165: Govern Your Emotions But Know Your Nature. Psychology For The Fighting Man (Pt.2)

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:08 - Psychology Of The Fighting Man Pt. 2 2:17:09 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:28:18 - How to stay on THE PATH: Support. 2:58:37 - 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 165 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I've said that war is the ultimate teacher. And I think it's also true to say that war is the ultimate revealer. It reveals a side of people that would not normally be allowed to come out. Cause in war, there's so much happening. There's so much pressure.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  There's so much emotion. And it's all so intense and I saw people change. And I don't want to make this overly dramatic. And in most cases, I'm not talking about some big dramatic transformation that a person goes through. But I am talking about changes and the changes were often visible. Visible things that would be out of character for someone. They'd start acting a different way, sometimes negative and sometimes positive. There might be someone whose temper gets quick, starts to flare up.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  There might be someone that becomes more understanding, more forgiving. Some people were happier in combat and some were just absolutely stressed to the core. And when I look back now, it becomes very clear that there were some.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  I'll call them oscillations in my own attitude.

• 2:00Jocko Willink?

  There were some times when I had to reel myself in. I definitely try and stay professional at all times. That's kind of what I do. I try to play the game. I try not to get emotional.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  That's just how I try and roll.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  But I could feel it sometimes, starting to come apart a little bit. And I would have to breathe.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  Mentally, mentally breathe, consciously pull the pieces back together.

• 2:47Jocko Willink?

  So I don't lose my temper.

• 2:52Jocko Willink?

  I don't lose my composure.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  And I know that that's a good quality. It's one that I saw other leaders enact. And I thought that that was a positive quality. And it's one that I tried to emulate. And I got pretty good at emulating that quality. But sometimes on deployment, I really had to focus on that. I had to focus on keeping my composure. I had to focus on not getting emotional. I had to detach and tell myself to settle down and keep it together. And it's not easy to do. And some people have a hard time doing that.

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  And they get short fused and they lose their temper at the drop of a hat. Once they're under the stress of.

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  Sustained combat. Others will not do that. Others will go numb and they'll just kind of turn off. And I tried to stay balanced, not to completely turn off my emotions, but at the same time not get emotional, but I had to think about that.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  I had to consciously think about that.

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  And there were other things that I noticed about myself, especially when I look back. One thing I noticed is that the little things, they, they really didn't matter anymore. They lost, things of little importance, pretty much lost all importance. If no one was dead and no one was wounded, then things were going to be okay.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  That's how it was for me. And some people go in the opposite direction. They start to lose their minds over little meaningless things. And what they're doing when they lash out in those situations is they're, that's how they're letting out the seething, all encompassing stress that they're feeling.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  Another thing I noticed is that

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  I'm normally very tactful when I communicate with people up and down the chain of command.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  And it's pretty natural for me. I've been doing it for so long. I'm thinking about what I'm saying. I'm making sure I'm saying the right things and that they're being understood correctly. I understand the importance of communicating from a leadership perspective. But during combat deployments, I can tell you, I had to think a little bit more. I had to put a little bit more thought into what I was saying. Because the urge I was fighting against often was this urge just to be

• 5:38Jocko Willink?

  offensively blunt, just blunt. And really even condescending or sarcastic or patronizing or snide or mocking or cutting.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  Because there is some level of madness in war. There just is. I mean, let's face it. You're gonna go out and you're trying to kill people and they're trying to kill you. And your friends are trying to kill their friends and their friends are trying to kill your friends. That's not normal. That's, if you take that out of context, that's just madness. And that madness in war, it can creep into your head and then very easily it can creep out of your mouth if you let it.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  And these were,

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  all these types of things, they, they, they happen to me. They, they happen to everyone. I think I had a pretty good handle on it. And some people handle it better, some people handle it worse. The, the combat situations I was in, there's people that have gone through infinitely harder combat scenarios for all of mankind, from the history of mankind. Everyone in these situations is going to have to react to them in some way. Everyone's gonna be impacted by that madness of war. And like I said, they're gonna react in different ways depending on who they are, depending on their background, depending on their personality.

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  But the war itself is going to reveal.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna reveal strengths and weaknesses. It's gonna reveal fears and regrets. It's gonna reveal ego and selflessness.

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  And when we see death,

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  when we face death, when our friends and our comrades are wounded and maimed and killed.

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  That has an effect.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  And you might think, "How hard do I have to pull in on the reins of my own fury, and hatred, and murderous thoughts?"

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  When young man after young man is sent home in a flag draped coffin.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  I can tell you, I had to pull in those reins hard.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  And I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by men with the same vengeful thoughts.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  But those thoughts have to be tempered, and they have to be controlled, or else everything falls apart.

• 8:54Jocko Willink?

  But those thoughts get revealed because of war.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  And war reveals things about us that otherwise might slip by.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  Things we might not want to share.

• 9:13Jocko Willink?

  Thoughts that we might not even know are a part of us.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  But they are a part of us.

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  And in the end, war ultimately reveals who we are.

• 9:33Jocko Willink?

  It reveals our nature, and thereby reveals human nature itself. It reveals our psychology.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  And you can imagine that, understanding all these different actions and reactions from, from your subordinate leaders, from your commanders, from your troops, from yourself.

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  There's no way to effectively lead without some understanding of all these people and their nature. People that you must work with in order to accomplish the mission, in order to win.

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  And while that is crystal clear in war, it applies to every undertaking. It applies to everything that you try and do, knowing the people you work with, understanding the people you work with, knowing and understanding your enemy, knowing and understanding yourself.

• 10:53Jocko Willink?

  Knowing and understanding psychology and human nature. And the better you can do that,

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  the better you will perform as a team and as an individual, and especially as a leader.

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  And we spent the last podcast talking about the first part of a book called Psychology for the Fighting Man. What You Should Know About Yourself and Others. It's a very straightforward book, written in 1942, right as World War II was kicking off. And on the last podcast, we covered the early sections in the book about things like putting the right people in the right jobs, about the importance of training, about the best ways to teach and learn, and how to become more efficient. And today, we're going to dive into the second half of the same book, which gets into some incredibly insightful.

• 12:05Jocko Willink?

  And some incredibly revealing topics.

• 12:10Jocko Willink?

  So. Let's.

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  Go back to the book.

• 12:17Jocko Willink?

