236: There Will Be Punishment. You Will Get Beat Down. The Projects, SEALS, and Martial Arts, with Jeff Higgs.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:49 - Jeff Higgs. The Projects, Military, and Martial Arts. 2:07:21 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:35:30 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:50:40 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 236 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  When I went through basic SEAL training, there were two people recognized with an award at the end of training.

• 0:21Jocko Willink?

  The first award was for the honor man. And the honor man is the guy in the class, I think it's for the best sort of overall performance.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  Which is mostly physical. Running, swimming, obstacle course, pull-ups, sit-ups, whatever, whatever other physical events you do, life-saving and knot-tying and buddy breathing and pool competency. And you kind of have to just do good at everything and not just good, you have to do really good at everything. It seems like the honor man is going to be one of those people who

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  did some kind of athletics in, in high school, maybe even college.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  In my class, the honor man was a complete badass.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  His name was Keith Kamira.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  Total stud. He, and I don't remember everything about BUDs, but I remember that he won just about everything. Although there was one other guy that was always right there with him. But somehow Keith must have edged him out enough times to become the honor man. I never was close enough to the front of the pack to knew, to know which of those two guys won. But obviously it must have been Keith. Cause he was just pretty much savage at everything. And even after SEAL training, he, he pushed himself hard, tried to maintain that edge.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  And after his first tour at a team, he went back to BUDs to be an instructor.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  And on January 10th, 1997, Keith was practicing breath holds during an evolution with the students in the dive tower and the other instructors were, they were working with the students and they were running the evolution and they weren't tracking Keith.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  Who was down at the bottom of the 50-foot tower, holding his breath.

• 2:31Jocko Willink?

  And at some point, at some point, he passed out.

• 2:36Jocko Willink?

  And because he was just sitting down there, almost in a meditative way, no one really noticed that he had passed out.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  He took on water. By the time the other instructors recognized what had happened, he was unconscious.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  And he never, he never regained consciousness.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  And he ended up dying the next day, January 11th, 1997.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  A better man than me.

• 3:17Jocko Willink?

  The other person, the other award that gets given out at the end of BUDs is called the Fire in the Gut Award.

• 3:31Jocko Willink?

  And I, I don't know if there's some kind of official definition for this award, but it seems like the award was given to the individual that had to dig the deepest to get through the training.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  And who, in doing so, also inspired and motivated the rest of the class. And in my class,

• 4:00Jocko Willink?

  Class 177,

• 4:03Jocko Willink?

  that was another badass man.

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  A guy by the name of Jeff Higgs.

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  And his journey to BUDs, to Basic SEAL Training, and through Basic SEAL Training is a pretty incredible story.

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  And because of that, you know, we're, we're brothers. But we're brothers not only because we went to BUDs together, not only because we served at SEAL Team One together, but also through Jiu-Jitsu.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure we both started the Jiu-Jitsu journey the same exact day.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  And we are connected through our jujitsu lineage.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  Because Jeff Higgs eventually got his black belt. He gave the black belt to Dean Lister. Dean Lister gave the black belt to me. And I guess we should include that there's also a connected lineage here to Echo Charles, who then received his black belt from me. And

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  it's been a while. But it's an honor to have Jeff here with me today to share his experiences, his knowledge, his outlook, and his lessons learned in life. Jeffrey.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks for having me.

• 5:37Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for coming on, man. Always good, always good to see you, to hear you. I heard you at some pretty, I heard your voice at some pretty traumatic times in my life. So it's always good to, to sit down with you. Obviously, we trained a ton, but let's start at the beginning. Let's start at young Jeff Higgs. Where were you born?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I was born in Ramsay or in North Carolina. It's a town like almost smack dab in the middle of the state. Pretty rural area.

• 6:11Jocko Willink?

  And what was, what was the situation there? Like, what was your mom and dad doing there? What was the scenario?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  At the time, my, my parents were separated. So I was, you know, I was, you know, my mom had me there and moved back to New York when I was about three.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  So was she, was she a New Yorker originally?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  No, my mom's from that, that town.

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  And where was your dad from?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  My dad was born in the Bronx, grew up in Harlem.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  And so then. So they had they moved down there together or were they already split up and she took you down?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were split up and I wasn't born yet. So I was born down there. The rest of my family was born in in New York.

• 6:53Jocko Willink?

  And then and then you moved back to New York at what age?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Three. My mom moved back. So at this point I hadn't really met my father.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  And my mom moved back to New York and then it was a kind of a whole family issue thing that I wouldn't want to get into publicly, but my dad got custody of me. And ended up growing there with my father and going to my mother's back and forth on weekends.

• 7:23Jocko Willink?

  And then whereabouts in in New York where you live in?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  So I grew up on Staten Island in a place called West Brighton Projects. So that's where I lived with my father. And my mom lived in another project called Park Hill Projects. So a lot of people are familiar with that Stapleton, Parker Hill are right next to each other, like the Wu-Tang Clan is from Stapleton. From from West Brighton, Mark Mahomes area, there was like the Four SMDs. There were some people who had come out of that area that had gotten fame.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  And then like I remember when I was a kid and I would take the train down to the city. And we would go by, you know, I'm coming down from New England, from Connecticut. You know, whereas in in the sticks, you know, I grew up on a dirt road. And so we'd be on the train, me and my buddies, and you'd be going through the projects for it's probably it seemed like about maybe 20 minutes of riding the train. Where it's just a building, building, building, building. You can tell that they're in rough shape. And, you know, I would always be sitting there on this train, you know, coming in from a really rural area.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  And looking in there thinking, that looks rough.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the projects very much the same in the northeast area. You know, they're rough areas.

• 8:54Jocko Willink?

  So what did your dad do for a living?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  My dad worked with like housing. So he didn't have too much education. But you know, he did what he could and he worked in the housing department. So he worked in like for the projects for the city. Like, you know, I remember like as a kid, he would take me into these big boiler rooms. Like we'd go down underneath the building and you know, for it's winter in New York, you have these boilers that heat the buildings. And the boilers are huge. You know, you could see the fire in there and you'd show me how to, you know, show me the gauges and all that and how to operate. It was pretty cool.

• 9:34Jocko Willink?

  And and then did you, well, I know you have at least a sister. What else did you have for siblings?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I have three older brothers and two older sisters. So I'm the youngest.

• 9:46Jocko Willink?

  The youngest?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  Were all that, were all of you co-located in the same house with your dad?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Uh, yes and no. There are all kinds of situations going on in there. So I'm not really gonna divulge my family history, maybe in a book or something like that.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  But but so it was pretty much some of the kids that were around some of the time, you're around. Sounds like you said weekends with your mom, but the rest of the time with your dad?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And for the most part, my uh, my brothers and sisters, we were with my father and I'd visit my mom on the weekends.

• 10:21Jocko Willink?

  And then what were you doing? Like what were your interests? What was going to school like?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Okay, as a kid, I was very thin. And I had like an incident happened, like I guess like in second grade or so, I got really sick. Like I got sick in front of a bunch of people in school. And I was just really embarrassed by it and I didn't want to get sick again, so I stopped eating a lot. So I was really thin. But besides that, and that went on for a long time, I wouldn't eat much. So what grade was that? That's like second grade. So you got, you mean, when you say you got sick, you mean you threw up in front of a bunch of people? Yeah, we were doing like this play, like the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, something like that. Hell yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And I was just, I told the teacher, I'm like, I do not feel good. And she just let me sat, sit there and then I was like, they put out a bucket in front of me.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is New York in like, you know, late seventies, early eighties and then it came, I just started, you know, going at it right there and everyone in the class just scattered and they were like, just like pointing at me and it was just like, it's, I couldn't do anything, you know, it was like I had no control and the body was just doing what it was doing. And I was, I just kind of toned down my eating. And I would eat like just a piece of bread in a day. But I mean, besides that, I was, you know, really bookish, read a lot of comic books, encyclopedias.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I was just reading all the time and pretty much like, pretty much a nerd. You know, I would walk around and that was, that's why I was a target in that kind of neighborhood. You're definitely going to be a target. You know, I used to have, I used to carry this book in my pocket called The Golden Guide. Golden Guide? Golden Guide. You can still find him and I even bought the book because, you know, just for nostalgia's sake. But it's a little book of spiders of North America. So that, you know, people used to call me Spiderman. Cause I would, I would come up, you know, I'm like this little kid like, oh, that's electrodectus mactans and like,

• 12:46Speaker 01

  saying all these species names of these arachnids, different types of arthropods and people were like, this kid. And I would collect spiders and go down and get ants and put in the web. It was like, pretty twisted, I guess, looking back on it. But, but that's got to completely isolate you from like other kids, especially in the projects. Yeah, it's kind of weird, especially like, my dad said I was creepy.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  You you don't, do you think that like, uh, when you were sick in front of all those people and you kinda got called out? It's funny because we're sitting here laughing about that. But that kinda stuff leaves a mark on kids, right?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:28Jocko Willink?

  It leaves a mark on kids. Do you think that left a mark? Do you think that's what made you kinda, uh, become more into books because books couldn't laugh at you?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Nah, I was, I was into books before that, but I think it made me more introverted. You know, because now the spotlight's on, but it's not for something good.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And everyone's laughing and pointing and like, a lot of people just really disgusted. It was just, it was, you know, really stands out in my mind.

• 13:57Jocko Willink?

  So then what was, it seems like, you know, you're reading books, you're kind of a nerd. What about like as you get older, as you get into high school? I mean, damn. You know, like I said, for me, especially in the eighties, you know, like going down to the city in the eighties. It was mayhem down there. It was total mayhem.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:16Jocko Willink?

  The drug dealers, the, the pimps, the prostitutes. Like I remember we used to go out at night and, and you'd see like prostitutes at probably around 10 or 11 o'clock at night. And they'd be out on the streets, you know, working and then we'd come back at three or four o'clock in the morning. We'd go to see a hardcore show or whatever. We'd come back later. And there'd be those girls, they'd be out there, you know, turning tricks. They'd be looking like they'd been turning tricks all night. I mean, how does a, how does a kid that's reading about spiders get through that without getting dragged into it?

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I think one of the main reasons for my path in life was being the youngest in my family. I could see different mistakes. I'm not even gonna say mistakes, but I just, I'll, I'll say different choices that other people made. And I'm like, hmm, maybe I'll go this way. I think when you're the youngest, you may wanna look to be distinctive. Cause you're, everyone's always telling you do this, do this, do this. And you wanna think for yourself. So I think maybe that's, that's a reason.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Were you getting any guidance from your older siblings that were saying, hey, you might not wanna do this? Cause the other thing, man.

• 15:29Jocko Willink?

  This is such a negative way to look at human nature. But so often you see people. Try and drag other people down and I I mean, this was in the SEAL teams. This is where I know it from in the SEAL teams where. You know, you'd have somebody that was trying to kind of move in the right direction and the other guys would kind of. Drag them back down, you know, like they wouldn't want people to succeed. And and that's not a blanket statement. But I'm just saying it happens and and I could definitely see it happening within families where. You know, one sibling does start starts to do something well. And the other siblings kind of grab them and drag them back down. But I could also see siblings saying, don't make that mistake, go in this direction.

• 16:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you see either one of those or was it more just your perception of what to do and what not to do?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  I would say my siblings. Uh, my brothers and sisters have always been really cool with me. You know, I'm I'm. Kind of like, uh, I I feel really blessed in that sense. You know, they always steered me in the right direction and and the weird thing was around the neighborhood. You know, I was known as like Little Higgs and my other brother was a similar age. You know, we were like, you know, they were like, oh, you know, look out for those guys. So I mean, we would sometimes I'd be walking by the lobby in my building. And the guys, the drug dealers right there, I know the guy, he lives up on that floor, you know. You just know he sells drugs, he does his thing and hey, what's up, Little Higgs, you just walk right by. You know, it was never like, uh.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Um, I never really felt like I wanted to get involved in that stuff. So I didn't really have too much of an issue, but I could see all these things going on around and this is like in the. In the eighties in New York City, which is very different than it is now, I would say. You know, it was definitely a rougher time.

• 17:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. When's the last time you were back in New York?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Um, I'm just this few months ago seeing my brother, so I go visit my brother. And, uh, you know, he still lives in Harlem. So I'll visit him, uh, you know, pretty much, um, when I'm coming back from overseas or something, I just stop over there.

• 17:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, New York is a completely and utterly different place now than it was in the eighties. Never mind the seventies, I would never went down there in the seventies, but in the eighties for sure. What about, um, you know, one of the things you used to tell us stories, me, I mean, you and I would sit down and talk for a long time when we were going through training and you'd tell me stories about some of the characters in the projects. There was, I know there was a couple of brothers that seemed to have, they seemed to be, they seemed to have their own like world that you kind of brushed up into sometimes. It is, it was just like the, I mean, I remember these stories, man. Give us a little hint of those guys. What was their deal?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  So these two brothers, Mark and James, they just, uh, I don't even know what started it. Just, they just had it out for me. Mostly James. And, uh, these guys would, every time they would see me, you know, they were high on something and they would make this sound like, "Hoo." And when I heard that sound, I was like, I, you know, I would start running. I'm, I'm guessing like, looking back, they're seeing this kid with glasses on, looking at a spider book in the corner of a building. And they're just like, target. And, you know, that's, that's how it started. And, and this, I used to be in the corner, just getting, taking punches from these guys.

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  In the, it's, so it started with them just saying, "Hoo," right?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's how you'd know that they were coming for you?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and it was also kind of a signal. Because in the projects, you know, each building is kind of like its own entity. And like, maybe a guy in another building, it's like a signal to, to that person. So you hear like, "Hoo," and then way in the distance, you'd hear, "Hoo." So it's like, it's a weird thing going on.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  So the funny thing is, this is fast forward a little bit, but you know, when we were going through SEAL training, Jeff, you would do that, like, at moments of whatever, like moments of chaos where they're trying to get us to quit. All of a sudden you'd hear, "Hoo, hoo, hoo."

• 19:48Speaker 01

  So I mean, it it just needs to be said, though, I was, I told that story to someone. And that person just started saying it over and over, and then it spread. So then everyone was saying it. So I wasn't like, you know, just randomly in buds like, you know, this is someone started and then it just spread and then it's like from buds, STT to the teams.

• 20:16Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, so when you get to high school, is your attitude changed or is your attitude the same through high school?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 20:23Jocko Willink?

  What happened in high school?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  So when I was 12, um, my dad was a football coach. You know, I was doing like Pop Warner football and I was one of the worst on the team for sure. And, uh, you know, my dad was always trying to encourage me, you know, you gotta try different things. So try football, try this, try that. And, uh, you know, my dad, one day I came home and, um, he was blowing his nose. And when he pulled the tissue away, it was just blood everywhere. And like, you could see like chunks and stuff like, like didn't look right at all. Like he knew something was wrong. And he was like, I, you know, I got a, a bad flu. And we didn't really think anything of it.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And then finally, you know, I guess he went to the doctor and then we found out that he had leukemia. So that was in November. And it just got progressively worse. So this is, um, 83, late 83. And then he ended up, um, you know, going in the hospital to get chemotherapy back then was way more harsh. And so, you know, from like November to like where he, he, uh, died in, uh, January 4th. And, uh, so it was just only a couple of months of this, but you know, after school I would come, uh, I would just walk to, uh, this hospital that he was in. It was on the way back home from the school and just watch, I would just watch my dad go

• 21:52Speaker 01

  from someone really big and strong and just watch him just shrivel, you know, going through this treatment. So between the leukemia, the chemotherapy, then he got pneumonia from the, uh, um, just being, sitting in the bed and, uh, hepatitis from blood transfusion. You know, it's just a whole bunch of things happened and then, uh, you know, he died.

• 22:18Jocko Willink?

  So you said that that things changed. Did that change your outlook on things? Did you, did you start to look at the world in a totally different way now?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, you know, everyone has that, that pivotal point in their life where like, I guess you can say like innocence is lost. Like it's not like, you know, a fairy tale in life anymore. You know, I basically, death was introduced really quickly, you know, early on in my life and I just saw it. And that changed me because I became even more introverted.

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  More introverted?

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I would have maybe a friend or two at school, but you know, I would just be into my own, my own world, pretty much.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  And did, now where you, where were you living now?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  I was still in West Brighton, uh, projects, visiting my mom back and forth.

• 23:14Jocko Willink?

  Was your older siblings taking care of you or?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  So that's where it gets a little, you know, for my family dicey, but essentially I had a stepmom at that point. And I was going between my stepmom and my mom's on the weekends and it, you know, getting involved in the, you know, right after your father passed away and then you're going into courts and all these, you're in these rooms with these people, doing psychological evals, you know, are you okay? And who do you want to stay with now? Your, your, your stepmom or your mom and, you know, it's just really confusing to me. And, uh, just kind of overwhelmed that kind of like, in a sense, checked out.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, that's what happened.

• 23:58Jocko Willink?

  So are you, are you still participating in school? Like actively like, okay, I'm, I'm going to graduate. Did you have some kind of plan? Are you, are you studying at night? Anything like that?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Um, I'm not, no, uh, one thing about my schoolwork, I'm not like the best student. Like going to school and, you know, getting grades and stuff like that. More, I've just been following my interests. Now in the classical classes that I was interested in, I always did really well. In other classes, I may not even care about the class, you know, but I, so I was, I wouldn't say I was like studying, but I would just follow my interests.

• 24:35Jocko Willink?

  So your dad died when you were twelve, so you must have been in like eighth grade? Seventh grade? What grade is that?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, seventh grade.

• 24:44Jocko Willink?

