powders that are out there kind of thing. That's the feeling you get. That's not the feeling you get when you drink it. Yeah, it's more way different, way different.

• 1:24:08Jocko Willink?

  If it would have not been milk, we would have called it protein powder.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:12Jocko Willink?

  But it wasn't. It was milk.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  With the, with the.

• 1:24:16Jocko Willink?

  Oomla.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I thought that was like some Viking thing, the way you're saying it.

• 1:24:20Jocko Willink?

  It's a heavy metal thing.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Okay. Hardcore, heavy metal.

• 1:24:23Jocko Willink?

  It's a heavy metal thing.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  Like when you go this, like.

• 1:24:24Jocko Willink?

  I just talked about this. It's Blue Oyster Cult. The first, the first album that had it was Blue Oyster Cult. And then probably the most, the most famous that has it is Motorhead.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  And that's because the two fingers, you know, like rock on.

• 1:24:38Jocko Willink?

  I, I, no, I, I re- before I released this, I researched it. This is how I know this.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and Lemmy from Motorhead's quote as to why he used the umlaut was because he said, "It looks mean." That's his quote. That's all he said.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:24:51Jocko Willink?

  No big philosophical representation of like, well, they represent eyes.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  The layers.

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  No. No, here's a layer.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  There's layers now. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:00Jocko Willink?

  Lemmy said, "It looks mean." What?

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Jocko Willink?

  What do you say to Lemmy? Disagree with him?

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't look mean.

• 1:25:05Jocko Willink?

  Sounds cool to me, Lemmy.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then now it's on the malk. Those are layers. That's layers. So you've provided another layer.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  It has been turned into layers.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  And also, you know how you say rock, like I said, well, this is what I thought. You know, when you say rock on, you have the two fingers, right? Point index finger and the, you know, and the pinky, boom, rock on. If you were to, I don't know.

• 1:25:24Jocko Willink?

  By the way, people don't say rock on anymore.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, bro. I'm not in the scene. You see what I'm saying? So, you know, you do that motion and let's say you had some, I don't know, some chalk or something on your hand.

• 1:25:33Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  From doing deadlifts or something like this, and then you touch the wall, boom, you got your umlaut right there. That's what I thought it for real was.

• 1:25:39Jocko Willink?

  That's interesting.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  My name is Echo.

• 1:25:41Jocko Willink?

  You're way, you're way too creative or your mind is wandering a little too much.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  I think other people might have thought that too. Think about this. Okay, my name is Echo, obviously. It's my real name, by the way. I have a twin brother named Jade. He's older by 15 minutes. I'm the second twin, right?

• 1:25:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Follow? So my first grade teacher was, she said, "Oh, yeah, your name's Echo. That makes sense now because you're, your brother's Echo."

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? And I was like, dang, that is, man, my parents are, are smart.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No, I thought that too. And then you told me the truth.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I go home and I ask and my mom was like, "Wow, no, not at all. I just thought it was cool. Same thing as Lemmy."

• 1:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Same exact thing.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  She just thought it was mean.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  No, not mean. Just, just cool and, and how should I say, like euphoric. My mom's a hippie. Anyway, back to the malk. It's dope. Peanut butter, chocolate, not out yet, but we'll be out soon. Look forward to that one big time. Also, strangely, are you, is peanut butter chocolate your second favorite flavor?

• 1:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Um. I don't know.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  It's Pete's, by the way.

• 1:26:46Jocko Willink?

  It's right up there. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  And it's mine, by the way.

• 1:26:50Jocko Willink?

  Pete sent me like a text when he first got the peanut butter one. And I could tell that he was real fired up.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 1:26:58Jocko Willink?

  He was, he had a real str- he's like, he's like, just mix this up. You know, it's like a little thing. He's like, just mix this up. And he, you know, you see the thing leave the screen, then he slams it back down. Bro.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  See, that's a good sign, right?

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  The guy making it, yeah.

• 1:27:14Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of a pain because then he has to take it and because they only give you one sample. So then he FedExes, he's like, FedEx, I'm like, send me the rest. And he's like, it's on, it's in route.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  You gotta break it up like, um, like in little bags.

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  It's so good.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so be on the lookout for that. If you care, if you, if you want some malt, be on the lookout for that. Also, ghee's and rash guards. It's what Origin has. Again, originmaine.com. This stuff is all made in America, by the way. Side note. Or is that even a side note? Yeah, that's the note, straight up. Note, note this, all this made in America. So ghee's and rash guards, ghee's, okay, why is that relevant? Because we talked about jiu jitsu today. Everyone still, not everyone, people still ask me, weekly, maybe even bi-weekly, what ghee should I get? Point me in a direction of a good ghee. Here, I'll do it. I'll do it right now. Origin ghee's. Whichever one you want. Whichever two you want, whichever three you want.

