402: Discipline, Dedication, Hard Work, and Winning. With 3x NCAA Wrestling Champion and UFC Fighter, Bo Nickal

Bo Nickal is an American professional mixed martial artist, former freestyle and graduated folkstyle wrestler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_wrestling who currently competes in the UFC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Fighting_Championship middleweight division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleweight_(MMA). In freestyle wrestling, he claimed the 2019 U23 World Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_U23_World_Wrestling_Championships and the US Open National championship, and was a finalist at the 2020 US Olympic Team Trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_U. S._Olympic_Team_Trials_(wrestling) and a Final X contestant in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_X:_Rutgers. As a collegiate wrestler, Nickal was a three-time NCAA Division I National Champion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Wrestling_Championships#1999%E2%80%932023 (finalist in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_NCAA_Division_I_Wrestling_Championships) and a three-time Big Ten Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference champion out of Pennsylvania State University. Considered one of the most accomplished Nittany Lions of all-time, Nickal earned the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Hodge_Trophy as the nation's most outstanding collegiate wrestler, was a two-time Schalles Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schalles_Award winner as the nation's best pinner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(amateur_wrestling) and was also named the 2019 Big Ten Athlete of the Year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Athlete_of_the_Year#Male. 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 402 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. My, my son went to a wrestling camp when he was younger. And not just any wrestling camp, a wrestling camp known as the J Rob Intensive Wrestling Camp. And these are camps that were started in 1978 by National Hall of Fame Wrestler J Robinson.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  And J Robinson competed in the 1970, 1971 World Wrestling Championships. He placed fourth and fifth. He competed in the 1972 Olympics. He was a three-time NCAA Champion Head Coach at the University of Minnesota, where they also won Big 10, Big 10 titles. And he coached 14 individual national champions.

• 1:00Jocko Willink?

  So very distinguished as a wrestler and as a coach, and he also had served in the military. He was in the Vietnam War. He was an airborne Ranger in the Army. And that service clearly had an influence on J Rob, his attitude and his camps. And I recognized that when my son went to his camp. They're taught something called the J7. The J7, the J7 are these, what they say, the necessary fundamentals to build a fulfilling and successful life.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  And I think you'll see that these things will obviously help a person build a good life, but also turn them into a damn good wrestler. Here's the, here's the J7, the seven fundamentals. Number one, discipline.

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  Doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it. Number two, dedication, your ability to commit day after day, sacrifice. Number three, you have to give up something to get something. Number four, hard work. You can outwork 90% of all Americans. Number five, responsibility. You are in charge of the decisions you make, who you are and what you do. Number six, accountability. You must own the decisions you make that affect your life. And number seven, service. Give back to your community and make a difference.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  So, these things are all, well, they're all simple, straightforward things that we've all heard before. They're not easy, for sure. They're all, obviously, things that I talk about a lot. But that camp, and wrestling as a whole, left a huge mark on, on my son and my daughters as well.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  And it's been awesome to watch wrestling. We've seen the rise of wrestlers in MMA and in the UFC. Huge list of, I, I mean, Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, Kevin Randleman, Kane Velasquez, Dominique Cruz, Brock Lester, Weedman, Rashad, Jon Jones, Rampage, Henry Cejudo, right? There's been some, there's been some just epic wrestlers in the sport coming up. And right now, what's neat, if you're paying attention to this sport of the UFC, there's another generation coming into the sport right now. Another generation of American wrestlers, the next generation.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  And at the head of the pack, the shiny example of that next generation is a fighter and a wrestler named Bo Nickel. Bo's a four-time All-American, three-time national champion, who was 135 and 5 in his college career, 61 and 0 in his last two seasons. And after competing in freestyle wrestling, he made the transition to MMA where he's now 5 and 0. All first-round stoppages. Four of those five in the first minute.

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  A beast on the mat, a beast in the cage, but also an exemplary human being. And everybody says, great teammate, son, husband, soon-to-be father. And it's an honor to have him here with us tonight to talk about his life, his experiences and his lessons learned. Bo Nickel, thanks for joining us, man.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  We're up here at Origin Jiu-Jitsu Camp, by the way. So we're a couple hours from getting a seminar from you on some, I'm assuming you need some takedowns?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Well, I was thinking, we were talking earlier, I was gonna show guard, you know, pull guard, guard retention, maybe, so.

• 4:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, you already, how many submissions? You have, you have at least one triangle, I remember.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did, uh, yeah, triangle, arm triangle, rear naked choke, I have a few submissions.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  But that triangle's from your back.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:07Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you kind of transitioned.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I started in mount, but I like, I like the triangle. I don't like to throw it from guard, but I'll, I'll start from mount and then, and then basically go to my back from there. But once I lock it up, I feel comfy.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  That's gotta be, um, very interesting for your brain, for your rewiring your brain for that kind of stuff. Can you even rewire your brain?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  So I think with my wrestling style, I was really never afraid to go to my back, like, kind of high-risk, high-reward, go to my back to, you know, flip somebody or do, do something like that. So the jiu-jitsu portion of it, it doesn't really freak me out a lot. I think most wrestlers kind of maybe panic or this and that. But, I mean, it doesn't really feel that weird to me. I don't know. I like, I love it, though. I wish I did jiu-jitsu my entire life, but even better, I get to start when I'm 27.

• 5:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're catching up quick.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's, let's start at the beginning. Let's go through kind of where you came from, how you got here today. So. You're born in Colorado, is that right?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 6:05Jocko Willink?

  And?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Right over Colorado.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  And how long did you live there for?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  So I lived in Colorado for the first four or five years of my life.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  Do you remember it at all?

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  Or anything? Oh, you do?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's where my parents met. My mom's originally from Colorado. My dad's from Wyoming. And my dad's first job was as a wrestling coach and a football coach at her old high school.

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  And so she was coming back from, so he was right out of college. She was still in college. And she was coming back in the summer to like help out the basketball team and stuff. And they just kind of, they met and basically got set up by the principal at the school. And obviously got along well and stuff. And that's where I was born.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  And so what was your dad's wrestling career?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  So it actually goes back a little further than that. So my grandpa wrestled his whole life, wrestled in college, was a wrestling coach. And then my dad wrestled his whole life and played football. And then he ended up playing football in college. But when he graduated college, got, like I said, a job as a wrestling coach and a football coach. And he just, just always loved it. So, you know, it's been in my family for a few generations.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  And was your mom an athlete too?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my mom played college basketball and she did a bunch of sports growing up. And a bunch of sports post-college too. She did women's professional football. She boxed some. She did some wrestling. She, she just loves sports in general. So, yeah.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  So that school principal was thinking he's gonna make an athletic wonder.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think that was his plan.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  Mixing up your mom and dad's genes.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Right, exactly, exactly.

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  And so then, how long did you live there for?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was there just as a kid, five years. And then I moved from Colorado to Wyoming, where my dad's family's from. So it was just, you know, a few hours away. But my granddad, my grandpa, he was coaching and he had a heart attack. And so my dad wanted to be closer to family and kind of then like take over his position and start coaching his alma mater, his wrestling team. So then I lived. There for, I don't know, till I was 12 or so.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  And so wait, this is in, this is in Wyoming?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Wyoming, yeah.

• 8:12Jocko Willink?

  So this is where your wrestling started, was in Wyoming?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  I, I wrestled a little bit in Colorado, like my very first kind of practices and, and, but not really. Like I was, you know, five years old. So really it started in Wyoming where uh, my dad was running the high school program, running the youth program. And I was kinda just, just really getting into it, starting to get some actual matches and stuff like that.

• 8:37Jocko Willink?

  What approach did he take this? Cause I get asked this question five times a day in some cases. What approach did your dad take? Cause obviously he wanted you to wrestle.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of people, they want their kids to do something.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  For me, a lot of times people are asking about jiu jitsu. But what approach did your dad take that you didn't feel like you, oh, my dad's making me do this? And it's forced on me and I hate it. Cause there's people that

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:06Jocko Willink?

  end up in that situation. What, what approach did your mom and dad take?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  You know, I think that there's a couple of things that are important. I think that one, I was just around it a lot, you know? When I, I was born in January and so February is generally the high.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Did they plan that?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. They might've. Um, I tried to plan it. So my wife's due date is like the very end of December. So I'm hoping for like one, like, like a week late. So we'll see, but I don't know. They might've, but it worked out really well. And uh, but, but um, back to what I was saying, the uh, state wrestling tournament is generally like February-ish. And so I was like a month old at my first state wrestling tournament. So I've just literally been around it my entire life. And I think that I always gravitated towards it for some reason. But I think a big part of why I didn't ever feel pressured to.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Wrestle was because I did other sports too. Like I said, my dad played college football. And so I played football, baseball, soccer, I ran track, I did swimming, like I did every sport you could do growing up and wrestling was always the one I was probably best at and that I liked the most. But there was a lot of breaks and I think that if you take a five year old or a six year old and you tell them they're going to be a wrestler and they're going to wrestle in college, it's like they're just a kid, you know, and like you gotta let them be a kid, let them figure things out, let them do different stuff, figure out what they like. And I think I was just lucky that not necessarily lucky, but I was just in a position where I was around wrestling the most. I just also happened to

• 10:44Speaker 01

  like it the most. And at the same time, I could get a break from it as a kid when you know, football season, I was playing football or you know, doing soccer, playing soccer. It was always wrestling was the most important, but it wasn't the exclusive priority at that age.

• 10:59Jocko Willink?

  If you would have been more into football, would your dad have been cool?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 11:02Jocko Willink?

  If you would have been more into basketball, would your dad have been cool?

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. You know,

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  If you'd have been more into-

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I don't know about basketball.

• 11:07Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, what if you were more into like literature?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, um, I think that one of the things that is good is that my dad and I just really bonded over wrestling because he was a coach and he loved it. It was this thing that he was, you know, passionate about and excited about and we shared that, right? So he was the person from when I was born to eighteen that I spent an insane amount of time with, more time than anybody else. And we just really bonded over that. And so it definitely brought us closer. And I think if I would have been into something different that he would have just as supportive and just as, but, but it wasn't his passion as well. So I think because we did share that, it just created a really strong relationship for us. But yeah, I mean, I believe that my dad just, he loves me, he wants me to be successful and happy at whatever I do.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  And I have three younger sisters and he was super supportive and, and you know, happy for them to do different. They were all athletes too, but you know, I'm sure if they would have done, I, I feel like if they would have done something different that it would have been, you know, a very supportive environment.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  What kind of temperament does your dad have?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  So it's very interesting. My dad, I would describe it as he's very calm, very relaxed, um, pretty, um,

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Pretty like, uh, easy to get along with. He's very friendly. But he does have this other side of him that's like, like he's a leader. He's like getting it done and he's very, um, like he, he always ran programs, right? Like he was a head coach at, well, right when he graduated college, 24, and that's what he's done his whole life. And, uh, so he has that side and, and, and it can bring out like a demanding part and also a, a harder part. So, you know, I think that my dad has had a great balance because he pushed me and there was a lot of discipline and a lot of structure, but there was never fear. I never really was scared of

• 13:10Speaker 01

  like my dad being mad at me. It was more like there was a some type, maybe I didn't understand this fully as a kid, but there was some type of like understanding of, all right, at the end of the day, like if, if this doesn't go my way, my dad still loves me. He just wants me to win and he wants me to be successful and do my best. I never felt like it was, we were always on the same team, if that makes sense. I never felt like we were fighting against each other.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you lost when you were 12 years old, because you did something like you did one of these risky moves that you talk about you doing and you lost, what would your dad say to you?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  So it's kind of funny. Um, in the moment, you just see things differently and then, you know, you take a little time and you can look back and, and see it for, I think more of reality. And there were times where I would lose and feel like he was mad at me, but I would take a day or take a week and realize or, or we would just continue to have a conversation about it. And he was never mad at me for losing. A lot of times as a kid, you know, like if, if I lost then I would throw fit or, or, you know, be mad at the ref or blame somebody else for me losing. That's he would, that was not okay. Like that was where I would get disciplined, right? Like I was getting, he was getting after me, but

• 14:27Speaker 01

  most of the time, like if I lost and I was just crushed, defeated, he was the first one there for me to pick me up and tell me that he loved me and that he was proud of me and give me a hug and stuff. Cause you know, I was just a very different kid, I think. At a young age, at six, seven, eight years old, I knew what I wanted to do. And so it meant a lot to me. It wasn't a kid that lost and threw a fit because, you know, they're just being a kid. It was like, it really crushed me. And so I think that he saw that.

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  Like you saw your hopes and dreams being destroyed.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  It was like my identity, like, like I'm seven or eight or whatever, and I would lose. And it was like, it would just like defeat me and it would, it would just, it would last a long time with me. I think that's part of what motivated me a lot and helped me get to, you know, where I got in my wrestling career. But yeah, that, that's when, you know, there was a difference in his demeanor when I would complain or make an excuse versus just be hurt, you know?

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. There's an interesting thing I've been talking a lot about lately when, from a leadership perspective, when you're in charge of a team, you as a leader have to sort of often be the counter to what the team is doing from a morale perspective. So the team wins and they're all happy and they're all like, yeah, we're, we're the best. And you're the one that the leader needs to say, hey, yeah, that was a good job, but here's some mistakes we made. You gotta pull them back down. When the team loses and they're all bummed out, as a leader, you gotta say, hey, guys, yeah, we lost, but we learned these lessons. Here's where we're going to improve them. So that's a, a very good point. That sounds like your dad found that same exact thing. If you lose and you're crushed, he's not saying, you're damn right. You lost. You should have lost. No, he's saying, hey, you know, you, here's the lesson you learned. You're not going to make that mistake again.

• 16:14Jocko Willink?

  And if you won, or if you lost and you were blaming other people, blaming the ref, whatever, then he's gonna tighten you up and just pull you back in that other direction. That sounds like a really good way to handle things.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I, I don't know. I think that he, i- i- it was definitely coming from a foundation of just love, loving me, wanting me to be successful while also being passionate about what we were doing. But now I look back and I see so many kids who, well, I mean, not kids anymore. They're adults now, but who wrestled their whole life and who hate it now, or don't have a great relationship with their dad. And I'm a lot, there's a lot of questions in my mind. I'm like, how did we end up like that? Like, that's crazy that me and my dad are still so close and he coached me and we spent so much time together and you know, when the vast majority of people that were in a similar situation to me, they don't really have the same feelings.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  I think a lot of that comes down to alignment, right? Cause if there's a little meme out there, one of those little videos. And it's, it's, it's Matt Damon, the actor. And he's yelling at a kid. And they have like a, a picture of a, of the kid's bedroom. And there's like a squat rack in there and a pull up bar and like a bed.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know, he's saying, you know, after I remodeled my kid's room or something. And the kid's like, dad, I don't want to be like this. And he says, you need to do this. He says, why are you yelling at me? And he says, because it's a good dream. And so I, they clearly like that kid's not aligned with the dad. But for you, luckily you guys were aligned. And I think what you as a, this is my experience, what you have to do as a parent, what I have to do as a parent. What parents have to do is your kids, there's a decent chance like, hey, you might get lucky and your kid happens to want to be. You know, a wrestling champion or whatever, and that's what you're into? Cool. But if you want your kid to be a wrestling champion and they don't want to be a wrestling champion. That's where there's going to be a problem, just like in a marriage.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you, if you wanna make a bunch of money and that's what you're focused on, but your wife wants to have quality time with the family, there's a lack of alignment there and it's going to be a problem. So it sounds like you two were aligned. My recommendation for people is you have to align yourself with what your kids want. And look, if your kids, your kids are going to go through some phases where they want to do some dumb stuff. Right? So we're not going to go there, but as they grow up, they find out what they're interested. They find out what their passion is and you gotta, you gotta kind of get aligned with them. That's what you, that's what you kind of have to do. Now you say you knew.

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  How did you know? What did you know? How old were you when you knew?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  I would say when I first knew what I wanted to do. Um, I was probably like seven, you know, like, you know, that, that's at that point I knew. Just from being around who I was around, my dad was coaching individual state champions, state championship teams, guys that were going to college, competing on a national level. And so I saw that and I knew that's what I wanted to do, you know, at that moment, it was like, all right, I want to be a state champion, you know, in, in high school and obviously in youth and stuff. And after I do that, like, I want to be a national champion, I want to be a world champion. And so it was really, you know, just my environment and

• 19:34Speaker 01

  seeing people that that was a reality for. And, uh, very young, you know, I think I used to have this old TV that was like the big box with the, you could put the VHS in the bottom. And I had a VHS tape of, I want to say it was the 2002, it was either 2002 or 2003 NCAA finals. Like I, I got, like, that was maybe the first year they ever broadcast on ESPN. And Kale Sanderson was, um, that was the year he won his fourth NCAA title. And so, um, I would watch that like every night, like over and over and over again. And, you know, so that was, yeah, like I said, I was born in 96, so I was six or seven years old. And I knew like, that's what I wanted to do. I had my dad get me the same

• 20:18Speaker 01

  redhead gear like, like Kale and, um, you know, when I got more access to film for, that we used to have this DVD set of the best, the best Olympic trials and world champ, world championship trials matches. So we'd have John Smith, Randy Lewis, best two out of three. Kenny Monday, Dave Schultz, best two out of three. All these crazy, amazing wrestlers that competed. Um, that's what I was watching as a kid. I wasn't watching like Disney or movies or stuff like that. We'd go on a road trip to wherever and my sisters would be so mad because I would throw wrestling in the, in the DVD player. And that was just when I was a kid. And it was just what I loved. And, you know, I could

• 20:58Speaker 01

  automatically kind of just see a difference between me and kind of the other kids that I was around, what they're interested in. And even a difference between me and the, the kids I was around that were wrestlers that were competing at a high level, just by how much time I spent kind of obsessing over the sport, just because I loved it. Like, I didn't really have anybody, my dad never made me do that. My dad made me go to practice. And he, he made me train and, and, you know, he would take me to tournaments. But outside of that, there was a lot that went into it that was just my decision.

• 21:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, what age were you when you started training year round?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  See, that's that's another interesting question because I wasn't full time wrestling until I was a junior in high school.

• 21:44Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I I played football. I so I did tons of sports basically through eighth grade. And then in eighth grade, wrestling and football, and then ninth, 10th wrestling, football, and then there was honestly a time where I thought, hey, maybe I love wrestling so much, but I could probably play college football too. Like that was in my in my mind and, you know, once I got a little older, I realized that I just love wrestling too much. It's just too fun for me. It's too exciting and football is really fun, but I just identify with it on a different level. It's more of the the team camaraderie, that that aspect of sport that I really like, but

• 22:28Speaker 01

  wrestling was just more me, you know, it's it's me out there and and and it's more my personality of hey, at the end of the day, win or lose is on me. I want it to be that way. I don't want to rely on it. Whether or not a kicker makes a field goal in the last 10 seconds, like for us to win. You know, I I'm just not that that that didn't fit my personality as well.

• 22:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, they say that that that specialization of young kids isn't as good as people think it is. It's better to have them do a wide variety of sports. They just become more overall athletic. So apparently that worked with you.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  I would 100% agree with that. I think that when I look at a lot of my teammates in college who only wrestled their whole life, they're really only able to kind of move in one kind of way. There's not a lot of difference differentiation of movement in general. It's kind of like that's how they move and but I see guys that do other sports and it's very unique, right? And I think they just kind of have maybe more upside. And in addition to that, I think it's, I said, I don't identify with the the team sports as much, but I do love team sports and that that social component and having to work together is such a big part of of sport in general that I think socially, if you start at five years old and you only ever do an individual sport, golf,

• 23:46Speaker 01

  tennis, wrestling, you know, you kind of don't get that.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  That uh socialization of competing together with people and having to uh work as a team and and know know your your part and your place and and and do that. So to me, I'm grateful for having done sports for for those two reasons, right? Like the the physical aspect of being able to move differently, but also the the social aspect of knowing how to interact with people and how to deal with teammates and how to kind of struggle together, but also um like come out on the other end and like win together.

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  What were you doing with school, like actual schoolwork? Did you care? Did you try? Were you like slacking?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  No, so I don't know um why, but I've just always was good at school. Like, it was easy for me. I never studied. Um, the first time I ever studied for anything was probably my freshman year of college. And I mean, in high school, I basically, I never got a B. I was like straight A's, elementary school, middle school, high school. And I think that, you know, I I liked certain aspects of school. I liked math. I liked history. Um, and the other, to me, it was just like, I'm just gonna do my best, regardless of what I'm doing. And and and that was my best. I think in college, I lost that a little bit the first couple of years because I just didn't care. I was like, I'm here to wrestle. Let's be

• 25:13Speaker 01

  real. Like, no, this is this is what I'm here for. So I'm not gonna kid around. So, you know, I'd I'd miss class here and there. And um, my my kind of got away from a little bit of that. I mean, I still did well in school. I had like, you know, three point O or something like that, but it wasn't what I could have been doing. And I just remember my coach came up to me and was like, talking to me about it. I'm like, Coach, I don't like, I'm gonna wrestle. Like, I'm not gonna, you know, I thought I wanted maybe go to med school or something. I was like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna wrestle. And then he's like, I get it. I get it. But you can't be doing this and not, if you're gonna do something, you should just do your best. And I was like, that's a great point. So then, you know, after that, it was it was all, it didn't matter to me what my my grade was. It was all effort based. So it was, I'm not gonna miss a class that I that I'm like, if I don't have to, like, if I'm traveling

• 25:58Speaker 01

  for wrestling, obviously, I have to. But I'm not gonna miss any class. I'm gonna sit in the front row. I'm gonna be engaged. And my grades got a lot better. Ended up with like a three, two, three, three, something like that. And uh, yeah, it was, I think that's the main thing for me was in school.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Just do your best. That's, that's it.

• 26:16Jocko Willink?

  So you didn't stay in Wyoming, though. Did you, your next move was to New Mexico?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah. So at about fifth grade, so I was like maybe 11, 12. My mom and dad, my mom did not like Wyoming. It was like crap weather. We lived in a town of 5,000 people. And it was just not really her type of environment, you know, and so then. And, and in addition to that, it was just a small town, you know, my, my parents were looking for good opportunities for myself or my sisters. And so. My dad got a head coaching job offer in New Mexico at a school called Rio Rancho, which had. One of like honestly a lot of top programs in the country. There was tons of kids there that were just super, super high level and.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  You know, my mom was like, this is definitely a little better weather and the environment's a little nicer and stuff. So. Made the move there and yeah, live, live there for a few years. And that's really where. I started, I was serious about wrestling before that, but that's where I started almost doubling down on it even more.

• 27:20Jocko Willink?

  But you still weren't training full time?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  No. So basically my schedule would be.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  You know, the, the fall months, August, like maybe end of July, August through. October football, but and, and it depended like I would probably hit one or two wrestling training sessions a week.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And then maybe like I would do one, one tournament or something like that, like during football season, but. It was, it was mainly just football. I'd have those three, four months out of the year to just focus on football. And then the summer I would do. Other sports, tracker, baseball, but. The other sports weren't as serious. It would be like. You know, I would, I would just basically still be doing a full wrestling schedule through those sports.

• 28:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you were training year round?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I was I was training. I would say this, I was training. If you look at it, cumulative is probably 10 months out of the year.

• 28:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  I just did everything. I just loved it.

• 28:17Jocko Willink?

  So other than football season, you're wrestling?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:20Jocko Willink?

  And you you made varsity your eighth grade when you were in eighth grade?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so um, it's interesting, interesting story. I weighed 100 pounds, so it was 103 at the time. Yeah, so basically, uh, what was gonna happen was I had a really good football team um, that year and I was also a little small. So I mean, not like super small, but like somewhat small. So between seventh and eighth grade, we were all gonna get held back and it was gonna be like create this super team for sports and it was gonna be insane.

• 28:52Jocko Willink?

  And all the parents got together, we're just like, yo, we got this.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  We're doing this. Yeah. And it was like, okay, let's do it. And so, yeah, and and and but we were all on board, all the kids, because those were all like my best friends. So I was like, yeah, let's do this. And then we'll all be just basically do this do this year over. And so we we go to do it and they're like, okay, everybody, all these other kids can do it, but you can't do it. And I was like, and and they're like, your your state test scores are too high. We can't allow you to get held back. And I'm like, what the frick? But like, this doesn't make any sense. They're like, you scored at this grade level, whatever. Like, there's no way to we're just not gonna allow it. And they're like, put their foot down.

• 29:31Jocko Willink?

  Nobody thought you had a bomb a test yet.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I should have. But um, I was just like, what are we gonna do? And my my dad was just super pissed because they let everybody go besides me. And so my dad's like, all right, you're gonna get homeschooled this year. And so in eighth grade, I was homeschooled and I just wrestled. And I I played on my football team too, but

• 29:51Jocko Willink?

  Did you still repeat the year then as a homeschooler?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  No, so I didn't repeat the year. So basically, we kind of just decided that since, oh, yeah. So so since I had to move up a grade, to stay with my football team, I basically, because it wasn't a school team, it was a club team.

• 30:09Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  I I couldn't do eighth grade because the the the years in school were like kind of weird, where like middle school is sixth, seventh, and then it was like the schedule didn't work out. So we're gonna homeschool you, we're gonna have you do football, and then you're allowed to do, as a homeschool athlete, the high school technically has to allow, like your local has to allow you to do one sport. And so obviously, I'm gonna do wrestling and um, In New Mexico, you can compete on varsity as an eighth grader because of just the way that state works. Like there's some states that just allow that. And so that year was really interesting because my parents were both working full time. They're teachers and coaching and stuff. And I was just at home.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Like I basically took a red shirt year and like it worked out.