  Seventh grade.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  So that was really pivotal because, you know, you get taken out of school because your dad died. And then when you go back to school in the seventh grade, you're the kid whose dad died. You know what I mean? And you know, and you know it. And you know, everybody else knows it and you're just kind of like, you know, to yourself more. So I had some good friends, like I used to, I was into like, I had some nerd friends, you know, like Dungeons and Dragons, that kind of stuff. You know, so I would kind of hang out with them, but it was only, you know, on breaks at school or something like that.

• 25:21Jocko Willink?

  And what would you do with like, what would you do the rest of the day? What would you do in the afternoon? What would you do in the evening? What would you do on the weekends?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Come home, like at that age, after school, come home, watch like, what was it? Thundercats.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  You remember that? Remember that, that, um, we, we had to go picks, picks, picks like.

• 25:40Jocko Willink?

  What was that? It was something to do with.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  You had to win these prizes and stuff. Yeah.

• 25:46Jocko Willink?

  You had to phone in, right? Someone had to phone in and call for fire by saying picks, picks. On the local TV station.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I do remember that. Dang.

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  I don't think that was, that was, you didn't have that echo, did you? No, it's not available at all. Cause you, I think you might be younger. Yeah. But also I don't think they had, that was like a local TV thing.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Jocko Willink?

  They had like a little echo, they had like a little call for fire. So you'd be on the phone. You'd have to call in.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  While you're watching TV?

• 26:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then it was like a video game of some kind where you had to drop bombs or shoot something. But at a certain time as it was moving, so when it moved, you'd say picks, picks, picks.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  So that was like the fire.

• 26:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, which was like maybe the, maybe the channel. Like on TV, you know how it's like WLBN or whatever this was, WPIX or something. So you'd have to say picks, picks, picks. And then you could win whatever reward. So now I know who was trying to call in.

• 26:44Jocko Willink?

  That was the other funny thing about Mark and James is they'd see you. And I remember, that's why, that's why to this day, whenever I see you, I go Jeffrey.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 26:54Jocko Willink?

  Cause they'd see you and they'd call you out.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever reconcile some kind of relationship with those guys?

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Uh, no, because those guys are more like, you know, cool guys in a sense. You know, they were popular people and I was, there was just really no connection. You know, and, and uh, it was really weird cause in the projects, the, the atmosphere, you know, it's like R and B, jazz, hip hop. But James was like into metal. Him, they were like, maybe like, just a fraction of people in there that, that were into metal and he was into metal. He'd have Iron Maiden shirts on and all that stuff and just be coming after me.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And he'd get me in a corner and just, he'd start punching away and then ask me, do you want the medicine or the treatment? And both were the same thing, just more beat.

• 27:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I remember you telling me, you'd like be, you'd think you have, you'd think you would have made it past them or whatever. And you'd be going up the stairs and all of a sudden you'd hear Jeffrey.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  And uh, there was another one you told me about, something like you were walking, it was dark. And you were walking, I think you were walking down the stairs. And as you came down the stairs, one of them, whichever one it was, lit a match.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah. So that was James too, and this essentially, um, you know, every now and then you get blackouts. You know, in the city and then we had this big blackout, um, back then. And that's a problem because now the elevator might not be working. So if you live on the eighth floor, you have to walk up. And there are some elderly people that live like seventh, eighth floor. And so we're like, you know, hey, you know, get a knife. And you could make a dollar or two walking people upstairs. And so, you know, I was walking people, I walked maybe one or two people upstairs. And then, uh,

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I was coming downstairs and all of a sudden. It's about magic. And he just lit a match and uh it was it was James and then more punishment.

• 29:19Jocko Willink?

  It's about magic. Uh wonder.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, take your breath away.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  This is a Broadway play.

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  That was going on at at that time.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that part I never knew. All I ever knew, all I remembered from Bud's was it's about magic, wonder. I never I thought it was just what those guys made up.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Psychos.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  Just yeah, just psychoness.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  So so these guys never uh you never reconcile with these guys. There's no story of revenge where you went back.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Um not really, you know, I was and and I you know, looking back right now, I wouldn't even.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  You know, I don't really have anything for those guys, you know, I'm just I wish everybody the best. So you know, all that stuff's past.

• 30:08Jocko Willink?

  What music were you listening to?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Back then, um I only listened to what was there. So it was like a lot of rap music, um you know, R and B. Um you know, just neighborhood music. And uh I I got introduced to um other forms of music. Um by first I played saxophone as a kid. So I played saxophone for like four years. So I was like. Got involved with like orchestra, like I would my dad set me up for um a summer program. And I would go and play in a symphonic orchestra. Uh for over the summer. So I'd like take out a bus and you know and um you know, I'd take my saxophone along. It was pretty cool. That and also uh my dad liked jazz.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  So that was also another um influence on uh you know, my musical taste. And then um the kids, some of the kids I played Dungeons and Dragons with, there were some groups, like one group was like the Brewster Street. Crew, those guys, and then there was another group. And these guys, they were all into like metal and stuff, because when you go to um. You know, the schools over there are kind of like zoned, so they have people from different neighborhoods coming to the schools. So these these were um. These kids were not from the projects and they listened to metal. And like when we would play Dungeons and Dragons, that music was there. And I was like, it just became normal.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  So I was like, you know, and, and also I wanted to, I always wanted to try different things, you know, and see, you know, what's that like? So I was kind of exploring. And um, so I started listening to, you know, any kind of music I wanted to listen to. If I was interested in it, I'd check it out.

• 31:54Jocko Willink?

  Now, at what point did you start thinking about the military as an option?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Okay, um, after my father passed away, there was um, my father's good friend, this guy James Harrison. Mr. Jim, we used to call him. He was um, his son came back from the Navy. He was a regular guy in the Navy. And um, he told me about the SEALs. Cause I think I'd, I'd seen, at this point, I'd seen First Blood. And I was like, I'm gonna, my, you know, I started finding out about the different military units. And so I'm like, my, my original plan was to go in the green, go in the Rangers, then become a Green Beret. And then I heard about Force Recon, then I'm gonna go on the Marines and become Force Recon.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  And then once I heard about SEALs, go into SEALs and become a SEAL. Like I wanted to be all the Special Forces.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  But this, you know, um, Jamie, his son, that guy really changed my life because he told me about the SEALs. And, and I was like, wow, wouldn't, you know, the Navy, what are they, speedboat drivers? I couldn't think of what in the Navy could be Spec Ops. And then he started telling me about it. And um, I was like, man, that's like, I need to find out more about it. And so I went to the recruiter. And at this point, you know, I'm like, you know, mid teens and I asked the recruiter about the SEALs. And he said, don't even think about it because you'll never make it. And that was like, that's when I was like, hey, oh yeah? And then I started like really focusing on trying to get into SEAL team.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  So Mr. Jim was along with my father, they would teach boxing to like the kids, like troubled youth and stuff. They had these areas. Um, you know, they had the heavy bag and my dad was a boxer. And um, yeah, Mr. Jim started training me. I said, I wanted to go into SEALs and um, he's like, hey, you know, if you want to get into condition, meet me down here on the park bench at four o'clock. And it's like mid winter in New York, snow and stuff like that.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  And he's like, if you're not here at four on the dot, I know you're not serious, you know, and we don't have to talk about it again. And I'm like, all right. And you know, that was the first time I ever like woke up early like.

• 34:26Jocko Willink?

  That was four o'clock in the morning?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he's a good test.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  I got out there.

• 34:31Jocko Willink?

  That would have failed.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  I can do four o'clock PM, I would have been there at two fifty nine. But Mr. Jim, uh, yeah, he started training me and it was like, um, pushups, dips on the park bench and like when, when you go into the buildings in West Brighton, at least there's kind of like this overhang, doing pull ups on that. And um, he's like, you know, if you're going to be a fighter, you need to keep your hands up. That's the first rule of fighting. So, you know, we'd go out, there was this field across the way and um, he'd have me running laps around the football field with bricks in my hands. And the goal was learn how to keep your hands up. And you know, the first few weeks is bricks, you know, I'd meet him like two, three times a week

• 35:21Speaker 01

  doing this. And then graduated to like, you know, milk jugs, pouring water in them. And then the milk's jostling around as you run around. You know, and he really just, he just really instilled in me, you know, like you have to train. You know, if you wanna, if you wanna get something, you're gonna have to work for it. So I, I worked with him. And then at a certain point, I was seventeen at the time. And I just chose to go live with my mom. Cause I was like, you know, I, I'm just really curious. You know, there were a lot of things in my mind that, you know, I didn't really know my mom like I think I should. I should have.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  And so I wanted to know more about that side of my family. So I went and moved with my mom and she wanted me out of the projects. And so we moved down to Florida, Daytona Beach. So my senior year of high school was in Daytona Beach, Florida. So it was a weird thing because my high school, the first year of high school, I went to art and design in Manhattan. So I had to take a bus, a boat and a train to and from school every day. So I take the three bus down the ferry, take the Staten Island ferry across, take the four, the five up to fifty seventh and Lexington, go to school.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  And you know, I was always drawing and stuff like that. So I got into this art school. And I went there for a year, but it, it, I didn't do well. I was coming in late and it just wasn't a good fit. And I ended up leaving that school. And then I went to my zone school, Susan Wagner for two years. So tenth and eleventh. And then I went with my mom and moved down to Daytona Beach. And I went to Seabreeze Senior High School in Daytona Beach. So my, that was my senior year. And when I was there, that's when I enlisted on the delayed entry program and got into the Navy.

• 37:33Jocko Willink?

  Did you play any sports at any of these schools?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  Did you, it's weird how you had that.

• 37:41Jocko Willink?

  It makes me think it runs deeper than I've even thought before. Like the idea of when you saw Rambo. You're like, you can identify with it, even though you were a nerd playing Dungeons and Dragons and looking at spider books. You see Rambo, you're like, oh, okay, cool. That's what I'm gonna do.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  That's a deep seated thing, man.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  I think. Looking back on it. James had a lot to do with it. Mark and James, cause like getting beat up like that. At a certain point, you're just like, you know, you've had enough. And then you kinda, I think in a sense can overcompensate. So I started learning about. Um, martial arts, another really big part of, you know, my story is, uh. My oldest brother. Was, um. You know, we had a big family incident. He was outside and a, and a guy in a, there's. West by and projects and right near it is Markham homes. It's another. Uh, pretty rough area and my brother was there and, um.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  This guy, uh, stabbed him.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  With a buck. Double oh seven knife. That's a big blade to the hilt. And you know, his heart was. Was beating, you know, moving the knife, you know, punctured his lung. And he was in the hospital for a while. And he got out, you know, um, you know, doctors saved his life and all. He's got a really big scar on his chest, but. I mean, I think he, he got into Kung Fu from that. I would say. And, um. You know, he went all the way to, uh, being an instructor in that. But you know, he would show me, you know, occasion on, on a weekend, sometimes I would go with him and train. In, um, Hungar Kung Fu.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  And, um, I was never really, you know, I've ever really got good at it. But it did instill in me, you know, martial arts is something you want to learn. And so, um. You know, I, I had. Those things going for me and I think between learning a little bit about martial arts. And, you know, the beatings I was taking at a certain point, I was like, you know, I can change it. If I want. So my thing was to become a SEAL. I thought that would be my answer. So that's where I went.

• 40:06Jocko Willink?

  So you so you get to Florida. What was it like going to school in Florida? I mean, Sea Breeze, it's a high school. Sounds it sounds nice.

• 40:15Jocko Willink?

  It sounds nice, but what was it? I mean, was it nice or was it a dump or?

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty cool. Um, it was, uh, definitely more laid back than, uh, being in New York. Uh, I remember distinctly at that time Ted Bundy was in that area and the chaplain at our school was, I think, associated with Ted Bundy. And I just remember he was getting the electric chair and and everyone in the school was like, make sure you keep all your electrical components low so they have enough juice to fry this guy.

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  You talked to the when you talked to the recruiter, uh, so you had to talk to a recruiter again in Florida, right? You obviously had to change. What did the recruiter say to you?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  The recruiters were all about getting as many people in as possible. Like, you want to go SEAL, right? Come over here.

• 41:03Jocko Willink?

  You look like I'd be a great candidate. That's why I'm surprised the first guy told you he didn't think you were going to make it. Although JP Denell, they laughed at him.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:11Jocko Willink?

  They laughed at him. Maybe that's a good test. And Dakota Meyer, the guy said to for the Marine Corps said, you we don't have what it takes anyways. And Dakota Meyer signed up the next day or whatever, right? That's a good it's a little reverse psychology.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:25Jocko Willink?

  But they told you, oh, yeah, you look like you'd be a great candidate for the SEAL teams. They're waiting for you.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have the the Die Farre program.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  And, uh, the Die Farre program, I don't they probably have something similar today, but you enlist for six years. And, uh, if you make it through BUDS training and your, uh, SEAL training, then you're on SEAL team. If you don't make it, you're still in the Navy for six years.

• 41:54Jocko Willink?

  That's that's what I.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  I did the Die Farre program too. And it's funny too, because when you talk, when it seemed like six years, it's, well, that's like an eight or a sorry, a third of your life at the time, right? Because you're 18 years old and you're saying, I'm signing on this thing for six years. And you and me, I don't know about you, I'm pretty sure you're probably the same way. I had no idea whatsoever what the daily life of a SEAL was. As far as I'm concerned, I was like, well, it's gotta be pretty similar to John J. Rambo. Right? I mean, it's gonna be something like that. We're gonna be out just hunting people down and killing them. That's what's gonna be happening. Six years? Cool, sign me up. You have no idea what you're getting into. Which is kinda cool, because I can just about guarantee that anybody that had an eye,

• 42:41Jocko Willink?

  that anybody that thought about what they were getting into, you thought it was gonna be way more extreme than anything that you could have, than it actually was.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I remember the stories of, yeah, when you're in SEAL training, they bury you up, up to your neck in the sand and let the tide come in and drown you. And then they resuscitate you and then ask you if you wanna quit. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the program.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  That's it. Sign me up. You know what I, I remember is a guy that ended up, he was actually ended up in a class behind us, but I went through bootcamp with him. And he was a smart guy, went to college, great guy. And he's telling me, he goes, yeah, SEALs have 50% casualty rate. Like, like no one makes it to retirement.

• 43:31Jocko Willink?

  This is 1991, bro. There's no, I mean, I guess the Gulf War is about to happen, but there hadn't been a war in a long time. And I think, I think it came originally from World War II when, like at Normandy, the, the UDTs took heavy, they took like a 50% casualty rate. But I thought that's just how, I thought I was going in, I'm signing up and I'm gonna get killed or, or wounded and, and I'm probably not gonna make it to 20 years, whatever. Same attitude. Oh, yeah, you definitely heard that they drowned you. You definitely heard that they drowned you in training. You're gonna get drowneded. People are gonna drown you. That's what's gonna happen. And you're like, yeah, that's what I want. Which is pretty crazy, right?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  It seems like even that's a good kinda screening process, an initial screening process. The crazy thing is so many people still quit. That's what's crazy. You know what you're signing up for. You know what you're signing up for. At least you have some, you're signing up to die. I mean, I, I can tell you, I was signing up to die. Like in my mind, I was like, okay, when I sign this paper, you know, my life is no longer, is no longer a promise. It's no longer even a thing.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. You, I mean, you are an adult, even though a very young adult, but you understand what you're getting into. And, you know, the chances of getting killed or, or hurt really badly or, you know, can happen.

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  Anything else from childhood before we ju- jump into before we get the the uh into boot camp?

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Hmm, no, nothing of note on them at this point.

• 45:05Jocko Willink?

  You so you finish up, you senior, what kind of training are you doing getting ready?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Um, putting my backpack and uh sometimes I would run to school. Um, I'm doing a one incident, I got saved at the beach.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  So this I uh it's this tropical storm coming in and I'm, you know, keep in mind, I'm coming from the projects in New York City. So swimming is not, I'm not a good swimmer. And I'm like, well, the best way to learn, you know, is to go.

• 45:41Jocko Willink?

  Tropical storm, baby.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  I just remember getting out of getting out and uh looking at the beach and just seeing the water like frothy and stuff. And I was just like, let's go for it. And I just ran in and basically I was a drowning victim. This guy came out, pulled me out of water, started yelling at me and stuff like that. So then I came home and I'm like, you know, I I told my mom, hey, I want to take swim lessons. So then uh the only place we could find was the Y W C A. And this this uh I could, I think she was like a um maybe a college student. You know, I just would see this girl's um writing notes and stuff on the side of the textbook, but she was the guard there. And she taught me how to swim.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  So I learned uh the side stroke, like basic side stroke, not a combat swimmer stroke, uh breast stroke, crawl, you know, like the technique of it. And while I was doing it, I I I got books on swimming workouts, how to swim, how to, you know, get um more um hydrodynamic, this kind of thing.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  How much swimming did you do in the projects?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Not really any. I mean, like in the summer, there's a pool right near it. The pool is three feet. And then they have the little baby pool. So that was another thing about Mark and James. When, when the, when I would go to the pool. I mean, I mean, on several occasions, I mean, James, if you're out there listening, you almost killed me a couple of times. And I'm not kidding you. He would, you know, there's like a ladder you could walk out. He would get me under there and stand on me and hold me there. It's like trying to drown me. And the worst feeling I ever had was like, just, you know, I'm in the water and like I'm bouncing, like bobbing because it's too deep. And I just hear, "You!" And I look over and I see him on his side.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  "Captain, we've come for you!" And then he'd jump in and come after you. And I'm trying to get out, you know, trying to hop away. And then I look over and then it's Mark. And then, you know, I would, you know, the lifeguards would, you know, have to get these guys away from me. So, yeah, I did, I was not a, uh, the swimming extent was like, close your eyes, windmill until you can't hold your breath anymore and then stand. And hopefully there's a bottom to stand on.