• 1:28:07Jocko Willink?

  People, I have people that missed the original def ghee, the Despicable Freedom ghee.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:13Jocko Willink?

  That says get after it on the, on the tail.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:28:16Jocko Willink?

  It's called the skirt. I've heard it called the skirt, the tail. Anyways, the back of the, the back of the ghee top. On the bottom, it says get after it. But they originally made those, or we originally made those as a, like, you know, kind of like a.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Like a tribute.

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Signature-ish.

• 1:28:35Jocko Willink?

  No, just, uh, uh, what's that word?

• 1:28:39Jocko Willink?

  Like special only.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, special edition.

• 1:28:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, special edition. Anyways, but everyone liked him and so now they're part of the, part of the line.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Damn, part of the lineup, yeah. You're good, yeah, I noticed the white one is available now.

• 1:28:54Jocko Willink?

  And so is the black.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:28:56Jocko Willink?

  They're both up.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Boom, whatever color you want. Also, another question people ask about the gees, they're like, hey, what color should I get? Like, is it crazy to get a green gi or something like this, right? You know, do people ask you that still?

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, sometimes.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 1:29:09Jocko Willink?

  People seem to come to you more for gi, it's probably more of a fashion like thing, that's how they go to you.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Maybe, and well, yeah, well, the origin gees look dope too, by the way, and that's not just because you mentioned fashion. They do, that's like one of the, one of the.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, Pete's got a little fashion streak in him, I think.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Yes, he does, you don't like that. Actually, no, that's good that he does, because you don't.

• 1:29:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know, I know, I have no fashion, I have no fashion streak.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Situation.

• 1:29:31Jocko Willink?

  My fashion streak is t-shirts.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  Give me a t-shirt.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  In other words, no fashion streak. Nonetheless, the colors of the gees are gonna depend on your instructor or your academy.

• 1:29:42Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  So these, you know, like if your academy allows whatever color gi you want, like Victory does, then you, whatever color you want. Then you kind of go into this game within the game, which actually doesn't really exist, really, and that's like, if you're a new guy and you show up with a pink gi or a crazy, like, you know, those weird gees and a gold belt or something. You know how Jeff Glover used to wear that gold belt?

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Or was it Frenzy who did that? They both did, anyway. Bill Cooper even. If you do that, then it's like, hey, you know, but it's more, that's more of like social fabric kind of thing. But if, it comes down to the, the, the school. So, some rigid schools, only white.

• 1:30:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Some rigid schools. And then the more traditional is like white or blue, that's it. Don't do a green, don't do a black, which are cool in my opinion. And then you get the schools where like, "Whatever."

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  And maybe there's in-between. I never heard of any, but maybe there's an in-between. So, point there. Ask your instructor, "What color?" Then boom, get that color. OriginMaine.com. That's the deal. Also, rash guards on there. Good rash guards, by the way. All made in America. The sweats, I always say are the most comfortable sweats I've ever had.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  And used. Still on that. Still is. Held up. I did a little competition. China Improv, too. Yeah, the joggers. Um, this past week, and still, yeah, holds up. And I have some comfortable sweats. I know about comfort. I do. I'm not a stranger to comfort. Anyway, go there. OriginMaine.com. Good spot. Also,

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  if you want to vary up your workout and get new workout equipment, go to Onnit.com slash Jaco. Get yourself some kettlebells. The artistic kettlebells, I call them artistic kettlebells, but I don't think there's the word artistic on the whole website, by the way. So it's like primal bells. That's like the, you know, the monkey groups, gorillas, orangutan. You know, those things. They're artistic kettlebells. And there's like zombie bells and werewolves and whatnot. Anyway, I say get those. They're the dopest. Um, but there's some other good stuff. Maces and battle ropes and whatnot. If you want to vary up the workout. Yeah, good. Not a good info, too, on there. So,

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  you know, if you ask me about what to do with kettlebells when you're first starting out, like, well, how much you should use, or how much weight you should use, and what movements, I'm not the resource. I'm not that versed in it. I know two movements, three, maybe four altogether, but there's a bunch going on it.com slash Jaco. That's the spot. Good spot. Get something. Also, when you are purchasing any of the books that Jaco reviews, or even Extreme Ownership, or Way of the Wary Kid, or whatever, whatever book, I organized them all on JacoPodcast.com. Books from the episodes. Actually, Jaco's books are on the front page, but for the books they review, re-review on the podcast, books from episodes, boom, they're all right there.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  Click through there when you buy those books. Good way to support. And, uh, you know, carry on. Do your shopping. It'll take you to Amazon, by the way. But yeah, get your books through there. It's a good way to support. Also.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  Subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on Stitcher, iTunes, Google Play. Now there's a lot of podcast apps out there, whatever app you're using for your podcast, subscribe. Good way to support. Leave a review if you're in the mood. That's what I say. Jaco says, you know, if you're not in the mood, do it anyway, you know, because you're not always going to be in the mood, you know, that whole thing.