• 30:58Jocko Willink?

  And you're thirteen.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  I was like thirteen. So I would wake up, I would work out, I would do like a P ninety X workout. I don't know if y'all even know this, but yeah, I would do a P ninety X workout. And then my parents, the first couple of weeks, they're like, all right.

• 31:12Jocko Willink?

  There's people like Googling P ninety X right now, gonna sign up for that.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so they're like, all right, here's all your school stuff. It's on the computer. You know, you got history, you got math, you got whatever, all these classes. And I was like, okay. So I did them for a week and then my parents like weren't really checking. I was like, I'm not doing that. So I didn't, I didn't do school. I just basically took that whole year and I worked out and wrestled and did and played football at the beginning. But it was mostly just working out and wrestling.

• 31:41Jocko Willink?

  And the wrestling was just with the high school?

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what I would do was, and what I had been doing up to, you know, from fifth grade on is, and I would do the high school practice, which would be a little earlier. So it'd be like right after school, three thirty PM to five thirty PM. And then I'll go straight to club practice, six thirty to whatever, eight. And so I would do.

• 32:03Jocko Willink?

  That's like four and a half hours of wrestling.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, most days, that's what I was doing. I would do two. Yeah. And then I would lift in the morning.

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  Early you're saying you weren't like a full time wrestler and here you are just doing nothing but wrestling.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I just loved it.

• 32:16Jocko Willink?

  I homeschool my son for a few years and he sounded like he had a very similar schedule year, but it was all surfing and.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  It was great for me. I mean, it worked out because I was somebody that I didn't really. It was just what I needed at the time, you know.

• 32:33Jocko Willink?

  Were your sisters? No, you're just home alone.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  So I had one sister, she's a year younger than me, that she was homeschooled as well. So it was me and her and we would just hang out.

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  But you're 13 years old home by yourself, just doing whatever.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  What did you eat, dude?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Dude, the worst. I would like, well, it wasn't all bad. It was like 50% the worst, but I would make brownies like every day. I would literally, I learned how to make brownies with the old, like Betty Crocker box or whatever. And I would just like make a tray of brownies and eat them every day. I don't even think my parents knew.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And I would watch movies. I would watch like, uh, the one movie I watched a hundred times. I watched Joe Dirt.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  And I just thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

• 33:14Jocko Willink?

  How'd you do your, your varsity or your freshman year or your eighth grade year? How'd you do?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I did okay. Um, so our team was very good. So we would travel all over. We'd go to, you know, we'd go up to Colorado. We'd go to Kansas. We'd go to California. We'd wrestle and, you know, all kinds of big tournaments. And I don't remember how many times I lost, probably hmm, four or five times. And, uh, I ended up taking second in the state, which crushed me. It was the worst. Like I wanted to be, I had never lost at a state tournament. So from the time I was six, when I did my first state tournament in wrestling, uh, youth wrestling, freestyle, Greco folk style. So three, three state tournaments a year. I never lost at a state tournament until the eighth grade, my first year of varsity, make the finals.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  And I'm actually wrestling a kid that was an old teammate of mine who transferred to a different school. And who I'd beat, uh, I beat a couple of times. He beat me maybe once and he fricking, he got me and it was devastating. It was, it was, it was hard. But, uh, yeah, I mean, overall it was a, it was.

• 34:19Jocko Willink?

  He was the same age as you?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  No, he was like three or four years older.

• 34:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause that's the thing people got to understand is. In high school, when you're wrestling, you're wrestling by weight, but you know, different people have different

• 34:29Speaker 01

  So different.

• 34:30Jocko Willink?

  In life. And so you can, you, you were probably often, actually probably, you were probably always wrestling guys that were seventeen or eighteen years old.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  You were thirteen.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  So what my dad would do, this is funny, but when I turned, I think it started when I turned nine. So when I, when up till nine, I was probably wrestling like at six and seven and eight, probably forty, fifty matches a year. At nine, it was like, I've done this for real. I was wrestling like over a hundred matches a year. What I would do is I'd wrestle the nine tens, I'd wrestle eleven, twelve. So I'd wrestle ten and under. I wrestle twelve and under. And I would wrestle twenty matches in a weekend sometimes. It was like insane. And then by the time I graduated the, the ten and under division, so when I turned eleven, I would wrestle eleven, twelve. And then the next division was fifteen and under. So I was eleven and I'd wrestle fifteen year olds.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And that was the standard for me. And I wasn't just doing like local tournaments like this. I would go to like a, a, a big tournament with kids from twenty different states. And I would wrestle as an eleven year old, I'd wrestle eleven, twelve, and I'd wrestle thirteen, fourteen, fifteen as well. So I'd wrestle, like I said, twenty matches in a weekend and competing against everybody. My dad was just trying to get me, get me matches.

• 35:43Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So, uh, I just have to send out some advisory information here. Cause I did that too with my kids.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:51Jocko Willink?

  And, and it wasn't good because I would put my kids, when they were younger, lower belts and, and lower, they were lower weights and I'd make them wrestle up age, make them wrestle up belts and make, make them wrestle up weights. And so they'd get their asses kicked sometimes.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:14Jocko Willink?

  And. I would, in my mind, you know, my inner dialogue was like, I'm making really tough kids. And in their minds, it was, I'm not good at this.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  I suck.

• 36:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, I suck. This isn't fun. I don't want to do this. And what you want your kids to do is have fun. That's what you want. And winning is fun. Losing is not fun. I, I think, I'm trying to remember where I got this from. Maybe it's Huberman, but I don't know who it is. Eighty percent.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Jordan Peterson.

• 36:44Jocko Willink?

  Jordan Peterson. Eighty percent. That's what you want. You want to win eighty percent of the time. So if you can get your kids to win eighty percent of the time, that's good. Twenty percent of the time they lose. Then they, oh, I can do this and they feel good about themselves. You don't want to do twenty percent win and eighty percent lose because then they don't want to practice and they want to get better. Uh, how often were you winning when you were eleven years old going against fifteen year olds?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  So I'll disagree with him a little bit because if I would have lost two matches every ten matches I wrestled, I would have been furious. I would have like been so mad. So I probably won ninety-five percent of my matches. You know, I was probably, if I wrestled a hundred matches in a year, I would lose, you know, four or five.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  But.

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Against kids that were four years older than you.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there would be kids that were my age that would beat me too. You know, like I would go to, there was this big tournament, Tulsa Nationals. Like Tulsa Nationals was the tournament. You get kids from everywhere. And I never won it as a kid. I would always be, you know, second, third, like right in there. I never, I always placed high, but I never, I never won. Like one year, I actually took sixth. And if you look at it, there's this crazy picture online where if you look at the five, the six guys, there's like ten national titles, seventeen All-American honors, like multiple world champions. It's like crazy. Like in this Tulsa Nationals, you know, you look, it was, I'm trying to remember the guys. It was Dean Heil, who's multiple time national champion.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Joey McKenna, uh, Ohio State wrestler Zach Hall, Isaiah Martinez, um, Anthony Valencia. There was maybe like one other guy and, and me and I was, and I, I was the sixth out of all of those guys. But, uh, yeah, so I was losing at a pace that for me was, was good. It was like every loss would really hit me hard, but it would, I would be motivated from it.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  Right. Yeah. And I think that. You know, if you're a parent and your kid is obviously doing well, like for instance, let's say you hadn't wrestled as much and you got into it when you were in eighth grade and your dad, your dad wouldn't throw you to the Tulsa tournament and let you get annihilated because he would have been like, oh no, we're gonna go over and beat up some of these kids in this local tournament and it's all good.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting, this whole, this whole personality that you have, that you sat here for like fifteen minutes and said that you didn't really wrestle that much as a kid and it turns out you were competing 100 matches a year. Oh man. This is not normal, Bo.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  I'll say this, I, it, it, I wasn't exclusively, exclusively wrestling. I was doing it a lot, obviously, like as we can tell, you know, I was seven, eight years old wrestling, I mean, by the time I was 10, I had probably 500 matches, you know, like crazy, but, um, but it was to me, not the only thing I had, like I had a lot of other things going on as well. I don't know, the, well, the big question to me is, I don't know how my parents managed it because they were both working, my dad was coaching, he was traveling with his team, like how, he missed in my whole youth, all, all the way up until I got to college, one tournament of mine and I did terrible.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  I was like 12 and I was like, got wrecked, but, uh, yeah, I mean, my whole youth, I'm like, the math doesn't really check out there because he has a full-time job and he's also coaching a team, so how does this work? But I don't, I'm just like, he did it, so.

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  Was he your coach always in high school?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so basically what happened was.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, that helps, obviously.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so up until the eighth grade, we lived in New Mexico, he was always the head coach of the high school, he would have obviously assistants and then, you know, run the youth program as well, so he was with me, coaching me, um, every day. And then, uh, when I. After the eighth grade, from eighth to ninth grade, my sisters were getting a little older. We started to realize New Mexico, it was, had a lot of good things, but the culture wasn't great. A lot of, a lot of gangs, a lot of like, you know, drugs, just kind of bad stuff. We're near Albuquerque. It was a rougher area. That's also kind of where I started fighting, where I started getting interested in fighting, because big fight culture in that area.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  But they, they just didn't really want, it wasn't really me, it was more so my sisters kind of coming up in that type of environment. So we were looking for places to go that had great wrestling and were more of a family type of environment. And so we ended up moving to Texas and my dad also didn't want to, he was spending so much time coaching and wrestling. He wanted to spend some more time with my sisters and he decided to kind of take a backseat and just be, be a dad. Be, maybe do like some assistant coaching work. And once we got to Texas, he basically just coached me and that was it. And he wasn't like official, he was a teacher, but he didn't coach like on the high school team officially until the coach was like, please like help us. And then.

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Now, you said in New Mexico, you started getting, and I quote, interested in fighting. Does that mean you were getting scraps?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I, I always kind of, be, just being like a, a boy in wrestling and playing football. It's like, that's a normal thing, right? Like scrapping. But in New Mexico, it really got turned up to like a hundred because we were right near Jackson's. That was right when all these dudes were coming out of there that were absolute killers, you know, Rashad Evans, K. Jardine, Cowboy Stone, like so many, so many guys. And so that was just such a normal thing. So what we do at these tournaments, fir- first off, like my friends and I would just fight. It'd be like, oh, let's just fight for fun, you know? And then what we started doing was we'd go to wrestling tournament, local tournament at a high school or whatever. And we'd get.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  You know, fifteen, twenty kids, right? And we'd go back hallway where nobody was, you know, uh, the term is in the gym. We'd go out the gym through the cafeteria or whatever and find a back hallway where no parents were, nobody was. And we'd just get in a circle and we'd just fight. So you'd wrestle your match, boom, you go out there, you'd fight. You'd go wrestle, you'd go fight. So I would get like ten wrestling matches and I would like fight ten kids at the same, like the same day. And, uh, that was just what I, what I started doing. It was just fun. I just loved it. But it was, uh, yeah, a little crazy, but that's just kinda where I first got introduced to, to fighting and, and, and saw it as something that I was just, I was like, I like this, you know?

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, right on. Now, moving to Texas, wrestling's not huge in Texas. And did your dad, he must've looked at like Pennsylvania, Iowa, like he must, California. What, what, what made him settle on Texas?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, we looked at, um, Iowa City, we looked at Blair Academy in New Jersey. We looked at Poway, um, all, could, could have been out there, which would have been crazy, but yeah, all these schools very good. Um, so I remember my mom, my dad and I were driving out to Texas, um, to kind of just scope the area, take the job interviews and stuff. And, uh, so I get there and the people were just so nice right away, just awesome people. The high school was massive. The football team was like the number one team in the country. They had all these crazy plans. They had all this strength conditioning stuff in place with, with the high school and everything was like, it seemed like a college. It was insane.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  And, uh, so my parents saw that they had a, um, high school science teacher, which is, that's what my dad does. And they had a middle school PE teacher, which is what my mom does. Like those jobs were available and it was like, okay, that's a little weird that these two jobs are perfectly already available. So they interview, they get the jobs on the spot and then they're like, okay, like, give us like a day to think about it. And we're driving back and.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  This is, we, we just found out about, basically the, the high school I went to was Allen High School. We found out about this place five days earlier, maybe less. And then, you know, got the jobs and they're driving back and my parents were just like, if this isn't God telling us where we need to be, like, I don't even know. So, call back, accept the jobs. And then the next week, I moved to Texas and lived that summer with, um, my, one of my now best friends and, uh, his family and just did their summer strength and conditioning program. And did like some summer football and stuff and, uh, wrestled, obviously. And then my parents and sisters moved out like the end of the summer. So it was, it happened so fast. It was like, oh, we're, we're in New Mexico, but we're kinda interested in other places.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  And then a week later, I was in Texas. It was like insane.

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  And did you, so you played football too?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I played football for two years there and, uh, the high school team's insane. So, um, I think my, my freshman sophomore year, there were maybe state quarterfinals, state semis. But then my junior, senior year and then the next like two or three years, state champion, number one team in the country, sixty game unbeaten streak. Now, the quarterback when I was in school was, uh, Kyler Murray. He's the quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. They have like, I don't even know, probably ten guys that were on the team that play in the NFL now. Yeah, so the team was stacked and, and I, I love playing and stuff. Um, but I just, I, after, it, it, it's so different in Texas when you're playing football. It's not football season. It's, first off, we're gonna do football season. It's sixteen weeks.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  It's twelve regular season games and, or ten regular season games and six playoff. It's like, it's a lot. You go till Christmas. And then as soon as you're done with that, it's, all right, we're powerlifting the next three months. Okay, we're done powerlifting. We got full pad spring ball season. So there's whatever, twelve weeks of full pad spring ball. Okay, summer, seven on seven. We're going to Arkansas. We're going to Oklahoma. We're playing seven on seven. It's like, that's all year for them. So, I did it for two years and I was, I was playing well and like, I, I probably would have been, you know, uh, I wouldn't have been the best player on the team, but I would have been a, a guy that contributed a lot on the team and stuff. And I was like, But I wasn't committed like these other kids. I was like, I'm not gonna not wrestle.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Like I'm like, I'm doing well in season, but I'm not gonna take all this and I do spring ball, but I can't do everything else. So in my mind, I had to pick. I just got to that age where I was like, I gotta pick a path.

• 46:55Jocko Willink?

  How'd you do your freshman year in wrestling?

• 46:57Speaker 01

  So my freshman year wrestling, I did well. I had a couple of losses. Um, I, I had gotten a little bigger. So my eighth grade, I was about a hundred pounds. My freshman year, I weighed about one twenty, one twenty-five. And, uh, I made the state finals again as a freshman and, uh, had an insane match with this kid who was a senior, who's like two-time defending state champion, and he ended up beating me. And so I got second again and crushed me. I just remember like, oh, that was probably up to that point in my life, definitely the hardest thing I had, which I'm, it seems like, you know, I'm very blessed. Like I didn't have a lot of like trauma outside of that, but that was the hardest thing I had to deal with. Cause like, it was like, all

• 47:40Speaker 01

  right. Well, I can't be a five-time state champion, which I was never really like a big thing on my mind. I was like, but I'm gonna win every year when I'm actually in high school and then boom, can't do it. And I'm like, oh, like I just ran straight out into the parking lot and just like, was crushed for an hour. My dad came, got me, was like, hey, you gotta get your medal. Like, you gotta go on the podium, like, take a picture. And I was like, no, I'm not doing that. And he was like, no, come on, you gotta. But yeah, it was rough.

• 48:05Jocko Willink?

  How long did it take you to get through that?

• 48:08Speaker 01

  So.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  Did you like immediately Dan Gable just like start training even harder?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, kind of, you know, um, it was right after that, you know, I, I had like, I don't really remember. I kind of like blanked it out to be honest, you know, I, I know that summer I was wrestling at Fargo National Tournament and I did okay and stuff and, um, but I was still like, I just kind of just had so much going on between just being a kid and school and football and wrestling that I was just, it was just like right back on it, you know, and, and I didn't really, I don't think it had processed that a lot. But, uh, it was, it, it was something that it motivated me because of how bad I hurt. So anytime I go into a training session, that's what I would think about. I would just be like.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Dude, you wanna feel that again, or are you gonna like, are you gonna wimp out in this workout? You wanna feel like that, like that, what are you gonna do?

• 48:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:59Jocko Willink?

  My, my daughter, after she would wrestle, I couldn't talk to her for twenty minutes, whether she won or lost.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:07Jocko Willink?

  If she won, and I went over and said, hey, good job, she'd be like.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:11Jocko Willink?

  She was.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Emotional, yeah.

• 49:12Jocko Willink?

  And then if she lost, I'd go, you know, that girl was tough.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:16Jocko Willink?

  My son, no emotions, win or lose, just this, just looked like nothing happened.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  Like he looked like he just walked out of the grocery store.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  He just had, you know, an overtime match and pinned a guy or got pinned or whatever, and he was like, I'd be like, hey, good job. He'd be like.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  So interesting.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  I have videos of both of them, and you're like, how are these kids related?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  That's so interesting.

• 49:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, totally different.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  It was always really emotional for me, um, as a kid, at least, because I put so much into it. So, I feel like there was, at that point, it was like, unless I, like, if I did what I wanted to do, I was like, ah, whatever, cool, I did it. But if I lost, it was like, crushed me, or if I won in a way that I wasn't, you know, sufficient, then I was like.

• 50:01Jocko Willink?

  Insufficient.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, if it was like insufficient.

• 50:03Jocko Willink?

  Winning.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, let's say, like, I was just mad, because I'd be like, and at that point, it would be like, a lot of excuses, like, well, he was stalling, he backed, like, why would this guy wrestle me? And I'd be like, and then I had to grow out of that, though, you know, so, um, it was just, yeah, very, very emotional thing, which I, I just, it was good and bad, right? Like, if you let that control you, it's gonna end up really affecting you a lot, and it did, you know, even through my college career. But, once you learn, you have to learn a lot about yourself to be able to kind of move past that and, and use it efficiently versus letting it kind of dictate how you feel.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  Are you cutting weight at this point?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  No, not really, no, so, I, I weighed a hundred, my freshman year, I wrestled one oh three, you know, I'd cut a little weight here and there, maybe my, uh, my freshman year, I weighed, or excuse me, eighth grade, I was a hundred. My freshman year, I was one twenty-five, I'd maybe get up to one twenty-nine, you know?

• 50:59Jocko Willink?

  So nothing.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  I didn't cut, really, I never cut. My senior year of high school, I wrestled one eighty-two, and I weighed a hundred seventy pounds. It was best for the team, for me to just be overweight, so. I was just, yes, I just.

• 51:09Jocko Willink?

  Gave up twelve pounds?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  I've never been a big weight cutter, you know, even in college, I started off one seventy-four. Sophomore, junior, I went up to eighty-four. My senior, I was one ninety-seven, weighing two-hundred, maybe. So, I was weighing probably, actually, I'd finished practice, one ninety-four, one ninety-five, so.

• 51:27Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's crazy.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  That's just what I weighed. I'd just never been a weight cutter. I don't really. I always focused on getting better at wrestling. Weight cutting's obviously an important part of the sport, and, you know, I would do it here and there, um, but, you know, I just, I just wasn't interested in doing that. I was interested in getting better.

• 51:45Jocko Willink?

  So, you're state champ, tenth grade?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was a big, like, right, right or wrong for me. So, that was, that was a big moment. I felt, like, alright, we're kind of turning a corner here, yeah.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  Same thing eleventh grade.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got a lot better. So, that was the first year I just did wrestling exclusively, and, I went from probably a ten to, like, a, like, maybe like an eight to twelve kid in the country, to like, number one.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  You still are gonna like, roll into some duel meets or something, where you've got some kid that's been wrestling for like, two years, right?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah. So, I got a good story about that. So, and especially in Texas.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  There's just not good wrestling in general. Like, you get to the state tournament, the finals, there's one, there was one division at the time, so, you're gonna wrestle somebody good. It's a huge state, there's gonna be somebody, but, you're at the district tournament, or whatever, and it's like, this kid might be his first year, you know, and I'm like, the number one kid in the country. So, I remember one year, uh, I, we, we, so our, our rival in football was this school, South Lake Carroll. They're a Dallas school, very good at football, and, uh, we were wrestling them in a duel meet, and I was like, got all my boys, I'm like, yo, come out to this duel, it's gonna be sick, like, South Lake Carroll, let's do it. We were getting posters in the hallways and promoting it. We never got people at the duels. We'd get-

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Eighty people, maybe, because nobody cared about wrestling. Our team was state champ. We won state up to this year, like thirteen years in a row, like my high school team. We were, as a team, my junior year, a top ten team in the country. We were very good. But nobody cared about wrestling, but this one duel, I was like, yo, like, let's get it. And we had probably six hundred people there, you know, like, there was a lot. And I was like, this is gonna be crazy. This is gonna be sick. And I go out and I'm looking and I'm like, this kid is so bad. Like, he can't even walk straight, basically. And I'm like, what am I gonna do here? And, and I'm still, you know, young, so I don't really know. And I just low single off the whistle, pull his foot, and he just like, boom, falls back. And I just like jumped on him.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  And I pinned the kid in like four seconds. It was crazy. Like, no exaggeration. I, I know four seconds might sound like a hyperbole. Like, I'm not exaggerating. It was four seconds. And the ref was like, bing, slapped him at. And all my buddies were like,

• 54:05Jocko Willink?

  What? We came out here for this.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was, I was like, damn, I probably shouldn't have done that. I probably should have taken him down a few times, made it cool, but, whatever, you know? So, yeah, that's, you would get that once in a while, with just kids that, you know, don't, never wrestled, right? Like, they're just, they're just like, oh, I'll just try wrestling. Like, oh, frick, this is what we're doing.

• 54:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you probably could have wrestled like the entire weight class all the way up.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  Then, so you, you said you're the number one in the country right now. What are they basing that off? Are they basing that off of those big, like, Tulsa tournaments and stuff like that?

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so the Tulsa tournaments are really just youth, so up to eighth grade. But then, once you get into high school, there's different sets of tournaments, so.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  Is that like Sunkist Kids and those? Is that still youth?

• 54:47Speaker 01

  That's still youth. Yeah. So, in, in high school, you have the big tournaments during the folkstyle season are the Ironman. The Super Thirty Two is a big tournament. They have, they just have like big high school tournaments. And then in the off season, you have. Like uh like Fargo tournaments, you have um now you have a like U seventeen and U twenty world team trials. So those are very big. So it's basically just how you're doing against these other guys in the high school season, in the offseason. And my team was traveling everywhere. So we'd be in Ohio, Wisconsin, California, Oklahoma, like we were wrestling all over the country. So

• 55:23Jocko Willink?

  And you're winning these tournaments.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:24Jocko Willink?

  And that's why you're number one in the country.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:26Jocko Willink?

  Coming out of Texas.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, just you know, most it's it's a small sport. So you go to a tournament like you're probably gonna if you go to a big tournament, like let's say you go to a big tournament in Missouri and you get fifty teams there, you're gonna get probably one or two kids in your bracket that are ranked, right? Like, you know, just kind of the way it works. But yeah, so you're you're competing against these kids regularly. A lot of these kids I wrestled since I was little, right? Like wrestled them as an eight year old. Now I'm wrestling them in college. Like, that's not a uncommon thing.

• 55:57Jocko Willink?

  When does the recruiting process start? Or when did it start for you?

• 56:01Speaker 01

  I would say right about then. Um, I was looking at schools, kind of trying to figure out where I wanted to go my junior year. Um, we'd have college coaches, you know, talk to me, especially ones that were close, like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and then schools that were maybe a little smaller that wanted to like get in early and try to um, they just have to recruit differently than a big school. But it really started heavy, I would say, yeah, like right after my junior year. So I committed to Penn State in between my junior and senior year. But really, like the end of my junior year, it was like heavy.

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  And like, do they do they reach out to you?

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they'll they'll send letters at first, maybe like request your transcripts, stuff like that. But a lot of times, you know, you're traveling to tournaments and you you just see guys there, you know, like I said, again, it's a small world. So you just know coaches, right? Like when I was probably fifth, sixth grade, we had my dad brought Coach Kale in for a clinic at my high school. So at this time, he was competing. So like he um, but it was uh, like, like, so so we knew him, right? Like, we'd talk to him. Like, we see him at a tournament, like, we would say hello, you know, like, so a lot of the the coaches, they they know me or they know my dad at least. So I can just text him, you know, I don't know if that's legal, but. Like Penn State didn't do that, but they were.

• 57:23Jocko Willink?

  Of course, they didn't.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  I'll say this.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Penn State is so by the book, it's insane. Like every other school didn't really, like they were just basically hit me up, mess me on Twitter, this and that. Penn State, they started late and they, they came in at the very end.

• 57:40Jocko Willink?

  But you knew Kale already?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't say I, we knew him. Like, like I said, I'd done clinic and it wasn't like I was friends with him or my dad was friends with him, but like we knew each other and he was, he's from Utah. So kind of like Utah, Wyoming, Colorado. A lot of those people know each other. It's just they, they're wrestling on the same tournament, stuff like that.

• 58:01Jocko Willink?

  So was this like the easy decision for you or was there other schools that you thought about?