• 48:10Jocko Willink?

  How did you, uh, dude, how did you not get freaking discouraged after you almost drowned and you don't know how to swim? And you must be at least seeing that the SEAL test is, what do we have to swim? 500 meters? 500 yards to like go to BUDs?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  How did you not say, "Maybe I need to look at the Rangers or maybe I need to look at the Special Forces or something?"

• 48:31Speaker 01

  I was just really bent on the SEALs. And, uh, that was just, um, that was the one back then, like now there's a lot of information on SEAL two. But back then you couldn't find anything. And, and I remember you, there were these books, like I'd get like the Ranger book. And then you'd open it up and you'd see like they had Green Berets, SEALs, Force Recon. And then you look like when you try to find the SEAL book, no one had it. And it was like the mystery. So I was like, ah, you know, I think I wanna, I wanna go with that one.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  So you, how long you in the delayed entry program for?

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Let's see, um, I graduated high school, um, like that springtime and I was in the Navy in August.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it's pretty quick.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went in pretty much right after high school. So that, that, um, I had like maybe a two month period of really swimming. That's what I was working on and you know, I was doing pushups and finding like the screening tests or working on pullups and situps, you know, all the basics you need for Bud's running.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  Then you shipped off, did you go to bootcamp in Orlando?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Right, Orlando, yeah.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  How, was that a shock to your system?

• 49:43Speaker 01

  I think the main shock was just the first like wake up. But then after that, you know, I was pretty smooth. It wasn't really that big a deal. I was in a Nuke, um, uh, bootcamp.

• 49:57Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  So I was in the Nuke bootcamp and it was like myself and this other guy, his name was Justice. We were both going to the SEALs. And so we were like, yo, those are the SEAL guys, you know, over there. We'd, we'd, you know, in bootcamp, my swim was still not qualifying.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  So they were like, hey, you, if you're serious about this program, you get up at three thirty, go over there to the pool and do your laps before, you know, the regular day of bootcamp starts. So I was like, I did that. Uh, throughout bootcamp and, and really improved my swimming. And there was a, you know, they had SEAL motivators working there. And there was a SEAL Vietnam vet, you know, rough dude there and, uh, he was, uh, he would kinda, you know, oversee the swimming. He would watch me and stuff and he would be saying stuff like, "You'll never make it with that kind of stroke. You'll just never make it."

• 50:56Speaker 01

  And, uh, I had, I had an issue with him because, you know, I, I, I, I had, um, my swim was like just on the edge. I failed. So I knew I could pass. I just needed to be faster. Pushups were good, situps, but my pullups were like on the edge too.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  And so I remember like getting, I got seven and then I got eight was like right here. And, uh, he just counted seven.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  And I tried again, and you know, like with pull-ups, once you fail, you're not going back up. And I just stayed on the bar and he said, alright, recruit, jump off the bar. And I yelled out, "Seals, don't quit."

• 51:44Speaker 01

  And he just, he just laid into me screaming and stuff, so I jumped off the bar. And then I, I knew I had to work on the pull-ups. So they had a gym there. And what I did was, um.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  Did I was during boot camp, all this happened?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't even remember me taking a screening test one time.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I took it, I think like two, two, three times. So then the, the, um, because if you don't make it for BUDs, you know, there was, you kinda, okay, now you can go diver or EOD. So, um, I ended up working on a pulldown machine and that's how I got my pull-ups. So then by, by the, by the end of boot camp, I passed the tests and, um,

• 52:29Speaker 01

  ended up, you know, with orders.

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  So then you get to BUDs. Do you remember checking into BUDs?

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another thing. So when I was in boot camp,

• 52:42Speaker 01

  and I get to, you have, back then you had to go through your source rating. So I was an engine man. So I had to go to Great Lakes and go through engine man A school. This is like the trade that you're gonna get. If you don't make it through SEAL training, you're gonna work in their job in the regular Navy. And so I went, um, to Great Lakes and went through ENA school. And, uh, my vision didn't qualify for BUDs.

• 53:07Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  So this is kinda like gonna maybe put me in hot water with some people, but essentially,

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I ended up passing the vision test through, um, some nefarious methods.

• 53:25Jocko Willink?

  How'd you do it?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  So essentially what happened was I had orders to, um, EOD training.

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  Because your vision wasn't good enough?

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Right, for BUDs. So everything else was good enough, but my vision, you know, I, you know, glasses, so.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Uh, one of the, one of the guys there that worked in, one of the dive motivators, Steve Collins, uh, that, another really pivotal person in my life. He was like, hey, man, if you're really interested in going to SEAL training, you know, we can, um, work on switching your orders. And, uh, you'll have to work as a, you know, for us as, you know, the dive motivator shack. I was like, yeah, of course. And so I did it and I had to wait like, it was like months, like, I'm gonna say like, at least six months.

• 54:17Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  And I worked for these, um, dive motivators.

• 54:23Jocko Willink?

  Just studying, studying for your vision test?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  And here's the deal. They had the medical was right near it and the vision test that I have to take is right there on the wall. So every day I'm just looking at it and memorizing all of the, you know, the letters and numbers.

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 54:45Speaker 01

  I ended up passing the test.

• 54:49Jocko Willink?

  So you, that's awesome. And, and this whole time you're obviously working out and getting in shape and these guys are telling you what to do and what to be prepared for and all that stuff?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was another big deal. Like George White, Steve Collins, um, uh, Instructor Roberts, these guys really made a difference because they were like, hey, you know, they weren't like, you know, showing me everything, but they were like, you have to do this, this is gonna help you, you need to run, you need to do this and that. And what was really bad was at a certain point, you know, team guys working at dive motivator shack, they don't wanna do it. And so they're like, Higgs, he's a blue and gold, some UDD, UDT trunks. So I'm looking like a SEAL, right? They got the blue and gold UDD trunks and the, um, boots on and everything and dive socks. And they're like, you're gonna give the test.

• 55:41Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  So for six months, I'm working at the dive motivators and they're like-

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  Pretending to be a SEAL.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah, pretty much. They're like, hey, you know, um, Higgs-

• 55:56Speaker 01

  What's it like at Sail Team? And I'm like, let's not talk about that right now. What you have to worry about is getting through the screening test. So I would run the, they would do the runs, they would do the pushups, all the stuff. I would test them and just record it.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  And six months of that, and then when I get to BUDs, you got like dozens and dozens of guys who were like, hey, that's the dive motivator guy. I'm just like,

• 56:28Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so you check into BUDs? I don't, you know what's weird is I don't really remember. You know, some people have really good checking into BUDs stories or whatever. Like they check in and they get immediately told to hit the surf and they're dressed whites or whatever. For whatever reason, man, I don't really even remember checking into BUDs. I think it was a weekend. I think no one cared. You know, and I was, the biggest thing for me is I was kind of surprised, you know, I expected to walk through the quarter deck and just get ripped apart and start becoming a different, you know, you know, like the, the James Bond movie, Echo Charles? You know, where the door opens and there's people training and they're doing judo and they're shooting guns? Like I thought that was what was happening. But instead I opened up the door and there's like two new, two other guys that are going through training

• 57:13Jocko Willink?

  and they're sitting there all scared looking and there's no one around. And I said, I'm checking into BUDs and they're like, okay, now you can just sign this. And then you come back on Monday and I was kind of let down. It was very anticlimactic. Some people get them much better. Was anything cool for you?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I showed up on the quarter deck and someone was getting hammered there. Cause I showed up during the day, during the weekday and guys were getting hammered and yelled at. And instructors just look at me and like, you know here? I'm like, yes, yes. And they're just like, good, we'll be seeing you, you know, and just walk off, you know? And I'm like, alright, like over.

• 57:48Jocko Willink?

  So then how long did it take for you to class up?

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, I went through, I don't know if they do this these days, but they had the fourth phase. So I was in fourth phase and you just wait there until you class up. So I originally classed up with BUDs class 174.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  How far did you make it in one seven four? All the way to the day before hell week. And then what happened? So.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  You have like, uh, basically, um, you're going through first phase, like the conditioning phase of buds. Doing lots of long runs, swims, PTs, O course, all that stuff. And, um, I ended up doing this one swim like, uh, a week before that last week. And on the swim, my, my, uh, my face mask, one of the, one of the lenses fell out. And I just, the water was, it was a super choppy swim. So every, every stroke, I'm like taking on water and then I have no, you know, it's, I can't really see much and it's making me go slower for my swim buddy and everything.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  And I just felt sick on the swim, like nauseated and really weak and tired, like not normal. And, uh, when I got out of the water, you know, we just got hammered because we failed the swim. And then I had to go in and, you know, uh, do, um, you're just getting hammered. And so it was, uh, that was like on a Thursday. It's in the weekend. And then, um, Tuesday comes along and then we got to do the two mile swims, uh, ocean swim. And then on that swim, I, uh, coming back past the swim, when I came out of the water, I couldn't stand.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  I was just falling and I was crawling and I would stand up and fall over again. And the instructors just swarmed on me and just started trying to hammer me and I'm trying to do pushups or whatever, but I just couldn't. And then I start laughing like it was funny. That was like my first experience of being inebriated because I was basically, you know, find out later I had hypothermia. So I got, I had a 91 degree core temperature at that point.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  And, uh, dang. So they brought me, you know, uh, to, uh, the hypothermia chamber. And, uh, that's basically a hot tub and get my, um, body temperature back up. And, uh, then it's like, you know, you feeling better? Yeah. All right, this is SEAL training, so go get wet and sandy. You know, right after I'm coming back to normal. And then they're like, um,

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  that night, I just remember, you know, mining the rack and thinking like, you know, medically, I'm having some issues here. And how am I going to get through this? Another swim and then they just get longer. You know, so, um, I just remember tossing and turning and then the, the, everyone in the class was like trying to help me out. So like, you know, back then you gotta take panethinic acid pills, like this B vitamin that's supposed to increase thermogenesis and make your body heat up. And so, uh, and then you need lots of calories. So what we did on this one swim before it, everyone came in, put Vaseline all over, then my wet suit.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  And then drink a bottle of olive oil for calories to help burn during the swim. And, well, that's not a good idea.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  I didn't quite finish the bottle of olive oil, but I can tell you right now, it's not a good idea. So, um, when, you know, we're doing swim inspection and the instructors are, you know, checking knives, CO2 cartridges. And the instructor looks and they see the Vaseline on the end of the sleeve. Like, what is this? And he pulls it up and he sees Vaseline, he's like, take your wet suit off. And then roll around in the sand. And then put the wet suit back on. And then do the swim. And so, uh, I did, so it's like this, this two mile ocean swim, just like every,

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  you know, at a certain point, it's just, the sand is just destroying your skin and everything. And, um, This is SEAL training. Yeah. So I came out and I had hypothermia again.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  And you know, at this time, it was a lot different because I was like, you know, I was like, my body's not working the way I want it to, you know, it's I'm not quitting. It's like, I don't even have control of the situation. And essentially, at that point, they're like, you know, hey, you can't continue in the training, you're gonna get killed. You know, they had a someone a few classes ahead, who had died out in San Clemente, you know, he did a swim, a four mile ocean swim, came out of the water and just fell down and he didn't make it. So like, you know, and this guy's, his body temperature was only a few degrees below mine. So they were like, you know, you're medically

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  dropped from training. And so I was, that was on that Friday, then the hell week starts for that class I was in that Sunday. And I just remember being in my room, like with the lights off, and like, you know, feeling of crying, you know, and all the class was going through hell week and I just, I wasn't allowed in. And, you know, there were some, you know, when I, when I was medically dropped, I just started to do my own training. Because I was, you know, now I'm in X Division. So I got the Navy garb on, the white hat, the dungaree, dungaree jams, dungaree clothing,

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  and I'm doing watch. And one of the instructors came by and said, I always, I knew you'd quit sooner or later. And I was like, I didn't quit. He's like, yeah, you did. And then walked off. And that just like, got me angry. So I was like, I'm gonna do my own training. So I started doing, I would join the class and run behind them. You know, I was just being a part of the class, doing cadence and everything. And I went and got wet and sandy. And then Instructor Dumas, you remember him? Yeah. He just pulled me aside and was like, it's over, son. It's over. And that was it. And so I had

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  orders to some ship in like Louisiana or something like that. And, but the instructors that saw me getting wet and sandy, they were like, oh, look at this kid, you know. And there was an instructor named Chief Small. And he said,

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  If you want, you write a request for Captain's Mask and I'll try to get you in training. I'll put in a good word for you and get you back into training. And I was like, "Yeah." And so I would write the request, but now I'm in X Division, so I'm working for that guy, Boward. And this is an old Vietnam vet, rough guy. I mean, it's hard for me to do justice with this guy. You know what this guy was like. And he would just take my request and throw it in the garbage. And he just kept doing it. And he would just yell at me, "You'll never make it through this program, son. Get the hell out of here." And the guy, Chief Small, I told him about it. He took it up to the CO and they got Captain's

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Mask. And Lieutenant Zinke was, I think, part of that. And those guys, they said, "Hey, we're gonna give you another chance." So I was explaining, you know, "I didn't quit the training. I got medically dropped." Like, "Hey, if you can gain weight." Because I'm like, at that point, I'm 6'1", but I weighed, I've looked at my medical record, I weighed like 153. And, you know, that's just not enough mass to get you through the cult of being a frogman. It's just not gonna, it's gonna be tough. So they, they're like, "Hey, it was Christmas time. Merry Christmas. You're back in training. Go get wet." And I started

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  up in Class 176 like a couple of months later. So that, that time I was, that in-between time of classing up, I just focused on gaining weight. So I would, which is really strange for a lot of people. You can order pizza in Butz. Like, when everything's over, you can order pizza in Butz. And, and so I would, I was like, you know, "I have to gain weight." So, you know, on some time off, I got a big thing of that weight gain powder. Got a bunch of milk, like whole milk. And I would order two-for-one Domino's Pizza. And I was just

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  constantly drinking the milk with the weight gain. I would eat a pizza before I went to sleep with the weight gain and the milk, set my clock for 3:00 in the morning, and eat the other pizza.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  You know, and it's it got disgusting now at a certain point like I'm not a pizza fan anymore. But I ended up by the time I classed up, I was like, uh, like 170, you know, I'd gained weight.

• 1:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  And I then I classed up in Bud's class 176. And then came to more difficulties with pool comp. And then I got rolled into 177, your class. And it wasn't even pool comp, it was it was um, uh, like dive buddy, because I was.

• 1:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, like buddy breathing or something?

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was with Matt.

• 1:07:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. Did both you guys get rolled for that?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  So you didn't. So so you you didn't get rolled into our class until second phase?

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, dive phase. So I went through hell week in 176. The hardest hell week that that ever really existed in Bud's. That's that's 176 guys know this thing.

• 1:08:12Jocko Willink?

  So then you rolled into our class and uh, yeah. The no one really told, no, there was no heads up whatsoever about like the pool comp and all that stuff.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  That's something no one really knows about.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  They know about it now, but back then, they had that Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster in the medical area and it said, but it was crossed out. It's crossed out, uh, Texas, it said Bud's Pool Comp Massacre. And it had like a mask on one of the guys that was getting his head sawn off with a chainsaw. And that's what pool comp is, you know, you're gonna go down there and you're gonna get annihilated.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  I tell you, I mean, it's it's really hard to do it justice like basically it's not a matter of pain. It's a matter of dealing with not being able to breathe. Like if and and you're on compressed air, if you hold your breath and rocket to the surface, you're gonna embolize and hurt yourself badly. You know, so you have to have that control and the instructors are taking your mask off, tying your your gear in knots and you have to get these knots out. I mean, the other thing is they're using the old regulators from the 50s. Like Jacque Cousteau, so you can close it and you can't breathe. So they they're taking this regulator out and it fills with water.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  And then you gotta you gotta turn your head to get the water out or blow it out. And they're tying these, see these knots in, you have to get it out. It's just, it's horrific and it lasts a long time.

• 1:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's 30 minutes. Your first breath is water. So so because when they rip that regulator out of your mouth, the hose fills with water. So when you put it in your mouth, you can't just, no, well, your first breath is and you gotta like absorb the water and get it out. And then you get a breath. So you're you're in full panic mode as you're trying to get the knot untied. You finally get it untied and now you're just just dying for air. And you put that thing in your mouth and you still have to clear that thing. It's it's really, uh, it's where I failed. I failed pool comp my first time. And then, uh, I don't know, were you with us in the dip tank? Because over the weekend, myself and a few other guys that failed.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Did you pass it the first time when you went through with 177? Did you pass pool comp?

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  No, I did not.

• 1:10:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, brother.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  And what happened with, uh, uh, you remember, uh, Ensign Davies?

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  We got out on that weekend because, you know, we had failed. We were on the wall of shame and, uh, we went down to Mexico.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  To do dive training?

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we we were like, I remember what was so weird was, you know, in Mexico, the the beach had all this, uh, life on it that you don't see here. You know, but it's essentially the same beach, just further down. But, uh, yeah, we did, uh, we kind of like worked on it ourselves for a bit. And then, uh, came back and I just remember that that Sunday night thinking that everyone's just tossing and turning in their bed because you're like, am I going to make it through this the next day, you know? And, uh, I was able to, uh, you know, I did it.

• 1:11:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, we, what we did, and I'm not sure how you weren't with us, but it was me and like three or four other guys that failed pool comp on Friday. And we went in the big dip tank. And we straight up drowned each other. We were just murdering each other in there and clearing stuff and man, I was so horrified of not making it and of getting rolled, you know, because I didn't even think about getting rolled. It's like, as far as I was concerned, if I got rolled, that seemed like just death, you know, it seemed like the worst thing ever. But we pool comped each other so hard that all of us made it the first time on Monday morning, like it was no factor.