  Kicking off with this section, it's actually not the, this isn't actually the second half of the book. This is probably the last third of the book that we're getting into. And it starts off with this section that's about morale. Here we go. Morale depends on the incentives to human action, on men's motives, on their emotions, and how they react to their emotions. It can be developed in a military unit by the control of those psychological conditions, which determine men's desires and conduct and affect their attitudes toward one another and toward the great undertaking of winning a war.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  And then it rolls into talk about incentives. Some of these are pretty obvious, starting off with hunger. Hunger is a mess call most sure to be heard. Pain is an alert seldom missed. The most primitive incentives for action, which man shares with other animals are his bodily needs, hunger, thirst, sex, the need for rest when he is tired, the need for activity when rested, the desire to escape from pain, extreme heat, extreme cold, and other intolerable conditions. It might be possible to control men or animals by the use of these incentives.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  You might make a man go hungry until his work is done and then let him eat as a reward. You might make a man fight by lashing him and then letting up on him as a reward for fighting.

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  But that isn't the way our army works. Whenever possible, it supplies enough food and rest to its soldiers and makes other provisions for their comfort so that they stay in good spirits and can do their work well.

• 14:03Jocko Willink?

  But in areas, but in fighting areas, it's not always possible to provide these physical comforts. When food or water is short, when the weather is too hot or too cold, when it becomes impossible to bathe and shave, when bombs and shells drive sleep away and fatigue makes a man, makes effort a torture, problems in combat morale arise.

• 14:27Jocko Willink?

  And then some other incentive is required beyond their animal need to keep men going, to make them determined to keep fighting unto death.

• 14:41Jocko Willink?

  When the primitive needs are no longer enough, it is the social incentives which help a fighting man do his utmost.

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  There are many social needs. Here are some of them. So,

• 14:56Jocko Willink?

  interesting way to kick it off, and those are so obvious. We all know those things. We all know that if we're hungry, we all know if we try and escape from pain. We all know we try and find comfort if there's discomfort.

• 15:12Jocko Willink?

  I know you especially know that.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Sure, a little bit.

• 15:15Jocko Willink?

  But when those things, you can't always provide those things. And it's, you know what's really interesting? We're talking about, it's just words, right? It's just words in a book, talking about to make them determined to keep on fighting unto death. Just words in a book right now, but if you think about, well, this is World War II. We're getting ready to go and hundreds of thousands of men are going to go and fight until the death.

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  And these primitive needs aren't going to be enough to drive them. So here's some social needs that people have. Number one, desire for social approval, admiration, recognition, and appreciation.

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  Two, desire for security, safety, escape from danger, and disapproval,

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  or fears of all kinds.

• 16:09Jocko Willink?

  Number three, the desire for power, mastery, domination, superiority, and self-assertion.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  Number four, desire for adventure, new experience, freedom, escape from futility, humdrum.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  Number five, desire for personal response, companionship, friendship, love. Number six, desire to help and protect others, especially the weak and helpless, such as children. Number seven, desire for a successful achievement, completeness, effectiveness, the desire to do a good job. Number eight, desire to destroy interference with other desires, aggression and rage. That's a, that's a, it's, when you hear, when I'm reading that list, I think of little people that I've known and you know what was driving them.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  I remember thinking this, so you think of, you think of the military as a group of people. Even I do, it's a group, you think of, oh, it's an army, it's a battalion, it's a brigade, it's a company. You think of it as a, as a unit that's working together. But what I will tell you is, these, these desires right here are so important for the conduct of warfare. Because when you get down to a battalion level, a company level, a platoon level, there's individual human beings that are driving that thing forward. And if you didn't have a leader in charge, or it doesn't necessarily have to be the platoon leader,

• 17:49Jocko Willink?

  but if you didn't have a platoon sergeant, if you didn't have someone in that organization that was gonna drive this thing forward, it wouldn't go anywhere. When, when we do operations overseas, or we'd work with the conventional forces overseas, there was a guy that was making these things happen, that had, that was driven by these types of things. Whether, whether some guy wanted to shine and, and get, get noticed, and he's gonna take his platoon out, or whether he realized, hey, the best thing I can do for survivability is to get aggressive and go take the fight to the enemy.

• 18:27Jocko Willink?

  All these, all these things, you can see where they come into play. And you see the same thing in a, in civilian organizations. When you see what's driving the, you know, you ever hear the question of like a, a rich person? Whatever that means, but how much is enough? Right? There's very few people that become financially successful that go, okay, you know what? I'm good. Okay, I've got two houses, three houses. I've got a bunch of really nice cars. I've got a bunch of money in the bank. I'm, I'm good. I'm fine. I'm, I'm done. That doesn't happen very often.

• 19:09Jocko Willink?

  The folks that they, they achieve there and then they look up and go, wait, I can do some more. And whether that's, you know, just completing a job, like it says, the desire to do a good job. Or the desire to help other people. Hey, the more money I get, the more I can give to other people. Like these things are real and they really drive. And so when you see a, a organization gets stagnant, you gotta look and say to yourself, which, how can we fuel this desire? How can we allow this mission to a, answer some of these desires?

• 19:45Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, when a military leader calls a man by name and gives him a simple word of commendation for some task well performed, he's appealing to at least two or three natural incentives. Calling a man by name shows personal interest, which almost every soldier likes. The commendation is social approval. If the soldier has been feeling insecure, not quite sure of things, then perhaps his sense of security is established by the event of his leader's approval. He also has assurance that he has accomplished a job well done. That's, you think about that, all it is, and I've talked about that a bunch on here where I say, you know, sometimes leaders don't realize how powerful it is to say, hey, Echo, really good work on that last video.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  People don't realize or, hey, Echo, really good job holding security last night on that position. And I've said it's powerful. Now it's here's why here's some of the things that that feeds that person. These desires that they want satisfied get fed when a leader steps down and and gives a commendation like that. Back to the book, social approval is a strong motive in human affairs. And in general, praise is much more effective than blame. Commendation can get results when bawling's out fail. By bawling's out, they mean yelling at people. Reproof tends to leave resentment. This is so smart.

• 21:06Jocko Willink?

  Blame is often, however, effective when used in private and in moderation against a man whose quality performance is high. For he will work hard to avoid such criticism. I've always I I had the luxury of oftentimes working with people where if they mess something up. If they got in trouble, whatever, you didn't need to I didn't need to do anything. I could I could just basically say, I heard what happened. And that was enough like they were just never they were never gonna stop until they corrected that in my eyes.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I could see that.