• 58:07Speaker 01

  There were a lot of other schools. So up until that point, I had, I took a bunch of unofficial visits. So I visited University of Virginia. I liked them a lot. I visited Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, um, Ohio State. Basically what happened was, um,

• 58:24Speaker 01

  I wrestled at a tournament in Ohio. It was the whatever U seventeen world team trials. And before the tournament, I went to Columbus and visited Ohio State and met with the coaches and stuff. And I was like, oh, this is, this is great. I love this place. It's awesome. And they had been in contact with me and stuff and they're like, all right, full scholarship, you're set. Let's do it. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, you know, I want to visit Penn State as well. Cause I'm, I planned to visit Penn State right after. So I wrestled a tournament and then my dad and I drive to state college, visit Penn State. Vibe is so different, but I love it. They're like, so this, I just remember this, they just come, everything with Ohio State was,

• 59:03Speaker 01

  which I loved Ohio State, but it was so flashy. Like they took me to football facilities. I remember with the quarterback, it was like JT Barrett or somebody like that. He's throwing passes to receiver. They're like showing me like this is big time. This is cool. I'm like, this is cool. Wow. This is incredible. I get to Penn State. I go up into the coach's office. The office is like this big. It's like normal couches and they're like, so what's up? Like? You like wrestling? I'm like, I like wrestling. Like, do you guys like wrestling? Like, we're just like having a conversation. They're just trying to get to know me and stuff and very, very casual, laid back. And then I walked around campus and stuff and I was like, I like these guys. Let's, let's make it, let's figure this out. Every other school at that point had been 100%. Your school's paid for, you're good to go. And then Penn State, I was like, a few weeks later,

• 59:49Speaker 01

  my family was taking vacation to the Cayman Islands. We never took a family vacation. This was the first one we ever took together because I was always wrestling. And they were like, I'm like, I want to get this college thing figured out before I go on a seven day vacation and don't have my phone and stuff. So I was just told the coaches, I'm like, yo, make me an offer. Like, what are you guys gonna do? And they're like, okay, here's what we can do. We can do 50% your first year because we have a big recruiting class. After that, we'll give you 100%. So you're gonna have to come out of pocket, out of state tuition, 50%, 25 grand, something like that. And I was like, done, let's do it. I'll, I'm ready. And I called Coach Kale, good with me? I'm committing to Penn State, let's do it.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  And then, then I leave on vacation and somehow the news got out a little bit. I, I told, I was like, don't tell anybody, like, keep this between us, like, don't say anything. And I don't think, I don't know how it got out. Coaches told somebody, I don't know. But anyways, I come back and they're like, a couple missed calls, a couple texts, blah, blah, what's up? So then I have to call every coach because I didn't want to just, now people just do announcement on Twitter and then people figure it out. I wanted to be like, these coaches invest a lot of time into me. So I'm gonna call, you know, John Smith, I'm gonna call Tom Brans. I'm gonna have a conversation with these guys and let them know where I'm going before it's tweeted live, which was interesting.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  So that's what happened?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It was, it was the right thing to do. It was definitely not fun, but it was, it wasn't that bad.

• 1:01:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just like, I only had one bad experience.

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Jocko Willink?

  We'll keep that one for off recorded.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Jocko Willink?

  When, when you're, you're in high school, you're kind of, you're just dominating, but you're doing these other tournaments. Did you start doing, did your dad, did your coaches, were you started doing anything like from a mental perspective to get ready to compete?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  That's a great question. Um, in high school, I'm trying to think, in high school, it was just all honestly intuition, off the cuff, like.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  You know, my dad, I think, was just a good natural leader in that. So the way he would structure his practices is we'd get our warm up in, he'd have everybody kind of do like a team, maybe some pushups, some, some like abs type work. And then he would give everybody like a quote of the day, do like a quote of the day, kind of some type of mental motivation or mental, um, how to approach competition or practice or focus, whatever that was. It was different every day. And then, so it was something that was kind of talked about as, uh, in, in that sense, but I didn't do specific coaching to me until I got to college. And, uh, but, but I felt like I had a good base and understanding of just kind of the, the

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  natural like mental game of how to, how to compete. But there were still a lot of things that I think that were holding me back.

• 1:02:44Jocko Willink?

  When you were in high school and you were getting ready to do your, the finals in the state tournament, what was going through your mind? 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade?

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So in high school, you know, I think that the main thing that I would think about was, obviously, winning and losing was on my mind heavy, but I would think like, just push that down. Just don't think about it. Just go out there and send it. Like, just get after it. Like, go out there and freaking go for it. And that, that's kind of was like my coping mechanism was, was, I'm just gonna go for it. Like, like, whatever. Like, let's go. Let's do it. Like, I don't care. Like, kind of just like cowboy up. Like, let's go. And, and that's kind of was my only real mental kind of strategy for dealing with stress and pressure and competition while I was in high school, which it would work out a few

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  times, but not, not as consistently as that would I would have liked it to be.

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we, we actually, I got asked a question about this, handling stress, and we did a podcast about it. And I, for the first time in my life, thought about what I did going into stressful situations. And what I came up with was like, everything in the beginning was all like, oh yeah, okay, you're gonna practice, you're gonna prepare, you're gonna rehearse, you're gonna do all these things, you're gonna think about how it's gonna go down. I had all those things, but there's one thing that I've been doing my whole life that I never really thought about, which is kind of very similar to what you just said, which is, Basically, up until the execution, I'm super humble, like I practice, prepare, plan, think through things, rehearse again, like all that stuff that comes from humility.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  And then like when I put my night vision goggles on, when I, when I lock and load my weapon, I'm like, I'm gonna kill everybody. Like I can't be stopped. Like we're gonna crush the enemy. So there's a level of cockiness that comes out.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Confidence.

• 1:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just like, okay, we're, I'm, I'm ready to go. And even if I'm going to talk to a group of people, like, I don't sit back, you know, backstage, like, oh, I hope I don't mess anything up. No, I think like, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, these people are gonna get their worlds rocked right now. Let's go. So I had this, just was doing archery up in, up in Montana. And I was shooting with Leif, my buddy. And I was shooting, and because we had done this podcast, I had this mindset. And I was going up there and we're doing the 3D archery shoot. And so there's freaking crazy targets, you know, they're between trees and up hills, down hills. There was one of them that was a little white rabbit at 72 yards. Like, these are hard freaking shots to make.

• 1:05:17Jocko Willink?

  And I, for the first time ever, I went through the whole course with one arrow, right? Which is hard to do. It's 25 shots, one arrow. And these are crazy shots. But I was talking to Leif and I told him that. And I was like, hey, bro, when I walk up to that line, I'm just like, I'm gonna freaking smoke this thing. And that's what happens, you know, you just, you just, because if you're thinking like, I hope I miss it. I hope I don't miss. I hope I don't hit that rock. I hope I don't hit that tree. You're guaranteed to hit that freaking tree. Just call timber before you shoot. You're gonna hit that tree. And so I think that's similar to what you're saying. And the interesting thing is, that's kind of how you, that's how you wrestle. Like, when people watch you wrestle, it's easy to see that you're going, I'm just gonna freaking get after it. I'm gonna send it.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. You know, I think that I just always had that. That was naturally just me, my personality. And it got kind of, I guess, highlighted and, and, you know, brought even more to the, to the front when I would compete. But at the same time, now I look back and there were a lot of mental things that I have added to my game and that I feel like, and things that I was also just doing incorrectly. Like, like just different focuses that now I'm like, I had to let those go. And I had to learn lessons that basically brought me to where I am now, right? Like, it's, it's ever evolving. And I'm sure in 10 years, when I look back at,

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Where I am now and be like dang, that's what I was thinking when I was prepared, you know, cause that, to me, that's the biggest part of it, right? Like, and I know everybody's gonna train hard, everybody's gonna have at what I'm doing, they're gonna have skills, they're gonna have certain things they're good at and you know, what's really gonna separate people is mentally how they're able to focus and be free and, and compete themselves, like and be themselves, right? Like that, that to me is what I, what I really try to focus on now because like I said, if you're a pro MMA fighter or you know, college wrestler, everybody's got reps dude, everybody's got reps. You gotta be elite, not only at that, you gotta have a different part of your game that sets you apart.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Just before we get into college, when you're growing up, you're doing like strength and conditioning with the football team at Allen for those first two years. Are you naturally strong? Are you one of these people that's like, like, look, your dad played football in college, your mom played basketball in college, like you have, you have good genes. Are you abnormally strong?

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  So I was always, I had an interesting strength. I was always explosive and fast. Like I could shoot very fast shots, I could, I could run pretty quick, I could change directions fast. But I was never a, a, a strong guy, a guy that's gonna grab you and you're gonna be like, whoa, what the heck? But I was a guy like, I could pick you up and put you down fast, but I had to work a lot from, all the way from high school through college, really. And, and still to this day, my, my weaker points are like that, that brute strength, right? Like that's not really, and, and I tailor my style around that. But I think you still have to have some of that. So that's what I work on. I work on the, you know,

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  the squat, the bench press, the friggin', just like, not to explode through somebody, but just like to grind somebody down. And that, that's the, that's to me, what doesn't come naturally. So I work on that a lot.

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  So you show up, you graduate, state champion, um, you only got it four times. You know, three, oh wait, oh, that's right. Cause you're a freshman. That's right. Dang, weak, man.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  I know. I still, I'm, I feel like at this point, how many years later is that? So 2010, so 13 years after, I'm a little okay with it. Like 1% of, I'm 1% okay. Actually, no, that's not true.

• 1:09:05Jocko Willink?

  So three time state champion, you graduate, finish your senior year, you go to Penn State. And you redshirt your first year, meaning you're there, but you're not participating, you're not, you're not competing.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Not competing on the official team. You know, I'm competing uh in open tournaments and stuff and, and training every day. And uh, that was a very interesting time. It was really interesting. I think back about that time in my life a lot. I think I'm in a similar time right now with MMA and getting into MMA. So yeah, yeah. Interesting, interesting stuff.

• 1:09:40Jocko Willink?

  And, and you basically decided to do this because it gives you another year to train, learn, get stronger, get more mature. And, and that's what you do. Cause how, how old are you at this point? Like 19?

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  I was 18. Yeah. So I, I was 18. Yeah. I um, basically for me, the red shirt, it made a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. I needed to develop and get better. I was very raw, naturally talented. I had some good fundamentals, but overall most of my wrestling was, it was wild gunslinging, like, you know, and, and I would come out on top most of the time, but there was a lot of risk. And I needed to develop the, a different side of my game. And uh, so I, I was like, you could put me out there against anybody. Even a guy way better than me and I got a shot, but that really wasn't what I was looking to do. I wasn't interested in

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  like being a guy that has a chance to win. I was interested in being the guy that you have no chance like to beat me. That was, that was what, so the red shirt year made sense.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  So you're working with Kale.

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  What are we calling him? The greatest collegiate wrestler of all time?

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely collegiate, easily.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  Just unbelievable and like a presence, right? And I've never met him, but like you can watch him and he just has a presence about him. Part of it's because he is the greatest, right? But there's, there's another component there, the thing you can't really identify. What's it like with him for the first year? What, what's that situation feel like?

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  So the situation's so interesting because like I said, he was my idol growing up. It was like the guy that I watched and he was that guy I wanted to be. And you know, I wanted to be a four time undefeated national champion because that's what he did. And you know, that's something that to me, for the first while, I'm just kind of watching him. I'm just like, wow, like what's up with this guy?

• 1:11:39Jocko Willink?

  He's quiet.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  He's very quiet. And this, so he, he does individual meetings with the guys at the beginning of the year, especially freshmen to kind of get a read on him. And I'm trying to figure him out and this is what he does. So I roll into his office, he's got like a big desk and he sits back and he just goes like this. He's like kind of swiveling in his chair and just staring at me and I'm like,

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  we sat there for like 60 seconds and nobody said anything, which is a long time. Like if you're actually doing it.

• 1:12:08Jocko Willink?

  It's a super awkward.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so he's like, like leaning and I'm like, so what's up, coach?

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Cause I'm waiting for him to say something. And, uh, but then, yeah, I don't really remember the rest of the meeting. I just remember that, but then I, I feel like he was trying to figure me out. But yeah, and, and I think the first bit was just figuring him out and being around him, kind of understanding what he thinks about, what he focuses on, what he wants me to do. Like what, what do you expect of me, coach? Obviously expecting to win, but how do I get there? And I think that first year was mostly learning through absorbing it, just being in, in that environment and just absorbing it and seeing not only him, but the rest of the coaching staff, the rest of the team, how they do things, what they focus on, what, what their mentality is like. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I tried to really.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Really like be present and be around him and and and really like I was wrestling him a ton and just like absorb everything that that he was kind of putting out. But it was it was a big learning curve because like I said, I was very raw and had a lot of good skills, had a lot of success, but had in my mind, you know, just as many kind of flaws in in my in my game and in my mentality.

• 1:13:28Jocko Willink?

  What's the what's the culture? How would you describe the culture there? This, by the way, this is Penn State right now. They're the they're the kings, right? What's their what's their record right now? Past 10, 15 years?

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we've won. We've won 10 of our last 12 national titles and it's just insane. So, yeah.

• 1:13:46Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what's that? What's driving that? What's the culture feel like?

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because everybody talks about how much we win, but we really never talk about winning. It it's all about, you know, the principles that the program are are built on. It's it's gratitude. It's knowing what you want. It's um, taking care of each other and and focusing on effort. Like really, really, at the end of the day, those are those are the main things. It's like effort, gratitude, know what you want, kind of in that in in a different order though. It's it's know what you want. It's effort. It's gratitude in in the in the correct order. So that's the things that that I was learning. And I think that they just take things to it, take things to a different level as far as attention to detail and

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  being good at and proficient at wrestling technically is definitely what is focused on most. I think that they obviously have a a specific system and a way they do things on the mat. That's very different. I think they're 20 years ahead of everybody else, but

• 1:14:49Jocko Willink?

  In terms of what? Technique or how they're drilling or how they're?

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Everything, everything. I think they're just they're just ahead, you know, they're just ahead of the curve. And everybody tries to copy us with whatever we do. And it just seems like for as far as how the types of techniques that they're they're teaching.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  The way that they're they're teaching them are very different. The mentality is very different behind what to focus on when you're going out to compete and also just the different, I don't know if amenities are the right words, but the different things that they utilize to help us be the best and make things easier on us. Give me an amenity. Like, uh, hot and cold tubs, like, like, you know, uh, saunas, stuff like that. Like we, our weight room, it's all right there. Um, but, but I would say the biggest thing, like, we have a full-time, uh, I don't, I don't know if I would call her a sports psychologist because she's not, she does more than that, but we've had a full-time, basically, sports psych for, I don't know, before

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  any team ever did that, you know, like, Coach Kale was doing that when he was competing and that was in two, early 2000s and, and we've had one since 2009, 2010. So that was just a standard. Like, you met with, you met with Bonnie, our lady's Bonnie. What, what, what did she say to you? Um, kind of, uh, like, what are you trying to do? What, what are you here for? What do you want? You know? Where, where did Kale find her? So I think he was dealing with some challenges mentally, just being who he was and wanting to win an Olympic gold medal. And, um, I, I think he met her right after college, but they used to just, uh, do like phone kind of consultations and she would help him kind of get a grip on everything that, that he was trying to accomplish and manage that. And then when he came to, uh,

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  the head coaching position at Penn State, he, he brought her on staff. So she's been on staff with us, you know, like I said, before I even got there. But there was no schools doing that at all. Like, that wasn't even a thing. And now it's kind of like the standard. But yeah, stuff like that. And then, you know, we utilize, we have a great strength and conditioning coach at Penn State, but we also utilize outside, uh, help for, uh, strength and conditioning with, um, the Training Lab. I don't know if you've ever heard of Training Lab, but, uh, Sam Calavita runs it. And so he helps us, he's, he's easily the number one strength and conditioning nutrition coach in the world as far as combat sports go. So we've been utilizing him forever. And, uh, yeah, and I think the other cool thing is that our staff, Coach, uh, Kale, his brother Cody,

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Casey Cunningham, Jake Varner, like they've been with each other the entire time. Like they're, they're, they came to Penn State together. They're just the same guys. So they've, and, and if you look at their daily meetings, they have what they're, did a year ago today. What they did three years ago today, five years ago today, a decade ago today. They know exactly what it is. So they have so much data and information that they're just able to help us

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  navigate a lot of, or I guess they, they help us not have to navigate a lot of stuff that we maybe would have had to otherwise.

• 1:17:57Jocko Willink?

  One of the things you said was they, that team and those coaches focus, they, they focus on the right thing. Like what would you say they focus on that maybe other wrestlers or other teams or other people aren't focusing on?

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  You know, there's a lot. I would say that the main thing is we want to get better at wrestling, right? Like, so what, what are you going to do if you want to get better at wrestling? You gotta wrestle. So that, that's what we're doing most of the time. We're not, yeah, yeah, we're going to do our conditioning workouts, but we're not going to put a hundred miles on, on, we're not cross-country runners, you know, we're not powerlifters. So we're going to focus on what we want to do. So I think that the majority of what we do for obviously technique and, and for conditioning even is wrestle. So we're wrestling more than anybody else. And then they're focusing on our, our, our effort and they're focusing on, you know, results are important, but that's a byproduct, right? Like we're going to get the results we want to get if we just do these things, you know?

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  So to me, I think the consistency that they preach that with of, it's the same message right now than what it was when I was a freshman and what it was before that. And, and when you can buy into that and, and be consistent with it, that's how you're going to get the results. They're, they're just going to come, you know, you don't have to stress and worry about it every day. You, you just have to improve, get better. And when the moment comes for you to make it happen, you're going to do it.

• 1:19:28Jocko Willink?

  When you say wrestle, like when you say we want to get good wrestling, so we wrestle, how does that break down from like a drilling versus live wrestling? Like, how does that break down?

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  You know, one, one thing I think I will say that is different about Penn State as well is we, we have a system. You know, there's a system of, of moves and techniques that we like to use, that a lot of the guys use. But they really do a great job of tailoring everything individually to people. So everybody's different, right? Like some guys, they need a little more structure. They need, all right, I want you to drill this 10 times. I want you to drill this 10 times. Now do this 10 times and, and they need that. Like me, you get me in there, like show, show me some, some stuff and I'm going to apply that right away. Like you, you show me this different technique that, or this little adjustment I should make. I don't even really need to drill it. Like I'm just going to do it and you know, it, it helps to, to drill it.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  So I'll still do some, but I think the ratio of, of drilling to kind of light sparring to live wrestling is adjustable for individuals, which that just takes effort. So they're putting more effort into doing that.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Spending time with guys who need more time, spending less time with guys who maybe need less. They're just flexible. And I think that most coaches, it's like, get in, this we're doing, boom, boom, boom, boom. Done. Check, check the list, we're out.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  So it's a little bit more of an open-minded attitude.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  It's way more open-minded and it's, it's just what makes sense. It's like, all right, well, what makes sense for me at 197 pounds isn't going to be the same. It was what makes sense for 125, who is a freshman, who's 500 record. Like he needs something different than me, you know? So that's what they do. They give them different, different, um, I guess, kind of coaching.

• 1:21:19Jocko Willink?

  How often do you learn something new? Let's say you're, let's say you're, let's go to your freshman year.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Jocko Willink?

  How often are you?

• 1:21:30Jocko Willink?

  Kale or one of the other coaches going like, hey, here's an actual new move for you. As opposed to like, hey, you can clean up your double. You can clean up this. You can clean up this. Is there new moves that come in where you're like, yo, I did not know that. Cause the crazy thing about jujitsu is I've been training jujitsu for a long time, like a quarter century. And I've been, we've been up here at this camp and I learned like 20 new things. And so I'm talking things where I was like, oh, I, that's totally new to me. I did not know that. And it's the same with, you know, there's black belts here that have been training for 30, 35 years.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:05Jocko Willink?

  And they'll all be going, oh, I've never seen that before.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Jocko Willink?

  How, how much is there of that when you were at Penn State?

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  A ton, a ton, especially my, my freshman year early. It was like, I really learned a whole different way to wrestle. I was like, I think back about it. I was like, I didn't even know how to wrestle. You know, in, in high school, I'm like, I'll, I'll watch film and I'm like, what was I doing? And then my freshman year of college, I still think that. So I'm, I'm kind of doing this little series where I go back over all my college wrestling matches and I break them down. So tough for me. So I'm just like, I suck. I was so bad.

• 1:22:41Jocko Willink?

  There's a freaking, uh, video of me on the internet and I'm competing against Jeff Monson in grappling. And it was like a 13 minute match because it was triple overtime. Cause it was zero, zero.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  Triple overtime. The, the thing on YouTube is cut down to like two minutes and 30 seconds. And, and I watch it and I'm just absolutely like humiliated, embarrassed because I look so terrible. I look so bad. And I mean, I'm not actually humiliated. I'm like, oh, you know, that guy, that guy's a good wrestler, a great grappler. He's an ADCC world champion.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  And he's, he had a, a really incredible vitamin program that he was on because he was completely insanely jacked.

• 1:23:26Jocko Willink?

  But a great competitor. But when I look at it, I'm like, God, I was terrible, terrible. That's what I feel like. So that's what you do, you're doing now? Just breaking stuff down?

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You know, yeah, it's, it's insane. And, and so I think that combat sports are so cool because you can always do that. You can always get better, even if you know. Ninety-nine percent of everything there is to know, you're never gonna learn that one percent fully. You're gonna, you know, maybe creep up a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And, uh, you know, for me, it, it, I love learning. Learning is one of the biggest reasons that I got into MMA. Because, you know, it's new. I get to learn jujitsu. I get to learn Muay Thai. I get to learn boxing. All this stuff like, that's so fun and exciting for me. And that's how I felt when I got to Penn State. I was like, you know, kind of come out of high school. I haven't lost in a while. I'm pretty good, man.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  And then you get in and I was competitive right away, but I wasn't trying to be competitive. And so I was like, wow, I need to learn how to wrestle. I need to learn how to wrestle for real, because I don't know. So it, you, I, I wasn't really, it's not that classic scenario of, oh, you go and you get whipped up and everybody's kicking your butt and you can't score a point. Like I was scoring and stuff. Was I beating the best guys in the room? No. Were they whipping me? A little bit, yeah. But I was scoring on, on a lot of guys and doing well. But I realized quick, if I wanted to get to where those guys were or where I wanted to be, I needed to learn a lot about wrestling.

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  So you get done your red shirt year. Now you go into your, I guess this would be called your freshman year, right?

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Jocko Willink?

  Two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen, you're one hundred and seventy-four pounds. How's that season go?

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  So when I look back on that season, um, it was just such a different play. I, I had to grow so, I, I didn't, I wish I could have grown that much in my red shirt season. Because I think as a red shirt, you just don't really know what that's like. And, and then you get thrown into it a little bit, competing every weekend and, and feeling the pressure, feeling ten thousand people in the crowd and, you know, that's something that.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  I just think for the most part, I did the same thing that I'd always been doing in high school. I'm like, let's just go get it. Let's just throw down. Like, I'm ready to go. And I was meeting with our sports psych every single week, like, you know, trying to figure myself out mentally, trying to figure out how I wanted to compete. Just, but I was doing all that for the result. I wanted the result. I wanted to be a national champion. And, and that's not a bad thing, but that was what I was focused on. Whereas, I needed to learn just to let go of that, and just get better and improve and, and do my best. And then the result will come. But all that year was so-

• 1:26:17Jocko Willink?

  Does that somehow remove pressure?

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  I won't say it removes pressure. It just gives you a different perspective of it. Because at first, it would be like, so this is what I was doing. I was saying to myself in my matches, alright, I'm at the best program in the world. I have the best coaches and the best training partners in the world. And these are all the reasons I should win. So I'm gonna go out there and compete in this guy, against this guy. And I'm coping and wrapping my head around what's about to happen by telling myself, I should win because of these reasons. When in reality, what I needed to be doing, and what I realized that I should be doing is, one, the

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  guy who's gonna win, isn't the guy with the best training partners, the guy that has the best coaches, the guy that works the hardest. It's not the guy with the most heart. It's just the guy that scores more points. It's the guy that gets his hand raised. Like, it's the guy that wins the match. Like, it's, it's a, it's a match. So that's what I'm trying to do. It doesn't have, like, none of this stuff, like, yeah, maybe it affects it, but that's not why the outcome happens. It's just who scores. Like, okay, I have two points, you have zero, I win. Like, that's it. And-

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  So, and, and that's based on effort in that moment and being present. So, you know, I think I would kind of just in my mind, not be very present and that, that's why I got the results I did because in, in the NCAA finals, I'm wrestling a guy. I, so yeah, fast forward, I have a good year.

• 1:27:45Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you start the season ranked 14th.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  I start 14, I start smoking guys, I'm just better than them and you know, I, I come into a little bit of a bump. At halfway through the year, I lose to a kid from Indiana that wa- wasn't nearly as good as me, but I had a bad match. I'm a freshman. Devastated me. Now I can't be undefeated. What am I gonna cry about it? No, I guess still got big 10's NCAA. So I just move on. And, uh, big 10 tournament, crush it, kill it. NCAA's, I'm feeling it. I'm like, number one seed, I'm a freshman, this Madison Square Garden is a big deal. Like, like, then, and in my mind, the coping mechanism was every match, I should win because I have better this and that. And then I get to the finals against a guy who I've wrestled at this point, probably five times.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Big 10 tournament, two weeks earlier, first period, throw him down, pin him, easy money. And, uh, I go onto the match and that, that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, all right, I got, I, I work harder than this dude. I know I'm more disciplined than him.