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  So that extra little bit of training, whether in Mexico or whether in the dip tank, I also, they let us do it. Like the instructors, I don't know how we did it. I don't know what happened that we had all the gear. Like we got full scuba tanks with air and brought them into the dip tank and just murdered each other. I don't know, that's not legal. You know, like that's not okay. You can't do that.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  That's like the, if you, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, they're just like, there's an opening right there. If you take the opportunity, good on you. If you don't, so sorry.

• 1:12:43Jocko Willink?

  So sorry.

• 1:12:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, uh, we end up, you end up in our class. That's funny. I actually thought you did everything with us. I thought, I thought you got rolled into 177. I thought you went through hell week with us. I didn't remember that. I didn't remember that you got rolled in, in, in dive phase. Cause yeah, so then we did San Clemente Island.

• 1:13:07Jocko Willink?

  Chewing tobacco.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not a fond memory.

• 1:13:13Jocko Willink?

  They found guys, you're not allowed to have chewing tobacco out there and they found somebody had smuggled a bunch out, a bunch. And so they made everyone in the class take massive chunks of chewing tobacco. And then we did like a thousand eight count bodybuilders, which is like an old school burpee. And, uh, like me, I didn't, I never chewed tobacco and never smoked a cigarette and, and all of a sudden I got a big mouthful of this.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I haven't dipped since. That was my one and only.

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  That was your opportunity.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Does it like jam you like when you dip and you haven't ever does it like you feel like actual effects, right? Like way stronger, like it jams you up kinda hard.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  The dip?

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  That stuff makes you feel sick.

• 1:13:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  I feel nauseated.

• 1:13:58Jocko Willink?

  It makes me feel sick.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Jocko Willink?

  And burning in my mouth. Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know how like, okay, let's say you never smoked a cigarette ever and then you straight up smoke a whole cigarette. You're gonna be like buzzing kinda hardcore, right? Were you buzzing from the dip is what I'm saying?

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  I didn't know it's any of that.

• 1:14:12Jocko Willink?

  I felt acal bodybuilders and pain and just thinking like this is horrible. But yeah, like, like you said, Jeff, it cured me of ever wanting to do that.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  And you, well, I think it's important to know, like, you know, in spec ops, a lot of guys are gonna use dip chewing tobacco because of that reason. It's like a little bit of a, you know, caffeine.

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  Like an upper.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  It's an upper. Yeah.

• 1:14:37Jocko Willink?

  What do you meant? Anything else from Sand Company Island?

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:14:42Jocko Willink?

  Besides good times and flights?

• 1:14:47Jocko Willink?

  I'm on fire. Requested to do a touch and go.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Do they still do that? Like the Frog Hill?

• 1:14:52Jocko Willink?

  They still do Frog Hill. They still do flights. They still got a flight tower out there. You still do touch and goes, the whole nine yards.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  It's good times. Make you tough. So then you get, we got done with Bud's, you check into SEAL Team. And so what? It's 1991 when we get to SEAL Team One. Yeah, it's early 1991. Did we go to, did we go to airborne school together?

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Jocko Willink?

  Went to get our airborne on.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Fort Benning.

• 1:15:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  So that's different too nowadays. But back then you went to Army jump school, Fort Benning, Georgia.

• 1:15:26Jocko Willink?

  And that's where SEALs get like a horrible, I guess, kind of a horrible reputation because like you're coming out of Bud's. Back in the day, you'd go to airborne school, which airborne is a very conventional school to go to, like everyone, like a lot, not everyone, but a lot of people go to the, go to the Army jump school. So there's no super high standard for physicality or anything. So when you get down, you're fresh out of SEAL training and you're down there just feeling like you can do anything. And of course, the, the, the black hats, which are the instructors down there, they, they, they, you know what they call everyone? Navy. If they call every guy that's not in the Army, they just call you Navy. And they'll be like, come on over here, Navy.

• 1:16:09Jocko Willink?

  Beat your boots. That was another thing to make you do squats. They say beat your boots and you basically got to hit your boots. Uh, but it's pretty fun school. I had a good time.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's uh, Airborne was cool.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  And then um, and then we check into SEAL Team One. And you end, well, we went through SQT together or STT, it used to be called SEAL Tactical Training.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:34Jocko Willink?

  That was just learning all the stuff that you actually, well, I wanted to actually learn. I'm sure we all just wanted to learn how to shoot, move and communicate out of patrol. Explosives, like this is when you start doing cooler stuff besides being wet and sandy.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:50Jocko Willink?

  And then from there, we roll into our platoons. You're in my sister platoon.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  We call it brother platoon.

• 1:16:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay, fair enough. I wonder why they call it sister platoon? They do. They never call it brother platoon.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  You mean like stores, they'll do that too. That's our sister store.

• 1:17:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we never say brother store, even in the teams where there's no females. We say brother. What's up with that? I mean, we say sister. So you guys are in our brother platoon apparently now.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Or sister.

• 1:17:20Jocko Willink?

  And uh, we're doing work up. You know, it's a different environment. I remember your platoon. Your platoon had some. Let's just say pipe hitters in it, right? You guys had some heavy hitters in that platoon.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  More so than in my first platoon. We had great guys in my first platoon, but the guys that you had in your platoon were harder. Straight up. There's no real other way of putting it. They were harder on you guys for sure.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, uh. I'm lucky in the sense that uh. I wasn't the main target.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I was targeted. I mean, there was a situation we had down in um, in Panama. Like with the hazing that was really extreme.

• 1:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  You know, and, and um.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  You know, some, some injuries happened. I got choked out at least five times that night, at least.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah, beaten, you know, it's, it was, that platoon was pretty hardcore.

• 1:18:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've told a story on this podcast a couple of times about like when I got to the team and I'm, I'm sitting out by the, or I'm out doing a workout on the pull-up bar and this giant human, like barely human goes lumbering out across the, it's probably 200, maybe even a hundred yards from like the team area to First Lieutenant where the engines are. And it's a guy from your platoon, you know who it is, the biggest guy in your platoon.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Jocko Willink?

  And he's carrying a gallon of milk with him. And so he's lumbering across this giant guy with his whole body tattooed, no shirt on, and he stops like at the 50 meter mark and drinks a half a gallon of milk. And then he puts it down and then he keeps walking. And I'm like, how am I going to survive in this environment? Cause it was just, it was a very hostile environment back then, you know, very hostile in the SEAL platoons. And, and you know what? A lot, not a lot of it, let's just say some of it was wrong. Some of it, like some of it got taken to a point where it was not good for morale. It wasn't good for unity. You know, some of the hazing got to a point where you're like, hey, that, that's not, that's not okay. Like

• 1:19:37Jocko Willink?

  that's wrong. Some of it's good, you know, some of it's okay, you know, welcome to the teams and it's a rough environment. If you screw up, you're going to pay. But yeah, some of it went overboard. But yeah, you had a, you had a, you had a hardcore platoon. And when we, uh, when we got overseas, we were, you know, what I remember is an old, an old Master Chief who seemed like the oldest guy I'd ever seen in my life, which was Steve Bailey, you know, and he was probably like seven years younger, eight years younger than I am right now. He's probably like 40, but he seemed so old. And he's like, does anyone here want to learn how to fight? And I'm like, yep, me. And I, I guess, I don't know if we were together when that happened, but we ended up in a Kwanzen hut with mats on

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  the ground. And he knew enough jujitsu. He was like a white belt.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Now, I, uh, my recollection is different. So the first deployment overseas.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  That platoon that we were just talking about, we went to Guam and then flew straight to Thailand.

• 1:20:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  And we were in Thailand and that's where I met Steve, who we were talking about. And basically, uh, I got introduced to jujitsu there and then when we got back to Guam, you know, continued the training.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  So it's kinda weird, nineteen ninety-one.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  And I got introduced to jujitsu, Brazilian jujitsu, in Thailand.

• 1:21:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  In ninety-one and then, uh, actually it was ninety-two, right?

• 1:21:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  And then, um, uh, coming back to, um, Guam, started at the Quansada.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so, so that must have happened, uh, cause you went right away to Thailand.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm still in Guam, you, everyone comes back from Thailand, including Steve Bailey. And then, when he came back, he must have said, hey, who wants to learn jujitsu? I raised my hand, you know, he, I think he's, who wants to learn how to fight? Cause I, I think him asking who wants to learn jujitsu would have been the most, you, you know, would have been like, oh, is this a language? Is this a, I wouldn't even know. So it was more like, hey, who wants to learn how to fight? I'm like, of course. And then I just remember him just choking us out. I mean, and everything, just like with three or four different moves, you know, it was like, oh, he knew a, maybe an arm lock, an Americana. Maybe like the sit-up sweep, he didn't, there wasn't a ton of different things. Like he knew how to take the back, but it wasn't this, it seemed like a lit, limited number of moves that jujitsu was.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  It wasn't as evolved as it, as it is now, for sure.

• 1:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Were you already making the connection? I didn't even make the connection. I thought, oh, there's, in my mind, I thought jujitsu was seven moves. Like I, you know, or whatever. Maybe when you get advanced, there's twelve, you know what I mean? I just thought, okay, there's seven moves, here they are, practice them, and then you know jujitsu. I didn't, I didn't make the connection between that, what we were learning and this whole freaking crazy, uh, sport.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  Well, my training with Steve was a really pivotal time in my life. You know, he introduced me to jiu-jitsu. That's really changed my life in a really awesome way. But also, like, it was a lot of striking, too. We did kickboxing and, you know, I, that's what actually solidified my,

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  my journey in jiu-jitsu. Because, you know, he had a few black belts that had trained under him, other team guys. And we would do, we were doing sparring at this point when we'd come back home. And I would go down there and like for two years at least, I trained three times a week there. And it was one day striking and then the next day we'd do ground. And I got, and then like on a Friday, we do like just sparring. And so it's like SEAL Team. And all the other guys are black belts and I'm like the new guy. And it's just like the goal is to knock the new guy out. You know, and, and I got my jaw dislocated by one of the guys.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  I came in on him and he turned around and spinning hook kick right in my chin. And I fell forward. He turned his back, no hooks or nothing. I just put the choke on and I choked him. But then after that, I couldn't remember what day it was. My, my back teeth weren't touching. And I had my, my chin was just swollen. And I had to like wait around for a while so I had like the wherewithal to get back home. But that was like, kind of like pivotal because I was like, you know, even when I was hurt, the jiu-jitsu goes on feel. And sometimes when you don't have your senses, if you can just feel what's going on, you, you have a chance. And so that was a big lesson for me.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's after we got home. So after we got home. You were stay you were staying engaged in jiu jitsu. When I got home, I didn't. And I think part of it's because I just thought, like I said, I thought, well, I know the seven moves of jiu jitsu, so I'm good. And I was in another platoon. And so I'm just like, okay, cool. I know jiu jitsu. In my mind, I actually thought I knew jiu jitsu. Like, I'm good. I know I know everything, you know, like, it's like I know the alphabet, right? I know these words, so I'm good. And then, um, but you kept training. At what point did you find Fabio?

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  All right. So we it had been, um, I was getting out at that time.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so we do, we both do another platoon.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  I'm in an org platoon, so I'm on a ship. You go back on a spec ops deployment to Guam. Did you go to Guam? So you go to Guam and you're training that whole time?

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you come home.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  Continue the training.

• 1:25:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  And at that point, I was like, hey, you know, um, do they have like any kind of, uh, you know, like, any other places I can train? You know, I want to learn more. And I'm thinking about, you know, getting out. And he's like, well, you know, Steve was like, you know, you should, um, maybe check out a tournament. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. And I was the same way. And I'm thinking, you know, at this point, you know, I know jiu jitsu. And, um, he wrote a letter to me. He wrote a letter and sealed it. And he said, when you, uh, get up there at the tournament, give this letter to Hoise. And I went up there and, um, I met Hoise and gave him the letter. He opened it.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  And he said, well, you've been training with Steve for two years. You're a blue belt now. And so I got my blue belt from Hoise Gracie. I never had trained with him at all, but got my blue belt there to do the tournament because like two years, you know, go in the blue belt division. But I had never trained with the gi. Like when I got there, I was like, you know, everyone had gees on. I was like, we'd always done no gi. And my first opponent was Craig Cole, Fabio's first black belt down here. And I think it was maybe the worst. It might have been a record for the worst loss in jiu jitsu. I didn't get tapped out, but it was like, I had just never been swept that many times because he had the gi and I'd never seen those sweeps.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Because I was always going no gi and it was like literally like thirty nothing. Like just, I was just getting thrown around and then, I remember back then my, my defense for arm lock when someone gets mounted was to put your arm up. And when they go for it, yank your elbow down as fast as possible. And he almost caught me with the arm up, but when I'm, I'm trying to get my arm out and then all of the friends were on the side like yelling, break it.

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  Old school jiu jitsu. Break it.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  And yeah, it was.

• 1:27:34Jocko Willink?

  Probably including Fabio if he was there on the side.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Fabio was reffing.

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  Check. That's gonna work out good.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  So then after that, um, you know, I was like, hey, you know, is there, they're like, hey, Fabio Santos is opening a school down in San Diego. And that's where you can train if you want to go down and train under our system. So I was like, yeah, you know, I would definitely explore it. And, um, you know, and I went back, I told Steve what happened and he was like, you know, well, you know, expand your horizons, learn as much as you can. And so I started with Fabio and I would train at Steve's. And then at a certain point I had, um, I'd gotten out at this point.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  And I'm now getting ready to go into school. So I had the GI Bill and I started working at Mesa College, like a local junior college.

• 1:28:31Jocko Willink?

  What is it, like nineteen ninety-five?

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  And so ninety, I started at Fabio's in ninety-five during springtime.

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  Sounds like very, very early Fabio's like, uh, those, those are some good times too.

• 1:28:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, and then when you got out, what was your plan when you got out?

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  I didn't really have a plan. You know, I was just like, um, I mean, realize coming from where I, where I did, I haven't really seen much. I mean, yeah, I've been in the teams, but I mean, like, I haven't even like, I didn't even go to school or anything after. Now I went in right after high school. So I was like really curious about just exploring. So I was like, go to school. I'm gonna try anything I can, you know, just looking at the world, seeing what everything's about, you know, um, I think, uh, people who do come from areas like the projects, in a sense, you're kind of sequestered and you're not maybe seeing the big picture of things. And I will say, that's something for everyone.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  You know, you're, you're in your environment and no one ever sees the whole picture. Maybe we see most of the picture, but not the whole thing. And so I think, um, at that point, I wanted to just kind of explore life and that my, my plan was if I don't like it, I can go back in SEAL Teams. So.

• 1:30:00Jocko Willink?

  So then you, how many, how many hours a day were you training jujitsu when you got out?

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Well, uh, what I did was I wanted a way to, to be able to train a lot. So, um, I ended up, uh, working at Fabio's essentially, you know, like cleaning the mats, doing the intro class, running the students around, you know, the morning and the night class. So I was just there all the open hours along with my roommate, John. And, uh, we basically were like Fabio's, uh, assistants there.

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Right, right. Now at some point, uh, I, I guess it was in. Late 95 or early 96, you came to my house. You came to my house and said, hey, bro, you wanna, you wanna, you wanna go train? And I was like, yeah, I was like, of course. So we go across the street to the, to the, to the park across the street from my house in Coronado, from my apartment in Coronado. We go down there and you just, you just, you know, you're like, let's roll. And so, you know, I attacked you or whatever, and you were just triangle, arm lock, you know, whatever, choke, back, you just annihilated, annihilated me.

• 1:31:16Jocko Willink?

  And it's actually, it's crazy, right? It's like you had gotten so good. And I just remember saying, all right, give me the address to this place. I'll be down there. Is it open today? Cause I'll go down there today if it's open today. And if it's not open today, then I'll be down there tomorrow. And I went down there and I, I said, I remember talking to Fabio's wife and I said, oh yeah, I'm here and I want to sign up for unlimited classes. And she's like, well, do you want to try it first? I'm like, no, I just want to sign up for unlimited classes. And she's like, okay. So that was that. And then we, then, then it was on with the old school, the old school crew at Fabio's, which was a beast crew.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:56Jocko Willink?

  You, Dean Lister, Craig, Craig Cole, James Nielsen, right? Some beasts in there. Greg Mack ended up showing up along the way, along the way. Who else? Dr. Mick.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Brent was there too.

• 1:32:14Jocko Willink?

  Brent was there. Remember Kim?

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:32:18Jocko Willink?

  I see Kim at wrestling tournaments sometimes. He's a referee at wrestling tournaments. Louis, Luis, Louis? The Korean dude from, uh,

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Oh, Louis, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He was, he was, cause he was a judo guy originally. Bro, he used to go hard.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Jocko Willink?

  Especially like early when he showed up, he would, he would go hard. He was there to, he was there to win. Every time.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  It's, you know, I look at that now in hindsight, you know, having have some, had some judo experience as well. Judo, the, the, um, the way people attack is, um, I would say.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  They're trying to make you tap.

• 1:32:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  They're not looking for you to tap. Like, you know, I've, I've even traveled in certain areas in Asia, you can, no one taps to chokes. It's just, oh, you caught me in a choke, I'm going out. They're just not going to tap to a choke. So I think the judo guys, anyone who's a judoka, when they get, they go for their taps, like if you stand up in the guard and the guy has your arm, they're gonna try to break it so that if the fight does continue, now you have one arm.

• 1:33:28Jocko Willink?