• 1:33:17Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  But whatever, to me, that's up to you. Leave a review. That's cool.

• 1:33:20Jocko Willink?

  They're funny to read. Thank you for them.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Yes, they're funny to read.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  A lot of layers in a lot of those. So that's, I like seeing creative layers, layers in the reviews.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I feel like the people have gotten a very strong hold and understanding of the concept of layers.

• 1:33:39Jocko Willink?

  I think so.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  And they've been demonstrated.

• 1:33:41Jocko Willink?

  Same with the Amazon reviews for stuff.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yes. Salute to that one big time. Also on YouTube, subscribe if you haven't already. The video version of this podcast along with excerpts. Little, I don't know, anywhere from two to eight minutes excerpts. And some enhanced excerpts on there as well. Put some music on there. Make them funner, we'll say, to watch on YouTube. Maybe some outtakes every once in a great while. Anyway, there's, if you're interested in the video situation, subscribe to YouTube. It's a good way to support. Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  This is where you can get all your Jaco gear, like Discipline Equals Freedom shirts and hoodies, rash guards. Some women's stuff on there. Tank tops. How do we feel about tank tops?

• 1:34:35Jocko Willink?

  I feel great.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  In general. Good, right?

• 1:34:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna make some?

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:34:40Jocko Willink?

  Cool, do it.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  Have them for summertime.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  Let's go. Rock and roll.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  I feel like I haven't worn a tank top for like, probably since like, like college time. But I mean, yeah, that's not, not a, I mean, but I'm just saying as far as like what I day to day think about.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  When it gets hot, it's so nice to have a tank top on. Yeah.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I dig it. I agree. So yeah, so tank tops.

• 1:35:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  Be on the, I always find it not strange, but I always don't wanna say be on the lookout for that like it's this big thing you gotta be on the lookout, but you know, if you're down for the tank tops, hey, be on the lookout for it, I guess, right?

• 1:35:16Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, jocko store dot com, you can get some patches. I got some Warrior Kid patches.

• 1:35:20Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  Alright, so those should be on there right now, actually, for the Warrior Kids and the geez and the gee, the backpack, wherever you wanna put that one. You don't represent Warrior Kids. Also, other patches on there too, Discipline Equals Freedom and whatnot. Also, Psychological Warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks, Jaco tracks, that help you through every moment of weakness that you might come across. Cause not, because apparently not all of us go through moments of weakness. It's rare, but some people, they just power through. For those types of people, Psychological Warfare, not for them. I think. I think they just power through and continue powering through, maybe even teach us how to just power through. But for the rest of us, hit moments of weakness,

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  we listen to Psychological Warfare, given what the weakness is. So, if my weakness is hitting the snooze and not getting up early, there's a track for that. It's Jaco on that track, talking to you, telling you why you should get up. Not yelling, he's playing the game, quote unquote. Actually, he's not technically playing the game on a track, he's just flanking, I don't know.

• 1:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Just explaining.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, just explaining pragmatically, like why, the value.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  You could say that it is a little bit of a flank going on, cause it's getting, everyone that listens to it, like it hits the spot, right?

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  It nails the target of why, cause I know where the weakness comes from. It happens to me. And so I just talk about how you just overcome that thing.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause technically, the very reason, or by the very nature of you wanting to stay in bed, that's by its very nature, a reinforced position. Cause you're rationalizing in your head, you're defending your actions, or your potential actions, you're defending that already, in your own head. Here comes Jaco on the Jaco track.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  You don't attack those things. You just come around and say, "Hey, I dig it." You know, "The bad is, I dig it." You know, all this stuff. You find, it's good. And there's a track for all these little weaknesses. Good. Hundred percent effectiveness, by the way. Get it on iTunes or wherever. Wherever you can buy MP3s, it's on like Amazon Music and whatnot as well.

• 1:37:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, speaking of Amazon, if you want to get something called Jaco White Tea, you can get that on Amazon. You should only get it if you want to have an 8,000 pound deadlift, because that's what it results in. Otherwise, drink some other tea.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:37:39Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is cool. We have Jaco White Tea in a can, coming out in June,

• 1:37:49Jocko Willink?

  on Amazon. Get some. Obviously, the goal is to eventually get them out at retail, so you can have that option everywhere you go, instead of drinking the junk energy drinks that are bad for you.