• 1:28:48Jocko Willink?

  I just beat him.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  I just beat him.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  Stuck him.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, pinned him, killed him. Like never have even been really competitive with this guy. I have better coaches, better training partners, like more fans want me to win. Like, like I can make every up, make up every excuse in the book. I'm like giving myself excuses to win. And, uh, so then, you know, wrestle the match and there's, there's a big moment in the match. So right away, I go for the crazy throw. He takes me down. And, uh, which I'm like, whatever, I don't care. We'll get up. And, and, and then, and me, in my mind, it was like, almost back to what I was saying earlier about in high school, I would go out to just like, let's get it. I'm gonna go for broke. When I, I didn't really have to, almost as like a. Just another excuse, like I'm just going for it, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna give up.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Like, but I really wasn't going to, to win. It was, it was a weird mental thing. And so get taken down, I come back up, take him down. And now I'm rolling, so I'm like, alright, I'm about to win this match, like no doubt. I have an underhook, I'm going far knee pick and, and we're going out of bounds and I'm running through him and I'm like, oh, I'm about to freaking crush this dude. Plant him on the mat, get a takedown, probably get near fall and seal, seal this up. And for some reason, you know, I just get my arm trapped, boom, rolled through right onto my back. And I'm just like, what is going on? What just happened? It was the only time I've ever wrestled in a match and not really been super aware and

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  known what is going on and like been like known how much time's left, known where I'm at on the mat. It like just completely dis, dis, I was in disarray and I get off the mat.

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Was it like overconfidence in that moment?

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  I think it was just

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  not being present. I think it was either, it, it was, I was either in the, in the past or in the future. I wasn't in that moment.

• 1:30:45Jocko Willink?

  Either already the champ or I already worked harder.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I wasn't locked into like, get it done right here, you know, this, all that matters is right now. It, it was, it was, I was just not there. And so boom, rolled through and I get up and I'm like almost, almost like literally dizzy and then, but, and I don't even know how much time's left on the mat. So where, where I lost this match, it wasn't even in getting thrown. I go back down and then there was whatever 20 seconds left in the period and I get rode out. If I would've just gotten escaped right there, I guarantee you I win the match, even though I was losing at that point 10 to 4. Or something like that, I think. And so I end up losing. Um, I, I come back, the guy runs from me the whole third period, but I just can't get to him. I lose 11 to 9.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  I had no idea what the score was at the time. I had 15 seconds. All I needed was one takedown and I could've tied it up. And it was just, I just didn't know where I was at. I couldn't wrap my head back. So that was, you know, I said my freshman year of high school was devastating. This was like 10 times that because I'm in front of this huge crowd. It's this, it's really my biggest goal, right? This is what I'm, what I've been thinking about as my biggest goal was four time national champion. And if I don't win my first one, it's done. It's like, I got three more years, but it's done. And so there was legitimate, probably three months of, of real depression after that where in my head, I just, I just didn't know what to do. I'm like,

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  what is the point of this? I freaking went to a sports psych for 40 weeks in a row, all to get second? Like, well, that was stupid, wasted time. How dumb was that? And, uh, you know, put all this effort in, like, you know, wrestled for 15 years to go out and beat, get beat by this guy? Like, what is wrong with me? And just very, very negative, very like depressed and just kind of like, don't want to do anything. Sitting in bed, like, I would have, this was the worst is I would have dreams where, or I would have a nightmare where like I would lose, like what would happen in real life happened. But what was worse was I would have dreams where I won. Oh. It would be like, I would be dreaming and I'd be like, oh, I won the match. I'd wake up and I'd be like, I would just like start crying.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  I almost cried right now thinking about it, but yeah, it was like, uh, it was terrible. So I'd have to wake up to this reality of, uh, you know, all right, uh, I lost and I got to probably end of July, early August. And I just remember one day being like, in, uh, waking up and just being like, dude, are you gonna cry about this for the rest of your freaking life? You gonna be a wimp? Are you gonna, what are you gonna quit? You're just gonna like be done? Like that's it? And then I was like, hell no, I ain't doing that. Like, like, let's, let's, let's get back on the horse. So then I have to reset. And I'm thinking, what is the, what can I do to kind of make up for this? What can I do to like, make up for this? And so I'm thinking, all right, well.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  184, which is the weight about me, is the toughest weight in the country. And not only is it the toughest weight as far as depth, but it's got the number one pound for pound guy in the country, Gabe Dean from Cornell, at this weight. I was like, I need to reset, re-challenge myself. I'm going up to 184, and I'm winning, I'm winning that. Like, that's what I'm doing. And so now was, I wouldn't even say solve what was going on with me internally. It was

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  reassess, create a new goal, and now just chase that and kind of just let that fill in this void that had been left in me.

• 1:34:20Jocko Willink?

  You needed a new mission.

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  I needed a new mission because I didn't, I was lost. I didn't know what to do. And I, I had no motivation for like, I was like, what's gonna motivate, what's gonna get me excited to compete again? And so it was this. It was like this, this big challenge of beating the number one pound for pound guy in the country and winning the toughest weight in the country. Like, that's what I had to do.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  And how did your coaches feel about this? What did Kale say to that?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  So I told him, I was like, Coach, I'm going up to 84. And he was like,

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  um, I think we want you at 74. So why don't, you know, you certify at 74? And I was like,

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  we'll see. I certified at 184.0. I was like, I'm not giving you guys one shred of hope that I'm going 174 this year because I'm, I'm committed to this. I'm all in. Because we did have a really good guy at 184. He was a good friend of mine. And I was like, this is gonna work itself out. But I, I, I'm a team guy. Like, we had, we had won the team national title in my freshman year. That was very important to me. We, you know, and so, but I was like, I see it from a different perspective as you. You know, we have a couple of good guys coming in at 74. My guy 84, he can move up to 97. This is gonna be good, and I'm gonna kill it. So as long as I win, everything else is gonna work out.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  What do you walk around that?

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  At that point. So at that point, I probably walked around at 184.

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I cut a little weight in my freshman year. I was a little lighter. I was probably 180. But yeah, I was weighing about 184, 185.

• 1:35:53Jocko Willink?

  Did you change anything in the way you were training?

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Uh, going up?

• 1:35:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, not just going up, but now that you had this loss, you had this new goal. Were you going harder? Were you working harder? Did you step up your game?

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  I always worked, you know, basically did everything I could. I was always super intrinsically motivated. But I think that my mindset changed from being like a,

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  you know, more wild type of competitor, try to, try to throw you big moves to just, I need to dominate these guys. I need to get consistent. I need to get, my main focus that summer was get an attack, like a leg attack that's consistent that nobody could stop. Because I didn't really have that up to that point. I had a lot of tricks. I had a lot of sneaky stuff. And that really got me to where I was, but I was like, I need a one go to that nobody in the world can stop. And, you know, a lot of people say that about different stuff, like what's your thing that nobody can, nobody can defend? And so that's what I worked on. It was righty collar tile, lefty high C. A whole summer. I probably drilled it. I drilled it. Ninety percent of my drills was that. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:37:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so then that season starts and you, you, you crush.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm crushing it. I'm like knocking it out of the park, right? Um, I think my first seven or eight matches, I pinned every single guy. I was like on a roll. Um, couple of big moments, I'm wrestling, uh, my first match in Carver Hawkeye Arena and I'm wrestling Sammy Brooks. So this is kind of funny. I, uh, a couple, I gotta say a couple of pre-stories before I sit, get into the match, but back to when I was getting recruited, um, and I, I committed to Penn State, I had to call all the coaches. I call Tom Brands, right? And, uh, I'm like, hey, coach, I just want to let you know and that I'm going to be committing to Penn State. I didn't want you to see it on Twitter or something. I wanted to tell you, uh, you know, myself. And he's like,

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  okay, well, you know, appreciate it. Thank you for, for doing that. Um, Are you sure like this where you want to go and stuff? I'm like, yeah, I'm sure I'm sure he's like, okay, okay. That's fine. You know, as long as you're not competing against the Hawks, we'll be rooting for you, but we'll see you on the mats. I just remember he said, we'll see you on the mats. And I was like, see you on the mats. And then I roll into Carver. It's insane. They're yelling crazy stuff at me. You know, the fans are going nuts. They're throwing trash. It's like, wow. It's like, what is going on? This is ridiculous. You're going down, mother F. Like, get ready to frigging get smoked. Like, what's going like, like, obviously, I'm not cursing, but they're cursing and stuff. And so I walk out

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  and the fires, they got like flamethrowers. It's insane. And I get on the mat and I'm like, seeing you on the mats. We're here. Let's do it. And but sorry, I missed, I missed, I had to say one other thing. So I'm wrestling Sammy Brooks. So he was, I think, Big Ten champion. He was maybe number, I think I was number two in the country. He was number, he was top five, maybe three or four. And I don't know why, but I didn't really cut weight, like I said. For some reason, the night before that match, I just randomly was the heaviest I'd ever been in my entire life. I was like 192. I was like, it was something weird with the travel and I had a smoothie at Smoothie King in the Chicago airport. And I think it did it. And I was like, what is going on? I've never, I had

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  to work out like two or three extra times. And so going in the match, I'm like, these guys are all yelling how they're gonna get me tired. I was like, I better not get tired. Like, this is not gonna be good. And, and right before that, are we?

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Did they know you were off weight? They didn't know?

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Nobody knew. No, nobody, my coaches didn't even know. I didn't tell anybody. I just did it. But so we, we took our, we had a kid, a true freshman, his name is Mark Hall. He was like the number one recruit in the country coming out of high school. We pulled his red shirt in the, in the match before, like his first varsity match. And he lost. He got upset. And it was crazy. It was like, the crowd was going-

• 1:39:51Jocko Willink?

  What was the decision to pull his red shirt?

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  So they-

• 1:39:54Jocko Willink?

  Somebody got hurt or something?

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  They had been talking about it the whole year, but basically the team race was pretty tight. And they kind of, and, and Mark wrestled at the Southern Scuffle, which is like, kind of the premier tournament of the midseason. And he won. And he beat all the starters from the other schools. And so they're like, this might be a good option. Like, we might, we might need to let him, let our horses run. And so boom, pull the red shirt. Boom, loses. And then they're like at their all time peak of excitement as Iowa fans because the duel is, I think they're up maybe like 18, 16, something like that. And we have our, our next three matches are all kind of toss ups because me and Sammy are top five. The next two guys are like top, top 10 guys and our heavyweight's a toss up match.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  And so they're thinking like, we're going to win all three of these. We got momentum. Let's go. I'm like, all right, bro. I'm gonna show you something real quick. So I just knew, I knew the way he wrestles Sammy Brooks. He's so aggressive. Like dude, this dude can't not shoot on me. Like he's gonna shoot on me. I'm gonna friggin stick him in something.

• 1:40:55Jocko Willink?

  Especially there in front of that crowd, everyone going, you know.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  I'm like, this dude's coming in hot. Like I'm, I'm like, that's perfect for my style. My style is great. If you attack me, forget about it. You're not gonna beat me. You gotta, you gotta play it smart, play it safe and try to sneak one in on me. Like that's, that's was really people's only chance to, to get me. And so, boom, single leg right away. Beautiful single leg. In my mind, I'm thinking, dang, that was a nice shot. Whatever. Let's go. And so he just makes a mistake, steps his leg up, wrong, boom, catch him, pin, spladle. It was crazy. Everybody, I'm going nuts. The crowd, all of a sudden silent. I give him a little bit. I'm like, what's up y'all? And then, and then Coach Kale goes, hey, knock that off. Like he's yelling at me. And I'm like, okay, whatever. Let's get off the mat. And so just this crazy whirlwind.

• 1:41:40Jocko Willink?

  Coach Kale don't play that kind of stuff.

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  Nah, he don't play that. No. So got, got that win. Big win for me. And now, you know, we, we kind of go, me and, me and this dude, Gabe Dean from Cornell, like on a tear towards each other. I go into the Big Ten Tournament, rated number one, number one, and I'm like, I, I think that I wrestled maybe 20 matches, 20, 22 matches, and I've had like 17 pins. It's like crazy. Like I'm pinning everybody. And like I pinned Sammy Brooks, I pinned Oklahoma State kid. I probably pinned like three or four top five guys. And so going into the Big Tens, I'm feeling confident. I'm like, all right, let's go. I have a bye. I'm in the quarters and then boom, I have to wrestle. The Ohio State kid who beat me the year before. I wrestled him in the duel earlier and, and beat him up eight to two or something.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  And so I'm feeling good and uh, not really nervous at all. And uh, we go in and, and we're wrestling and, and I take him down right away. And I'm like, alright, like kinda got this on lock and uh, boom, he takes me down. And then it's tied and I'm like, okay, like this is a little more competitive. And he shoots in on my, my leg. And I freaking like my LCL just boom pops and I'm like, what the hell was that? I don't even know what that was. But whatever, like let's keep going and I like, just kinda struggling and then the match just, it was a weird match. Just gets away from me and he, and he get, and I, and I can't, and I don't take him down. He beats me five to four. And I'm like, what just happened? Like, I lost, I just lost, like, that's crazy. And I remember going off the mat.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  And, and, and it was weird because What tournament was this? This was the big tens, it's like in the quarterfinals of the big tens. And it was just kinda unexpected and I wasn't really that nervous for the match. And after I lost, I felt so weird. I was like, I just was like, it wasn't upsetting like my other losses. It was like, uh, I just couldn't really, I just felt like I didn't know what hap- I, I just didn't know why I lost and I was like, alright, well, I'm just gonna move on, I guess. I don't know, it was, it was, I've never felt like that after a loss. And so, go the rest of the tournament, I take third. He, he's wrestling the kid from Iowa in the finals and he loses. And he goes in the ba- I just remember this so vividly.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  He goes in the back and he's like yelling, like screaming so pissed. And I just remember feeling like, alright, I need to figure out how to, like I'm not gonna deal with losses like that anymore. Like I'm not, that's not really what I'm gonna do. And I was like, kinda finding myself also with my faith at this time and you know, my faith was always something that was very important growing up and something that I really tapped into a lot. But I was really learning a lot about it in this, in this kind of time period of my life as well. I was having uh, Bible studies with some close friends and really diving into what that meant to me. And just kinda thinking about life on a bigger level outside of wrestling. And so-

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Um, actually, my third, fourth match, I was wrestling a dude from Nebraska and I hit him in like a sick, uh, like a judo throw and I completely tear my LCL. Like my knee is like this and it goes, or like my knee is here and my foot's here and it just goes, like I'll show you a video after. It's awful, but tear my LCL completely. I can barely walk and, uh, but I, I, I won and I got third. And so now I'm thinking, I'm like, how am I going to get ready for the NCAA tournament? Like I still gotta go win. Like I'm not really, okay, I lost. Cool. Move on, whatever. And, uh, I, I still got the, I think that's why maybe I was able to refocus because I still was, had this goal of being NCAA champion. And, you know, it, it, I was like, I can still do this.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  So I take the two weeks, my, I'm not really training. I can't really train at all. I'm just doing rehab. And then we get to the tournament and, uh, I just felt like through all the growth that I'd done in, in my faith and all the growth that I was doing just in myself personally, at just a great place mentally and not feeling pressure on myself the way I was before. And I didn't really know why a hundred percent in that moment. But first round, boom, tech fall. Second round, I'm wrestling, uh, the kid from Nebraska, who I wrestled at, at the big tens. He was NCAA finalist, multi-final American. Pin him semifinals. Or wait, no, no. Second round, sorry. I wrestled Binghamton, pinned him. Third round, I wrestled Nebraska,

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  pin him. Fourth round, I'm wrestling the Iowa kid that I pinned earlier in the year. And I just knew, I was like, dude, this guy's good. He's not going to be able to stay out of his back. I just know it. Sixty seconds, boom, pin him. So I went tech, pin, pin, pin to the finals. At the, and I'm just telling it. I'm like, yeah, I'm not losing. There's zero chance. So confident. Watching, at the same time, I had four other teammates make the finals all in a row. So forty-nine, fifty-seven, sixty-five, seventy-four, then me. There's only been up to this point.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Three teams to ever have five guys in the finals and we were, we were the third. And I'm watching Gabe Dean wrestle and he's having like tight match here, tight match there. Semis is kinda close and I'm like, yo, I got this dude. Like you're done, bro. So the entire year I'm visual, I always visualize myself and Gabe Dean wrestling last match. So I knew it was gonna be boom. He's a senior. I'm like pretty hyped up. So they're gonna make this the last match of, of the, of the night. And I would do this because my buddy, he laughs at this story because uh, me and, me and my, my best friend Tony, he was on the team as well. We would be walking back to the parking lot. Um, and it was like probably a, maybe a little over a quarter mile to our car from, from wrestling.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  And I would always hand in my backpack. Didn't matter. I'll be like in jeans and boots or whatever, it'd be snowing. And I would just dead sprint like all the way to the car and I'd come back and get him. And he didn't know why, but the whole year I would do this. It would just be in my mind. I'd be like, Gabe Dean ain't doing this. Like I'd finish the whole practice and then just like, I don't know. It was just something dumb. But in my mind now I get to this point. And uh, so they boom, they start at 197, they're finishing at 84 with us. And uh, so I'm just thinking, alright, uh, I'm just, you know, very clear in my mind what I'm gonna do. Everything's good. We get to 149, boom. Zane Rathford, I got kills it. One wins. 157, boom. Jason Nolf kills it, wins.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  65, Vincenzo Joseph, big match. He's wrestling Isaiah Martinez. Pens him insane upset. He had lost to him a couple of times. Wins. I'm like, what the hell? We're three, three, let's go. 74, so I'm on deck. Mark Hall, our guy that we pulled red shirt. He's in the finals against Ohio State kid who beat him in the big tens a couple of weeks earlier. Crazy match, boom, wins. Four in a row. And I'm like, guys, I got this. Like it's over. Like don't, it was the only match I've ever had, only wrestling match I've ever had, where a bad thought, a negative thought could not creep and penetrate my mind. There was never a, oh, what if I lose? Or oh, what if this happens? Like, you know, every time you compete, something like that comes in your mind.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  But it was so sound and so clear to me because of how much visualization I did and how just.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  I knew what was gonna happen and I didn't know how it was gonna happen, but I just knew I was gonna win. And so boom, go out of the match, takes me down. And I'm like, what the hell? But in my mind, I was just like, that was a great shot. Like, I couldn't do anything about that, whatever. Get up, there's, you know, a minute left in the period, I get away right away. And then I think, alright, let's just get one of this guy. So boom, take him, take him down. Kind of a weird little, I shot a single leg, which is not really to the left, it was just not really a shot I hit. But I just pulled it in and finished it, cuz I don't know, I've never even done that ever, like in a match before, I just did it in the NCAA finals. Cuz I felt like it, but uh, take him down and then there's 30 seconds left in the period and I'm like, alright, I gotta ride this dude out.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  So ride him out, go into the second period, 3-2, and I'm like, it's over, he's not gonna, he's not gonna beat me. So, get to the last 30 seconds, he shoots in on my leg, gets in deep.

• 1:49:49Jocko Willink?

  This is second period?

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  This is third period. So second period, I think he got an escape, third period, I got an escape, something like that. And so I'm up 4-3, 30, 20, 30 seconds left, shoots in on my leg. And I watched back on video and I'm like, oh, that was like kinda close, but I'm just scrambling and I was just so calm, I was like, he's not taking me down, no shot. But boom, I uh, I'm scrambling, he kinda gets in position, I roll. I look up at the clock and I've got both his ankles, he's got both my ankles, and it's just like, four seconds. And I'm like, four seconds, and it's like, three, two, one, boom, match over, and I'm like.

• 1:50:24Jocko Willink?

  I'm the champ.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  I did it, I did it, like that's it, like let's go, like that's crazy. So, go hug my coaches, like not even really a big celebration, I was just like, wow, like that's crazy, go hug the coaches and um, it feels amazing, right? Like it feels great. And uh, then what was so interesting to me about this whole process is, I felt like finally that wrong from last year was righted, like I, I made it right and, and we're all good now. And then, like a couple days later, I was like, oh, I don't really care, it's over. That was cool that I did that, I'm glad I did it, but what's next, you know? And, and what it really taught me, it taught me that. I cannot be so result oriented. I can't, I, it's okay to care about the outcome, have goals,

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  things like that. That's all you have to, right? But my identity and my foundation can't lie in results because the feeling of winning fades so fast, the feeling of losing fades, albeit slower, but, but those are just feelings that, that are going to fade. And so, why would I wrap up so much of my self-worth in that? And then it was like, boom, switch flipped in my mind of what I need to focus on in, in competing and how I need to approach my sport. And after that, it was like, I had so much fun because before I was having some fun, but it

• 1:51:52Speaker 01

  was more stressful than fun. After that, it was like, this is, this is good.

• 1:51:58Jocko Willink?

  So are you like now, since you're not focused on the results, it's the summertime, it's the fall, you're starting the season, you're just in practices. Does this mean every practice, you're like, you're just focused on effort and working in this particular practice that I'm in right now?

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  So for me, the, the effort and the work was never an issue. That was never something where I was like, needed motivation to work hard. I was always the guy that was gonna go 100%. Like, there was never a situation where that wasn't gonna happen. So for me, it was more just relax, have some fun. Like, let's enjoy this. If, if I'm, I, I'm choosing to do all this, so let's have fun. Let's, let's smile. Let's like, have a good time. And, and even if I'm in a grueling workout, even if I'm doing something where we're going to 45 minute go and I'm wrestling Coach Kale and we're, we're at each other, it's okay, like, let's smile. Let's be like, yeah, let's go. And I also think that what helped me too was, I was compartmentalizing my life a bit

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  with my relationship with God and my faith. And it was like, that's what I would do on Sundays and Wednesdays. And you know, I'd pray before meals, but like, that was that. And, and I realized, I was like, okay, this is my life. And if my faith is as important to me as it is, let's see what happens when I invite God into my wrestling. Because I wanted to control that. I was like, I'm in control of this wrestling stuff, but what if I was like, alright, God, I'm in the middle of practice and it's me and you here, like, thank you, like, like, kind of, you know, praise him a little bit, thank him a little bit for, for, in those moments. And, and that's what kind of I do now continuously is like, I don't ever feel like

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  I have compartments of my life where, alright, this is business, this is wrestling, or this is fighting, and this is my faith, and this is my family. It's like, I'm just the same person all the time. And my, my values and character that I take into one, I take into the next. And that really relieved a lot of stress for me, and it made everything way more fun.

• 1:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so it sounds like it's more of enjoying the process and not thinking, I have to do this because I want that. It's, I get to do this and that other thing will come.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  For sure, it's all gratitude, it's all, you know, founded on that, kind of just being grateful for everything that I have. And then just enjoying it, having fun, smiling, because I could do anything I want to do. So if I choose to do this, I'm gonna have a good time. I'm not gonna dread it or hate it or be fearful. Even, that's, that's how I feel. I've carried that same mentality into the rest of my wrestling career, into my fights. It's all, you know, I'm doing this because I want to do it, so let's have a good time. And, but, it's not that, so it keeps that, that fun kind of free spirit, but I'm also not at that point where I use it as an excuse. You know, like what I did as a kid, like, I'm just gonna go for it and see what happens.

• 1:55:00Speaker 01

  It's like, no, you know, that's not really it either. It's, it's not all, it's all fun, like, like, I'm here to win. Like, there's no doubt about that. Like, when it's time to compete, we can get down, and it can get serious real quick. But- That doesn't mean that I'm not enjoying it, if that makes sense.

• 1:55:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz you could also take that to practice too, where like, oh, this isn't really fun. I don't want to do another few rounds.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  Like, that's not fun for me, so I'm gonna go, uh, stop practice.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  It's not like that. Like, I, the fun for me is doing things that other people aren't willing to do. Like, I'm gonna do everything that you're not willing to do, and then the results will speak for themselves. And, uh, I just like pushing myself too. Like, it's just fun to, to push myself and do things that are really freaking difficult. I feel like if you're not struggling, if you're not struggling in life in some way, like, what are you doing? You wanna just sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and everything's plush and comfy? Like, that's not real. So, I don't know. That's to me, I, I wanna like, live real life.

• 1:56:00Jocko Willink?

  So you roll into your next season, it's 2017, 2018, you're still at 184 pounds, and you're just kinda crushing now.