  So if you don't tap, they're still gonna win because you have one arm?

• 1:33:35Jocko Willink?

  At what point, and I think Fabio used to say this, he used to say, "You're the only person, Jeff, that went from jujitsu to capoeira."

• 1:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, when did you start getting into capoeira?

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  Uh, that was like maybe a year after I got out. And essentially, it's just like I've been saying, I want to explore and try different things, you know? I've never been the type of person that, okay, don't do this. I'm like, well, why not? You know, so I was experimenting and I was like, it's a good way to get good condition for jujitsu, you know, and learn something different.

• 1:34:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's another thing I remember is when you came to my house to fight me,

• 1:34:20Jocko Willink?

  I was like, like, how would you, uh, you know, if we were gonna fight, how would you, what would you do? Like, how would you start it? And you did some weird capoeira stuff?

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started doing capoeira.

• 1:34:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I was all confused. I'm like, oh, man, I don't even know what's happening. This is horrible. And then I'm in a triangle tapping out. And we were competing a lot back then. Like, every opportunity we would get, we would go and compete. And one of the most, well, it might be, it's definitely in the top probably five that I've been at live matches, was we were at Neutral Grounds.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:53Jocko Willink?

  Which was in the ghetto in, in like Inglewood or something. I mean, it is a nasty part of LA. And it was, uh, it was like in the backyard of some...

• 1:35:06Jocko Willink?

  Crappy, you know, house and they had a cage there and there's freaking rabid pit bulls in the alley and everything and we roll in there and um I like we all had matches and they set up it wasn't a tournament it was just like one match and uh god think about those matches there was so you had a well dean had a match against the um the Armenian dude that was like a grown man and he I thought dean I thought he like I thought the guy died of exhaustion or something in the ring I don't know if you remember that one it was mayhem and the Armenian guys are cranking the Armenian music on boom boxes and stuff it was it was so crazy it was

• 1:35:48Jocko Willink?

  nuts dude and the cool thing is that's like the caro Parisian crew like that's them so like when caro Parisian was like oh yeah dude is one of like the old school guys uh they had that that and they were all kind of linked to judo gene label so it was just like really cool to be a part of that but you had a match at neutral grounds popping the day against uh Bo Hirschberger who was this he was he was like hicksens as far as I know he was kind of hicksens premier purple belt at the time and at this time like purple belt was kind of yeah if you were like purple belt was the highest level that Americans had at this point right and so you had this match against um against that guy and he was a great guy I

• 1:36:33Jocko Willink?

  mean he's a great competitor he competed all time we'd see him all time but you but he was a lot bigger than you a lot bigger than you you know he was probably like what do you think 200 220 or something like that yeah big guy and you guys threw down in a jujitsu match and uh you know he was kind of on top and kind of as far as I can remember sort of dominating the match and then there came the triangle out of nowhere and um that was kind of nuts man you won that is there video that anywhere

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  uh no video I have a maybe a couple of pictures of it you know but

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Competition, you know, I, I look at competitions are, I think it's really good to test your skill against other people in competition. Basically, you're looking at someone who has the same skill level, but you don't know their game. And it's up to you to try to negotiate and, and have your jiu-jitsu win in this situation. So, you know, the tournaments are good, I think, but, you know, because of Steve, because of where I grew up, my focus as far as jiu-jitsu is self-defense. That's my main focus. You know, I look at the matches, like, this person won today, but then if they repeat the match,

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  what happens then? And repeat it again and again and again. That's how you find out who's the, who's the best. You, you found out who's the best right there. You know, so I, I kinda, I wanna keep my, you know, my humility, I guess, I would say, as far as like, fighting is concerned. Anyone can lose at any time. So, you know, make sure your technique's on point and be aware.

• 1:38:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a weird thing, too, is, it's, it's a cool thing about jiu-jitsu. It's like, you can go so hard, you can go as hard as you can, you know, like, that's the way jiu-jitsu works. But then there's the other thing is, it's, as close it is to a fight, it's not even a real fight. It's still not a real fight. And then what do you have in those other arenas? What can you do? What can you, how can, what can you create, really, is what it boils down to. There's a creativity aspect. That's another thing that you kind of excel at with jiu-jitsu, is the creative aspect of kinda creating moves and creating series that work really well together. How much, how much, you went to, like, I remember,

• 1:39:05Jocko Willink?

  you know, when I would see you, cause, cause eventually, you know, we weren't all training at Fabio's anymore, we were training at different places. And so, when I'd see you, it'd always be... Like you'd be deep into yoga, you'd be deep into kettlebells, or you'd be deep into Bulgarian bag, or you'd be deep into sambo. You were always going down these different paths to add to your, to add to your repertoire of moves and movement and strength and conditioning.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:32Jocko Willink?

  Is that just still something that you're always doing?

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, uh, one thing that happened, very pivotal thing, you know, when I was in school, the thing I focused on first was trying to get some type of work. So they had the San Diego Community College Fitness Specialist. They had that the first year. I was in that first class. And so I did that to become a personal trainer. The way personal training is set up, you know, if you work for like an organization like ACE or something like that, you always have to upgrade your, um, your training. And, um, so what I did was, um, I would go outside of ACE and see, oh, you know, what's this like? What's this like? And, um, I saw this advertisement for, um,

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  circular strength training. And, uh, I went to Bellingham, Washington. And I did the CST course with Scott Sonnen. And you know how it's, why is that relevant to what we're talking about? Scott Sonnen is the guy who kind of coined the term, the saddle. And he's a sambo instructor, distinguished master of sport, American. And, um, he basically developed that leg lock game of the saddle, which everyone does today, especially no, if you're in no gi, that's a big part of the jiu jitsu. I don't think he gets the credit for it. But, uh, he even had a video that came out

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  that, uh, didn't really go over to, I guess, like as far as like it is, everyone knows it now. But, uh, he doesn't get the credit for it. So I, um, I did want to mention that. I trained with him with the clubs and did that, um, certification. But then afterwards, we went and trained together. And, um, you know, I, I learned some things about, uh, basically the, the thing I learned is no martial art has all the answers. And if you understand the counters to a martial art, you can counter it if you're on time and you do the technique right.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  And, you know, from his end, sambo, judo, I think he did a system as well. I don't really know too much about that. But I was concerned with learning sambo. And he was like, hey, you know, you can even, if you'd like, compete in sambo. But you're gonna have to get your throws together. Because I was just purely jiu-jitsu. And I was like, alright, yeah, well, when I get back home, I'll do some judo. I'm like, I'll do some judo for like two weeks and then I'll be ready for sambo. And I got into judo and I learned judo is its own thing. And so I never really, I never really had much contact with Scott Sonnen after that.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  But, you know, he, if it weren't for him, I probably have never done judo. So then I started training at Judo America and continued on in judo. So I think it's very important, if you are a jiu-jitsu guy, you definitely need to learn some type of stand-up. Fighting, whether it's striking or throwing, wrestling, learn something that you can do stand-up. Because if you cannot get the takedown, what are you gonna do? Block punches with your face. So you don't want to do that.

• 1:43:01Jocko Willink?

  And so where does it all lead to? Where does it lead to you? What are you doing now?

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I was, uh, teaching jiu-jitsu at Studio 540 and doing a lot of privates and personal training. People probably know right now, Studio 540 is defunct. But I'm still continuing on with personal training and jiu-jitsu privates. And also I travel. So at a certain point, you know, Mark. We, another mutual friend that started with us in jiu-jitsu, another team guy. He had a school in Coronado and invited me to come, you know, train there and teach there. So I started doing that.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  And a Russian guy came in, a judoka, and he was curious about jiu-jitsu and started training with us. And then he said, hey, you know, we need to see, we want to see some jiu-jitsu in Russia. And he said, hey, if one of you guys want to come out, you know, come on out and teach. You know, I'll set everything up. And, uh... There were no takers, so I was like, yeah, well, I'm not doing anything, I'll go. And so I ended up going to Vladivostok. And so I've been going there like, um, you know, once a year, every two years and work with those guys. Um, I had a guy that I, uh, that I worked with in Germany.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Reimar, he owns a ten show, it's a really great school in Hamburg, Germany. So usually on this trip, I'll go to Russia. Vladivostok, fly all the way across to Moscow and then over to Hamburg, Germany. Train with those guys. Then I stop over in New York, visit my brother, and then all the way back here.

• 1:44:53Jocko Willink?

  Where you, have you learned any Russian?

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Uh, in every country I've been in, everyone's speaking English, so I haven't really had, um, incentive to really learn much.

• 1:45:04Jocko Willink?

  How long do you usually stay in Russia for?

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Uh, usually two weeks.

• 1:45:09Jocko Willink?

  So you're tr- you're training in Russia with mostly judo-based guys? It's sambo guys, just fighters?

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  No, it's Vlad- Vladivostok Team Jiu-Jitsu.

• 1:45:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so it's Jiu-Jitsu guys?

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, Jiu-Jitsu is a worldwide martial art right now, it's everywhere.

• 1:45:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, I guess I thought that because you said when the guy came to your school, he was a judo guy.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was a judo guy and, and basically in the judo world, all this, you know, that Jiu-Jitsu guy, you know, they're, they're learning like, if you go on the ground, you're probably gonna get tapped out.

• 1:45:42Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  And so, um, he wanted to learn some, a bit about BJJ and so, uh, I want to, and, and the issue there is they're training with no instructor.

• 1:45:53Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  They're just going off video. And there are some hardcore, highly skilled guys over there. And, and women, I mean, like, this, it's, uh...

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  I mean, in this area where we're training before class, they have a sambo and then they have judo. Men's and women's, you know, and and everyone's going hard. So I mean, I think everyone needs to, especially here, Brazil. Get ready because in Russia, they're like, they're doing, I think that it's Russian Federation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  But they allow all the leg locks. So you have guys who are highly skilled at sambo. Learning and and if you're highly skilled at sambo. If you're a master sport in sambo, you're probably a master sport in judo or at least a black belt. Cause the styles are very, very similar, except it's, you know, sambo, of course, has the leg locks. So you better be prepared because I think, you know, over time. They're used to something that you're not used to. And it can make a difference.

• 1:47:02Jocko Willink?

  When you say they're used to something.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  I'm saying like. Do a gi tournament. And all leg locks are allowed.

• 1:47:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, got it, got it, yeah.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  In 10 years. What's gonna happen?

• 1:47:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  When those guys compete here.

• 1:47:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and they're gonna have to at some point in America, open up leg locks for the gi. It's just, it's silly. Right?

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Well, the issue is. It's a sport and they're looking at, you know, long term health of people and I can tell you. When I'm in a sambo class, like looking at the sambo fighters in Russia. I think everyone has at least one leg wrapped. Like, everyone's hurt.

• 1:47:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Don't you think it's a little bit too like the culture over there is a little bit different? Just in terms of like.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, Russian culture is very different.

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  Why? Cause they're getting nuts more often? Like the guys with the leg, like you say, you see everyone with a leg wrap, meaning they kind of maybe have an injury or a hurt legs.

• 1:48:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:03Speaker 02

  Leg locks and stuff. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I was like, wait, but. Like we have, no gi has leg locks here.

• 1:48:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:10Speaker 02

  So. We don't have that much of that, but then how you say like Russian, they go hard. So consider leg locks as being a complete part of the the. Jiu Jitsu culture or sambo and all this, but they go hard.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  That's when you're gonna see that.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and also what is complete? I mean, if you look at, you know, having.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Trained in judo now. Your, uh, um, Kano's original vision was you have a style where you can strike, you can throw, oh, you're still moving on the ground, I can submit. So it's, I think it's imperative whether you learn wrestling, Judo, Sambo, you need some type of stand-up art. You know, that's the full, complete system. Yes, sir.

• 1:48:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's tough to, uh, like, the kids that wrestle, like, you, like, if you, if you start Jiu-Jitsu, I'm not saying you're not gonna be able to pull this off, but if you start Jiu-Jitsu at whatever, you know, 24, or 31, or whatever, you start later in life, to get the reps in for the takedown game, when you're a little bit more fragile, and compared to a kid that wrestled, you know, six years old, eight years old, 10 years old through high school, had, you know, hundreds of tournaments, hu- hundreds of hours in the, on the mat, doing takedowns. And by the time, like, that's why the UFC is so dominated by wrestlers,

• 1:49:35Jocko Willink?

  because they are, they have that in thing just embedded, they don't, they don't need to learn that, that's embedded in them. They know how to get that takedown, they know how to get out the takedown, they know how to scramble. There's a huge part of that, that wrestling comes in, and that's what's, when you start taking that and you just make, replace wrestling with Sambo, and now you've been doing that your whole life, which has takedowns, yes, it also has submissions, it also has knee locks and foot locks.

• 1:50:03Jocko Willink?

  I wish that there was just something like unified grappling.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  That's, that's a vision, you know, um, that was kinda happening at Studio 540.

• 1:50:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  All different kinds of black belts from all over, coming together to teach their Jiu-Jitsu. I mean, because...

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  But beyond that, right, what you need is unified grappling where the whole world says, "These are the rules." Like, "These are the rules," the whole world, so, in the Olympics, there's no more Judo, Wrestling, um... At freestyle wrestling, Greco, it's just like grappling, unified grappling. If you want, if you want to, like, if we're gonna get invaded by aliens that grapple, if we're gonna compete with them, we gotta unify this. We gotta unify this pretty quickly. Otherwise, they're gonna have a leg up, because they've been out there, you know, in their planet.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:50:59Jocko Willink?

  And they're, they've combined it all together. They got the unified grappling.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Potentially.

• 1:51:04Jocko Willink?

  This is, what are we gonna tell the aliens, Jeff? We're gonna be like, hey, no, uh, no reaping here. Hey, no, what is it? No guillotines, you know, no guillotines from that position. We can't tell that to an alien. They don't care. They're, they're there to win.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  That's very true.

• 1:51:18Jocko Willink?

  Unified grappling, free the world.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  You, you know, on that subject, uh, this might rub a few people the wrong way, but I think when I look at jujitsu, one thing I think that can really help is to make a rule set of that's switched. Like, in other words, if I pass your guard, that's three points. Make that an advantage and make actual submissions, like if you have to escape it, those are the points. We, what finishes fights where you could actually have killed this person? Chokes, make those four points. And if I see I have the choke on and you're trying to escape and you get out as four points.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  And then this way, people are going after submissions more rather than, because I had a, a judo, judoka buddy, uh, Ross, and he would do jujitsu tournaments in the black belt division. He's a judo black belt. And he would win some of these tournaments, you know, 50/50, I would assume. But basically, he's like, I'm gonna throw and stay on top and stay out of submissions. And basically, he could do that at will, because he's like a legit judoka. And that's, that's a problem. Now, if you do it this way, that's just an advantage, but you, now you're forcing people to go for the submission more.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, maybe that's part of the unified grappling rules.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Chokes for points. Arm locks, shoulder locks type stuff, maybe three points. BJJ doesn't like, uh, leg locks too much, make that two points.

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Here, here's the only, here's the only, uh, argument I'll say against that. If you're in a fight. And you get a cross side, you get past someone's guard, that's a real problem. Like if we, if we go to a real fight, that's why I think it's so advantageous. Well, that's why I think it's a big deal. Cause they say, oh, if you pass the guard, if you were in a fight, you're got a, you're in a much, much, much worse situation than you were in a second ago. Right? So that's, and if you're mounted, even worse, right? Half guard, a little bit, but so I think there's, there, oh, and if you give up the back, obviously in a real fight,

• 1:53:37Jocko Willink?

  that's the, that's the biggest problem. So you remove the striking, but if you added the striking in, those positions are in some ways even more important, even more relevant.

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  So it's almost like a deflating philosophy.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  I didn't say the relevance of the, of those positions are any less. I'm just saying for a sport to get people to go more for submissions rather than, cause there are, we've seen it. Bunch of guys who wrestled in high school, I got the takedown advantage, I'll take this person down. Wiggle a little bit to make sure the ref thinks I'm still doing something. They stand us up, I do it again and they won and they never submitted anyone.

• 1:54:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. They never even attempted a submission.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you feel cheated. You're on the bottom doing guard the whole time and couldn't do anything because you got stalled out.

• 1:54:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. And stalling is a real thing. Like you can, if someone's stalling, that's like a hard thing to undo, you know?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  I mean, without strikes.

• 1:54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then you add the strikes in?

• 1:54:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a whole different thing. So you're talking about essentially like with the philosophy, you know, of fighting. You know, let's, let's kind of keep true to that. But for the sport, you're, you're absolutely right. Like even if, like even just stalling in general, like even if you're just up by some points that you got from all your cool takedowns or whatever. And then they take you down and you're, now they're only, uh, kind of, uh, they're only, the only thing they can do really is tap you out because there may be a minute left. They can't score 14 points in a minute. To not get tapped out, if someone's just, my whole thing, yeah, you're mounted, you're side control, and you just don't want to get tapped out, that's hard for the guy. It's hard to tap someone out, like way harder to tap someone out when their whole thing is just not to get tapped out.

• 1:55:21Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it can be like an issue for the sport. So it's like, what philosophy do you follow, you know?

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  You still get the same result of guard passing and positional dominance, because, well, what kind of arm locks are you doing when you're in someone's guard? You know, I'm not going to do a kimura to you if I'm in your guard. You know what I mean? So you're still forced to, I mean, those principles of osakomi, those are all the positions, right, of pinning someone. Those are still going to be important. I mean, in judo, there are no points for guard passing. It's just pin this person. Because I know if I have you pinned, if I want to, I could bash you, or I could go into submissions.