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. A man wants to count, to amount to something, to feel that he is worthwhile and appreciated. Promotions, citations, and distinctions of all kinds help serve this purpose. Fear of the disapprovals of others. Or some other form of punishment works as an incentive, but is not as good as a steady thing. Troops coerced into action by a snapping martinet become anxious, disgruntled jittery. There is a loss in morale, in initiative, in judgment, even in skill. Men do better in groups, whether fighting or working. And one thing that's interesting and we're going to get to, there's a section in this part of the book called leadership.

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  And there's a definite dichotomy. And you can you can hear it here, starting to talk about how it sometimes it leans towards the stereotypical military idea of like, if I tell you what to do, you do it. But. Every time it leans towards that, it counters it. It counters it and says, "Look, if people don't respect you, look, if you're not, if people don't understand why they're doing what they're doing." Like, it, it always comes back to the true leadership. Even though it, it brushes up and it converses about some of the stereotypical military leadership, it, it certainly, every time, counters them with real, true leadership.

• 23:07Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, a soldier's desire to do a good job, his sense of workmanship is helped whenever he can be allowed to understand the nature of the whole undertaking which he is contributing, to which he is contributing.

• 23:20Jocko Willink?

  A successful leader never assigns tasks blindly when he can reveal their larger purpose. By allowing his men to see the significance of their own smaller jobs, he dignifies the lesser tasks by relating them to the large one. This is, always make sure your people understand why they're doing what they're doing. That's what it is.

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  It's, a successful leader never assigns tasks blindly.

• 23:50Jocko Willink?

  He wants to make sure that the subordinates understand the nature of the whole undertaking to which he's contributing. This stuff is so important. Continuing on, morale is the capacity to stay on the job, especially a long, hard job, with determination and zest. It is the opposite of apathy. Morale needs good health, physical and mental. Unless the body is well and vigorous, it is pretty hard to endure hardship and keep up enthusiasm. Fatigue and illness sap mental vigor and moral, moral strength. The body does influence the mind. Did everyone hear that? The body does influence the mind. Yet there is more to morale than that.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  Men can carry on with strong determination, sometimes even with zest, through injury, disease, and physical privation. For that sort of morale, a man needs self-confidence and conviction. He needs to feel sure of himself and emotionally secure. While there are no simple rules for obtaining this sense of security and confidence, when the world is blowing up around your ears, some of the conditions that bring it are known.

• 25:03Jocko Willink?

  It helps to have grown up in a home where there was no quarreling or jealousy. It helps to have friends and to be working or fighting in a group. It is essential for the job to seem important for it can be related to some of the incentives to human action. A thoughtful man may need to see the job in its larger relations to fit into a philosophy of life, to make it a means of satisfying his own code of what is good and desirable. He may need to take a long range view that extends beyond his own lifetime and perhaps into another world. All incentives to human action are potential morale builders. There is a back and forth relation between work and morale.

• 25:46Jocko Willink?

  Not only does morale make soldiers work and fight, working and fighting keep up their morale. Somebody in the last, the last podcast, somebody on Twitter just, just hammered out quotes from this book. And I, I was reading them, rereading them, cause I'm reading this whole book and I'm just rereading these quotes. And there's so many awesome quotes in this book. You could just make a book of quotes from just this book. That's one of them though, right? Not only does morale make soldiers work and fight, working and fighting keep up their morale. It's a hundred percent true, especially in times of emotional stress as in battle, does a man need to, to be doing things?

• 26:31Jocko Willink?

  As for work alone, men are not naturally lazy. People like to work. Enforced idleness is a cruel punishment. It has been shown again and again that persons with useful jobs to do in air raids are unlikely to be afraid of bombs. They are busy and the morale is good. They carry on because they have important and useful work to do. Actually, they feel secure, even in an air raid, which is a strange place to feel secure. It is the same with a trained soldier in the midst of combat. That stuff is brilliance right there. That's brilliance. That's why you have standard operating procedures. That's why you have an immediate action drills when, when you get attacked by the enemy.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  Everyone knows what their job is supposed to be. Doesn't even allow them time to be scared. I, I have one.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  parachute failure where I pulled my reserve parachute and I got to the ground and people oh you know cuz it all my buddies that I was jumping with at the time we were all kind of the same level except for maybe one guy that had a ton of jumps but all my friends all my platoon mates were all bro you pulled your reserve and I was like yeah yeah and they were like bro was it sketchy and I was you know I said I thought about it and said no I did what we trained to do you know arch look grab look grab pull check check I did what the procedure says to do that's what I was thinking about that's what I was focused on that's what I did

• 28:04Jocko Willink?

  so when you have if I didn't have a protocol to follow it's like my parachute gonna fail I'm gonna die in 12 seconds or whatever it is like you're dead in 12 seconds if something good doesn't happen real quick yeah it's not even 12 seconds cuz you're at 2000 feet and you're falling yeah it's not very much time you're gonna be dead pretty quick is what I'm saying yeah and I didn't even think about it and I got to the ground and it wasn't it's like my adrenaline didn't even move right because you're doing what you're supposed to do yeah

• 28:35Speaker 01

  like you and you and obviously we're thinking about it not in the situation so yeah it's all scary I mean you pull one chute it doesn't work and I'm saying outside of the procedure you know I'm saying the facts of the reality of the situation you pull one chute it doesn't work proof that parachutes don't work to you right then and there proof

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  oh if you want to start digging a fear hole you can dig one real deep right now

• 29:04Speaker 01

  I'm talking about though and then now guess how many shoots you only have left one you already witnessed firsthand one shoot failing

• 29:12Jocko Willink?

  so far on this parachute jump you're 100% fail rate

• 29:14Speaker 01

  and you only got one more chance yeah within 10 seconds or whatever you know so really your brain is like yeah so this is it you know if if you think of it that way but yeah if your mind is occupied with okay procedure procedure procedure and then you just do do do do and then it's like you don't have time to be scared about anything unless there you know if the second one fails then it's different obviously but you know you You, yeah, your mind doesn't have room to start making all these these fearful assessments, you know?

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  Action. Taking action is a real positive thing in so many situations when you start feeling fear, you gotta do something. You gotta step up and do something.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, in in like a jujitsu tournament or whatever, like a competition situation. Um, and I would imagine it'd be like this if you if you're talking publicly or whatever. Before you do it, like, okay, before when I used to compete a lot in jujitsu before, I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, you're anxious and you just like, you, the feeling beforehand is like way different than when right when he says start, when he says start, you don't, you're not even nervous anymore. Yeah, which you do every day anyway, kind of thing. And because you know what to do and that's what your mind is on, you're not feeling like, even though you don't even know this guy, you never even seen this guy before, so you don't know what mystery this guy holds, you know? I'm saying that's kind of what you're thinking before you go on, you know?