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm crushing on a roll. I wrestled the, the, my little rival from Ohio State a few times, whipped him, and, uh, really, the whole story of that year, it wasn't me, it was the teams. Ohio State had a stacked team, so they got a couple of transfers in, in addition to the guys they already had. And in, in reality, if you look at it, it was the greatest team race ever in NCAA wrestling history, just with the guys that they had, the guys that we had. And, uh, two big moments really stand out, that, that we had a duel with Ohio State. People call it like duel, it was a duel of the century. And at rec hall, 6,500 people, sold out. It was insane. And Ohio State, we do the, you know,

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  handshake before the match and stuff, and they roll out, they're all wearing these bright red robes. And they're, got their, their hood up, and they're standing in a, like a one by one on the end of the mat, and it's like this sea of white and blue, and then these 10 guys in like, red robes. And we walk out, and I just remember being like, at this point, you know, good place mentally, I don't, our team is very tight, very close, and I'm like, what's with these guys? Like, are they for real? Cuz like, our thing is, we huddle up before each of us go to face off, and we're like grabbing each other, like, alright, brother, like, let's go, let's get it, let's have some fun. And like, the one guy's like, just get a massage, and they're like, alright, then he sends out, then he'll shake hands, and you go in order, 25, 33, 41, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, they're like,

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  I'm like, alright, bro, chill. Like, it's not that big a deal. But what had happened two weeks earlier that made it competitive was our 157 pounder who was, no, Jason, he tore his PCL. So he was not competing at that point. We thought he was maybe gonna be done for the season. And so, we're like, alright, that's like a 10-point swing right there. He's probably gonna get a pin. Now we gotta throw a backup and he's probably gonna lose major decisions. So, that's not good. But, uh, anyway, so the duel's going. We're kinda getting beat up, like at the beginning. We're getting beat up. We lose the close matches. And then, uh, it comes to Mark, uh, the guy, um, that was the weight below me. He wins. So we got a little momentum now. We're like, alright, let's go. And, uh, then I come up and I'm

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  wrestling Miles. And, uh, first minute of the, no, first two minutes of the match, we're getting like a crazy scramble. He almost takes me down, but then I just get out of it and I freaking get him. I take him down. I'm like, alright, nice. I know if I get the first takedown on this dude, like, he breaks. Like, I'm gonna get him. The longer the match goes, if it's close, I'm gonna win. If I'm winning, obviously, then it's gonna spread the gap. But, so I get that on him. And then, uh, so I'm winning the match pretty comfortably. I think I'm up eight to two. There's 20 seconds left and I'm on top. I'm just holding him down. Everybody's cheering. And I'm like, oh dang, I can, I, or no, no, I'm up, I'm up seven to two. But I have a riding time point. So now I'm like, if I get a turn here, I can,

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  uh, I can get the major decision, get an extra point. And so, I just think, in my mind, I was like, who's the best guy? And this is all happening in like a split second. I was like, who's the best guy I know on top? Oh, it's Zane. What would Zane do? And Zane's bow and arrow guy. So he gets a freaking, so I, I look back, his ankle's just sitting there, boom, grab a bow and arrow, put him on his back. As time's expiring, it's like three, two, one, the guy's like, one, two, get my two near fall, boom, goes up on the board. I'm like, oh crap, let's go, made a decision. And, uh, got that extra point for my team. So now I'm like fired up. I'm like, let's go, let's get it. And then the next match, 197, they got the number one kid in the country, right? Colin Moore. And our guy, uh, is my best friend. He's best man at my wedding. I'm gonna be best man

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  at his wedding in a couple of months, Anthony Kassar. He had just lost a wrestle off to another one of our teammates on Monday, but our other teammate got hurt. So he's kind of like, The backup at this point, but I know Anthony, I'm like, yo, this dude's a freaking like he can win. And it's a great matchup. So, but nobody knows this besides honestly, probably me and him. Like even our coaches, I don't even know if they thought he could win, but he goes out. And literally the entire time, everybody's like on their feet and first period's like zero, zero, boom, gets a takedown. Then second period, uh, it's like three, two short time left. And then, uh, Paul Moore like gets into you on a shot, Anthony like belly wizards him, spins around him.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  Boom, takes him down again. He's up five, two, it's like 20 seconds left and everybody's freaking out like, no, he's got it. And so boom, wins the match, crazy Selly, everybody's losing their minds. We're up 19 to, I think it's 19 to 14 or 19 to 15, yeah, 19 to 14. So heavyweight comes now. We got Nick Neville, who's a good wrestler, a couple of time All-American. They come out with Kyle freaking Snyder, who's one of my best friends, but obviously enemy at this point. Kyle freaking Snyder, Olympic gold medalist, multiple time world champion, NCAA freaking dominator. Like, I'm like crap, like he's tech fault Nick multiple times, like, but he has to pin him or tech him for us to, for them to win.

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  And Kyle, I love him. I love him to death. He trains with us now in Anyline Wrestling Club. Um, he's lives in, he came to the, the good side, but uh, he was like talking mad trash before this match, like this whole year. Like he was saying stuff, there's no team on earth I would rather beat than Penn State. We're coming for you guys. Y'all best be ready. He posted like some, uh, like tombstone clips, like, I'm coming, hell's coming with me, that type of stuff. And I'm like, all right, Kyle, time to get, time to get it. Like, let's see what you got. You gotta pin our, pin our boy, but so we'll see. So right away. And, and Kyle's like a dude, high energy, just a tank. Comes out, he's getting after it. Boom, our dude single legs him, takes him down.

• 2:01:50Speaker 01

  Crowd goes nuts. Everybody's, oh my gosh, what's going on? He just took down Olympic gold medalist. What's going on? Boom, Kyle gets away, starts taking our guy down. And I'm like, oh frick, come on. So he's probably up six to two, six to four, or something like that, second period and. Then he gets a little crazy and and he's small like he's two two thirty ish. Our guy's like a two sixty five heavyweight and he goes for a lateral drop. Boom falls right on his back. Nellis lands on him, takes him down and then everybody's freaking out again. Oh, my gosh. And now he's like making Kyle work to get up. He's got a lot of weight on him, so he starts getting a little tired. But then he kind of gets back on it, starts racking up points, racking up takedowns.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  And so now that we're just counting down the seconds, second period ends, we got two minutes. He's just got to like, and and it's somewhat tight of a match. It's ten to six, something.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  So as long as it doesn't get blown out.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  As long as it doesn't get blown out, he's only got two minutes to do it. So we're like watching, oh, Kyle's shooting, going so crazy, trying to take him down, take him down. Seconds are ticking, seconds are ticking, seconds are ticking. He's he's racked up a few takedowns. It's fourteen to eight or something and there's like thirty seconds left. And he gets in on the leg and he's like trying to take him down, trying to take him down. And our guy's like defending, defending on his feet. Boom sprawls on him, big sprawl. Everybody freaks out. There's still twenty seconds left, but we know now it's like it's done. It's over. He's not gonna get it. And it was just the craziest duel ever, you know. We win, people are like crying in the stands, like like moms are just like holding their babies in there. Like, it's just insane. It's like, what's, we're just jumping up and down.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Me and the line, the Nini line, the mascot are just hugging each other like, let's go, go on. Like just freaking out, going insane. So we we beat these dudes and then do the Big Ten Tournament. National tournament's coming now. This is like frigging big deal. And and we didn't really match up that well in the in the team race because they had ten, top to bottom. Like beasts and we were like kind of a little top heavy. We we had a lot of good guys, like like finalist, champion type guys. But our depth wasn't there and so basically we were in like a super tight team race. We get to the finals. We have. We have, do we have, we have four in the finals, I think. It's me, Mark, Zane, and all.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  No, we have five in the finals, again.

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  No?

• 2:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We have five again in the finals. So we gotta win. We have to win three of these matches. And, um, I have to win because I'm wrestling, boom, my rival again, Ohio State. And they, they made Snyder the last match. So it was his senior year, heavyweight. And, uh, so he could kinda go out, um, on his, him as the last match. And he's, he's wrestling a big, uh, uh, rival to it from Michigan. But basically the way it'll go down is, if Ohio State win, Kyle's gonna win. So if, it's gonna come down to, to my match. So, we win our, our first two and then lose, lose at sixty-five, seventy-four. So now it's me and Miles. And it's like, this is for the national championship as a team. Like this whole year is like coming down to this match.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  And, uh, I'm freaking nervous. I'm like, I hadn't really felt this a lot. Uh, but this whole tournament, for some reason, I got so caught up in the team, team part of it. I wasn't wrestling well. And, uh, if I would've just went out and pinned a couple of guys, like, we would've had it already locked up. But I didn't freaking, I was watching like all, every single guy of ours wrestle and every single guy of theirs. So I got so wrapped up in this team race, my coaches kept having to like pull me, pull me back off the floor. "Go sit down!" I'm like yelling at me and stuff. And I'm like, oh, like I, I want it so bad for, for the team. And, uh, because to me, it was always like a personal thing, me winning versus other guys.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  But when I started to, it got so tribal with the team stuff, like, like them, them saying stuff about us and, you know, they, they were just so different than us. And, you know, of course, everybody's a wrestler, so they're kinda same. But they were so outspoken and we're very reserved. And I just wanted to shut them up so bad. And I, and I wanted my, I wanted my boys to feel that. I wanted all of Penn State, all of like the, the Nittany Line community to like feel that. And so. Now I'm like, we're here, like, I gotta show out, I gotta do this. I'm like, frick, sitting down and trying to, you know, all right, man, just let's enjoy this, let's have some fun, let's be present, like this type of thing, like, like, all right.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  Just don't lose.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then I'm like, dude, but if you lose, this is gonna be freaking.

• 2:06:25Jocko Willink?

  This is where those negative thoughts are creepy.

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, and so the negative thoughts were kind of creeping. And there was this one moment where Coach Kale comes up to me and he's like, hey, I'm like, what's up? He goes, I just want to let you know, if I had to pick anybody to go out there in this match, I'll pick you. And I was like, well, hell, yeah, let's go, let's do it then. And that just like got me right back to where I needed to be. So we go out and right away, I'm like, this dude had crazy energy, he was ready to go. He came with, you know, he was coming with everything, so he shoots a hard double leg. I kind of get my foot caught in the mat and like we fall out of bounds. I'm like, all right, whatever, let's go, let's have some fun. So now we're moving, we're moving and he shoots it on my leg with like a minute left in the first period. And I easily could have just sprawled and defended it and got him off.

• 2:07:12Speaker 01

  But I kind of had an underhook and it had his neck a little bit. And I was like, I was not scared at all. It wasn't like a fearful thing, like what I was kind of saying earlier about going for it, but I was like, I think I got this. So boom, I go to throw him and he kind of sprawls his hips back and I'm like, oh crap, whatever, all right, no worries. I just like, the situation's happening so fast, I just kind of turned down. He immediately drives back into me to try to take me to my back and then I'm like, big mistake, bud. Boom, flip him over, land on top and as soon as that happened, it was like, match is over, dude, you're done. So I just, I got him, get on top, get the pin and immediately after I get the pin, I'm just like, get to your coaches, you gotta celebrate this so hard.

• 2:07:55Speaker 01

  So me and my first coach, Coach Casey, we run and he's like a little smaller, so I grab him, boom, pick him up. I'm like, let's go, come on. And then I go to grab Coach Kale, I'm going to do the same thing. And as soon as I'm reaching for him, he just goes, boom, drops down below me and I'm like, what's happening? And then double leg picks me up and I'm like this, it's like Titanic. And I'm just like, let's go. And we're just all freaking out and, you know, won the match and, you know, I go, the coolest thing, I go off the mat. And my buddy who I was saying Mark, who was way below me, he's the first one there. He just lost the NCAA finals match before first one there. Let's go like celebrate and congratulate me and I was like, dude, that's so freaking cool.

• 2:08:37Speaker 01

  Like you're such a good dude for that. He easily could have been in the back like just pissed. But he was the first one that I saw coming off the mat and that meant a lot to me. But then uh, I'm like freaking out, we're going nuts and Coach Kell is like, hey, you need to calm down. You're about to do an interview with ESPN and I'm like, okay, I got it, coach. I'm chill. Put the mic on me. You ask a question, blackout. I have no idea what I said. So I blackout. I'm like, whatever. Let's go boom. Get back to the get back to everybody. We're celebrating, we're celebrating all, all, all, all the, all the fun stuff. We're just so excited. Go back to the banquet. We have like a banquet after the NCAA's every year with all the fans and the teammates and stuff and all the guys that aren't starters that are there too.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  And so do that and then we, it was in Columbus. So we drive, we're driving back and uh, Coach Kell texts me, we're on the bus. He's in the front and I'm like sitting in the middle of the bus or something. And he's like, hey, just want to let you know, best interview I've ever heard. And I was like, what did I say? Like I have no idea. And so I'm like, all right, I gotta find this. So I go look in the interview and uh, I just like went off. It was, it was, it was, it was great because I, it was so raw, so much emotion that, that built up to that moment and led into that. And I just kind of like gave, gave it to the Ohio State people a little bit and, and hype Penn State up. And the, the guy asked me the one question. Um, he was like, uh,

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  I, I don't even remember if the, the question applied to the answer, but I was just like, I, I said a couple of things, but I was like, I train every day. So I come out here and be an NCAA champion for Penn State. Uh, and I was like, I was like, that's just what we do. I was like, I was like, that's what we do. And he, and everybody loved that. So they loved it. I say, I just say, that's what we do. And then uh, he goes, how about that sequence at the end? And I go, man, I've been doing that move since I was six.

• 2:10:32Speaker 01

  I was like, I knew he was going to his back. And uh, yeah, but anyways, it was just like a great interview and people, people loved it and stuff. I just got to like hype up the, the Penn State community a little bit and, and, and we did it right in the middle of Columbus too, which was, which was big. But that was kind of like at that moment in my career, it's definitely when I look back at my college career, the, the, easily the, the biggest moment, the best moment that, that I had. It was fun.

• 2:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Um, next season you go up to one ninety seven. Is that just because you're getting bigger and stronger and older or?

• 2:11:01Speaker 01

  I wanted a new challenge and and I didn't want to, I was weighing one ninety. I was like, I don't want to have to lose six pounds. I want to enjoy this senior year and let's have a good time. And the other thing was my best friend Anthony, who had been one ninety seven for us. He was going to heavyweight and I was like, well, this was perfect. I'll bump up and it'll be all good, good for the team. And so that whole summer. He, Anthony is, like I said, he's the best dude in the world. My best friend. He had a rough go. Up to that point, he had had three labrum surgeries on his shoulder. And he had never really got a shot, you know, lost, like I said, his three years of of competition of eligibility and

• 2:11:45Speaker 01

  wasn't able to compete. And he was out cutting from one ninety seven from about two twenty. So big ninety seven. He's like, I'm going heavyweight. That was part of the plan, you know, let's do it. And I'm like, all right, bro, let's ride together. Let's do this. So the whole summer lifting, eating five thousand calories a day. Literally it was wake up, six eggs, sausage, all that, go freaking work out, go hammer more food, work out again. Like that's, that's just what we were, we were just had a great schedule. It was the best.

• 2:12:14Jocko Willink?

  Hey, you, what about your knee? This is going back a bit. Did you need to get surgery and everything or?

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  No, so it wasn't a hundred percent torn. It was like eighty percent torn and I, they don't really operate on them. So I just kind of let it ride. So it's still, it bothers me once in a while, but not very often. I'm, it's, LCL is not nearly as serious, like, you know, ACL, MCL. So I, uh, yeah, after, I think the winning kind of helped it heal.

• 2:12:40Jocko Willink?

  Feel better.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:42Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and this season you crushed again. You come out at one ninety seven, it's just.

• 2:12:46Speaker 01

  It was fun. It was just like a fun, every, every competition, every match, I was very present, very excited. It was like, let's just enjoy this. Let's have a good time and let's freaking whip some ass. Like that's, that's what we're here to do, right? Like let's whip some ass, let's smile. I started doing this thing where. I was pinning guys and the first time it happened, I pinned this kid from Ohio State. It was actually number one versus number two in the country. First time we'd ever wrestled, boom, pinned him in like 60 seconds. And he was so sad. He was laying there. He was like, oh, so sad. And it's so fun for me. I don't want wrestling to be like that for people. So I just grabbed him. I was like, yeah, it's all good, bro. Like, help him up. Hit him on the back. All good. And then I started doing this thing where I'm like, alright, I'm gonna start helping people up. So I'm pinning people, helping them up, like, hey, keep your head up, bro. It's all good.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  And, uh, but reality, I'm really just trying to be there for my team. Be there for those guys. You know, I'm still grinding, still working and, uh, you know, doing my thing, but it's, it's just enjoying it, enjoying this, this moment. The team race wasn't really close, so there was no stress on that. And I just knew I was heads into, like, heads above everybody, kind of. So it was now just, let's just go out and dominate and, and prove it and smash everybody. And I just wanna end this on a, on a fun note, but really be there for Anthony. Cause this is his first year, you know, his only year, his only shot. And he's gotta beat Gable Stevenson.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  So it's like, that's, that guy's a monster, you know, and, and this is a big challenge. So, you know, me and him are pushing each other in practice. I'm having to wrestle a 245 pound kid every day. So it helped me get a lot better. My technique's gotta be absolutely on point. Not to mention, he's easily like the strongest dude I've ever competed against. So we're, we're, we're getting after, we're doing that. Big 10s comes around, I'm, I'm killing it. I'm like, it's a formality for me, like dominate these people. And Anthony's got Gable in the finals. And so, you know, I finished my match, he's wrestling. You know, it's like super tight, super close, one to one. And, uh, 45 seconds ish left, Gable takes him down, like hits like a nice, I think an angle pick, gets behind him, boom.

• 2:14:54Speaker 01

  And then Anthony, like, I'm like, dang dude, like, this is freaking, there's not that much time left. What's he gonna do? But, but he gets up right away and, uh, Then I'm like, alright, like he's so explosive, so strong. I'm like, this is a good position for him to be in. So I think they go out of bounds and then uh maybe 20 seconds left or so. He's faking, he's moving, he pulls, hits his like signature, there's this little like pull around snap, catches the leg. And then just runs through him, boom, takes him down. I'm like, let's go, come on. You got it now, he's got 10 seconds, holds it to hold him down. He holds him down. It's like, he has like one kind of crazy scramble. He's like up too high. But he gets back, boom, wins the match. And is in Minnesota. So it was in their freaking home, home crowd. And I'm like freaking, I'm like, let's go, come on. That's what I'm talking about. And so.

• 2:15:40Speaker 01

  Then I'm like, alright, you gotta do, like, I'm like, you just gotta do it one more, one more time, like, no big deal, but um.

• 2:15:47Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm not really worried about myself so much, you know, I'm, I'm more just like. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my thing. And so NCAA, NCAA comes and uh the year before I didn't have a great NCAA tournament, it started from the finals. So now I'm like. Alright, let's, let's put exclamation point on this. So, you know, start smashing people up, pin a bunch of guys, make the finals and uh. But before that in the semis, so for some reason they put Anthony and Gable on the same side. They were like. Number two, three seed. I think there was an undefeated kid from Oklahoma State on the other side, something like that. So they got a matchup in the semis. So I win my semi match, but then they make me do all these interviews with ESPN. And so I'm doing all these interviews, but I'm watching him on the TV.

• 2:16:28Speaker 01

  And I'm freaking out, super tight match, like, come on, what's going on? Like, this is crazy. And uh. So um then at the uh, I'm trying to think of what, what the big moment was. So the, yeah, so there was a big moment. Anthony gets taken down right away. End of the second, or end of the third period. Oh, he, and he gets called for stalling twice. So he's like down three points now. So then he's like uh, kind of trying to come back. He gets, he gets a couple of escapes and then um he's down one. And, and the third and Gable like takes a bad shot, boom, Anthony runs around him. And I'm like, oh, go, come on, let's go. But I'm like, there's a lot of time left. So he's obviously gonna get an escape. And uh.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  But Anthony's like holding him down for a while. And I look, I'm like, oh, he's got riding time. Like, let's go, he's about to go up two. And so holds him down for a while and then uh, and you can see Gable's like getting tired. He's like having a hard time getting up and I'm like. What's happening? So he gets, but then Anthony gets riding time, boom, gets an escape. There's like 30 seconds left and Gable's just coming at him, coming at him, coming at him. And he can't get called for strong, so he's trying to like circle back in, take some shots, this and that. And, and but Gable just doesn't have the juice. He just doesn't have the gas. Tony freaking wins and I'm like, let's go. This is perfect. And so then we're both in the finals and they decide that, uh, that I'm gonna be the last match, 197.

• 2:17:51Speaker 01

  He's heavyweight, so he's gonna be the first match. And so I'm like, okay, this is kinda good, kinda bad. One, he's never wrestled first, but two, I'll at least get to like be relaxed and watch him. Cause normally I don't really get to see him. But the other thing was he lost earlier in the year and now he's got the kid in the finals who he lost to. And so I'm like, frick, like they lost, he lost a close match to him, but it wasn't like that. It was close like on the scoreboard, but it wasn't like, uh, it was like Anthony never really had a, he never really was like about to take him down. So I'm like, all right, dude, come on, you can do this. So he goes 0-0 first period, he gets an escape. And then second period, um, there's like 20 seconds left. Beautiful single leg shot Anthony hits, picks it up and the dude like

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  just does something dumb weird like Anthony's gonna take him down, but the dude like just falls on his back, like tries to like kick out. And he just jumps on him and I'm like, let's go, pulls him on his back, gets six. Now he's up 7-0 and I'm like, oh, it's over. Come on, he won. And, uh, yeah, third period, took him down like two more times, won like 11 to one, killed the guy. And, uh, just so happy for him because obviously people see that moment. But I'd been with him five years up to this point, three shoulder surgeries, never having even been able to compete in an NCAA tournament. And now he's the NCAA champion heavyweight, like best guy in the world, nobody more deserving, nobody that works harder. Really taught me so much about discipline, commitment and consistency because he was through all those years.

• 2:19:20Speaker 01

  You know, I was competing at least, he wasn't even able to do that. So me and him just pushed each other so much and I was so happy to see him win. I was like, we freaking did it. Like, let's go. And then I, you know, I, I win my match and we just ru- kind of ride off in the sunset of college wrestling. Like, all right, that, that part of our life's over with. So, you know, I, I felt like it ended perfectly. I win the, uh, Hodges Trophy. Um, and, uh, I'm like, this was just the ideal cap to the, the college career.

• 2:19:51Jocko Willink?

  Now you you go to the Olympic trials.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:19:54Jocko Willink?

  What what's your what's your thoughts on going to the Olympics like where's where's that because because you're doing it also like in between each season of wrestling in college. You're doing like world tournaments or

• 2:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:03Jocko Willink?

  Olympic trials types tournaments and freestyle tournaments and stuff like this. So what just give us a quick brief on all that.

• 2:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I I was wrestling freestyle quite a bit, you know, it's a different style. Um, obviously in in college wrestling, it's just different rule sets than the Olympics. And so I'm mainly focused on the college style and uh. But in the summer, yeah, doing doing some freestyle training and and I have a, you know, a big goal of mine was to win Olympic gold medal. That was always something I wanted to do. And so basically, uh.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  In 2019, I I start kind of my freestyle career. I compete at the U 23 like the university world championships. I win the university world championships and I'm feeling pretty good. And then uh. Getting ready for 2020 trials and boom, COVID. I'm like, frick, what the heck? Life just gets paused for a year. So I just, okay, what am I gonna do? I just kind of they shut Penn State down. We can't really train, so we're trying to figure out places to train. And uh.

• 2:21:04Speaker 01

  You know, everything's just kind of in limbo. So then I guess towards the end of the year, it kind of gets lightened up a little bit. I get married and uh. Which is great and then, you know, get back into training. We're getting ready for Olympic trials.

• 2:21:18Speaker 01

  So basically, just at that point, I was. I knew I wanted to fight MMA. I was like, you know, I was planning on starting MMA after the Olympics in 2020. With COVID, I had to push everything back. I was building a gym in in State College near Penn State and that got pushed back as well. So it was kind of just a weird time for me, for everybody. And, you know, getting ready for the trials. I felt like.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  I wasn't really at my best physically, you know, I had some, some stuff that I really wasn't able to train through and things that I wasn't really able to, um, I just wasn't able to be like as prepared as I wanted to be. I make the finals and I'm wrestling one of my teammates, David Taylor, who's great wrestler, you know, world champion at this point and, um, lose the match, you know, it's, it's pretty, pretty rough, pretty upsetting, just, uh, now, you know, knowing that I'm not going to be able to compete in the Olympics and I just got to make a decision, you know, do I want to continue to train through 2024? Or do I want to fight? Because my plan was,

• 2:22:26Speaker 01

  you know, win the Olympics and, and then obviously be done. I don't have to prove anymore in wrestling. I can just move on. And so there was a lot of questioning and soul searching in my mind of what do I want to do? I've had this goal of being Olympic gold medalist for a very long time, but I'm definitely more excited and passionate about fighting and more interested in getting involved in that. And if I wait till 20, after 2024, we're talking, starting at 28 or starting at, you know, 25, like that's a pretty big difference, you know? So, yeah, to me, the, the decision came down to just,

• 2:23:07Speaker 01

  I have this big goal, but I'm not going to let this big goal get in the way of what I'm really, truly, where my heart's calling me, what I'm really passionate about, and what I really want to do. I felt like I would be doing like a disservice to myself if I had continued to wrestle, which I still love wrestling. I still wrestle all the time, but my, my goals and achievements, they, they, they don't define me. That's, that's just part of, that's just what I've done. I've just done those things. It's not who I am as a person. So, it was, it was tough and it took, you know, a lot of kind of just thoughts and talking with people and, but I, I knew that was the right move for me. So,

• 2:23:46Speaker 01

  get the gym built in August of, uh, 2021. I actually didn't, I wasn't able to train, um, from April, uh, even until then because of injuries I had and stuff. I had just rehab and whatnot and then, uh, got back after in August and took my first amateur fight like five weeks later.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  Uh, who's your first amateur fight against? And, and like, that's just not cool, dude. That's just not cool.

• 2:24:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:24:17Jocko Willink?

  I've, I actually have had many, many fighters that, you know, come through my gym and I want to fight, I want to fight, I want to fight. And I'm like, hey dude, like you've been training for nine months and that sure you might, there's a decent, there's a chance you can fight someone that's been training for six months. There's also a chance you fight someone that's been wrestling since they were six years old.