• 1:55:59Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, so the advantage for guard passing or whatever, isn't the points. It's because you're, now you're cross-eyed, there's your advantage. So it's sort of like, so use it then. If that's such a great, you know, use it. But you're not getting points for that kind of stuff over here.

• 1:56:16Jocko Willink?

  The Jeff Higgs way.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying, you know, I'm, you know, it's just a thought, you know? Maybe it's a nothing thought, but the idea is to keep the purity of going for submissions in jiu-jitsu. I mean, I think with rules that we're seeing in BJJ, and judo's even worse because it's had a longer history of taking dangerous moves out. And that's what I see happening in BJJ right now.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think the ultimate rule set for grappling is no striking. That's it. That's it. No time limit, no submissions are barred. Just you're not allowed to punch or strike the other person, or kick them. Other than that, you can get after it. And you can go as long as it takes.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  Which means people are gonna have to, you know.

• 1:57:04Speaker 02

  Get up.

• 1:57:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but come on, let's face it. I mean, the sport thing, you know, you can't make the audience.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  No, I know.

• 1:57:10Speaker 02

  You know, five hours.

• 1:57:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, I don't know. People do, people do other sports that take a really long time. And they've managed to televise that. Baseball game takes many hours.

• 1:57:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:57:20Jocko Willink?

  Right? So you would occasionally, you'd get some weird match that goes like nine hours.

• 1:57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:26Jocko Willink?

  Before someone taps out from dehydration. That's what I wanna see. I wanna see someone tap out from dehydration.

• 1:57:32Speaker 02

  No, bro.

• 1:57:33Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? Cause you're not allowed to get a drink. You gotta go in hydrated. You gotta go in with fuel in your system.

• 1:57:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so yeah, it's a lot different, I think, than baseball, but. Yeah, cause baseball, you have like understood little breaks. That's why we can hang out.

• 1:57:46Jocko Willink?

  Right, that's why it can last so long. Cause in a jujitsu, on no time limit jujitsu tournament, there would be like a limitation just by nature.

• 1:57:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:57:55Jocko Willink?

  By the limitations of humans.

• 1:57:57Speaker 02

  For the audience member, they're not gonna be happy about that because at any moment, the match could technically turn around or something could happen.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, I do have a solution for that too. My solution for that is you run three matches at the same time. So two of those matches are gonna, at least one of those out of three is gonna be kind of exciting at some point. So you're just running three matches. You focus the television over there. I got this solved. What did I, I had a name for this. What was I naming it?

• 1:58:22Speaker 02

  Unified grappling.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  No, unified grappling, yeah, but there's just like no, no time limit death matches, basically. Cause it's the only way, there's one way to win.

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 1:58:31Jocko Willink?

  Make the other person tap out.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:32Jocko Willink?

  That's the one way you win.

• 1:58:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:35Jocko Willink?

  That's a game changer.

• 1:58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:36Jocko Willink?

  Remember the Hickson tournaments that were like that? It was, but you could also win by 15 points.

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:43Jocko Willink?

  So those, those, those matches would not go long. Those matches would not go long. You could win by 15 points or submission. And those matches would be like seven minutes, four minutes, 10 minutes. Occasionally, there'd be some, you know, 20 minute match.

• 1:58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  Rarely.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  But the Gracie tournament is similar. I mean, they, they give you points for guard pass, mount, and back control. Those are the only points. And, uh, you know, the rest is continue until someone gets submitted or.

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  Or 15 points, yeah.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  15.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause 15 points does show you win. I mean, if you beat somebody by 15 points, that means positionally, if you were in a real fight, you would have, you would destroy them.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59:27Jocko Willink?

  It's horrible when you get somebody that's really good like positioning like an MMA fighter to roll with.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and like, I'll do this with Taylor. We got a guy here named Taylor Johnson and he's just a savage wrestler and he savaged everything. But, you know, he gets a position on me and I'm just thinking if he, if we were to fight right now. He would just, he would be just killing me. He would be punching me in the head until I was dead. Repeatedly, like repeatedly dead.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  So, uh.

• 2:00:01Jocko Willink?

  If anybody wants to get a hold of you, like anyone who wants to get a seminar, because that's another thing, you know, you mentioned it, self-defense. And how that's kind of what your focus is, it's really solid. Like you have your own little techniques in there. You got moves. I know you do weapon stuff. If somebody wants to get a hold of you to get some kind of training, what do they do? Who do they contact?

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  I guess they could contact me.

• 2:00:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, how would they do that?

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  So this is an issue, um. Jaco sent me a text last night and said, do you have Instagram? And I said, no. I don't have any social media. And, um, basically I can give you my email. You can call me and leave a message.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  Old school, man. Do you have like an email that could be open to the public? Because you don't want to be giving out your email that you know, you're, you're doing your normal personal business on to a bunch of people.

• 2:00:56Speaker 01

  All right, well. Let me, let me, let me make one right now and then I'll set this email up.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  All right. So we will put that out in the future. Yeah. And I'll post it, how to get in touch with Jeff.

• 2:01:14Jocko Willink?

  Echo, you got anything else?

• 2:01:16Speaker 01

  No, that's it. It's good. Good to see you again. Yeah, man. Great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man. Any other, any other closing thoughts? Anything I missed?

• 2:01:25Speaker 01

  Well, I think, um, right now it's, uh. A really important thing. We're looking at the, uh, I'm talking about the world situation right now and, um.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  I think it's really important, you know, with all these things going on, that we somehow get some cohesion. Because, I mean, looking at Jiu-Jitsu, SEAL Team, all these different ways of destruction, it's a lot easier to destroy than it is to create. And, you know, as we have to start thinking on a species level, I don't really want to get preachy on people, but, I mean, just something I see, if we don't do it, humans in general are getting so good at war and destruction, that we're gonna end up killing ourselves.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  And really, all around us, you know, you have the universe. There's a wake-up call right now, the whole planet got caught off-guard with this virus. Luckily, I mean, there are a lot of people have died from it, but the death rate is not like 50% or higher. I mean, what if Ebola was as contagious as this virus? So we have to be smart with what we're doing. Basically, nature, giving us, human species, a wake-up call on, gotta start being aware of what's going on outside of our little bubble, the human bubble. That's basically what I wanted to say.

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  There's like, um, this is, you know, physicists, were you familiar with the Cardy-Shev scale? No. So, a physicist was, um, astronomer looking out into space, you know, with his equipment, and what do you look for in space for life? And so he started coming up with things that he would look up, look for. And he came up with these levels. Type zero, type one, type two, type three. And humans right now, we're a type zero.

• 2:03:41Speaker 02

  Civilization.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  Civilization, right? Type one is when we actually have a really good control of the planetary systems. And then type two is when we have control of the energy of the sun and type three, the galaxy. This is all hypothetical. But the issue is, you know, with our capability at war right now, we gotta be really careful because if we don't reach that type one level where, you know, at a certain point, we're gonna be able to give, there's gonna be food, everything for everyone. You see what I'm saying? Like, over time, humans make things easier.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  And one of the, one of the issues we have is all resources and stuff like that, that are, if they're in low supply here, you have, that starts causing skirmishes and stuff like that. So what I'm saying is, over time, those problems are gonna be solved. But before we reach type one, at a certain point, weapons and, and how to fight, that also starts to spread. And then at a certain point, we can end up destroying ourselves before we even reach type one civilization.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  And type one, type one allows us to leave the planet?

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, we'll, we'll be at a point where, you know, we're not even type one now and we've left the planet.

• 2:05:07Jocko Willink?

  Leave the planet and stay somewhere, I mean.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  No, type one is harness the energy of our planet, like all the energy, not just like oil or whatever. It's like basically utilize 100% of the energy available from our planet, whatever that is.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  That's type zero?

• 2:05:20Speaker 02

  Type one.

• 2:05:20Jocko Willink?

  That's type one, we're not even there yet, obviously. How do you know this, Echo Charles? You just figured it out?

• 2:05:25Speaker 02

  I read and, you know, we hang out at the same spots, you know?

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  So essentially, I'm getting at, you know, we don't wanna get caught off guard. And I see there's a lot of separation right now and a lot of social unrest. And we have to get through that.

• 2:05:48Speaker 01

  To a point where we start to unify, it's very, very tough to do.

• 2:05:53Speaker 01

  But hopefully it can happen.

• 2:05:55Jocko Willink?

  What do you see as like, when you see the, the disunification? Like, what do you see as things to move in the right direction of becoming unified again?

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the main reasons is um. Not thinking on a species level. And you know, when I'm talking about this, I feel kind of funny because it feels like I'm talking in the clouds or something like that. But I'm just being really genuine and sincere about. The human species looking at itself as a species and not as so separate. You know, in my travels, I've been, came from the projects. Came out to, came here and became a SEAL in uh San Diego. My travels in jujitsu, learning there, judo. Uh, traveling around the world, I've seen all kinds of different people.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  You know, in SEAL teams, Southeast Asia, been down Central America, South America, Russia. And I see everyone really wants the same thing, basics of life. You know, and, and. If you, if you're in the military, going to Russia is kind of a big deal in a sense because they were like the great enemy. And I see like uh families over there, just like everybody else. Everyone's trying to live their life the best they can.

• 2:07:17Speaker 01

  And uh, the separatism that we have is making a big problem. We're gonna end up killing ourselves before we reach a level where. Everything can be better for everyone. Is that where, I mean, before I even continue, does that sound like kind of wacky or something?

• 2:07:35Speaker 02

  No, because you know what it is actually, like you make a good point where it's like, and people got to point this out, like people, like that's. I mean, that, that's obviously like good that you say that, people do say that every once in a while, but that's a lot of them not what you hear. So when, like what you're talking about is essentially like, you know how if you have. You know, you have kids, right? Where let's say, you know, I don't know, you have a goal to get somewhere, to do something, or really just a general goal as a family where it's like, okay, our job as parents is to maintain this household, make sure you guys are prepared for life when you grow up. And when you do that, you're gonna be successful in whatever way you wanna be, and then you can sort of do the same and around we go, right? Same kind of analogy.

• 2:08:12Jocko Willink?

  Perpetuate the species.

• 2:08:14Speaker 02

  Exactly right. So, you know, in a, in a small, a smaller analogy is like a family situation. But currently in our family, the whole world, we're kinda in fighting, you know, the brothers and sisters will fight and it'd be like, hey, he took my thing. No, no, he hit, he pulled my hair. So he goes, well, you pull my hair back even harder, and now they're fighting. And then you're like, hey, don't yell. And then the wife is like, hey, don't yell at her like that. You didn't have to say, you know, so we're all in fighting. We're forgetting about like, we don't forget about, I think we get distracted by just the little micro feeling or the, the, the short-term things that go on. And we, we start to forget about, um, you know, progress, you know?

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I just, I don't wanna come off sounding high-minded or anything like that. You know, I'm just, um, looking at the world per se and, um, what has just happened, not just our country, but all over the world. Like this virus has come out and everyone got caught with their pants down. What kind of prep was made everywhere? Now, what if that virus was more deadly? You know what I mean? So we have to be smart.

• 2:09:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Would, would that,

• 2:09:25Jocko Willink?

  would that unify the world against a common enemy? Or would it separate the world more? And here's, remember I had, I had, so I had a guy named, uh, Peter Attia. He's a doctor and he was a doctor in a, um, in the trauma center, an ER doctor in Baltimore. And so I forget the statistics, he was dealing with something like eighteen puncture wounds a day. So that's shootings and stabbings, this is Baltimore. You know, one of the worst crime rates in, it's actually one of the worst crime rates in the world. I don't know if you knew that. It's in the whole world. It's one of the worst crime rates. So that's what he's dealing with. And what he said was, when you have a family come in that's gone through this kind of trauma, usually it's the loss of someone because these puncture wounds or, you know, stabbings or not everyone's as,

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  hate to use the word, not everyone's as lucky as your brother was taking a seven inch knife to the chest and surviving, right? Most people are gonna die from that. And that's what happens. So what he said was, if the family is tight, if they're a tight knit family, and they, and this horrible event occurs, this pressure will make them even tighter.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  However, opposite is also true. If there's fractures in the family, those fractures under that pressure explode and it destroys the families. So I think what you're seeing right now and what you're talking about is, let's face it, in the world as a species, there's fractures, right? There's fractures with different countries. There's fractures with different cultures. And all of a sudden, we just got put under pressure by the disease. And what we're seeing now is we're starting to see these fractures expand. And what I will, from my perspective, the thing that we miss, and I keep trying to say this in different ways and maybe I, I mean, I'll keep trying to say it.

• 2:11:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, in the military, what you end up doing is you end up dehumanizing the enemy. And it's kind of a goal, right? Kind of a goal to say, you know what? I'm gonna have to go kill these people. That's what I'm gonna get told to do. I'm gonna go kill these people. So you know what? I'm not even gonna call them people because there's some part of your subconscious that says, hey, it's not okay to kill people. So you know what? I'm gonna call them animals. I'm gonna call them savages. I'm gonna call them whatever. I'm gonna call them, uh, krauts, right? World War II. I'm gonna call them gooks in the Korean War. We're gonna give them names that's not people. So now we start to dehumanize them and now all of a sudden it's a little easier. Makes that job a little bit easier to kill them. Okay, so that's war. That's what happens there.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, what happens when you start looking at the different culture? And you start doing the same thing because you're like, well, I gotta take care of the people. We're getting pressured by this disease. We're getting pressured by it and I'm gonna take care of the people that are with me. And what do I do? How do I, how do I be mentally okay with that? I got a good solution for you. I'm gonna dehumanize the other people. And now we get separated and now we don't talk to them. And so that's what, when you talk about Jeff, when you go to these other countries and you start talking to people. All of a sudden, they're not Russians to you. They're whatever, Ivan, you know, they're a person with a family.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  And it becomes, they become humanized to you, just like when they meet you and they go, you know, they have this horrible vision of what Americans are like and then they meet you and you're cool. And guess what? Y'all do jujitsu and you like foot locks and it's like, all of a sudden it becomes human. But we don't do that. We don't humanize each other on a broad scale. Which is very strange right now because we should have the ability to do that better than anyone right now, right? Because we've got all these communication systems set up where we should be able to say, hey, everybody, look, let's be together. But instead, we show each other the worst part of our, of ourselves. And, and we place blame instead of taking ownership and that's kind of how we do. So instead of us unifying, as you said, Jeff,

• 2:13:32Jocko Willink?

  this pressure that gets put on us by something like this virus, all of a sudden we become more fragmented. And when we become fragmented, the ability to communicate with each other goes down instead of up. And the possibility of someone actually saying, hey, hold on a minute. You know, other human or other thing. Wait, maybe you have some of the same, whatever you just said, Jeff, about like, hey, everyone's pretty much got the same goals, right? Like you said, like, hey, I want my kids to have a better life than me. I want my kids to do better than me. I want them to have a, a nice, be able to, be able to have their own family and kind of repeat what we did here. That's kind of a common theme.

• 2:14:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's the same thing in Iraq, you know, whenever I explain an Iraqi family to people. I say, oh, if you want to know what an Iraqi family is like, it's very easy for me to explain. It's like an American family. Like if you have you asking some Iraqi dad what his goal is. His goal is to take care of his kids, you know, build up a house, build the business so their kid. That's what their goals are. The same thing when you ask an American dad that same thing. So it's across the board. We get in these situations where instead of we're on like a mass dehumanization. Mode.

• 2:14:47Speaker 01

  Well, how the relevance to jujitsu is there is definitely a clanish aspect to all martial arts. I trained taekwondo, you're training Muay Thai, you know, you're nothing, you know, this kind of attitude of. Well, and from my experience, going and learning a different martial art, starting from ground up. You see that the martial arts also all have the same goal of I get into an altercation, I can take care of myself. You know, so it's I think um, learning this stuff has has kind of a is changed me in a way where I'm trying to. Instead of.

• 2:15:34Speaker 01

  Compare and contrast, I'm trying to see how we're more similar rather than how we're more different. That's a way to way to say it.

• 2:15:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And the other interesting thing about, let's face it, if you. If you know jujitsu, Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, ninjitsu, Kenpo. You if you know, if you know 27 different martial arts, right?

• 2:16:00Jocko Willink?

  And somebody introduces you to the 29th.

• 2:16:04Jocko Willink?

  If you have an open mind, you will learn something.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  From that other thing, right? It's kind of like, I mean, back in the day, Jeff, you and I lived through this where it was a jujitsu move. Or it was bullshit. If it wasn't a if it wasn't a jujitsu move, like this is a jujitsu move, then it's bullshit. Right? That's the that's the old mentality like that is not a jujitsu move. So therefore it can't work and it shouldn't be part of the system. It shouldn't be part of the world. That's a bad attitude to have and it's the same attitude. If you look at another culture and you're like, okay, well, there's a lot of things that in that culture that is doesn't make sense to me. What does make sense? Well, how do you open your mind to say, okay, well, at least if I don't wanna be a part of that

• 2:16:52Jocko Willink?

  culture, what can I take from it? What can I understand from it? How can I relate to it? So it makes me and my culture a little bit better, a little bit more understanding, have a better grasp on on the world. And we we don't do that, just like the old school martial arts and specifically the old school jujitsu was if it's not part of this, then it if it's not jujitsu, don't, don't do it, doesn't work and it's don't bring it in here. And that's the way I mean, I think, I guess you could say like Bruce Lee, you know, he was kind of an early adopter. And you know, if it doesn't, you know, he had some great quotes of which I can't think of any right now, but it's

• 2:17:30Speaker 01

  Absorb what's useful, discard the rest.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Thank you. Absorb what's useful, discard the rest. So that's the attitude to have. And yet, what we like to do in martial arts and in life is discard everything else. We're not listening. I don't want to know what you know. What you know doesn't make sense to me, and I don't want to be a part of it.