• 30:38Jocko Willink?

  But once, once you, yeah, for sure. Hesitation is the is the moment that you have to overcome for fear.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44Jocko Willink?

  And action will help you do that. Back to the book. If an officer wants to assess the morale of his own unit, there are at least two things for him to do. He can listen. Men will talk when permitted or encouraged to, and they will sometimes speak freely. When they do, they give their leader information that will enable him to answer these questions. Do the troops feel like they are being well-trained, well-led? Do they think their weapons are adequate? Do they want to try and get the enemy? Are they proud of their unit? Do they have suggestions for its improvement? Do they have, do they think they get fair treatment, fair chances for advancement? Are they worrying about anything back home? Or what about what will happen when the war is over?

• 31:27Jocko Willink?

  From the answers to questions like these, an officer can usually estimate accurately the morale of his unit. He can also study the behavior of his men. Are they ready to volunteer for special duty? Are they frequent, are there frequent violations of discipline? How many are AWOL? How many in the guardhouse? What is the rate of venereal disease? How do they receive bad rumors? Are there many fights and are the fights based on religious or racial differences?

• 31:57Jocko Willink?

  Morale building is the primary task of leadership. Actually, it says a primary task. Morale building is a primary task of leadership. The leader, any leader trying to improve the morale of his unit will find these rules helpful. So, one of the main things you have to do as a leader is keep morale up. No doubt about that. If your morale falls apart inside of a team, you're in a bad situation. And here's some things to help you improve morale. One, make each man feel he is needed by his unit, that his job is important. Two, never let a man forget that he is a soldier and that a soldier of the United States Army

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  is an important and respected person. Three, make it very clear that the unit has its own important function in winning the war. Four, encourage the expression of pride in achievements of the unit. Five, give commendation and encouragement when it can sincerely and appropriately be given. For fair appreciation usually works better than condemnation. Six, never belittle or humiliate a man in front of others, except when a military emergency, as in battle, may require quick correction.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  When rebuke is necessary, do it in private and make it clear that it is the act that is punished, not the man. Seven, keep idleness at a minimum, but make recreation possible. Little dichotomy you have to balance there. Train each man in every useful task and action that actual combat will require and teach him that these habits will reduce his fear when combat comes, as well as make him a trained and able fighter.

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  Nine, let men work together in groups whenever possible because the social relation increases effectiveness. And 10, let the soldier on isolated duty feel that he isn't an indispensable man, not a forgotten one.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  Great advice there. How often, and this is something I I've talked about. I always, the way I used to say this is I would say, I want every person in my platoon to think that their job is the most important job in the SEAL platoon. Right? I want the point man to think, hey, point man, if you don't know where you're going, everyone's lost. You got the most important job. And the platoon commander, hey, this is your patrol. You're the guy in charge. You're the got the most important job. And the radio man, hey, radio man, if something goes sideways out there, it's you with your ability to communicate with air assets and other support elements that are going to save everyone. You're the most important guy. And then the medic, hey, if someone gets shot, you're the guy.

• 34:53Jocko Willink?

  It's like I go right on down the line. Everyone thinks and and what's what's.

• 35:00Jocko Willink?

  I'm not, I'm not lying to them. I'm actually telling them the truth. I'm actually telling the truth. In critical situations, someone in that platoon is going to be the most important person. It's not the same all the time. I'm telling them the truth. The truth is, if you're the radio man and you're getting overwhelming enemy fire and that radio man can reach out and drop bombs on the enemy, he's the most important guy in the platoon without question. If you're trying to get to an extract point, who's going to get to get your platoon out of there? Then the point man is the one that knows where he's going and no one else knows. That point man's the most important person. When you're in a machine gun fight, when you're in a gunfight, it's the machine gunners that are going to lay down fire and allow you to cover and move and close with and destroy the enemy. It's the machine gunners most important.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  You take away the machine guns in a SEAL platoon, you got a real problem on your hands. So I'm not lying to anyone. I'm telling them the truth. The truth is you have the most important job in this platoon. That's the truth. And when people hear that, man, it's important to them. Oh, yeah.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  And he goes back, the book goes back again, making sure that everyone understands how important what the, what the unit is doing to the strategic victory. And talking about pride and unit expression that the, we were overseas and like army units would have their battle streamers that they bring from, they bring historical documents and hang them up on the wall and their, in their makeshift op center.

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  From World War II, they're hanging them up, poster or paper, newspaper clippings from World War II. And they're hanging them up. This is our unit. This is what we've done. We are upholding tradition. We have pride in what we do. It's awesome. It's a real thing.

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  Next little section is about zest. Zest is the fabric from which morale is made. Zest, vigor of spirit, love of life coupled with a willingness and eagerness to risk life itself in a good undertaking. A spirit of high adventure that turns a difficult mission into a rare chance to show the stuff of which men are made. This is the weapon that makes a military unit unbeatable.

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Think of a mission as a rare chance to show the stuff of which men are made. Highly motivated. Zest depends first upon physical fitness.

• 37:35Jocko Willink?

  It demands a sharp appetite that will make a soldier eat plentifully and digest his food. It requires physical exercise that brings plenty of oxygen into the lungs and plenty of red blood circulating to the brain and back to the hands and legs. If a man is to meet the sunrise with any sort of spirit for the new day, he must have slept at night sound and undisturbed by anxious dreams within him or by vermin in his bed. Fatigue can quickly reduce a fighting spirit. The symptoms of mental fatigue, whether in the air or on the ground, are a staleness, a lack of interest in the job to be done, lack of enthusiasm, enthusiasm, a heaviness of limbs, eyelids,

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  even of the will that makes it well nigh impossible to drag through the day's duties. And with it, shortness of temper, irritability, and the blues.

• 38:33Jocko Willink?

  All leaders have to be constantly on guard against this insidious spiritual fifth colonists among their men and among themselves. Regardless of how invaluable the man, when fatigue is made at this attack on his fitness, he must have relief. He must be required to sleep, to take respite from responsibility, to get away from the strain he has been under. Otherwise, the price is a psychological casualty. And the more important the man, the greater the cost to the army. Make sure your people are getting some rest as much as you can. And again, this book counters these things all the time by saying, hey, there's sometimes where you're not going to, your people aren't going to be able to rest. That's the way it is.