• 1:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so yeah, I'll let y'all know when it hits Amazon. It's been made, by the way, if you're wondering. Um, a ton of it, a bunch of it, way more than a ton, actually. A lot of it has been made.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Because I think, well, I know I want it. So, worst case scenario, I have a lifetime supply of Jaco White Tea in a can. And, you know, I don't know what else, well, there's a little debate, you know, what should we call it? You know?

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Wait, what do you call what?

• 1:38:31Jocko Willink?

  The Jaco White Tea. Because I was kind of thinking, well, there's another name we could give it. We could call it 8,000 Pound Deadlift in a Can.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:38:41Jocko Willink?

  But no, we're still calling it Jaco White Tea. Any books? Way the Warrior Kid, tons, the series, right? There's two books out right now, and so much awesome feedback on that. It's awesome. Thanks for posting pictures of your kids studying, reading, doing book reports, training jiu-jitsu, working out. It's awesome to see. Thank you. And if you have kids, or you know kids, get them on that same path. If you want to support a Warrior Kid, go to irishoaksranch.com and get some soap made by the Warrior Kid, Aiden.

• 1:39:17Jocko Willink?

  Because you know you need soap if you are going to stay clean. Don't forget about the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Same thing, awesome feedback. You ever heard the saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"?

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  Not really.

• 1:39:33Jocko Willink?

  Read one section of the field manual a day. I know it doesn't rhyme, but it actually works.

• 1:39:39Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't rhyme. It'll keep you on track physically and mentally. And if you wanna, speaking of tracks, if you wanna listen to it, there's no audio audible version of it because we wanted to have an album with tracks. You can get it on Amazon Music, Google Play, iTunes, other MP3 platforms. The discipline equals field. The discipline equals freedom. Field manual. Meditate on that.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  All right. Also, for leadership, Extreme Ownership Combat Leadership.

• 1:40:15Jocko Willink?

  How is this book still a bestseller after two and a half years? That's the question. And Leif was telling a guy the other day on Twitter, he's like, it's the same thing as when we first started working together and I talked to him about something and how to do something and he'd be like, yeah, it works. And that's why the book is still selling because it works. And, and right now, speaking of it works, you can order the follow-on book to Extreme Ownership. It's called The Dichotomy of Leadership.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  The manuscript is done. It is now going through the Pentagon review process. And I'm telling you, Leif and I are both super stoked on the information that's in it, the stories that are in it, the word that's in it. You can preorder it now from anywhere, Amazon, Barnes Noble, your local bookstore. And if you do that, it lets our publisher know how many to print. Because otherwise, they don't know. And you know what they're trying to do? Save you money. So they're not gonna print enough and then you'll be all bummed because you didn't get a copy when it comes out September 25th. And if you need close air support for the leadership at your team, contact Echelon Front. It's my leadership consulting company,

• 1:41:27Jocko Willink?

  me, Leif Babbin, JP Denell, Dave Burke. The website is echelonfront.com. We solve problems through leadership. There you go. Just, that's what we do. Just, I've been working with a lot of different companies the last, well, for a while, but I just went through a bunch of meetings. And it's like, yeah, you look at all these problems that they have, they're all leadership problems. And that's how we solve problems, through leadership. Of course, if you want to come to the muster. Then it's our leadership seminar, the one in DC sold out. Sorry, I'm telling you they sell out. They've all sold out so far. So if you want the opportunity to come to a muster, there's only one more in 2018.

• 1:42:09Jocko Willink?

  It is the muster 006 in San Francisco, California, October 17th and 18th. Register at extremeownership.com before it sells out and we have to say no. That does not feel good.

• 1:42:23Jocko Willink?

  But there's fire codes and we have firefighters there. So we can't just pack people in. Also for current military, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders who are holding the roll call. Number one, September 21st in Dallas, Texas. It's a one day leadership training seminar specific to dynamic and hostile environments that military, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, first responders have to work in. You can also register for that at extremeownership.com. And until the muster or roll call or the immersion camp up in Maine, we'll see you at one of those. But until then, if you want to ask us questions or you want to give us answers, you can find us on the interwebs.

• 1:43:08Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And to all the military personnel in uniform out there worldwide, keeping evil on lockdown. Thank you for what you do. Thanks to the police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and all first responders for staying prepared and staying vigilant and staying ready to answer the call to keep us safe here on the home front. And to everyone else out there with us, trying to stay on the path of discipline instead of walking down the slippery slope of despair.

• 1:43:52Jocko Willink?

  Stay focused, stay strong, stay disciplined, and keep getting after it.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco out.