• 2:24:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:24:35Jocko Willink?

  And you're going to get annihilated. So you need to get better before you go and fight. Uh, when, when you started training, so, so where, who did you bring in? What was the situation?

• 2:24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I partnered with American Top Team and we basically built an American Top Team in State College. So they do franchises that are, um, you know, I, I, I don't know exactly the business structure, but it's like a franchise fee. So there's 40 of them or whatever, all in Florida in the Southeast. But this was like a real partnership with the headquarters. So the headquarters like directly backs and funds the gym and they, uh, provide the coaches and, you know, built the whole facility out and stuff. So basically I met them through, uh, my management team and just got along with them very well because I felt like two things. I felt like one, they were very structured relative to what most MMA kind of training situations, what I've seen.

• 2:25:26Speaker 01

  And they also just had a lot of really high level guys and high level guys in different areas from me. You know, a lot of high level jujitsu, high level Muay Thai, striking, and they had good wrestling as well, like, you know, but I felt like that complimented me very well. And it was just a good fit to partner up with them. So I spend probably 80, 90% of my time in State College in PA. But then when I'm able to, I go down to Coconut Creek in Florida and train with the main, main gym at the headquarters there. And it's been a really good system for me so far. And they just wanted to support and start this and partner with me because where they saw my career going. And also all the possible connections with Penn State Wrestling and the wrestlers that want to come up and start to fight, you know, once they're done with their wrestling career.

• 2:26:10Speaker 01

  So it's a, it's a little pipeline we're creating.

• 2:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's a big badass pipeline, actually. Wait, would you, when did you first do jujitsu?

• 2:26:19Speaker 01

  So my first experience with jujitsu was when I was in college. So I was doing a camp in I think St. Louis, Missouri Wrestling Camp. And this guy, his kid was wrestling at the camp and he was like, hey, I do jujitsu. Do you want to like come up and roll? We're doing practice right here if you want to go. It's in the wrestling room at the high school. We just have a little club. And I was like, okay, let's go. And so I go in and I have no idea what's going to happen. I've obviously, I've watched tons of fighting. I've watched some jujitsu because I'm just interested in combat sports and stuff. But I've never really done any jujitsu ever. And so they start me off with a guy.

• 2:26:58Speaker 01

  And like, it's just like a regular guy and I'm going with them. I'm kind of like, put him on the ground, take his back, choke him, whatever, get a gi.

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Just from watching.

• 2:27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  Just from watching.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  My, yeah, just from watching. My style with wrestling was always very, like, I was always focused on the pin. And so the pin is very similar. Like, there'd be wrestling matches where I'd get a guy in like a, like a, like we call the snake, like a cement job. And I like, I choke multiple guys out cold like that. Not on purpose, but just they're trying to fight off their back. I'm squeezing their neck. Boom, they go out. So that wasn't really a foreign feeling to me, like choking people.

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  But now it was allowed and you're like, oh.

• 2:27:35Speaker 01

  So what I always teach, so I teach clinics and stuff and what I teach is, all right, we're not in wrestling. We're not going to choke this guy. That's illegal in wrestling. We don't choke. We're just going to make it really hard for them to breathe. So that's like how I, how I teach. So it kind of, it came fairly natural. So I tap the guy out and stuff and then they're like, all right, how about, like, try this blue belt? I'm like, okay. So same thing, you know, kind of, he, he, these guys aren't like competing at a high level. They're just practitioners. You know, and they're not really even like, they're not great. They're just having fun. And so kind of same thing. And they're like, all right, what about this dude? Like purple belt? And then they're on me, purple belt, same thing. And then they're like, all right, this guy's brown belt.

• 2:28:15Jocko Willink?

  This is no gi, I'm assuming?

• 2:28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, so it's, all these guys are in no gi at this point. And they're like, all right, try this guy. He's like, uh, he's brown belt. And then we, we kind of go at it a little bit, like five minutes or so, six minutes and. At the end, um, I just, I, I never like subbed him, but I was like taking his back, kinda like moving around him. Like got him tired and he wasn't really able to like hang with me. And then I was like, that, at the, at this point, they had slowly been like stopping their practice and just watching me. And, uh, now at this point, it's like just us and everybody's watching. And they're like, go against the instructor, go against the instructor. I'm like, frick, I don't want to do this. This is his class, like whatever, let's do it.

• 2:29:00Speaker 01

  Um, and he's, he's an older guy, he's probably sixty, he's wearing a gi, black belt, like really nice guy too. And, uh, so he immediately pulls guard. The other guys were kinda trying to wrestle me a little bit, like they didn't know. And, uh, but he just pulls guard, goes half guard, just like locks me down, like, uh, it's called lockdown, I think, right? Yeah, like lock, and I'm like, he's in a gi, I'm like not moving. And, uh, we're kinda sitting there and like just in a stalemate. He tried to wrist lock me once and was like cranking on my wrist and I was like, get off of me. But I'm like, don't know what I'm doing. So I'm like kinda trying to pass or trying to figure out what to do. But we just end up in a stalemate for like ten minutes. And, uh, so we were just kinda stuck there. And then everybody's like, all right, time, like you're done. And I'm like, all right, we're done. And then so that was my whole first experience with jujitsu.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  And then the guy was, they were all super nice, super cool. And the guy like gave me a, a T-shirt from their club and stuff. And we took a picture together and stuff. It was, it was really cool. So that was my first experience. And at, at that moment, I really liked it. And I was like, oh, I'm fighting, I gotta fight MMA, like I'm gonna do it for sure. Yeah, this is so fun.

• 2:30:05Jocko Willink?

  When was like, when's the first time you rolled with someone that was really good at jujitsu? That like worked you over and choked you and you were like, yo, this is, I need to learn this stuff.

• 2:30:15Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I've, I've never really been like worked over and choked, I wouldn't say. Um, just cause like. I think my my skills translate well. So the first, actually, I'll say this, the first guy that whooped me was a guy from Pittsburgh, Isaac Greeley. So he wrestled at UPJ and he's older now. He's probably forty, forty-five and.

• 2:30:36Jocko Willink?

  Shout out to the old dudes.

• 2:30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, he's like Renzo Gracie, black belt, like beast, like runs his own club. Matt, I don't know if you've ever heard of Matt Factory, but they have a lot of good guys that that he, so he trains everybody out of Matt Factory. And like, first time I rolled with Isaac, that's actually not true. When I said I never got like whipped because he whipped my ass. He was like choking me, throwing me down and he's smaller than me, too. He's like probably one seventy.

• 2:30:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you don't know, do you, that's what's gonna happen.

• 2:31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:03Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, you're gonna learn freaking at an exponential incredible rate, but I figured there had to be at least somebody that made you say, oh, I need to learn this stuff.

• 2:31:11Speaker 01

  He was the guy, yeah, that like, kind of, he, he kind of, but you gotta, I wasn't going with like, I wasn't going to take time out of what I was doing to like, go to a legit jujitsu gym where these guys are frigging beasts.

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  You know, so I was able to kind of learn slow and then like start challenging myself a little bit. Oh, but I forgot because that's actually not true. So I worked, I had never worked with Isaac. And so I had done that one session, I guess session call where all the dudes rotated in on me. And then in twenty twenty, when COVID happened, um, so this was the first time I got whooped, actually. In twenty twenty, when COVID happened, there, it was like, like December-ish and I followed Gordon Ryan on Instagram and.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 2:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I follow him on Instagram and he was like, trying to get a match or like three people drop out. And I was like, I'll frigging do it. These, none of these dudes will grapple you like, let's go. Like, I'll do it. Like, I don't care. And he was like, all right, like, let me talk to the promoter and stuff. So I'm like, all right, let's do it. So we get, we get it all agreed to. And I'm like, just try to make it like somewhat fair. Like, I don't know anything. So no, like no guard pulling, no, he's like, no guard pulling, no leg locks. I'm like, that's fine, whatever. I don't even.

• 2:32:26Jocko Willink?

  No guard pulling, no leg locks. Okay. So he wasn't allowed to pull guard.

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  Not allowed to pull guard and not allowed to do.

• 2:32:31Jocko Willink?

  And he wasn't allowed to do leg locks.

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 2:32:33Jocko Willink?

  So that means you would get to take his ass down.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:36Jocko Willink?

  And you would at least not get your.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  Leg torn off.

• 2:32:40Jocko Willink?

  Leg torn off. Okay. These seem like appropriate rules.

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  Fair, fairly fair. And so. They're like, alright, eight minute match, blah, blah, this, now I'm like, done, let's do it. And so we get there and um I'm like, what way are we going? And I'm like, I'm like, whatever, I'm here. So I weigh like 202 and he's like 230 and I'm like, whatever, I don't care. He's big. Yeah, he's big. He's a big dude. Yeah, yeah. So I was just like, whatever, let's go. I'm here. And we get to, they want to do a rules clinic. So I'm like, okay, fine. They're like, alright, match can be 15 minutes. I'm like,

• 2:33:13Speaker 01

  well, that's different, but whatever. Okay, let's do it. And uh then him and Danaher proceed to like, mostly Danaher, like grill the refs and the, and the judges, the people for like 45 minutes about, what if this happens? What if the rules were happening? What if this, that, that? I should have paid more attention. Because I was just like, what are these guys doing? Like, I'm a freaking wrestler. I've never done a jiu-jitsu match in my life. So I, I did go out to Pittsburgh and train like a couple of times. I did three practices, legit practices where I was like trying to learn stuff before the competition. Cause it was like 10 days and I was like competing, you know, so um they're asking all these questions and I'm like,

• 2:33:52Speaker 01

  yo, I'm here to compete. Like, I don't care. Like, whatever. Like, let's go. Like, I was just confused why they're grilling them. I'm like, I should, I should be the one doing this. Not y'all. Cause y'all know what's going on. So we get to the match and in my mind, I was thinking that going into it, I was like, I'm gonna win this match. I'm going to go 14 minutes and 20 seconds, or 14 minutes and 50 seconds and take him down and, and score in 10 seconds. He's never gonna take me down. It's not gonna happen. I was way more excited about eight. Cause then I was like, that's easy. I can go seven and a half, no problem. But then they started saying stuff in the meeting. They're like, if you get called for stalling, we're gonna take all, like half your purse. You get called again, we're gonna take your whole purse.

• 2:34:36Speaker 01

  And I was like, that's so stupid. Like, what, what do you mean? And so the match starts and uh, In my mind, I'm thinking, I'm not gonna shoot. If I, well, once I, cuz there were, the questions they were asking were, oh, if I shoot, then he could pull guard. It was like, if I grab a single leg, he could pull guard. So I'm like, I'm not gonna put myself in a bad position. Obviously, if I get in guard or get in a situation like that, I'm, know nothing. So, you know, I wanna be in that as little as possible. And so, he actually freaking, like, scissor sweep me right off the bat, and like, like tore my MCL. It didn't a hundred percent tear it, but it like, tore it like, a good bit to where, a few months after that, I tore it ninety percent in practice, which sucked.

• 2:35:17Speaker 01

  But, yeah, and freaking messed me up, and then, um, but I didn't really feel it that much in the match, but, uh, so we go through the match, and there's like, I don't know, two minutes left or something, and I'm like, I think I got this, like, I'm gonna win. And he starts backing up into me, and like, like, turning his back, uh, towards me, and like, backing up, so that I'll try to take him down, so then he could do jiu-jitsu, right? And I'm like, I don't wanna do jiu-jitsu. And so, he's doing this, and everybody's kinda like, oh, like, making a noise in the crowd, I'm like, I gotta freaking do something. So he's backing up, grab him, suplex him. And now, that's the clip that everybody sees, is me suplexing him, which is a good thing, I guess. But, so I suplex him, and then I get up, and I'm like, oh, hell yeah, like, that's, like, now we separated, and, um,

• 2:36:03Speaker 01

  I got a takedown, it's tied, and it was two, they gave him two points for something at the beginning, and they, they gave me two, so it's tied. And there's a minute and a half left, I'm like, this is beautiful, I'm gonna go.

• 2:36:12Jocko Willink?

  One more takedown.

• 2:36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna go one more takedown at the end, like, and I'm gonna win. And, uh, so, but then, after I took him down, then all of a sudden, he starts pulling guard, and he's like, scooting towards me, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? Like, why are we not, like, but they, they, they were yelling in Portuguese at me, and I'm like, I don't know what that means, so, then, whatever. But I guess they're saying that, once I got the takedown, he could pull guard, which.

• 2:36:34Jocko Willink?

  Once he was on the ground, he could stay on the ground, something like that.

• 2:36:36Speaker 01

  Something like that, yeah, and so I'm like, okay. Whatever. So now I'm like, I can't just run away. So I gotta try to engage. So I don't know what I'm doing. So then he, he goes shoulder crunch on me, which I, I've watched some film on him. So I know he loves to do that. So I just sit back. Cause I got good hips. So I'm like, he's not just gonna fricking sweep me over here. Like if I obviously put all my weight on him, he's gonna do that. So I'm sitting back. Beautiful triangle right over my, uh, shoulder. I tried to stand up dumbest thing I could have done. I don't know. And then I'm like, I just gotta try to slam him, I guess. I go to slam him. He switched the arm bar. Kinda, it didn't hurt my elbow, but like it would have. And, uh, then I try to slam boom tight over. I'm like,

• 2:37:15Speaker 01

  son of a bitch. One minute left. I'm like, I could have fricking got him. Like obviously in this, this rule set, but then I'm, then I'm pissed. But overall it was a good experience for me and you know, I, I loved jiu jitsu. It was really fun. I hate that I lost. Like it pisses me off.

• 2:37:31Jocko Willink?

  Bro, you lost to the freaking literal best like

• 2:37:34Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:37:35Jocko Willink?

  nogi grappler in the history. So

• 2:37:37Speaker 01

  To me, one

• 2:37:38Jocko Willink?

  Don't feel too bad about it.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  It doesn't really matter. Like, you know, I just think how cool it would have been for me, for wrestling community, going there. One first grappling match win. Like most time wrestlers roll in and like do something like that, which they don't do often. And they get killed in 20 seconds. But if I were to one, would have been like ultimate cred forever. You know, so to me it's like hard because I'm not full time in jiu jitsu. I really never trained up to that point and I lost. So I, I technically shouldn't be that mad at myself, but I also just see like what that could have been. It could have been so cool for me. And, uh, now I like, I don't know if I'll ever get another, like I, I don't know if I'll ever get to compete against him again. Like hopefully we'll train and stuff, but,

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  and I like, I don't know how long he's going to compete. My plan is when I'm done with MMA.

• 2:38:28Jocko Willink?

  Grappling.

• 2:38:29Speaker 01

  All grappling. Like I'm going to do ADCC, all that stuff, but I just don't have time right now. So, yeah.

• 2:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. I got, I got maybe a little bit of flack the other day. Somebody took a clip from our podcast.

• 2:38:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Where I said, there's a couple of key things that I said. I said, pure wrestler against pure jiu jitsu fight.

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  The jiu jitsu guy is gonna win nine times out of 10. Listen, I love wrestling.

• 2:38:56Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 2:38:56Jocko Willink?

  I think wrestling is the best possible base you can have for MMA. I think it's what every kid should do. I think it's awesome. But the problem is, they literally don't know how to finish a fight. They just don't know how to do it. And so that's what a jiu jitsu guy knows how to do. And what you just said was like, you just, and the reason I'm bringing this up because you just kind of backed me up, bro. I got the, I got the freaking King wrestle right here. You said, look, normally it's like 20 seconds. If you don't know jiu jitsu at all, you take the guy down, great, and then you get arm lock. You take the guy down, get guillotine. Like, you just don't, you're just not used to that kind of thing.

• 2:39:27Jocko Willink?

  A month later of training, that wrestler is now murdering this jiu jitsu guy. That's why it was key component was like pure versus pure. That really doesn't even exist anymore. Even you knew how to choke people, you know, without any training at all. So,

• 2:39:43Jocko Willink?

  please, you know, a little mercy on the kid over here, you know?

• 2:39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know why people would be like mad or prideful about that. It's, it's, I think probably, you know, yeah, it makes, it makes perfect sense. If you got somebody that's wrestling against somebody that's doing jiu jitsu, it's not gonna be like, like the jiu jitsu guy's gonna win. As soon as he, as soon as the guy shoots, they're gonna get guillotine, get triangle, get arm lock, something.

• 2:40:05Jocko Willink?

  I, I can tell you, I have gone against, especially in the early days when I was like a blue belt. So we're talking mid, mid 90s. I, I went against all kinds of wrestlers, high school, college wrestlers. I mean, and I never like, lost, I never got like, they didn't know what a submission was. How could I lose? Like, it's not happening. So that was sort of what I based that opinion on. And I gave the benefit of the doubt. Like, sometimes I'm sure a guy might grab, you know, put you in a cradle and crank your freaking head off and be like, yo, this is what's going down. But, um, yeah, so.

• 2:40:38Speaker 01

  I think this like now with MMA being so prominent and stuff, people see like, everybody knows how to lock like a rear naked choke or a guillotine or, or even like DARS. Like people like that have never done jiu jitsu. Like a lot of people know how to do that stuff. Not a lot of people, but a lot of like combat athletes. Like they'll know, all right, this is how to do it. But they don't really know.

• 2:40:59Speaker 01

  Actual like jujitsu. For me, at the beginning, when I started doing grappling, it was, alright, just don't get submitted. Like, alright, I'm gonna control this dude. And then, I don't even know how I'm gonna get, like, my best chance, the only time I really submitted guys was because I was just so much better of an athlete, or I'll get them tired and they'll give their backs up or something like that. And I know how to do like, like something simple, right? But you don't really know how to compete in sport jujitsu, right? Like, if you take a guy down, you're sitting in guard, and you don't know how to pass guard, you don't know how to like, do anything, you're, eventually they're gonna just, they're gonna get you.

• 2:41:34Jocko Willink?

  Who's your consistent coach in, in your gym?

• 2:41:38Speaker 01

  So, for jujitsu, we have, uh, Ailton Barboza, he's ATT guy, so he, he competed a lot, and, uh, the cool thing about him is, he competed at a very high level in jujitsu, you know? He, he started off judo, then got into jujitsu as a teen, and then, you know, competed at a high level, and then, uh, since then, he had like, close to 20 MMA fights. So he has a lot of practical MMA jujitsu, which is great for me, right? Like, I love the sport jujitsu, but I need to know practical, top game stuff, cause, and, and defending submissions, and then, you know, stuff that's specific to what I'm doing.

• 2:42:11Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah. You don't need much bottom game.

• 2:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I like it. I like, honestly, like, when I'm rolling, like, I'll play bottom and stuff like that, it's fun, but I, it doesn't really, I'm never gonna do that in a fight.

• 2:42:22Jocko Willink?

  No, no. Uh, so you get your first fight, you knock somebody out in a minute or whatever, that's an, uh, amateur fight. And then, the, well, the next thing was contender series, right?

• 2:42:32Speaker 01

  No, so I took, so basically what happened was, I scheduled two amateur fights in a row. I did one, I did another one three weeks later. And then, um, I was really working hard, I wanted to make my pro debut at Penn State and State College. So we were trying to like, get licensing, put a promotion together, work with my management team, work with Penn State, and I wanted to do a fight in rec hall, like, it was gonna be insane, in, uh, in April, so when the students were in, in town, and like, you know, we were so close to getting it done, and then, the PA Athletic Commission, and between them, Penn State, my management team, it was just, we weren't gonna get it done. And so, I had gone from October through April and not gotten a fight. And I was like, guys, I need to get a frig, give me a friggin' fight. So,

• 2:43:16Speaker 01

  some random dummy called me out at, like, this promotion, was like, I want Bo Nickel, blah, blah, blah, this and I want Bo Nickel. And I was like, okay, let's do it. Pro, pro MMA debut in Richmond, Virginia. I did it in June and uh it was on UFC Fight Pass. So there had been people, you know, paying a little bit of attention to me and stuff in MMA, but not a lot. And then I made my pro debut and uh boom, straight left hand, uppercut hook, knocked the dude out in 30 seconds and everybody loses their mind. And uh immediately the next day, UFC is calling, Bellator is calling, every promotion is calling, wanting to sign me. And it's, it's crazy. And, and now it's like,

• 2:43:58Speaker 01

  well, I can go with these promotions, but I need to get more experience. I need to get some fights and uh, you know, nobody on the regional scene is gonna, who's gonna fight me now? Like I just knocked this dude out cold. I'm an NCAA champion wrestler, like, how am I gonna get a fight? So we, my management team and I decided, it was always the UFC for me. That was the path. And uh they really wanted me because my, my knockout, that promotion, it did the most views in Fight Pass history over, over like the next week out of any event that they ever done. It did like, I don't know, three or four million views over the next week. And so then they were like motivated because they, you know, they obviously saw the views. They saw what I did, which, you know,

• 2:44:39Speaker 01

  knocking out with my hands, which was big. And then they're like, all right, what can we do to get you experience? Boom. Get you two fights on contenders or let's get you one fight on contenders. Oh, that's right. It turned into one fight, didn't it? Well, it, it was, it was interesting because, so I go into uh Oh no, you did. You had two fights. I had two contenders fights. So I thought it was gonna be one. I thought I was gonna go in one fight and then they're like, all right, we're gonna get you another fight. So um they just said, let's, let's get you on contenders. Boom. And then Dana's like, let's get you one more. So yeah, the contenders thing was great for me though, because I got to just get experience and I got to um basically.

• 2:45:20Speaker 01

  Get these fights that I, these guys wouldn't have fought me if it wouldn't have been in contenders.

• 2:45:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:45:25Speaker 01

  It's like none of those guys would accept to fight me for.

• 2:45:29Jocko Willink?

  Five hundred bucks on a local show.

• 2:45:31Speaker 01

  No, but now it's like, okay, if I want to get into the UFC, let's do it. So now I can get the fights and then from there I was ready to.

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  Do you have any nerves at all going into these fights?

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  Well, the first one, I was a little nervous because, you know, bigger stage, my first one and uh, but, but I, I knew like literally any fight I go into is the dude has sixty seconds, two minutes to knock me out. If that doesn't happen, it's over. It's like, I'm gonna get you on the ground. I'm gonna beat the crap out of you. I'm gonna choke you out. I'm gonna do whatever I want. Cause you got a short window of time to win this fight. So as soon as I get a hold of him, I'm like, oh, it's over. Like, I'm not nervous at all. But until then, it's like, okay, let's figure this out. Like, let me get close to you. But uh, then my second fight, I was nervous because ten days before that, I was riding home from practice on a one wheel. Have you seen these?

• 2:46:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're like weird looking skateboards.

• 2:46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, skateboard with a big wheel. Yeah, and uh,

• 2:46:29Jocko Willink?

  It sounds like a smart move coming up.

• 2:46:31Speaker 01

  It's a high roll. But uh, no pun intended. But I'm riding back from practice and I live two hundred yards from the gym. So, but there's a main road that's like forty-five mile an hour speed limit. And uh, so I'm riding down this road. And the one wheel doesn't work when you wear flip flops, so I take my shoes off. So I have my flip flops, my big Yeti bottle, my phone, my wallet, like all the stuff in my hand, on my shirt, my shirt's off, no, nothing uh, on, just like all that stuff in my hands. And my, my buddy Anthony, he's just finished training with me too. He's behind me. And uh, so I'm like driving like.

• 2:47:07Jocko Willink?

  Is he on a one wheel?

• 2:47:08Speaker 01

  No, no, he's on a car.

• 2:47:09Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:47:09Speaker 01

  And so he's like going.

• 2:47:10Jocko Willink?

  So there's really no reason for you to be doing this?

• 2:47:12Speaker 01

  Zero. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done. So, but it was just fun. I just liked riding it. So, and it's two hundred yards. It's like, what's gonna happen? Like, I'm going just real quick. And so he's behind me and uh, I'm going like fifteen. So they're like rolling and I'm like, frick. Then another car comes, I'm like, oh, they're, I gotta go faster. So I'm like starting to lean forward and uh, It does this thing where if you lean forward too far, it'll autocorrect you. Then if you lean forward farther than that, it'll just die and like catch the nose and you'll just fricking boom. So I'm like trying to go as fast as I can on this one wheel to get around the curve to go to my house. And it boom, does exactly what I said, catch the nose. Twenty-three miles an hour, I fly off this thing, land straight on my freaking shoulder.

• 2:47:58Speaker 01

  Everything I have in my hands goes flying in the air. Boom, hit, roll. And I'm like, I just gotta get off the road. I'm gonna get hit by a car. So I pop up and just run off. And then I, Anthony's like, look, he's like this. And I'm like, and I go grab all my stuff and I jump in the car and he's like, are you okay? And I'm like, let me check. And then I was like, no, I'm not okay. This sucks. And so then I, I go home. I'm like, what do I do? I'm like, I have to, like, I can't lift my shoulder up at all. It's like done. And so then I'm like, I gotta go get an MRI, get an x-ray. So I cracked my collarbone. And I sprained my SC joint like really badly. And so

• 2:48:40Speaker 01

  we're 10 days away from the fight. I'm like, I gotta, I gotta pull out. Like, I'm not gonna be able to fight. I can't lift my arm. And so we have an athletic trainer at Penn State. I'm like, I'm gonna give it like three more days. And he's like a magician, right? So like any injury I've ever had, he's helped me. It's just like, he does a lot of eastern medicine stuff. It's insane. And so he starts working on me and he's like, you don't got a lot of tissue there, so it's not really gonna heal super fast, but we'll do what we can. So he starts working on me and the first day I was like, I saw improvement. I was like, okay. This is a possibility. The second day I saw a little more improvement. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna give it one more day. We'll see where we're at. And the third day it improved a little more. I still, I could go to like about here and like move pretty slow, but I can move. And I was like,

• 2:49:23Speaker 01

  fight's on. Let's go. I can move my arm. So that made me nervous. I wouldn't have been nervous, but freaking, like I said, broke my collarbone and messed, messed myself up. So

• 2:49:34Speaker 01

  then I just, I just didn't really train, just kind of got my weight down. And by the time I was about to fight, it was like I could box and do stuff, but it was just painful. It was like I could move the way I wanted to move, but I just felt pain while I was doing it, which is not ideal, but. We could fight. So luckily freaking boom, stray left hand, knock dude down, triangle, finish him in like 50 seconds. And I'm like, thank the Lord.