• 39:18Jocko Willink?

  So then what you have to do is you have to understand, you have to understand that. That's what this book is about. You have to understand now, what are the risks involved? Now we've got a unit that is severely fatigued and battle worn. What are the risks? They're not going to be able to fight as well as they did when they were fresh. If you don't know that, perhaps you send them in the front line to another battle. If you know it, you take another group that was in the rear and you send them to the front line. You let the guys that are fatigued be the reserves. That's why you have to know and understand these things. Back to the book. Excessive physical discomfort can also eventually deaden all zest for life and for battle. Men can fight with their socks stiff with dirt or frozen to their feet with hands so swollen and cracked that they can barely pull a trigger.

• 40:03Jocko Willink?

  They have fought when the baths are unknown and shaves are almost as scarce, when marching must be done through seas of mud and clothing never dries, and when the eyes are cut and lungs are choked with never settling clouds of dust and sand. Men have fought and are fighting under such conditions. But it takes an unquenchable spirit to keep its zest when things are like this. Whole armies have shown this spirit, but such conditions prolonged deadened zest in the end and therefore must be relieved whenever possible.

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  When a man has his first encounter with the immediate threat of death, when he must kill and see men killed, when he must steel himself to hear the unheeded cries of the mortally wounded and endure the stench of battle, a man may become sick in his very vitals. He may lose interest in his food, and yet this will be no sign of squeamishness. The toughest of leathernecks may feel intensely the inward revolting and horror the battlefield can provoke.

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  The defenses against these physical and mental foes of the spirit are faith in good leaders, a loyalty to them and to comrades, and a shoulder-to-shoulder feeling of solidarity with the other men of the outfit.

• 41:28Jocko Willink?

  "I can go anywhere and stand anything my captain and the rest of my outfit can."

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  Gotta set that good example.

• 41:39Jocko Willink?

  Fear, ally, or traitor.

• 41:43Jocko Willink?

  The first battle, the first experience of having an enemy machine gun aimed at you, the first time an airplane swoops low to lay its deadly eggs in your particular patch of ground, that is an experience anticipated by the young soldier with mingled dread and eagerness. He is eager by that time to get at the enemy. He has learned a great deal about the science of war and wants to use this knowledge to wipe out the enemy and gain victory. But he always wonders, every man does, just how he will behave when the time comes. He doesn't feel like a hero. If he is honest, completely honest with himself, he knows he will be scared, terrified. The experienced soldier, who has been through all this the first time and many other times,

• 42:27Jocko Willink?

  has found out for certain that every man going into battle is scared. His hands tremble, his throat is dry, he must swallow constantly because his heart is in his mouth. He does idiotic things like looking at his watch every few seconds or examining his rifle 100 times to be sure it is loaded. The soldier green to battle may think he is the only one so disturbed, but it is true of all the veteran as well.

• 42:53Jocko Willink?

  And it is true of the enemy. Germans and Japs get just as scared as Americans and British.

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  The bad moments do not come during actual combat, however, but in the time of tense waiting just before, as you just talked about Echo. As soon as the frightened man is able to go into action, to do something effective against the enemy, especially if it involves a violent physical action, his fright is apt to be dispelled or forgotten because he is too busy fighting to remember it.

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  And this is great propaganda to talk about. Because what they're basically, they're giving this book to young soldiers that are getting ready to go and fight. And what they're telling them is, look, you're gonna be scared. Everyone's scared. It's fine. So that way they don't get scared and freak out because they're scared.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Because they're scared, yeah.

• 43:49Jocko Willink?

  Airplane pilots who had distinguished themselves in action against the Japanese said, "When asked whether they were scared during those moments of acute peril, why, I don't know. There was too much to do. We didn't have time to think." "Most were scared at first," wrote a member of a torpedoed ship. "Sure, we were. But when the torpedo hit us, we forgot all about it. There wasn't much time, and then there was much work to do."

• 44:16Jocko Willink?

  So another thing, and it's gonna go into this, but when you're a leader and things are going bad, give people something to do, right? Give them a direction. Give them an order. Say, "Look, all right, this is what we're gonna do right now. I don't know about that, but here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna move all these chairs and get them into this world." You know, whatever. You figure out something to do, and do it.

• 44:38Jocko Willink?

  "Encounters with the enemy are most terrifying when they are unfamiliar. The soldier becomes used to gunfire, to explosions, and to the sight and odor of death." Sorry, "As the soldier becomes used to gunfire, explosions, and the sight and odor of death, he gradually acquires the power to meet these things more stoically. He does not actually lose his fear, but learns to ignore it sufficiently to keep his attention mainly on the business of combat. And if he has in his trained hands a good weapon, which he knows will put the enemy out of action, this gives him a feeling of confidence, a sense of power, that in large measure outweighs his fear. He knows it will soon be the other fellow's turn to be scared."

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  Fear, when experienced, is intensely uncomfortable and seems often to be incapacitating. If the period of fright is prolonged, a man may feel that his nerves are all shot by it. For fear is disintegrating, demoralizing, it shatters morale. The soldier may be rooted to the spot, paralyzed or immobilized by fear. Nevertheless, such awful moments before an attack, when each second seems an hour, may actually be useful to any soldier. They may really add to his efficiency. For fear is the body's preparation for action.

• 46:03Jocko Willink?

  The heart pounds faster, blood pumping more rapidly to the arms and legs and brain where oxygen is needed. The lungs do their part by quickened breathing. Blood pressure goes up. Adrenaline, which is nature's own shot in the arm, is poured liberally into the bloodstream. Subtle changes in body chemistry automatically affected by powerful emotion, serve to protect the soldier in action in ways he would never think of if he had to plan them himself. His blood clots more readily. He loses temporarily sense of fatigue, even though he may have been dog tired. It is sometimes difficult for a tense frightened soldier to get started into combat. To begin the action will relieve his fear.

• 46:45Jocko Willink?

  That part is taken care of by army training and discipline. Months of training have taught the soldier to respond from habit to definite battle orders, even though in battle commands often cannot be given as in training. It has become second nature to him to carry out his own job as a member of the fighting team. So there you go, this is also important.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  When you recognize, when you know what's gonna happen, it allows you to not be scared that you're scared, right? So all of a sudden, your breathing starts going faster and you feel the adrenaline going through your system. If you don't know what's happening, then it might, it might catch you off guard. But if you know what's happening, well, cool, that's my adrenaline. If you, you know, when you have, when you feel adrenaline actually go through your system?