• 2:17:54Speaker 01

  I hope, you know, I'm not, and I don't have any misconceptions, like, you know, we're all gonna be holding hands, singing kumbaya and all this stuff. I'm not saying anything

• 2:18:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, I for one don't hold hands with people, so.

• 2:18:10Speaker 01

  But over, basically, what I'm saying is over time, what people have now, they didn't have a century ago. You know, humans progress over time to get better. All people do this. And the same thing with, you know, our war and stuff like that. We got to find answers, or we're gonna end up destroying ourselves, or in the fights against ourselves, something else is gonna get us. And this is a warning sign from nature. You know, there's a whole universe out there. I mean, when you start studying things in science, like astronomy and stuff like that, and how really big and expansive, you know,

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  reality really is, we're in a really little, small space. And I know, maybe to some religious people, you know, science perspective is not really that great. But I'm trying to deal with what we know with some certainty. You know, what I do know certainly is we're in this life right now, we want to make it the best we can before it's over. And so that's, that's why I was, uh, I wanted to put that point out.

• 2:19:20Jocko Willink?

  And on a, on a, on a personal level, like it seems like you're doing your best to kinda reach out the world and make that happen.

• 2:19:31Jocko Willink?

  Through, through jujitsu, through martial arts.

• 2:19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I have to say, um, even SEAL Team, I mean, uh, getting in SEAL Team, coming out of the projects, I don't know anyone from the projects that's in the, that was in the teams during that time, you know, I was definitely, um, unique in that aspect. So, um, you get introduced to all different people. And you know, when you travel around the world, same thing. And, uh, are we going to keep doing what we're doing? Cause I think the path right now might not be the best one.

• 2:20:08Speaker 01

  And again, with humility, because I know when you start talking like this, people are like, you know, shut the hell up, shut the fuck up, whatever this, whatever the case.

• 2:20:20Jocko Willink?

  When you, when you look at the, it's the, the idea, I think, I think here's, here's the crazy thing, the most simplistic thing that you've said is the thing that people have such a hard time with, which is looking at all humans as one species.

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  That's why when you put that video out last week.

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  A couple of weeks ago.

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  Saying about everyone being human, I was like, you know, that was a cool thing, man. You know, it's, it's, uh, you know, especially right now, the state of the U S, what's going on, you know, it's, um, really important that we stay smart.

• 2:21:02Speaker 01

  You know, because there is still this, uh, virus out there that we have to be aware of. I was, you know, in my studies, I have a, a, a book here on, um, pandemics. When you look at the 1918 pandemic, you had three waves, some say maybe even a fourth wave, if you do the research, but the first wave was regular flu. That started, I believe, March 4th, 1918. And then over the next few months, in the fall.

• 2:21:35Speaker 01

  The virus mutated and then killed upwards of fifty million people. That's a possibility. So we have to be smart with what we're doing. Understand the social aspects that we're looking at too, that's important. But um, you know, the health of the planet too is also really important. Gotta look out for each other.

• 2:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Gotta look out for each other. It's true. I think that's a good place to wrap this up a little bit.

• 2:22:08Speaker 02

  Actually, I have a question. Well, you said you saw that video that Jaco made a few weeks ago. Where'd you see that video?

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  Youtube.

• 2:22:14Speaker 02

  Oh, alright.

• 2:22:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he was about to call you out on no social media.

• 2:22:18Speaker 02

  You're one of those guys, you have social media, but you're always on private, you're that guy. But I stand corrected.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  He's a lurker.

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I dig it, I dig it.

• 2:22:26Jocko Willink?

  What do you think? You think you could make an Instagram?

• 2:22:30Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Or do you just have no interest in it whatsoever?

• 2:22:32Speaker 01

  That has been my main um, thought regarding social media. I mean, like, just the idea of like, let me take a picture and put it online and show everybody what I'm doing. Just, I have no really um, no affinity to do that. I had a um, Facebook page I started. I actually opened it up and then I never touched it again.

• 2:22:55Jocko Willink?

  I was having a weird conversation with my two daughters the other day.

• 2:22:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  And um, what they were, they were basically saying they don't like Instagram. Because, and and it's, you know how you hear people say like, oh, it's comparative? You know, you compare, you end up comparing yourself with other people? And

• 2:23:12Speaker 02

  Oh, on Instagram?

• 2:23:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, on Instagram. You know, oh, you compare with this, you compare with that, you compare with, you're basically comparing your life with the absolute best view that everyone else has of their own life.

• 2:23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, that they're posing in front of the Lambo or whatever in order to look cool. And and I I gotta admit, I don't really think of that. You know what I mean? I don't really think like, I'm not really out comparing. I mean, probably because I'm like almost fifty years old and there's, you know, it's kind of like I'm just an old man that doesn't care anymore. But, you know, for, when you're younger, you're like, wait a second. How is that person, how's that other person that's my age or a little younger, a little older? How'd they have this amazing situation going on? And I'm over here, you know, with not an amazing situation.

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:00Jocko Willink?

  So I'm not worried about you getting caught in that trap Jeff.

• 2:24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't seem like.

• 2:24:04Jocko Willink?

  I think he'll be okay.

• 2:24:07Speaker 01

  So Instagram, that's the one you just put up.

• 2:24:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you take it. You can put, you can put words under it too, you know? Um, you can film videos. The videos can be 10 minutes long. There's something called IGTV.

• 2:24:22Speaker 02

  Expert over here, this guy.

• 2:24:25Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:24:25Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm feeling like pretty sad right now. Just you're explaining social media.

• 2:24:31Jocko Willink?

  Well, the funny, the really funny thing is when I got on this path, God, I hate even using that word. I, well, I started social media, um,

• 2:24:41Jocko Willink?

  Tim Ferriss, when I got done with, um, interviewing with Tim Ferriss, he's like, do you have, do you have social media? I'm like, no. And he's like, you should get up like, no. And he goes, mm, you really need to get it. And I said, kind of like, okay. I mean, he's a, a really smart guy and does really well with what he does. I mean, amazingly successful guy and just cool.

• 2:24:59Speaker 01

  Four hour work week.

• 2:25:00Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Yeah. So he's telling me like, you got a guy that's done what Tim's done. And I'm just becoming a civilian kind of. And he goes, yeah, you need to get Twitter. He goes, just get it. And I said, he said, I'll show you how to use it. He never showed me anything. But the good thing is you don't, what he knew that I didn't know is that you, there's nothing to show. Like this is how you make it work. You put up, put little words in here and, and the thing that you'll find interesting, I guess if it's used in the right way. I mean, I've made all kinds of incredible connections through social media. All kinds. I mean, I would say 50% of the guests on this podcast, and I've had some amazing guests, were through social media. They DM'd or they emailed or they contacted whatever.

• 2:25:44Jocko Willink?

  And I'm talking, I'm getting World War II veterans on here and, and Vietnam vets. I mean, incredible people that it's an honor to be able to have them on here. A lot of them come from social media. So I, I, it's a great tool. It's a great way to communicate with other people and just like everything else in the world. If you do it, if you go too far with it, it can absolutely turn into a negative.

• 2:26:06Speaker 02

  Yes. And there's some pitfalls too. Like people will tell you stuff on, on social media that they would never tell to your face. Just every day.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, oh, you're talking smack talkers.

• 2:26:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, whatever. Yeah, exactly.

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:18Speaker 02

  So there's that. If you go in knowing that, okay, that's a thing, then you're, then you, you might not, um, hit, hit the, some of the pitfalls.

• 2:26:26Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever had a hobby before?

• 2:26:29Speaker 01

  A hobby?

• 2:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just like a hobby.

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  No, I've never had a hobby.

• 2:26:32Speaker 02

  Spider books, right?

• 2:26:33Jocko Willink?

  Come on. Okay, so, so let's say your hobby is knitting, right? And you get home and you're like, okay, I'm gonna knit some yarns or whatever.

• 2:26:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:26:41Jocko Willink?

  And that's kind of your thing.

• 2:26:44Jocko Willink?

  There's some people, their hobby, what they do for fun is get on social media and ta- trying to basically terrorize other people.

• 2:26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's called trolling.

• 2:26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, trolling.

• 2:26:54Speaker 01

  I understand all of that stuff, but it's just like, I've just never felt like I want to do that.

• 2:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:00Speaker 01

  Let me take a picture of myself and then post it for everybody in the world to start looking at it. It just seems like a weird idea to me.

• 2:27:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, in, in that way, it is, it is weird.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  I see it's a change in society. It, it kind of, um, almost takes away, um, anonymity. You, uh, everyone's a star in a sense.

• 2:27:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you use it that way, for sure.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  Out there.

• 2:27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but a lot of times, like, if you have a business or something, right? And you know how, like, you're like, okay, I want to go to this, I don't know, chicken restaurant or something? Or maybe even a place where maybe the experience there is more significant? Like, um, I don't know, martial arts place or whatever? And, you know, you can go to Yelp or, I don't know, old school, go Yellow Pages, whatever. And you don't have the number.

• 2:27:45Jocko Willink?

  Dang, are we talking about Yellow Pages right now? Is that happening?

• 2:27:48Speaker 02

  Maybe. And, you know, they're like, okay, well, now I gotta drive down there to just to check it out. I'm not even committed to, you know, so if you have an Instagram, for example, um, you know, you can see pictures of the place. You can see descriptions, you can see comments of people that, you know, may or may not like it or whatever. So you can, you know, it is useful in a lot of different ways, other than everyone trying to be a star, even though I think that's one of the more prevalent uses for Instagram. By the way, Twitter's a whole new thing.

• 2:28:14Jocko Willink?

  Thing is, you don't have to post a picture of yourself.

• 2:28:17Speaker 02

  No, exactly.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  You can post a picture of a knife or a picture of a wall or a picture of a plant or a picture of a star or your watch. Or sweat.

• 2:28:26Speaker 02

  Every single, single morning.

• 2:28:28Jocko Willink?

  Or whatever you're gonna do, you can just do that. So you don't have to necessarily, um, um, you know, just pose for pictures for, for yourself.

• 2:28:38Speaker 02

  With your shirt off or whatever.

• 2:28:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, flexing.

• 2:28:40Speaker 02

  You know how you, how you get sometimes? But yeah, that's what I'm saying, but you are right though, that, that is true. But then again, you know, what if you posted this one, like, let's say you're doing a seminar, you post one, uh, picture of the cool picture of the seminar or whatever, and then someone's like, "Hey, um, you know, your shoulders look real solid, you've been working on them." And you'd be like, "Oh, yeah, I've got that feeling." So the next one, you might be a little bit more compelled to, "Let me post a picture with me, maybe like in some good lighting or something." And then the comments start rolling, you see them, you see the slippery slope, though.

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  But then there's someone that says, "Uh, yeah, but he's got skinny wrists." Right? And then all of a sudden, you're trying to do wrist workouts.

• 2:29:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then, of course, that guy's now your enemy because he's talking trash to you, you know, so you're, now you're back and forth with him, and now you gotta check to see what your friend said about that guy saying, you know, so it's a thing, you know, you gotta watch out for that kind of stuff.

• 2:29:31Jocko Willink?

  I think you'll be all right, bro.

• 2:29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so, too. It's like, in a sense, like, uh, public record, because at a certain point, right, you're dead. But the media stuff is still there. It's like a record. Maybe a hundred years from now, they can access, "Who was this person? What was this person like? What were they into?" It's like a historical account of individuals.

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt about it.

• 2:29:53Speaker 02

  Straight up voluntary, too.

• 2:29:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, I got some friends that have, that have died, and their social media pages are there, and I'm so happy that their social media pages are there, because it's like, I can go on there.

• 2:30:04Speaker 01

  Still alive.

• 2:30:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, still hang out a little bit, you know? So there's definitely a positive in that regard.

• 2:30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  Was that your question, Nek? I don't even remember what your question was.

• 2:30:15Speaker 02

  Uh, hey, I didn't, actually, you know what my question was? Okay, remember when you were doing the eight pull-ups, the pull-ups, and you were like, "I got the eight," like, almost got, what's the qualifying thing for pull-ups? How many do you have to get?

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Back then was eight.

• 2:30:25Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 2:30:26Speaker 01

  So you had to do forty-two push-ups, fifty sit-ups, eight pull-ups. Then you had to run a mile and a half in boots and long pants for, I think, twelve minutes and thirty seconds. And then you had to run, you had to swim using side stroke or breast stroke, uh, five hundred meters, I think, in the same time, like, twelve minutes and thirty seconds, something like that.

• 2:30:50Speaker 02

  And this is all in one go, or is it like day one you do this?

• 2:30:53Speaker 01

  No, it's yeah, it's all like one after the other. So the swim's usually first, then the calisthenic stuff, and then the run at the end.

• 2:31:01Speaker 02

  Got you.

• 2:31:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that, those, those, that level of qualification is so not prepare you.

• 2:31:10Speaker 01

  That's the bear, bear.

• 2:31:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:11Jocko Willink?

  Like if you're a guy sitting there going, I can do eight pull-ups.

• 2:31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:14Jocko Willink?

  And you're totally wrong. You're totally wrong and you're gonna get destroyed. If it takes you 11 minutes and 30 seconds or whatever, running a mile and a half, and you think you're gonna make it through BUDs, you're not even close.

• 2:31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:24Jocko Willink?

  They're, I mean, back in the day, and I'm surprised they haven't changed it, and they have changed it now, like, once you're in the pipeline, you compete against everyone else. So, the way it works now, Jeff, is when you get to BUDs, in order to go into a class, they give everyone in the class a screening, a, a physical screening test, the top 165 people go. If you don't make it, you don't go into class, and if you don't make it, I think, two times, you're done. So it's a competition, just to get into class, see who gets the best score, so eight pull-ups ain't getting you nowhere.

• 2:31:59Speaker 01

  Is it like the enhanced screening test? Cause I remember getting a BUDG, you got another screening test when I, in 7-4, where everything was higher, like 75 push-ups, 75 pull-ups, like 12 pull-ups or something like that.

• 2:32:13Jocko Willink?

  I, I just know it's a competition, so the max, the minimum fluctuates, because if there's a bunch of studs in your class, and you're not good at pull-ups, they're like, oh yeah, sorry, you're not in class.

• 2:32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Later.

• 2:32:26Jocko Willink?

  The crazy thing is, no matter what they do to those standards, the same number of people quit. It's the weirdest thing.

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  It's the cold water.

• 2:32:34Jocko Willink?

  It's definitely the cold, the cold water, the cold water, the lack of oxygen.

• 2:32:38Speaker 01

  And the sleep.

• 2:32:39Jocko Willink?

  And the lack of sleep. And then, and then those are, that right there is 90% of the quitters, I think. Then you have some people that, you know, whatever, they got some weird, they'll get in their head psychologically and, and they'll just, ah.

• 2:32:57Jocko Willink?

  They look, man, you know, you gotta recognize that they're gonna try and make you quit. So if they see some kind of weakness, that they see they can trip you up and they might, here's the thing, ego up or ego down, you know, they might be like, hey, no one's gonna want to have you on us in a platoon. Listen, man, you seem like a good guy, right? Little ego up, but if you want a platoon, if you were a team, I wouldn't want to work with you. You don't look like you can carry your weight and like you're actually by staying here, the rest of your boat crew, you're putting them at risk in the SEAL teams.

• 2:33:31Jocko Willink?

  So even a good, like if you're a good hearted person that has good intent, you want to take care of your teammates, the best thing you could do to take care of your teammates right now is quit.

• 2:33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, jam you up mentally for sure.

• 2:33:40Jocko Willink?

  So they're gonna figure out, they're coming at you. And when you're cold, wet and tired, and that's the other thing, you know, people, when you're cold, wet and tired, man, those options start popping up in people's heads. And they start, you know, maybe they weren't thinking about it, but now they're thinking, well, I really don't want to let my teammates down. And that hot cocoa looks good over there. I'm gonna go get me some hot cocoa.

• 2:34:07Speaker 01

  That's what they had in our class, Swiss miss hot cocoa and Krispy Kreme donuts.

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's the good one.

• 2:34:13Speaker 01

  And electric blanket.

• 2:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:16Speaker 01

  If you quit.

• 2:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Sitting on the beach, so you're sitting in 58 degree water, uh, jackhammering freezing cold. And there's some quitter up there with an electric blanket on and a hot cup of cocoa. They're calling you out. I laughed at that craziness.

• 2:34:35Speaker 02

  If, so you, so if a guy quits, he doesn't just go, he doesn't just leave, he's still there.

• 2:34:40Jocko Willink?

  They, they, they make us, they make a positive spectacle out of it.

• 2:34:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, here's the thing though.

• 2:34:45Jocko Willink?

  And they treat him like a bro too. They don't, they're not harsh on him. They're not like, they're not like, oh, get over here quitter. They're like, it's okay.

• 2:34:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:53Jocko Willink?

  They're doing the whole psyops on everybody.

• 2:34:55Speaker 02

  To me, that's the worst part right there. Cause if you're just like, oh yeah, here, here's all the quitters on display. Look at them enjoying their hot cocoa. It kind of creates this divide like, bro, I don't want to be that guy. It looks nice, but I don't want to be that guy.

• 2:35:06Jocko Willink?

  That guy's, that guy's actually, you know, he's a good guy. Yeah.

• 2:35:09Speaker 01

  He's a smart guy. Yeah.

• 2:35:11Jocko Willink?

  He made a decision. Yeah, you know, and it's probably a good decision. It's good decision for the teams. He really cares about the teams because he doesn't want to bring the teams down, not like you.

• 2:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Trying to hurt the teams.