• 2:50:01Speaker 01

  So I don't ride the one wheel anymore.

• 2:50:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:03Speaker 01

  Is this the main story?

• 2:50:05Jocko Willink?

  Then you get your first fight in the actual UFC, right?

• 2:50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  Is that the right thing to say, the actual UFC?

• 2:50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's not the contenders. Yeah.

• 2:50:12Speaker 01

  So I was supposed to fight in December, right after that, that was in October or something. And I, I finished that fight and I was like, let's go December, let's run it. And I get back home and I was like, ooh, this is not really, I need to, need to fix this. So it's all good, move it to March. But yeah, I get my first fight in, in March in the UFC. Crazy. Like three and O and I'm like,

• 2:50:34Speaker 01

  let's go.

• 2:50:35Jocko Willink?

  Main card too, right?

• 2:50:36Speaker 01

  Main card, opening the main card, John Jones pay-per-view. This is wild. It was wild. Yeah.

• 2:50:42Jocko Willink?

  Any nerves on that one?

• 2:50:43Speaker 01

  Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel nervous for every, every time I compete. I think that.

• 2:50:47Jocko Willink?

  Did you feel nervous before the NCAA championships? Cause.

• 2:50:50Speaker 01

  The only time I didn't was my senior year in the finals because I was just so much better than everybody. It was more like, it was hard to get excited for it. It was just kinda like, all right, let's, let's do this. Let's, let's finish on a, on a good note. But every other time I'm like,

• 2:51:08Jocko Willink?

  What makes you feel nervous in the UFC? Is it like the crowd? Is it the possibility you get knocked out? Is it your career goals?

• 2:51:17Speaker 01

  I think it's just how much I put into what I do. And I, I

• 2:51:25Speaker 01

  spend so much time and effort to go perform. And I know these moments are so short and, and finite and there's only a few of them that you get. So I really, really put pressure on myself to perform to the best of my ability. And then of course there's nerves for, man, I do not want to get knocked out cold on national TV. I do not want to get freaking, there's always that risk. Like my entire family is watching and I'm putting myself in a very dangerous situation. So, you know.

• 2:51:57Speaker 01

  I do not, I want, and I want to win, you know, so to me like the, the nervousness, it comes from, from those two areas. And I think one's very negative and one's very positive. So I really try to lean into the positivity and, and replace the negativity, the negative one with, with other things with, uh, just more positive, loving feelings.

• 2:52:19Jocko Willink?

  And that's, so that's your kind of protocol?

• 2:52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 2:52:22Jocko Willink?

  How much you warm up?

• 2:52:24Speaker 01

  Um, I would say like 40 minutes before, I'll probably go for like a hard 20 minutes. Like I get my heart rate up. I don't wanna, I, I used to do this thing where I'd roll out and wrestle cold. And I would still go Pentagon in 60 seconds, but I found overall, long-term, I get better results when I warm up pretty, pretty good. So I'll get a good sweat and get that heart rate up. And, uh, yeah, then I give myself about 15 ish minutes to cool down before it's go time.

• 2:52:55Jocko Willink?

  How about the next fight?

• 2:52:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:57Jocko Willink?

  So, and that this was your last fight, right?

• 2:52:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my most recent fight was frigging sweet. It was so much better. Um, well, there was one little hiccup. The first fight I was very nervous. I, you know, wanted to perform really well. And, and the guy I was fighting was dangerous. He's like 6'3", super long, south paw, awkward. It's like, that was not a great fight, you know, but he was the guy they, they brought to me and we're gonna make it work. So, um, and, and it wasn't like he was an absolute killer, but he was just awkward and dangerous and had good power, athletic, so.

• 2:53:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you get caught, you get caught.

• 2:53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was nervous, but then, you know, the second fight.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, that one was an arm triangle.

• 2:53:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, arm triangle. Yeah. So the second fight, I was like, kind of, uh, I was way loose. I was like, I'm about to mess this dude up. Like we're ready to go. Camp was, was amazing. No injuries, all healthy. Weight cut was perfect. I actually, you know, I came down, I came in a little heavier. than what I normally do, but that was planned. I wanted to be a little bigger and I felt amazing.

• 2:53:58Jocko Willink?

  What are you walking around at?

• 2:53:59Speaker 01

  Right now, I'm probably, I'm a little light right now, but normally like in training camp, I'm two oh six to two oh eight. I'm probably two oh two, two oh four right now.

• 2:54:07Jocko Willink?

  What are you weak of?

• 2:54:08Speaker 01

  So week of I'll come in like lower than two hundred, like ninety eight, ninety nine.

• 2:54:13Jocko Willink?

  And you just go like all water night before.

• 2:54:15Speaker 01

  I'll do seven day water load, six day water load and then, uh, yeah, just like cut the calories a little bit, but it's mostly just the water load and sauna and stuff. I, I, I try to limit as sauna and plastics as much as I can, but it's very intuitive based on I've done it so many times.

• 2:54:29Jocko Willink?

  It's like no factor for you.

• 2:54:30Speaker 01

  None, no, none at all. I feel, yeah, I mean, I've never missed, I've never missed weight in my life. No, I've been weighing in since I was five, so never missed weight.

• 2:54:38Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, it's not an issue. Um, but yeah, the, the hiccup was my opponent pulling out of the fight, you know, Monday I get a call. I just finished a training. Well, actually I hadn't even finished. I was in the middle of my training session and my mom comes up to me and she's like, yo, Malky's on the phone, my, my agent. And I'm like pissed. I'm like, why are you coming to me with a phone call in the middle of my, I'm about to like hit pads like. And then he's like, I'm like, can it wait? And she's like, no, it's important. And I'm like, I knew immediately when she said that I was like, damn it. So he tells me he's pulling out, I heard, heard his wrist or something and I'm like, I just wasted like 10 weeks and I bought 40 tickets for family and friends and what are we gonna, this is, I paid, I got an Airbnb for the whole week, like,

• 2:55:22Speaker 01

  you know, not to mention, I'm just not going to get to perform. That sucks. So frick. And Malky's like, all right, we'll work on it. Let me, let me call you in a little bit. So like 45 minutes later, he calls me back. He's like, we got two names for you. And, uh, I'm like, give me whichever one signs. I don't care. And, uh, he's like, all right, well, like, we're gonna have the coaches watch some film and stuff. I'm like, okay, fine. So tells my coaches, watch film. They're like, all right, check this dude out. I watch him in two minutes and I'm like, done, I'll sign, let's go. And, uh, you know, I, I told myself, it's funny because I told myself going into MMA, I'm like, I'm not doing last minute replacements. I'm not coming in. Like I'm a professional, we're gonna do this for real. But then I get into the moment. And I'm like,

• 2:56:00Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 2:56:01Speaker 01

  I'm fighting like I you could throw out the freaking Incredible Hulk like we could go. I'm ready to ready to get it. And so, um, yeah, so he signed the contract. Luckily, fortunately, I I obviously signed the contract and then it was just back on business as usual, which was just such a blessing because I just thought it was done.

• 2:56:19Jocko Willink?

  How are you feeling in training camps? Like, what do you what are you focused on in training camps? Do you? I mean, obviously, and I was thinking about this earlier and talking about doing all your different sports. That's probably why your striking is able to get up to speed so quickly. Like, if you just wrestled your whole life, you wouldn't be striking the way you're striking.

• 2:56:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:56:34Jocko Willink?

  But because you were throwing balls and playing other sports and like that, your just athleticism is through the roof. Uh, so what are you concentrating on?

• 2:56:44Speaker 01

  I would say the main thing that I focus on is just my base and fundamentals is agility, you know, being able to move forward, backward, side to side with both stances. And, uh, just, just keeping that foundation solid and and building good habits is is the main thing. You know, the strikes and the combinations, when you put yourself in good position and you're in good position, you can do whatever you want. It doesn't really matter. You throw a knee, elbow, punch, whatever. You, the main thing to me in striking is my understanding my range, understanding how to have agility, be able to move and and they always say this in Jiu Jitsu, position before submission, right? It's the exact same thing in striking. It's it's getting a good position, then whatever you want to throw is going to land, right?

• 2:57:27Speaker 01

  Be super sound fundamentally on defense, so catching jabs, checking kicks, defending straight right hands as a southpaw, all very big for me. And, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, you work a little bit of fundamentals on on the actual strikes, right? Making sure that left hand, that straight left hand is straight, making sure your right hook is where it needs to be, making sure your jab, you know, I have a versatile jab. I can throw it to the head, to the body. I can throw it slow. I can throw it fast. I can throw it to the gloves. I can throw it to the air. Different stuff like that, you know, and but it's all solid fa- foundation fundamentals. I I think where a lot of people go wrong is they try to do the combo of the day, the one, two, three, slip, two, uppercut, step back, two, like, it's like, that's not a real fight, bro.

• 2:58:11Speaker 01

  Like, like, let's do stuff that actually applies. So I think that's why I've been able to get as good as I have. And I just have really good coaches, guys that I listen to and trust and who are going to keep me. In the right like lane and mindset of get this solid base fundamentals, use your wrestling, right? Like, we're never gonna forget about that. We're always gonna use my, use your wrestling. But now, how do we mix it up? That's kind of my philosophy.

• 2:58:38Jocko Willink?

  How much wrestling do you do?

• 2:58:39Speaker 01

  I wrestle every day, pretty much.

• 2:58:41Jocko Willink?

  And when you say wrestle?

• 2:58:42Speaker 01

  So not that much.

• 2:58:43Jocko Willink?

  Do you, do you, yeah, barely ever, every day. Uh, do you do jiu-jitsu? Is that considered wrestling now? Kind of like if you're, if you're going to train, can I slap a guillotine on you? And like, you're not like, dude, this is wrestling.

• 2:58:55Speaker 01

  Well, so what I do is when I'm, I do my wrestling training with Penn State still. So I go train with the college guys, but I adjust it a little bit. So like,

• 2:59:05Speaker 01

  I'm doing all folk style wrestling because that's most applicable to MMA. And I'm always like protecting myself, like, of course, these guys aren't gonna try to like, they're wrestling, they're trying to get better at wrestling. So they're not gonna try to guillotine me or whatever. But I, I just adjust my style a little bit to where it's more the way I would compete in MMA. And like, let's say I'm going with a dude and he shoots at something. Like, if I could put a guillotine on him, like, I'll put it on a little bit.

• 2:59:30Jocko Willink?

  Show it to him?

• 2:59:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll just show it to him and just kind of like, no, I could have got it. Obviously, he's not trying to defend me, but like, me just getting used to that and stuff. And, you know, then, um, when I would do like actual grappling training, it's with guys that, you know, know what we're trying to, trying to do. Like, you know, I do that a couple of times a week.

• 2:59:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So that way you're getting all that. And, um, when's the next fight? Do you know?

• 2:59:53Speaker 01

  I'll probably go early next year. So right now, I got a couple of elk hunts coming up. So through September, yes, sir. So I'm super pumped about that. And then, um, October, uh, my buddy Anthony's fighting, so I want to help him get ready for that. And then my wife's having a baby December. So I kind of like, it kind of eliminated like the rest of this year for me. Um, because the main thing was, since my wife's pregnant, I didn't want to have a situation where, all right, I'm fighting December 12th, boom, she goes on labor and I'm like, what the frick, you know? So, uh, I'll probably push it to March or April. But I think that's good for me too, just with my development. I fought five times in the past year and, you know, it's good for me to take some time and not be in camp because I've just been in camp the whole time.

• 3:00:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you got a baby coming. Your wife's a three-time All-American freaking track athlete savage. So you're like gonna have a genetic mutant offspring as well.

• 3:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that's the plan. That was kinda.

• 3:00:48Jocko Willink?

  But you but you messed up the date for wrestling.

• 3:00:50Speaker 01

  I know, I know. We'll see. So I'm hoping if she's a week late, we're good. Yeah, so we'll see. But uh, yeah, yeah, I'm really excited about it. She's she's the best. So, you know, met my wife in school and whatnot and uh, yeah, I'm excited for us to be parents. It's gonna be insane.

• 3:01:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. Do you know if you're having a boy or girl yet?

• 3:01:11Speaker 01

  Boy.

• 3:01:11Jocko Willink?

  Yo.

• 3:01:14Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 3:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:15Jocko Willink?

  And then on the like on the business front, kind of, you got some things going on there. You got Scrap Life. I see you're wearing a Scrap Life t-shirt. So this is like, you know, your wrestling apparel and you guys make shoes and everything.

• 3:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do head to toe wrestling. So that's kind of where we started. Scrap Life was, I came onto Scrap Life a few years after the brand, you know, began and then, you know,

• 3:01:38Speaker 01

  because of my position and just what I was bringing to the table, they brought me in as partner and now I do all of our product development. I do our manage a lot of the NIL athletes and our influencers and stuff like that. And yeah, there's it's a we're still early in the business. So you kind of got to do a lot of things when you're early in the business. And it's fun, though. I really enjoy it and I've learned so much just from having to figure things out and also dealing with people that um know a lot as well. It's it's it's fun.

• 3:02:11Jocko Willink?

  How's that NIL athlete stuff? Are you pissed?

• 3:02:14Speaker 01

  Uh, no, you know, I think.

• 3:02:16Jocko Willink?

  You accept it?

• 3:02:17Speaker 01

  I accept it. Yeah. For me, it's like, I look back at first, I was like, oh, my gosh, I missed out on so much money. This is insane. And then, you know, it was like, what are you gonna cry about it? Just get over and and for me now, it's like, I I always felt like I don't want, the way NIL is working is donors writing checks to athletes. It's like, it's not the way it's intended. It's just a donor writing a check. And so for me, I don't know. I just, I don't really like the way that it's going, the way that it's trending. But I'm also on the other end excited for kids to be able to make money and happy for a lot of my friends that are doing really well. So, you know, they're, and, and, and I'm, you know, never gonna

• 3:03:01Speaker 01

  beg for a dollar from anybody. So I'm gonna go earn it myself. So it's all good.

• 3:03:06Jocko Willink?

  Then you got your like this recovery cream that you came out with, which you have some for me, which I'm at camp right now. I need it. You need it?

• 3:03:13Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I got you, bro.

• 3:03:15Jocko Willink?

  So what's that all about?

• 3:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, twenty seven seventeen. So, um, it's a recovery cream that actually, um, a close family friend of mine, um, basically, uh, asked me, he was like, are you interested in like this, this recovery cream? I, I work with a scientist and we're formulating it to, uh, basically help with any type of inflammation, bump bruise, that type of thing. Would you want to try and see how it is? And this was like three years ago. So this was twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. And I was like, okay, I'll try it, whatever. And so I tried it here and there and I kind of have a bad back, bad neck. So I rub it and I was like, oh, like that kind of helped a little bit, but you know, I just kind of kept moving, moving on. And then, uh, right before the Olympic trials in twenty twenty one, that was when I tore my MCL ninety percent.

• 3:04:01Speaker 01

  So I kind of like partially tore it with grappling Gordon and then completely tore it right before. And, uh, then it was three months of rehab and just re-aggravating it like all the time. It would be like train, train, train, third day training, boom, re-aggravate it. And I'm like, what the hell? You know, so, um, basically after three months of that, I was like, what if I just, let me rub this on it. Let me see what's up. Cause I kind of had forgot almost. And so I started putting it on my knee. You know, in addition to rehab and doing stuff. And then after a month, I was like, I'm good to go. Wow, this actually helped. So I hit my family friend back up and I was like, what's up with this? Like, give me some more info on it. Like, let me see this. So

• 3:04:43Speaker 01

  he gives me some more info, gets me some more out. And I was like, all right, this worked for me. I want, I want to see how my teammates like it. So give some to Knoll, give some to Kyle Snyder, give some to a few guys that kind of are doing the same things as me. And then immediately, every single one was like, dude.

• 3:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Send me more.

• 3:04:58Speaker 01

  This stuff's sick. Yeah, like, let me try that. Like, what do you have going on here? I'm like, it's just like, yeah, product we're working on. So then, at that point, it kind of became real. I knew we had something. So then I kind of partnered up with a financial guy, partnered up with my uncle, and a marketing team, and I basically helped design all of the branding, the packaging, that type of thing, and, you know, do a lot of the now social media and whatnot. I'm not running the social, but I'm doing the marketing. And it's kind of for me, what I've realized about business is, I have certain strengths. You know, I have a good eye for the look, and I'm able to help with that type of stuff, product design and product development.

• 3:05:40Speaker 01

  And then what I'm able to do as an athlete in my own brand and that association. So that's kind of the lane I pick. And then I've been trying to fill in the gaps with other people, because I just couldn't do the other stuff that needs to be done, you know, the research or the fulfillment or anything on the backend, customer service. So, you know, I have other people that help me out with that.

• 3:06:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, you definitely have your role in this stuff, and you shouldn't be sitting in a lab somewhere figuring stuff out. What about, you know, I saw on your website, bownickel.com, I saw on your website, it says camps. Do you actually do camps?

• 3:06:16Speaker 01

  Once in a while. So when I was in school and wrestling, that was like a huge source of income for me. I could do, you know, 20 camps a summer and make good money and stuff. But now with, with way my situation is with fighting, I have a few rental properties, a few businesses. I don't really need to. So I will here and there if it's like a camp for maybe like a close friend or if somebody offers me like a lot of money, then I'm like, all right, well, let me see if I can carve it out. But I definitely don't make it a priority at all. And like, I do a camp every summer for my buddy in Texas, who he's a high school wrestling coach, and I want to give back, right? So to me, that's a lot of what camps are. And if somebody comes in with something like astronomical,

• 3:06:57Speaker 01

  then I'm like, all right, we'll make it happen, you know. But it's really, I try to limit them because it's a lot. As you know, you know, it's a lot to go and do that, and it takes away from my training and stuff. So, you know, for me, it has to make sense.

• 3:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Now, is your gym? In PA, is that thing just to fight gym with no, or is there like members?

• 3:07:15Speaker 01

  There's members.

• 3:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we have a public class.

• 3:07:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no kidding?

• 3:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, jujitsu classes, we got Muay Thai, we got boxing classes, so.

• 3:07:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang.

• 3:07:22Speaker 01

  Kids self-defense, yeah.

• 3:07:23Jocko Willink?

  That's freaking totally legit.

• 3:07:25Speaker 01

  I don't run any of them, but you know, for me, uh, my coaches are, the same guys that are coaching me are coaching the public classes, which is pretty cool. You know, they get that, you know, elite level knowledge to, you know, anybody that wants to come in and learn. And, uh, my goal is, you know, obviously right now I'm just fighting, but when I'm done and retired is to like, kind of head, head the fight team up. So I'll just have all these, hopefully wrestlers that are coming up underneath me, I'll have learned what I need to learn and help guide them through that. And I want maybe 10 to 15 guys, you know, not a crazy huge team, but guys that are all on a mission, on that same mindset, on that same wavelength, that want to be world champion and dominate and just take those guys under my wing. So that's kind of the plan long-term for the gym.

• 3:08:08Jocko Willink?

  You and I had an offline conversation a while ago about, and then I've heard you mention it in the press too. And I love it. And that is that, you know, the, some of these other countries are getting a lot of recognition for their wrestlers because of what their wrestlers are doing in MMA. And I mean, I rattled off a ton of American wrestlers that have kicked ass in MMA and been world champions. I mean, from everybody from John Jones to, uh, Sahudo, I mean, it's just, but for some reason, these other wrestlers from other countries get like recognition.

• 3:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:08:38Jocko Willink?

  As if they're, almost as if they're wrestling is superior, almost as if they're like some different breed. And what do you, how do you feel about that, Bo Nickel?

• 3:08:49Speaker 01

  You know, just, just to be a hundred percent honest about it, it does bother me. I'm like, it kind of, I feel a chip on my shoulder from that because I believe what I represent, American wrestling is, is number one. And so to see kind of the, the excitement and hype around, uh, the, the other countries and, and what they're doing. I'm like, all right, bring your best. We'll see what's up. Let's do it. So to me, it's, there, there, there's, you know, I'm, I'm totally cool to, to talk about it and chat about it and, you know, have a conversation. I don't know that that will go a long way in, in people's minds as far as helping them realize and understand what the reality is.

• 3:09:33Speaker 01

  So we got to fight and that's what's going to happen and I'm ready.

• 3:09:37Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 3:09:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we'll do it.

• 3:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it seems kind of crazy. I mean, uh, American wrestlers are badass. Now, would we be better off if we did like freestyle wrestling our whole lives here in America?

• 3:09:51Speaker 01

  We would be better off in the Olympics, right?

• 3:09:53Jocko Willink?

  Like, you know. But we were worse off in MMA?

• 3:09:55Speaker 01

  Definitely. Yeah, because folk style, the, the skills that it takes to be successful at folk style wrestling are so different from freestyle. One, conditioning is way bigger factor, factor in folk style. It's a longer match. There's less, uh, there, there's more kind of, I guess, scramble situations, actions, more stuff that's going to be taxing to you. You have to get up off bottom. You don't just get let up, right? Which is, what, what, what is that, right? Like, I don't know. I don't know. So I always liked freestyle, but to me, folk style wrestling is really true, pure wrestling. Like, that's what it's about. It's about, I'll get a takedown. If you want to get away, you gotta get, you gotta earn that. You gotta get away. I, I'm gonna hold you down on the ground.

• 3:10:37Speaker 01

  Or, and, and, and roll you over to your back and pin you, you know, or if you try to grab a hold of me, or you grab my leg or something, and I want to roll and do something to counter that, I shouldn't lose points for that. You're not controlling me, making me do that. It's, so, so to me, I, I just prefer folk style wrestling and it's easily superior in MMA. It's like, not even really comparable. You just look at, I mean, I don't, I can say that, but you can look at the stats too. Look at like, guys that wrestle exclusively freestyle or Greco, and how successful they were. And not only how successful they were, but how successful were they at implementing wrestling game? Which, there's really not a lot of examples, but guys that did folk style wrestling, you can clearly see them implementing the wrestling game.

• 3:11:21Jocko Willink?

  Well, I mean, it's gonna be cool. There's, you're gonna be coming face to face with some of these foreign wrestlers in the future. And like you said, we'll find out by fighting. What a beautiful thing.

• 3:11:32Speaker 01

  Like, oh, you think you could beat me? Well, let's fight.

• 3:11:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:35Speaker 01

  Okay, we can do it. I'm ready.

• 3:11:36Jocko Willink?

  When you watch their wrestling, what do you think?

• 3:11:39Speaker 01

  It's just like, you know, it's like, uh, they got a specific style and I think everybody gets so impressed by it because they are they're disciplined and relentless and they have a game plan and and focus on what they want to do and it's like that doesn't really to me make you special. It's like, cool dude, like, I gotta know a thousand guys that do that. Like, it's not really anything that's unique. I think that I do respect

• 3:12:03Speaker 01

  their approach to the sport and I think that some guys in fighting get a little too lax, party, like, I'm gonna go out and be crazy and then I'm gonna go whip ass and it's like, alright, cool, man, but I like the, that's just not my mindset. My mindset is all in, disciplined, focused, commitment, and I think a lot of their guys do kind of have that. So I, I respect that. And I respect the challenge. Like, they're gonna come at me with everything and, you know, that's what I want. I want to be the best in the world. I don't want to beat a bunch of guys that aren't good and then call myself the best in the world. Like, I want to beat the best guys and know I'm the best. And so if they're, if they're the best guys, then, then let's run it. Let's go.

• 3:12:43Jocko Willink?

  Uh, we're putting together kind of like the Jaco Fuel Fight Team right now and with the you and the Rotolo Brothers, the Rotolo Brothers, freaking awesome. Uh, I keep calling them kids. Is that bad?

• 3:12:58Jocko Willink?

  Technically, I've literally known them since they were little kids. Since they were like eight years, seven years old or whatever. So I call them kids. And I am also fifty, almost two years old. So that's but I'm falling into that like old person trap where everyone's a kid, right? Well, anyways, I've, we've got the two young men.

• 3:13:18Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 3:13:18Jocko Willink?

  The Rotolo Brothers, you know, um, they're great guys, great attitudes. And now your Jaco Fuel Team, which is awesome. And we just want to build it out where we have, look, to me, it's not just like, oh, this person's popular or this person's winning, but like, who is living the lifestyle that

• 3:13:39Jocko Willink?

  We are about and so you clearly are about that. So it's been awesome. I know we kind of just got that done a couple of maybe a month ago or something like that. No one really knows yet because I don't like do that big promotion thing, but I guess they'll know now. But yeah, that's awesome. So hopefully we can, we can give you some big support with everything that you're doing.