• 47:33Jocko Willink?

  Like, um, let's say you're driving and somebody pulls out in front of you, almost crashed into him, right? And you can, you can feel the adrenaline go down your arms and your legs. Have you felt that before? Oh, yeah. So if you don't have any idea what that is? And it happens, it might scare you a little bit. Once you know what it is, you're kind of, you're kind of good with it.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like you, it's how people, I mean, I don't know if, I don't know the actual process, but you know how like, um,

• 48:05Speaker 01

  yeah, when you tense up before you do something, right? And you feel your heart like beating all fast and stuff like that. If you know, okay, you know, I'm, I'm getting excited because of this, you know, event that's big in my mind or whatever. But if you're like, if you don't know, or you're like, well, I'm losing it. I feel like I'm losing it right now, you know? Like if you're, I don't know, you know, if you're about to go skydiving or something, different for you, obviously. But the normal person before they jump out of an airplane, you know?

• 48:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Like, oh my gosh, I'm losing it. I can't.

• 48:33Jocko Willink?

  And that's what's a lot of the military training that you go through is to get yourself. Hey, when you, when you start fast ro- roping out of a helicopter, when you're rappelling off of a, off of the side of a cliff or out of a window in an urban environment, or you're parachuting, static land parachute, free fall parachute. All these things that you do, when you first start doing them, there's like an adrenaline rush and but you just get used to it. And so then by the time you're getting, by the time you're getting shot at, you're like, oh yeah, I know what this is. I'm good.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  I can carry on.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:05Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, no matter how distracted your mind may be by unfamiliar and terrifying sights and smells and sounds, you act from sheer force of habit. In fact, it is habits which take care of a man if he is too frightened to think clearly. Like the habit of diving for cover when bombs come down. Then presently you are in action, you are fighting. You are at last using your force against the foe. No more are you a depressed frightened soul. Fear is forgotten, provided you are well trained.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Good to teach people the, how to respond in certain situations, like even, you know, when it comes to the self-defense.

• 49:49Jocko Willink?

  Hey, if you get attacked, here's what happens. Here's what you do. When they just have that plan, that's worth a lot. Just having a plan is worth a lot. Somebody grabs you here, this is your reaction. Somebody grabs you there, this is your reaction. You know, those things, they, if you see them out of context, like if you watch a Gracie self-defense video, out of context, you'll say, well, it's gonna be hard for that particular move. It's, if you go watch like a McDojo self-defense, then you go, that's just, obviously, that's never gonna work. But even you watch a Gracie self-defense thing out of context, you don't understand it. You might be like, oh, I don't know how that's gonna work. But it's a plan that you're going to take action. And it is an effective plan, by the way. It's not like it's not a good plan.

• 50:34Jocko Willink?

  But the fact that you are going to immediately take action, you're gonna respond to the event immediately, it's gonna put you in a totally different place, in a much, much, infinitely better place than I just got, you know, someone just grabbed me by the head or by the arm, and I have no idea what to do. That's a bad situation. Then that fear is gonna rise. If you have a reaction, boom, you go into action.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then he talks about like training, right? If, you know, the well-trained person, it's like you're just so, because training is just like repetition, right? All these different scenarios. So you're so used to it. It's like nothing new. You're so like used to this stimulus or whatever. Okay, remember when you're in elementary school, they do a fire drill every whatever, ding ding, and you just calmly stand up and walk out in a single fire line? You know, it's like, it's kinda boring in a way, but, I mean, we never had a fire in my elementary school, but I'm imagining that if the, once you heard, it was a certain, it was a specific bell that went on. Instead of the regular bell, it'd go ding ding ding ding.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  It was obviously a fire drill, you know, when you heard the bell. So it was so ingrained in, well, in me, anyway, I'm sure everyone else felt the same way as a kid. Um, when you heard that, you were like, oh, you just sort of automatically like a zombie, stand up and line up like, you know, it was almost like, yeah, it was like so automatic. So I'm assuming that like, if a fire actually happened.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Your instinct would be to do what you've been

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Just do it, yeah, normally. You wouldn't run and scatter and be all crazy, whatever. You just because you're so quote unquote trained just to do it, you know?

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  Completely. I guarantee if you look back in the history of school fires, at some point, there was a school fire before they did that training and everyone panicked and freaked out and people died.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:23Jocko Willink?

  Or maybe people didn't die, but people said, oh, that could have gone bad. And so then, oh, guess what you do? You rehearse it. You trained. This bell means stand up, move in this direction, go out this door, assemble in the recess area for head count.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. In fact, I remember in college, someone pulled the fire alarm. It was, it ended up to be a prank, but everyone sort of thought that, oh, this building is on fire right now because it was in the middle of the night.

• 52:46Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I've ever believed a fire alarm.

• 52:54Jocko Willink?

  And I'm trying to think if, no, wait, I've been in one situation where there was a legit fire, but I was like completely, everyone just thought I was super cool and calm, but I was actually and then finally I was, yeah, we need to get out of here.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:11Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, most fire, because you think about, I've experienced a lot of fire alarms and there's a very low percentage of them that were real fires.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And that's, well, I mean, I guess that's an added element though. Like if, if you're trained, but you never think it'll ever, ever happen, I don't, I think, I would think that'd be a little bit different because almost like you run the risk of when it actually does happen and you smell smoke or see the smoke or see the flames or whatever, that might introduce an added element that you weren't expecting, you know?

• 53:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  So that might jam you up, but nonetheless, I think like when you go through, I remember there, there was a fire, but it was like way in a different building and it was just procedure. Everyone evacuate, you know, kind of thing. And we found out it was just later or whatever. So yeah, I don't think I ever had the stimulus of the fire, but In college or whatever, when, when I did think that it was on fire. I didn't hear it or I mean, I didn't smell it or see it or nothing like that, but we all thought, obviously we're in no threat.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because if there's no fire around you, then you think you have time to get out.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  But it was still the same, like no one was panicking. It seemed like.

• 54:21Jocko Willink?

  Recommend that, but I'm just saying, there's no, there's no, like what we're talking about here, there's no incentive to run.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  Because it's just the alarm and you follow the procedure.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah. And then if you, let's say you're just lining up in a single file line calmly, because you're supposed to do it calmly.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, the guy behind you is like choking and getting his shirts on fire. Right? You're gonna run. Straight up.