• 2:35:24Speaker 02

  See, I think I understand you a little bit more now, just a little bit. I get it.

• 2:35:29Jocko Willink?

  Check. Alright, so um, I guess we're all probably gonna start training jujitsu if we're not already.

• 2:35:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:35:36Jocko Willink?

  I guess we're probably gonna be swinging some kettlebells, working out, trying to get better, trying to humanize each other.

• 2:35:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:35:42Jocko Willink?

  We're just moving in a positive direction.

• 2:35:44Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:35:44Jocko Willink?

  What do you got for us, Sacko Charles?

• 2:35:46Speaker 02

  Well, we're gonna keep ourselves in the game with what? Jaco Fuel. Supplements, supplementation and part it, you know, especially when your body starts falling apart, right? Okay, joint or for krill oil, super krill oil. Keep your joints together, bro. When your joints go out, bro, you're gonna be thanking me when you're taking the krill oil and joint.

• 2:36:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, no, super krill, super krill oil.

• 2:36:05Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:36:05Jocko Willink?

  Cause the krill oil is made with a regular krill. Regular krill has not been screened. Super krill, they made it through the training.

• 2:36:12Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:36:13Jocko Willink?

  And they're ready to hook you up.

• 2:36:14Speaker 02

  It makes sense to me.

• 2:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Don't get regular krill. Get yourself some super krill.

• 2:36:19Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Also, discipline, both kinds of discipline, by the way. The supplement discipline, okay, for your brain, for your body too, but you know, all these things, they're gonna keep you in the game, big time. Jujitsu or otherwise.

• 2:36:32Jocko Willink?

  So Jeff, COVID. Before, at the end of, at the end of January, I went to Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Austin, Texas, and in each one of those locations, I shook hands with one to 2,000 people and bro hugged 50% of those people.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  I did not get COVID. Matter of fact, it never even like, it never even got after my immune system at all. I got the test.

• 2:37:06Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying that it's like this genetic um, uh, thing, but it's now proven.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  That if you're healthy, right? If you work out, yes. If you eat clean, yes. If you take vitamin D.

• 2:37:22Speaker 02

  Sure. Also, discipline, back to the discipline thing. We do have cans of discipline, RTD cans.

• 2:37:30Jocko Willink?

  Stands for ready to drink in the industry.

• 2:37:32Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Those are good, those are, I'd say, actually, you know what, Brian, I'm on both, I'm be honest with you. Got the cans and the powder.

• 2:37:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's something really good about just cracking open a cold can.

• 2:37:44Speaker 02

  It's true. And, oh yeah, Pete, guys, thanks for the refrigerator, by the way. I mean, you know, Jaco's head is on it, which, you know, makes emotions about that whole thing, but overall, good. Big hit at my house. Brad, they sent me this refrigerator with Jaco's head face on the refrigerator.

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  Very strange. You want to talk about like strange times? Covid strange, right? The world strange, we got strange people running for president. When your head starts showing up on your friends' refrigerators? That's some strange times. That's some strange times.

• 2:38:15Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, it is.

• 2:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh, get some milk, get some protein in you.

• 2:38:19Speaker 02

  Protein's better than no protein for sure.

• 2:38:20Jocko Willink?

  Protein, which by the way, the, have you tried the protein I make, Jeff? Cause if you haven't tried it, it's 100% guaranteed to stop Spanish flu. It's 100% guaranteed to stop Spanish flu. It's been lab tested, the whole nine yards, you don't have to worry about it.

• 2:38:37Speaker 01

  I'm one of those, what's it, what's it made of?

• 2:38:41Speaker 02

  Pro, well, I don't know all the ingredients, but I will tell you this, it's clean protein in the form of a dessert. That's what I do know. I don't know the ingredients, we're gonna have to contact Brian.

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  What do you mean, what's it made out of?

• 2:38:53Speaker 01

  I'm one of those wacky vegans.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay, yeah, you're not good, cause it, no, cause it's got, uh, casey and it's got the milk protein in it. It's got that and egg protein, so you're just out across the board.

• 2:39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:04Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have to, uh, well, you're gonna have to eat something else.

• 2:39:08Speaker 01

  If I do get Covid, I want a can of that stuff.

• 2:39:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, you'll go out in style.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:18Speaker 02

  Also tea, Jaco white tea. If you want something a little lighter.

• 2:39:21Speaker 01

  That's, I like that.

• 2:39:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know, since you are a vegan, it's not only vegan, but it's also organic. Certified organic. You see, think I'm playing around over here? I got your back, bro. I got your back, big time. I'm gonna stop you from catching Spanish flu. Probably prevent Covid from getting in your system. And I'm gonna protect your vegan rights right over here.

• 2:39:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:39:44Speaker 02

  Is there such thing as vegan rights? Just regular rights, right?

• 2:39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:48Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:39:48Jocko Willink?

  Isn't vegan rights a thing?

• 2:39:49Speaker 02

  I, I, not that I know of, but I don't know.

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  Maybe we could start a movement.

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  Anyway. So.

• 2:39:56Jocko Willink?

  Is vegan rights a thing?

• 2:39:58Speaker 01

  Uh, not that I know of.

• 2:39:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:40:00Speaker 02

  Oh, man, just like there's no keto rights, there's no other dietary philosoph-

• 2:40:05Jocko Willink?

  Straw man argument. That's a straw man argument.

• 2:40:07Speaker 02

  No, it's not. No, it's not. Vegan is a, a-

• 2:40:10Jocko Willink?

  Food dietary choice.

• 2:40:12Speaker 02

  And it, there's a philosophy behind it, for sure. Oh, yeah, hundred percent. I dig it too. But I don't, I don't think you can choose a, a, that kind of philosophy and then gain sort of, you know, more rights. Or lose rights for that matter. See what I'm saying?

• 2:40:26Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna start a keto right movement.

• 2:40:28Speaker 02

  Alright, well, I'm going paleo rights over here.

• 2:40:30Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 2:40:31Speaker 02

  Straight up.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 2:40:32Speaker 02

  I gotta, I gotta start paleo first, though.

• 2:40:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:34Speaker 02

  Kind of a thing. Anyway, speaking of a thing, jujitsu, right?

• 2:40:37Jocko Willink?

  By the way, everything that we just talked about, you can, you can get on originmaine.com, or you can get it at the Vitamin Shop.

• 2:40:42Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:40:42Jocko Willink?

  The Vitamin Shoppe.

• 2:40:43Speaker 02

  What was the first one?

• 2:40:45Jocko Willink?

  Originmaine.com.

• 2:40:46Speaker 01

  Originmaine.com.

• 2:40:47Jocko Willink?

  Yep, Maine like the state. The state of Maine.

• 2:40:50Speaker 01

  Origin Maine, because of your origins.

• 2:40:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:40:57Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:40:59Speaker 02

  Also at originmaine.com, jujitsu ghee's and rash guards, okay, these ghee's and rash guards are made a hundred percent in America, a hundred percent. Even the cotton that they grow to form the material, even that grown in America, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, it's a big deal. So, yeah, when we go back to jujitsu, we need a new ghee if you don't have one already, even if you do have one, grab an origin one.

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:20Speaker 02

  That's why.

• 2:41:21Speaker 01

  You know, one thing about jujitsu I wanted to say too, for all those people who are like sweating the load about, you know, I haven't trained in a while. You know, I, I, um, had an injury from the military that just got worse doing jujitsu. My neck got hurt really badly, so I was supposed to get a fusion on a C5 to C7. And, uh, I was out for two years. I just didn't train. So when you come back, you know, jujitsu's not going away. So when you come back, you will get better. All those techniques you've been working on, that stuff's kind of just gestating in your mind. Mixing and matching and forming into new things, you'll be better once you get your conditioning back.

• 2:42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42:03Speaker 01

  Do not sweat it. Like a lot of people are like, I'm looking at these, I haven't trained in a while.

• 2:42:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. But the conditioning thing, that's gonna be a thing, especially if you like to go hard. Right. You're gonna jump back in there, try to go hard and, bro, you're gonna get.

• 2:42:16Speaker 01

  When you come back, come back smart. Just nice and slow, easy, get back to it. And I think it's also while you're not rolling, do your conditioning. You know, it is a lifestyle. Eat right, train right. You know, you gotta have your conditioning going on. So you should be doing that.

• 2:42:32Speaker 02

  In other words, stay on the path.

• 2:42:34Jocko Willink?

  And also when you come back, you don't necessarily have to ramp it up. You could just go 17 rounds, death matches, come and get it.

• 2:42:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:42:44Speaker 02

  Anyway, yeah. So, yeah, I get origin key. If you, uh, you know, when you get back into it, if you haven't already got back into it.

• 2:42:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:51Speaker 02

  Anyway, a lot of stuff on there, origin.com.

• 2:42:53Jocko Willink?

  Boots.

• 2:42:54Speaker 02

  Boots.

• 2:42:54Jocko Willink?

  Jeans.

• 2:42:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:42:56Jocko Willink?

  T-shirts.

• 2:42:57Speaker 02

  All made in America.

• 2:42:58Jocko Willink?

  All made in America, in the good old US of A.

• 2:43:01Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store Merchandise.

• 2:43:06Jocko Willink?

  Super original.

• 2:43:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Creative, lack thereof, or whatever. But hey, man, it works. Jaco Store, easy to remember. That's where you can get, uh, t-shirts, Discipline Equals Freedom. Uh, you know, this one that I got on, good, you know, represent, uh, you know, a lot of cool stuff on their hats.

• 2:43:22Jocko Willink?

  That I got on.

• 2:43:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Def core, all day. Do the core.

• 2:43:26Jocko Willink?

  All day.

• 2:43:26Speaker 02

  All day. Um, yeah, JacoStore.com. If you like something, hey, man, get something.

• 2:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Also, subscribe to this podcast. Uh, you can subscribe to it wherever. You can leave a review. We will laugh at your review if it's funny. And if it's cool. And if it's not funny, it's not cool, and it doesn't have any layers, well, we appreciate it. It's cool still. It's still cool.

• 2:43:45Speaker 01

  Do you, uh, like, when you're looking at comments and stuff, you get a lot of, do you get some negative stuff? Like people trying to fire it up on you?

• 2:43:53Jocko Willink?

  For this podcast?

• 2:43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:55Jocko Willink?

  Almost none. It's really cool. Everyone's super stoked on it.

• 2:43:59Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 2:44:00Jocko Willink?

  But, yeah, you know, some people give some feedback that might be considered negative, but I look at it with an open mind and I say, hmm, maybe there's some adjustments I could make. Maybe I could do a better job.

• 2:44:10Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:44:11Jocko Willink?

  We also got the thread. We're almost out with a new thread, with a new name and all that stuff. I'll let you know. Grounded Podcast, where we talk about jiu-jitsu. Warrior Kid Podcast, where we talk about being a warrior kid. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap. Including killer soap, Irish Oaks Ranch dot com or on the Jaco store website. You can get yourself some soap so you and everyone that you know.

• 2:44:34Speaker 01

  Gets clean?

• 2:44:42Jocko Willink?

  So the byline is, is uh, what's this called? The, the standard operating procedure is I do a little bit of a buildup and then I say, stay clean. And you just took my byline.

• 2:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:44:57Jocko Willink?

  So normally I would say, hey, so everyone, so you, everyone and you and your family can, stay clean. And Echo usually goes like this, but you, you took the glory.

• 2:45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:45:08Jocko Willink?

  And you said get clean, which is also, you know, the precursor to staying clean.

• 2:45:13Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. For those of us who are not clean quite yet.

• 2:45:20Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, we got a bunch of podcasts. We got a YouTube channel that you can subscribe to if you want to see Echo's. If you haven't seen this yet, Jeff, Echo puts ridiculously crazy amounts of explosions and fire and Terminator heads into his videos. Cause he's all into, um, you know, whatever that's called CGI.

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  Well, I just watched Terminator the other day and that was what I studied in school too. What Terminator video?

• 2:45:46Jocko Willink?

  Terminated.

• 2:45:47Speaker 01

  I, I um, I have a media arts degree. So my specialization was 3D animation.

• 2:45:55Speaker 01

  Maya and Lightwave and um, digital video. So video editing, compositing and stuff like that.

• 2:46:07Jocko Willink?

  He's kind of like, um, you know, the enlisted guy that doesn't like the officers because they think they know what they're talking about because they went to college. He just, I just felt it.

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  Whatever. I didn't even exude that at all. I'm like, respect. You know, he's a peer. We're peers in that way.

• 2:46:25Jocko Willink?

  We're peers now.

• 2:46:27Jocko Willink?

  That degree you have doesn't mean anything, apparently.

• 2:46:30Speaker 02

  We're peers.

• 2:46:30Jocko Willink?

  See how I like to instigate?

• 2:46:31Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, I do.

• 2:46:33Jocko Willink?

  So we got a YouTube channel, we got Psychological Warfare, we got FlipsideCanvas.com, where you can get visual representation of the path, got a bunch of books, The Code, Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Square the Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3, Mikey and the Dragons, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, Extreme Ownership and the Decaduism of Leadership, Echelon Front, my leadership consultancy, EFOnline.com. If you want to talk to me and hang out with me, and hang out with everyone on the Echelon Front team, go to EFOnline.com and come and ask questions. We solve leaderships, leadership problems. That's what we do every day. Come and check it out. We're on there, EFOnline.com. The muster coming up, Phoenix, Arizona, September 16th and 17th, and Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th, ExtremeOwnership.com

• 2:47:17Jocko Willink?

  for details. We do, we usually do, an introduction to Jiu-Jitsu at those things. I'm not sure what's going to be happening because of the current COVID environment. Because you know what, Jeff? You know what we do?

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  What?

• 2:47:30Jocko Willink?

  We try and be smart.

• 2:47:31Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:47:33Jocko Willink?

  So we're going to try and be smart, and we may or may not do that. EFOverwatch, if you need people, leaders at your team, go to EFOverwatch.com, where we take leaders that understand the principles that we talk about on this podcast, and they can take them and bring them to your organization. Also, AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Mama Lee, that's Mark Lee's mom, and she has been on a mission, on a mission, since she lost her son. On a mission to help service members, their families, Gold Star families around the world. If you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

• 2:48:13Jocko Willink?

  And if you haven't had enough of my plodding platitudes, or you need more of Echo's misplaced mentions.

• 2:48:25Jocko Willink?

  Then you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. Jeff is gonna make some kind of social media of some kind. And we will tag him and he's gonna post a picture of his face.

• 2:48:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you want to, YouTube, if you want to see what Jeff looks like on YouTube, you can come on here and check him out. You probably already know what Echo Charles looks like. And apparently Echo Charles does not look like how he sounds.

• 2:48:57Speaker 01

  You know what's pretty funny about that is I do have a client that I do privates with. And I don't think he's ever seen the YouTube channel. He just watches, he just listens to the podcast. And he's like, he doesn't think, he doesn't, has no idea what you look like. And he's like, he thinks that, I think, he thinks you're kind of a small guy.

• 2:49:18Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, I heard that before, for sure.

• 2:49:20Jocko Willink?

  Apparently Echo Charles sounds like a skinny white boy.

• 2:49:24Speaker 02

  Hipster.

• 2:49:25Jocko Willink?

  Hipster. Hipster's often used.

• 2:49:26Speaker 02

  Something like this. Yeah, pretty hip, I guess. But yeah, that does not surprise me.

• 2:49:30Speaker 01

  I said, no, I said, Craig, man, this guy's a pretty big guy.

• 2:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so we'll get that. We'll get your social media. We'll figure it out, hopefully. If not, we'll get you an email. And if not, we will find an address that people can write you letters to.

• 2:49:51Jocko Willink?

  They can mail them.

• 2:49:52Speaker 02

  A P O box?

• 2:49:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And if not, we can get smoke signals going to Jeff Higgs. Jeff, you got any last words?

• 2:50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, first and foremost, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I do want to say thanks to my family.

• 2:50:11Speaker 01

  Fabio, for showing me jujitsu, teaching me, all my training partners. And Steve, I will kind of leave that a little bit anonymous there, but big change in my life from him. And also James Harrison, who was my father's friend and really kind of was a mentor to me. And gave me, kind of instilled discipline in me on what it takes to overcome your life's difficulties.

• 2:50:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. And you know, that that just,

• 2:50:48Jocko Willink?

  you know, it's a it's a great reminder that when you're going through life, if you make a little effort, make a little effort to help somebody out, you know, you can actually change the trajectory of their entire life. And we all have people like that that did those things along the way. And clearly, that's a great example. So be cool to people. Help them out.

• 2:51:17Jocko Willink?

  And with that, thanks Jeff for for coming on. Thanks for your service in the team, obviously. Your dedication to Jiu Jitsu. And um, thanks for being my brother for the last 30 years. And like, hopefully, we can squeeze out another 30. Yeah, I'm sure we will.

• 2:51:41Jocko Willink?

  But there's no guarantees. As you once said to me, That is, this is true. Time will tell.

• 2:51:50Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else that has served or is serving, thank you for keeping the world safe for freedom. And to the police and law enforcement out there, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service.

• 2:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to all of you for holding the line. Despite low pay and high risk, despite the lack of appreciation that you receive. Know that most of us are grateful for what you do to keep us safe. And to everyone else out there,

• 2:52:27Jocko Willink?

  just remember that life is not easy at all.

• 2:52:33Jocko Willink?

  There's gonna be challenges.

• 2:52:36Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna get beat down.

• 2:52:40Jocko Willink?

  There will be punishment and you will fail sometimes. And that's okay.

• 2:52:48Jocko Willink?

  That's okay, as long as you get back up. And no matter what, remember what my brother Jeff Higgs says.

• 2:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Simply do not quit.

• 2:53:02Jocko Willink?

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