• 3:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm excited to be on the team, you know, there's a, there's really no team I'd rather be on. It's a good fit. It makes a lot of sense and doing a lot of good things. So yeah, I'm hyped. Appreciate you.

• 3:14:12Jocko Willink?

  Freaking outstanding. Well, so what's next? What do we got? We got the kid coming? We got some fighting sometime, you know, next year.

• 3:14:20Speaker 01

  The next main thing is, is go kill some elk. I'm gonna, I got a couple elk hunts, so I'm really,

• 3:14:24Jocko Willink?

  Where are you going?

• 3:14:25Speaker 01

  I got Colorado and New Mexico.

• 3:14:27Jocko Willink?

  Nice. Oh, nice.

• 3:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm excited.

• 3:14:29Jocko Willink?

  And you're just bow hunter?

• 3:14:30Speaker 01

  Just archery. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't really look down on hunting with a rifle, but archery is where it's at. Yeah. So I'm an archery guy. Yeah.

• 3:14:39Jocko Willink?

  Have you done a lot of elk hunting before?

• 3:14:41Speaker 01

  So basically two years ago was my first experience elk hunting. I did it with a rifle and it was great and I loved it. But basically what happened was I wanted to get into archery hunting at that time. I had been shooting my bow for two months and I was like, all right, it doesn't really make sense for me to go try to kill an elk right now. And so I was like, I need to train some. So the plan was train a year, next year, or excuse me, last year, go get, go get one, go get after it. But then I had fights end of September. So I was like, frick, I can't do it. So now I was like, get me a fight before September, get me a fight in, you know, July. And I was like, boom,

• 3:15:22Speaker 01

  got it done. Now I got September to, to go get after it. So that's going to be like my plan every year is fighting, you know, July-ish, September, get after the elk and then get back on it.

• 3:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah. That's gonna be awesome. Um, I'll be out there too. I'll be in, I'll be in Utah.

• 3:15:38Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 3:15:39Jocko Willink?

  And. Where can people find you? So we got, we got bownickel.com. That's where you can find um the scrap life. Also scrap life dot com is on there. I didn't see twenty seven seventeen. Where, what's the website for that?

• 3:15:54Speaker 01

  It's twenty seven seventeen recovery.com.

• 3:15:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I need to update the website. So this really new, no, just kind of launched the product the last few weeks. And uh, yeah, yeah. Twenty seven seventeen recovery, bownickel.com.

• 3:16:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you're on Instagram at no bickle one.

• 3:16:11Speaker 01

  No bickle one.

• 3:16:12Jocko Willink?

  Is there a joke behind that?

• 3:16:14Speaker 01

  So basically, when I was in high school, my buddy, I was like seventeen, I was like, yo, I should make an Instagram. Like, what should I do? I don't know. What bow nickel? And he was like, how about no bickle? And I was like, alright, this is my buddy Jack. And I was like, that's it. It's done. So it's just, it wasn't even me. It was Jack, Jack Bass.

• 3:16:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so on Instagram, you're no bickle one. On Twitter, you're just no bickle. And then Facebook, you're actually just yourself at bownickel.

• 3:16:42Speaker 01

  Just myself.

• 3:16:42Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Um, that gets us up to speed, right?

• 3:16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16:47Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 3:16:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:16:49Jocko Willink?

  I seen you were taking notes.

• 3:16:50Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 3:16:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what you're doing over there.

• 3:16:53Speaker 02

  Uh, so when was the last time you played football?

• 3:16:55Jocko Willink?

  I knew it. I should have written it down. We have football questions coming.

• 3:16:58Speaker 01

  So the last time I actually played football, um, I don't know, I wouldn't count this as playing football. So I'll say two things. I, I played touch football over Thanksgiving when I was in college, like twenty eighteen, with a bunch of my buddies. And uh, but I did a workout in the last like two years probably with uh, my buddy Micah Parsons. He plays for the Cowboys now. And uh, we did a little, a little speed workout, running some forties and doing stuff like that. So I'm down to play football anytime. That's fun.

• 3:17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So uh, in, what was that, high school, right? That was when you were?

• 3:17:32Speaker 01

  That was when I was actually playing, like sophomore year, high school.

• 3:17:34Speaker 02

  Sophomore year. What position did you play?

• 3:17:36Speaker 01

  So I played receiver. Yeah.

• 3:17:38Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 3:17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:40Jocko Willink?

  Echo was a receiver.

• 3:17:40Speaker 01

  Let's go. Nice.

• 3:17:41Jocko Willink?

  He was a lot smaller back then.

• 3:17:45Speaker 01

  Got you.

• 3:17:45Jocko Willink?

  That's your question?

• 3:17:46Speaker 02

  That's it, bro. And he went over everything, everything I was wondering. So we're good to go.

• 3:17:50Jocko Willink?

  Right on, man. Uh, Bo, any closing thoughts from you, man?

• 3:17:54Speaker 01

  I'll just thank you for, for having me on. This was really fun to, fun to chat. Kind of weird to go back over my whole life, but uh, it's good. So yeah, thank you.

• 3:18:02Jocko Willink?

  It's, I mean, to me, you know, uh, uh, obviously a lot of times I have military folks on here and we get to hear their story of where, where they were at, what they were doing. But I mean, dude, to hear, sit here with a national champion that where you have this historical record of what you were thinking at that time. I think that's pretty awesome. And um, thanks for joining us for sure. And, and you know, thanks for setting a great example. Um, for wrestlers, for fighters, but just for people as well. Uh, you know, your post-fight interview was pretty awesome. I, you don't see too many people with that attitude. And uh, I think we're all looking forward to watching you chase and win your next championship, UFC. And also, thank you for bringing forth the next generation of American fighters.

• 3:18:46Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 3:18:47Jocko Willink?

  Let's go.

• 3:18:47Speaker 01

  Let's go. Love it.

• 3:18:49Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 3:18:52Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Bo Nickal has left the building.

• 3:18:56Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 3:18:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:18:58Jocko Willink?

  Up here at camp, we're just doing some jujitsu, some wrestling.

• 3:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Bo Nickal doesn't train, doesn't wrestle very much. Only a hundred matches a year when he's six years old.

• 3:19:10Speaker 02

  Only 93% of his waking hours.

• 3:19:14Jocko Willink?

  Uh, no, it was awesome to have him on and very cool. Definitely. And we talked a lot offline. We have to do another podcast. We talk a little bit more of his training protocols.

• 3:19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:19:23Jocko Willink?

  I apologize. You know, like, we just didn't get into, uh, we got, we touched on it in the podcast, but like after the podcast, when we were sitting around, we kind of like started talking about it. And then we just started going deep. So we'll come back. He'll come back. We'll, we'll do a better job. We'll make it happen. But one thing we definitely talked about is a need for fuel.

• 3:19:44Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:19:45Jocko Willink?

  Choco fuel.

• 3:19:48Jocko Willink?

  You're training, you're wrestling, you're doing jiu jitsu, you're lifting, you're getting after it. You can't get after it without fuel. If you didn't put fuel in your car, where are you going?

• 3:19:57Speaker 02

  Nowhere.

• 3:19:58Jocko Willink?

  You're not going nowhere.

• 3:19:59Speaker 02

  Going nowhere, yeah.

• 3:20:00Jocko Willink?

  So we want to go somewhere.

• 3:20:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:20:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Get your fuel, get Jocko Fuel, go to jockofuel.com, get the hydrate, get the greens, I've had greens at camp. I brought them.

• 3:20:09Speaker 02

  Yep, well, they did a good job in supplying them.

• 3:20:11Jocko Willink?

  They did supply them as well. I brought some as well, but it's a good way. It's a good thing to have in the breakfast area time. You know, because you know, I don't, you know, I don't like to eat a lot of breakfast. Usually I don't eat any breakfast.

• 3:20:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 3:20:25Jocko Willink?

  But having that little, nice little greens package.

• 3:20:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:31Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of a good deal.

• 3:20:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:20:33Jocko Willink?

  Another thing, hydrate. Jocko Hydrate, have you had Jocko Hydrate?

• 3:20:37Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 3:20:39Jocko Willink?

  This has been clutch.

• 3:20:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:41Jocko Willink?

  Because let's face it, when you're training jiu jitsu, it's summertime, you're gonna sweat. The winter time, of course, you're in a wrestling room, you're in a jiu jitsu room, it's gonna be hot in there too, you're gonna be sweating. Get Jocko Hydrate, it's basically what you sweat out, it puts back into you.

• 3:20:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20:54Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens. You sweat out minerals and it replenishes them. It also has vitamins there. Kind of like a hundred, a hundred grams of, uh, of vitamin C.

• 3:21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:21:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry, a hundred milligrams of vitamin C, not a hundred grams, a hundred milligrams of vitamin C.

• 3:21:07Speaker 02

  The electrolytes and, you know.

• 3:21:09Jocko Willink?

  And all the electrolytes that you need.

• 3:21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's a big deal. So you know how like, okay, so basically electrolytes and then, look, I don't want to go deep into the scientific elements of this whole thing.

• 3:21:20Jocko Willink?

  The bro-science elements?

• 3:21:21Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no, it's the real one, the real one that I looked up. But, but in a nutshell, there's a good way to even kind of look at it, right? It's to, electrolytes are like the electrical signals, you know, that, or the chemicals that bring the electrical signals like through, you know, to your muscles, whatever. So I'm like, all right, so you got it, you sweat all that stuff out and then, so, because of course I'm gonna be like, hey, I want you to, I want you to just drink water, it's no problem. But when you don't have those electrolytes, like, okay, so we did this workout. Me, Pete Roberts, Jason Kalipo. Known for CrossFit scenarios, obviously.

• 3:21:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, he's a champion CrossFit.

• 3:21:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we did my workout, we did. His workout and his workout, he didn't make it up. He did it before, but his workout was bench press 135 pounds for 100 reps.

• 3:22:10Jocko Willink?

  For time.

• 3:22:10Speaker 02

  For time. So you could get it. The, you know, he makes it a competition. So you could get it the fastest. So, and then we did some weird ab thing that I never did before, by the way. Like, you ever got an ab cramp, like abdominal cramp?

• 3:22:24Jocko Willink?

  Honestly, normally I get, I'll tell you when I get abdominal cramps, trained jiu jitsu, worked out, ran, trained jiu jitsu, hard training jiu jitsu, get home, I'm like laying in my bed and like go to like turn on the light and it just like cramp.

• 3:22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:22:40Jocko Willink?

  So that's my normal. So I don't know what you're about to tell me.

• 3:22:42Speaker 02

  No, after the ab thing, you know, like, and the thing is like, when you're done the ab thing, you really feel it. You're like, oh, this is some ab stuff. My abs not used to. And then I turned a certain way, like right after, before I even stood up, I turned a certain way and like it flexed out. Whoa, you know, and you're just laying there and you gotta, you gotta like mentally like get past it or whatever. Anyway, so it's like, so all in one, the whole thing. My workout, usually I just do my workout. I'm done. So I did my workout, freaking the bench press challenge, which I lost by the way. Next time I win.

• 3:23:09Jocko Willink?

  Which is embarrassing.

• 3:23:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it.

• 3:23:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's face it. I lost. Yes. But Pete won and hey, look, we congratulate, we congratulate him. Good for Pete. You know, good for Pete. I really hope he's happy with it, but either way.

• 3:23:21Jocko Willink?

  He seemed real happy about it.

• 3:23:23Speaker 02

  And then.

• 3:23:24Jocko Willink?

  I mean, he's pretty pumped, right?

• 3:23:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:23:25Jocko Willink?

  He beat you.

• 3:23:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:23:26Jocko Willink?

  And let's face it, beating you would be cool.

• 3:23:28Speaker 02

  Would be cool. Yeah.

• 3:23:29Jocko Willink?

  It would be cool to beat you, but he also beat Jason Kalipa.

• 3:23:31Speaker 02

  That's very cool.

• 3:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Jason Kalipa is a legit professional athlete.

• 3:23:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he made up the challenge. He threw it out.

• 3:23:37Jocko Willink?

  That's interesting.

• 3:23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, he was mad.

• 3:23:41Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna want some revenge.

• 3:23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and rightly so, because even I wanted revenge.

• 3:23:46Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 3:23:46Speaker 02

  But the point is, oh, and then, and I didn't eat anything that day, by the way.

• 3:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Is this even fair? Do we need to edit this out? I feel bad.

• 3:23:52Speaker 02

  No, I know.

• 3:23:53Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't even part of this, but I feel bad.

• 3:23:54Speaker 02

  It's all over.

• 3:23:55Jocko Willink?

  Feel good for Pete. Oh, it's already out on the ground. Been released.

• 3:23:58Speaker 02

  Results are out. Oh, yeah.

• 3:23:59Jocko Willink?

  People know.

• 3:24:00Speaker 02

  We're just recapping right now.

• 3:24:01Jocko Willink?

  Is it trending on Twitter?

• 3:24:04Speaker 02

  Either way, so I go straight from there to training and I trained like, look, did I train 10 rounds? No, but I did two workouts, mine and Jason Kleepa's and then trained, I think it was like four or five rounds. Guess what I had right after?

• 3:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Hydrate.

• 3:24:21Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. Good as new.

• 3:24:23Jocko Willink?

  No more cramps. Alright, so Jocko Fuel, hydrate, greens, go. We've been drinking go like it's going out of style out here. Cause you're out here, let's face it, when you train this much in a day, you're gonna be, you're gonna need a little go and, and another thing, there's not a lot of sleeping going on. People are staying up late, people are, you know, even the Jiu Jitsu class ends at like nine, but then somebody's got a question, somebody wants to catch another round, somebody wants to do this, well, somebody wants to work a guard pass. All of a sudden, you're like a little bit hungry, so you go to the chow hall. Oh, some people are explaining something. Oh, you met a guy that you met last year. He's wanting to talk about this thing and you go, oh yeah, how's that?

• 3:25:02Jocko Willink?

  Next thing you know, you get down to your cabin and it's freaking 11, you know, 38. And you gotta brush your teeth and you gotta take your super grill and you gotta take your cold, your, your, your joint warfare. And you gotta take your time war. Then you gotta brush your teeth, floss.

• 3:25:21Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Now it's 12:07. A long clock's going off in four hours.

• 3:25:26Speaker 02

  In your case.

• 3:25:26Jocko Willink?

  In my case. Anyways, you're gonna need some go. Get it. jockofuel.com, Molk. How many Mols have you been having a day here?

• 3:25:33Speaker 02

  Average, yeah, like three, like three, sometimes four.

• 3:25:36Jocko Willink?

  I've been having like three, four a day. Pre-meal is what I've been doing. And then I think, oh, I just, you know, have one before I go down there. And then I'll have one post-meal. I eat two meals a day, that's four. So, there you go. Molk.

• 3:25:48Jocko Willink?

  Get what you need. Uh, you can get the stuff at Walmart, you can get Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanford Dash Stores, Wakefern, ShopRite, HEB, Meyer. By the way, like these stores are starting to bring in the full line. It's awesome. Meyer full line. Uh, HEB's been just getting after it. Harris Teeters just brought in every, so you're gonna see everything. So, when you see it, get it. You know, you wanna be stronger, you wanna be smarter, you wanna be faster, you wanna be better. And if you wanna sell this stuff for your school. You don't sell this stuff at your school. You got a school, you got, you teach kids, uh, educational stuff? Maybe you teach them jujitsu, maybe you teach them CrossFit, maybe you teach them strength and conditioning, maybe you teach them powerlifting,

• 3:26:29Jocko Willink?

  maybe you teach them archery. I don't know what you're teaching people, but if you're teaching people and you want to bring this stuff into your school, email J F sales at jocko fuel.com, set up a wholesale account. That's what we're doing. Anyways, jocko fuel.com. Get some.

• 3:26:43Speaker 02

  Also, Origin USA. Hey, we're out here.

• 3:26:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:46Speaker 02

  We're here.

• 3:26:46Jocko Willink?

  Currently.

• 3:26:48Speaker 02

  Origin Jiu Jitsu Immersion Camp, brought to you by Origin.

• 3:26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:53Speaker 02

  Origin, uh, uh, American made apparel, started with gees and still has gees, the best gees, actually.

• 3:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Hands down.

• 3:27:00Speaker 02

  Bro, that new one, that black.

• 3:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, see, you're like the fashion side of that one.

• 3:27:05Speaker 02

  I know what's going on. Unless all made in America, right here, right here from the cotton all the way to the gi, but not just gees.

• 3:27:12Jocko Willink?

  Jeans.

• 3:27:12Speaker 02

  Got some jeans on.

• 3:27:13Jocko Willink?

  Boots.

• 3:27:14Speaker 02

  That one, yeah. Uh, jeans, boots, they got some good jackets. The Kilo, the heavy like those, cause I've been seeing those around. I'm like, oh man, some that I'd never seen before.

• 3:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Hey, let me just put this out there. It's the end of August currently. You need a hoodie for this winter, for this fall. You need a hoodie. Get yourself an American made hoodie. Don't buy a hoodie that's made by communist, buy a, buy a hoodie that's made by Americans. That's my recommendation. It'll be better for you. It'll be better for the environment. It'll be better for the economy. It'll be better for freedom. It'll just be better. Get a Kilo hoodie. OriginUSA.com, go get some.

• 3:27:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's cool. They got something for everybody, by the way. You into hunting, hunt gear, you into jujitsu, jujitsu gear, you into just regular, normal stuff, working out, fricking.

• 3:28:03Jocko Willink?

  RTX gear.

• 3:28:04Speaker 02

  RT, the whole, the whole, the whole deal. OriginUSA.com, check it out.

• 3:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 3:28:08Speaker 02

  Also Jaco's store called Jaco's store. This is the, uh, you know, the, the guys that are kind of in the game, discipline equals freedom, representing in the game on the path, if you will. So you can get your stuff. Um, you know, you like the, the idea of good, something bad happens, good will come out of it. Can represent that as well. Um, also we have the shirt locker, which is a new shirt every month, a subscription scenario. I've seen a lot of people representing the Shirt Locker.

• 3:28:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, up here.

• 3:28:35Speaker 02

  It's interesting because I have this one on right now, the toxic productivity and a lot of people haven't seen it. And multiple, they said, oh, that's a good shirt.

• 3:28:43Jocko Willink?

  When you say multiple, what are we talking about?

• 3:28:46Speaker 02

  In my case, my estimate, seven to 10 people.

• 3:28:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's multiple, for sure.

• 3:28:52Speaker 02

  And yeah, it's only in like, what, like the period that I've seen a bunch of people, which is only like maybe one and a half hours.

• 3:28:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, alright, good.

• 3:28:59Speaker 02

  It's a lot. Shirt Locker, yes, called the Shirt Locker, it's on jocko store.com.

• 3:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Hey, check out primalbeef.com where we got Sean Glass selling steak. We're selling steak. We got badass steak, we got burgers, like, just get it. Great, grass-fed, grain and fruit, finished, finished with fruit. You want a cow that was eating apples, right?

• 3:29:24Speaker 02

  Sir.

• 3:29:25Jocko Willink?

  Eating a grape, eating a pear. I'm starting to sound like Theo Von over here.

• 3:29:32Jocko Willink?

  So, check it out, primalbeef.com, see what you get, see what you can get into, you need some steak. Also, subscribe to the podcast, also subscribe to Jocko Underground, also subscribe to our YouTube channel, also subscribe to Origin USA YouTube channel, also subscribe to Jocko Fuel YouTube channel. Psychological Warfare, flipsidecanvas.com, by cool stuff to hang on your wall by Dakota Meyer. I've written a bunch of books, you know what they are. Get the books. I've signed a bunch of books, we're up here. How many people come up to me and say, hey, what, thank you for writing Leadership Strategy and Tactics?

• 3:30:02Speaker 02

  How many?

• 3:30:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang.

• 3:30:05Speaker 02

  Planning?

• 3:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh, multiple, we'll say, multiple. In this case, in this case, it's more than 30.

• 3:30:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I believe it because I witnessed.

• 3:30:14Jocko Willink?

  It's more than 30, I mean, I've say, I've signed at least, oh, hmm, I probably signed 70 books.

• 3:30:21Speaker 02

  I've signed three here.

• 3:30:23Jocko Willink?

  There you go. And you didn't even write a single book, or a single real word in any of those books?

• 3:30:27Speaker 02

  Just made the cover.

• 3:30:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh wait, which one did you make the cover for?

• 3:30:30Speaker 02

  Uh, Leadership Strategy.

• 3:30:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh dang, I forgot about that. Well, how much credit do you take for that, honestly?

• 3:30:36Speaker 02

  None, until right now.

• 3:30:37Jocko Willink?

  No, but I mean, I, I give you a crappy PowerPoint that like basically has the design on it.

• 3:30:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:30:45Jocko Willink?

  And then you clean it up and put it in the proper format.

• 3:30:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:30:48Jocko Willink?

  And you want credit for that.

• 3:30:49Speaker 02

  Also known as making the cover.

• 3:30:51Jocko Willink?

  Okay, okay, alright.

• 3:30:53Speaker 02

  Bro, I'm taking it where I can get it over here, you see what I'm saying?

• 3:30:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you can get a book, Echo Charles made the cover.

• 3:31:00Jocko Willink?

  You know, a lot of people think that's the most important thing.

• 3:31:03Speaker 02

  Well, you know, we do what we can over here.

• 3:31:05Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, bunch of books, you know what they are, go get them. Hey, also Warrior Kid books. I signed all kinds of Warrior Kid. Kids are playing jujitsu now. They're playing that jujitsu because they got the Warrior Kid books. They're doing pull-ups, they're getting As in their math classes. They're on the path. Get the Warrior Kid books with people that you know. You, you're thinking like, well, how good they can, can they be? I'm telling you, there's no way that this many people come up and talk to me about how these books help their kids if they're not freaking outstanding. So, check out The Way of the Warrior Kid books. Check out About Face by Hackworth. I signed one of those while we're here. No, two, two of those while we're here. And Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy, Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Discipline, because I signed a lot of Discipline Equals Freedom up here. Probably

• 3:31:50Jocko Willink?

  fourteen of those. Estimated seventeen, maybe. Anyways, that's what we're doing.

• 3:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Bunch of books, get them. Eslamfront.com. If you have issues, you want to improve the leadership inside your organization, go to eslamfront.com. You can come to one of our events, we can come to you. You can do our online training, which is available at extremeownership.com, where you can take online courses. You can, you can learn jujitsu online, which is a real physical thing, but you can also learn to lead. So check out extremeownership.com. Learn about life. Learn about home life. Learn about leading your family. Learn about leading your boss. Learn about leadership, extremeownership.com. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom.

• 3:32:38Jocko Willink?

  Mama Lee, she's got an amazing charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, check out HeroesAndHorses.org. That is Micah Fink. He's got a

• 3:32:53Jocko Willink?

  charity.

• 3:32:55Jocko Willink?

  Where he takes people up into the wilderness. I mean, deep into the wilderness. And they go in rivers, cold rivers. They ride horseback. They eat meat. They have no junk food. They have no cell phones. They get out there. They get lost. And they get found. Heroes and horses.org. Also, thanks to Bo Nickel for joining us. And just, just a great guy, as you could tell. We wish him the best and we will enjoy watching him in pursuit of UFC gold. And representing America and American fighters. So, thanks once again to Bo.

• 3:33:40Jocko Willink?

  If you want to connect with us, by the way, Bo is Bo Nickel dot com. He's at Instagram at No Bickle One. He's on Twitter at No Bickle. He's on Facebook at Bo Nickel. Of course, that goes out to Coach Charles. I am at Chalk Willink. Just be careful because there's an algorithm on there. And you might accidentally follow somebody. That you didn't mean to. And now all of a sudden, you're following random people. So just be careful.

• 3:34:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, watch out.

• 3:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Just watch out for that one. Then what do you do? What do you do when you accidentally follow someone?

• 3:34:11Speaker 02

  I don't know, man. That happened to me two times. So I'm following and you know, I'm not gonna say the name, obviously, but I just, I just let it ride. You know, whatever. And if, if thankfully, great, you know, normal people, whatever. So, but yeah, if they got annoying, I don't know, maybe unfollow.

• 3:34:27Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know where the follow button is.

• 3:34:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:34:30Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know where it is. Somehow, I must have hit it.

• 3:34:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:34:33Jocko Willink?

  And so now we're following.

• 3:34:35Speaker 02

  Here, this is how it, because I did that I reversed engineered it. And if you click on like your alerts or whatever, you know, the heart with the alerts. It'll, it'll say like, this guy did this. And then, but if you're not following, it'll say follow.

• 3:34:49Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like a question mark.

• 3:34:50Speaker 02

  So you can easily accidentally press follow. Yes.

• 3:34:54Jocko Willink?

  Check. Okay, well, just watch out because your algorithm will have people that you may end up following by accident.

• 3:35:02Jocko Willink?

  Uh, all right. Well, like I said, thanks to Bo for coming out. Thanks to our military. The members of our military who represent America around the world and who keep us safe and protect our way of life. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe and protecting us here at home and to everyone else out there.

• 3:35:31Jocko Willink?

  Let's just think about those J7, the J Robinson wrestler, coach, soldier, Ranger, Vietnam veteran, his seven fundamentals that he would teach to young wrestlers. Discipline, dedication, sacrifice, hard work, responsibility, accountability, and of course, service.

• 3:35:54Jocko Willink?

  And if you're doing those things, if you're doing those things, you can do anything and you can definitely stay on the path.

• 3:36:06Jocko Willink?

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