• 54:50Jocko Willink?

  I might try and help him actually.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  Give him the old stop, drop and roll.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Stop, drop and roll. It's old school. Yeah.

• 54:57Jocko Willink?

  And help him out, not keep running for that bro that's on fire.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 55:03Jocko Willink?

  All right. It goes into some specifics here. How to fight fear. One, action dispels fear. Do something. In the time of suspense, when men are all ready for action, but are waiting for the signal to start, fear is at its height. If the period of waiting is prolonged, perhaps delay until a weather changes, the time should be occupied with preparation for action. Fight fear with necessary or manufactured work. When expecting combat, when waiting for enemy bombers to return, manufactured work. Like, hey, you just gotta make something up for people to do.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  Seems a little, seems, yeah. And it's not hard. In combat, there's always something to get ready, right? So it's not hard to say, all right, what we're gonna do is we're gonna set up a couple other bunkers. Let's fill some sandbags. Cool. We're all working. There's always a reason. It doesn't even have to be manufactured. It can be real. Two, physical contact with friends helps. Men should, if at all possible, stay within sight of, in time of peril, but not bunched up enough to become a bomb target. Just the presence of another man not far off with no, when no word is spoken, minimizes fear. Three, roll calls help. Men in peril should be reminded that they are not alone. For knowledge is power over fear. Surprise is the most important element in battle.

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  Thus, men should be constantly kept informed of the dangers they may meet. That one could be a little, that's a little bit of a tricky one because. Sometimes people would get a little freaked out. When they would hear about what the enemy can do. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'll tell you one thing, when, when, when we were in Ramadi. There was a lot of IEDs, a lot of IEDs. And when, if someone would come to visit us. We, and they wanted to come on an operation with us. We would give like the slightly longer IED brief so that they understood the threat.

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't always helpful for them psychologically, you could see.

• 57:03Jocko Willink?

  As the brief went on, you could see, I would watch the reactions on, on people's faces and you could see them start getting really concerned.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:10Jocko Willink?

  Because it's just, you know, my EOD guy standing, oh, here's the bomb, you know, from. This is what it did to this vehicle yesterday, this is what it did to the vehicle day before, here's what, here's what it looked like, here's one that they found, here's one they did. And it was just, you know, slideshow of bombs.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:25Jocko Willink?

  In the city that you're about to go into, which is not a big city, it's, it's two miles, three miles across. It's not like we're going, and there's a small chance. And by the way, there's seven to 10 IEDs detonated a day on Route Michigan, one road going across Ramadi, so. It was. When you tell, when people would come to Ramadi and they'd get that brief, it would always be sort of an interesting look on their face. I would see people, um. Tapping their toe, shaking their leg, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying, it's like a nervous thing, I would watch for that and I'd see people just getting all nervous. Cause hey, it's a real thing, I mean, I get it. But the guys from TU Bruiser were kind of. Adjusted to it, you know, they were adjusted to it.

• 58:10Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Control of action helps, to be afraid does not mean that a man must act afraid. Ah, this one's so good. To be afraid does not mean that a man must act afraid. Fear is contagious when it is expressed in action. If a man goes to pieces and becomes panicky, he must be removed from the sight of other men if that is at all possible. It is each man's responsibility to control the signs of his own fear if he can, so as to spare the others. If he can manage to act as though he were calm, he may actually become more calm. At any rate, the opposite of true is true, giving into fear tends to increase it.

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  There you go. It's straightforward. Don't be shaking your leg during the brief.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:06Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? Don't show that you're scared because that gets contagious and other people will start feeling like you're afraid. You gotta act like no factor, whatever. You think they can blow me up? Bring it.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:19Jocko Willink?

  Bring it. You can't be panicking and freaking out. And each man is responsible to keep themselves in check, keep their fear in check. And just because you're afraid doesn't mean you get to act like it.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that kind of like when?

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  When your kids get older, you, well, you, when your kids get older, you have to have that conversation with them. You know, I have that conversation. Look, you don't get to act like you're scared. You don't even get to act like you're mad. That's why we play normal face, right? You don't get to act like that.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:48Jocko Willink?

  You think you're gonna get hit in the head with this thing? Cool. Deal with it.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:51Jocko Willink?

  Deal with it on the inside.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  You know, like when your kid, when they're young, young, and they fall down, right? Your kid, your son, daughter, whatever, they fall down.

• 1:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Best thing you can do.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Laugh at them.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Or yes, and it's funny because there's that.

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  That was awesome.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a, that's a good one that I do. The, but there's that split second when they fall, they're stunned.

• 1:00:14Jocko Willink?

  They're shocked.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  And they look at you with like, how am I supposed to act right now? So if you're like, oh, oh my God, run up to them. Oh my gosh, are you okay? I think it's like crying every time.

• 1:00:24Jocko Willink?

  That noise that you just made.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Jocko Willink?

  Is, is, my wife is the absolute greatest at this noise.

• 1:00:34Jocko Willink?

  She can make a grown person make you think that you should start crying and freak out. Because she just gives the.

• 1:00:45Jocko Willink?

  She causes so much alarm.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  I've been married to her for over 20 years.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Jocko Willink?

  And we'll be driving.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Just, just worst time to do it, by the way.

• 1:00:56Jocko Willink?

  Where, where not, we're not talking like a rainstorm on the highway going 60 miles an hour. We're talking just cruising, just through like a normal area. And I'll just be, you know, relaxed, thinking, paying attention, all of a sudden.

• 1:01:14Jocko Willink?

  And you know what she'll say at the end of it? She'll go, oh, look at that car over there. It's got such a cool. And I'm thinking, darling, can you not? I've been telling her not to do this, but it's an instinct that she has.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Jocko Willink?

  It's a, it's an instinct that my wife has to make this. And it's, and now, you know, my son doing his driving, like he got his license so he can drive. And he came home the other day. He's like, man, he said, Dad, I'm driving with mom and it's kind of scary. And I'm like, why? What did she do? I was thinking she was driving. He goes, no, I was driving. But I drove by like a, a, a road and she was.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Can't do that.

• 1:01:59Jocko Willink?

  Tense. Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Can't do it.

• 1:02:01Jocko Willink?

  Don't act scared.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Don't do it. And, and.

• 1:02:04Jocko Willink?

  For some reason, my wife's, that's, that's an emotional noise that she makes. It's not fear. It's like excitement.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  It's everything.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it's like, I see something cute.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yep. Just something that stands out.

• 1:02:16Jocko Willink?

  Even mean, I see some, why would you do this? If you see something cute, why would you go? Don't do that noise. That's a wrong noise. That noise means I'm about to get embraced for impact. That's what that noise means. Noise means I'm about to get T-boned.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  And I have a split second to accelerate out of the kill zone.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Jocko Willink?

  That's what that noise means. It doesn't mean, oh, look at that cat.

• 1:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Stop it, woman, please.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I don't know if that's a wife thing or what, because my wife is the same thing, same way. And it actually is exactly what this book said, where you get like act, act scared because it'll cause others to act scared essentially, right? It'll induce panic, whatever, which, because that's what it did. That's what your wife did to you. That's what my wife does to me when she's like, like on the computer and she's like, oh, then I'm like looking around like, oh, what's happening?

• 1:03:08Jocko Willink?

  We're being attacked. Clearly, we're all about to die in the next 15 seconds because you just made that noise.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. Right. And that's kind of what goes off for a split second.

• 1:03:15Jocko Willink?

  I wonder, because I should have been able to deprogram myself and I have a little, have a little bit, but it's not full. It's not a full deprogram. When I hear it, I still think imminent threat is, is within 14 seconds of impact.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  If not three seconds.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Especially when it's out of nowhere like that.

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's totally out of nowhere.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  We're just driving. It's a sunny day. Everything's.

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  So bad. Don't make that noise unless you're unless you see a person with a machete and it's in the striking position. Don't make that noise because that's what I think. I think I think Freddy Krueger's with behind me with a with a battle axe getting ready to take my head off.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I don't think he'd have a battle axe.

• 1:03:59Jocko Willink?

  No, he had them weird fingers.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the nice on the fingers. But yeah, dang, that's yeah, good advice. Hundred percent. You can't. I don't know how much you can train yourself with that, though.

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  That's I think that's a I think that's a genetic programmed noise that heightens your reaction and prepares you for combat situations.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz there's like.

• 1:04:21Jocko Willink?

  For some reason, it's warped into this thing where it can also be triggered to make that noise by a cute cat on the stuff, you know, whatever.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, or like maybe she forgot something, you know?

• 1:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, that's another one.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  I forgot to tell you, like, you know, our friends are having a baby or something like this, you know?

• 1:04:41Jocko Willink?

  No, it won't even be that. It'll be like, I forgot to tell you, I got Billy coming over to work on, you know, the yard sprinkler. Okay, cool. Thanks. Now that my adrenaline is through the roof, I'm glad that's gonna happen.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Yo.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Check. Back to the book. There's another kind of fear that must be endured for days and weeks, perhaps months or years. If men are besieged, cut off from help, deprived of inadequate, deprived of adequate defense, then the ever-present peril from the enemy may be aggravated by the greater peril of disease, famine, exposure, and there may be little chance for action. Men in the present war have endured primitive sorts of hardships that would seem to be beyond human endurance. In baton, on Corregidor, alone on a rubber life raft for five weeks in blistering sun and drenching storm without food, without

• 1:05:41Jocko Willink?

  shelter, without water, without any aid but their own unquenchable spirit, their fortitude, and their faith.

• 1:05:50Jocko Willink?

  This means terror mixed with despair. The misery cannot be relieved, it can only be endured. Then they must maintain sanity, courage, and life itself by their ingenuity in originating occupations for hands and minds that will relieve the tension and seem to reduce the hazards. And this is the kind of stuff that Captain Plum talked about, figuring out stuff to do. Like, just, we're gonna figure out stuff to do. Whether it's, whether it's make, teach yourself calligraphy by making an ear waxed,

• 1:06:26Jocko Willink?

  etch a sketch?

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Thing.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Or whatever. I mean, these guys, those guys figured out things to do. Back to the book, in such trying times and intense moments, a laugh can be a lifesaver. An army officer relating experience of the world war, that's the first world war, tells of a time when badly frightened, untrained soldiers of that war had taken refuge in a roadside ditch against an unforeseen horror. The fire of American guns turned on them by mistake. Panic sent the blood pounding into my head and emptied my stomach of courage. It was bad enough to be shot at by the Boche, but there was no sense in being killed by friendly troops. My men looked wild and fingered their triggers, ready to return fire of our other battalion.

• 1:07:11Jocko Willink?

  Something had to be done and done quick, and Captain Wass did it unintentionally, but he still did it. Jackson, he yelled, "Yes, Captain, where are you?" "Right here, across the road. Stand up so I can see you." "Captain," Jackson shouted above the crackling roar of machine gun bullets. "If you want to see me, you stand up."

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  American humor can lick anything. Smothered chuckles ran down the line, orders were given and listened to. Men wriggled backwards out of the zone of fire. The first to reach the trees dashed down the line of third battalion, shutting off the guns. So, you're gonna hear jokes like that, and it is helpful.

• 1:07:51Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, the soldier who deliberately chooses to be blown up in order to wipe out an enemy tank or machine gun nest that would have otherwise cost the lives of his friends has ideals, has indeed all it takes to make a soldier. The commander of a ship who coolly sends away the last lifeboat and goes down with his vessel rather than abandon it while some of his men are helplessly imprisoned in one of its compartments is afraid, but governed by something more powerful than fear.

• 1:08:19Jocko Willink?

  That's a good statement, isn't it? Governed by something more powerful than fear. What kind of governance do you have over your own emotions? That's a good question.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  You may call this force idealism, conscience, religion, philosophy, tradition, code, or even habit.

• 1:08:39Jocko Willink?

  Or you may be modern and call it ideology. Psychologists sometimes call it the triumph of the social over the selfish instincts. They recognize this force as the most potent weapon an army can possess. Men fighting for their homes and armed with this spirit can stand their ground and win against tremendous opposing forces.

• 1:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Next section, why men fight. Lower animals fight from a variety of causes. Some fight because, as beasts of prey, they live by killing and devouring. Animals may fight their own kind in a tussle over a mate. They fight to defend their young, their homes, or their own lives. Some are aggressive and go about seeking what they may devour. Others fight as a last resort when they are cornered. Men, being two-legged animals, may fight for any or all of these reasons. But because they have minds capable of being moved by abstract ideas such as honor, glory, freedom, sympathy, justice, and patriotism, men also fight for what they believe to be right.

• 1:09:41Jocko Willink?

  "Greater than fear of injury and death," Napoleon said, "is the fear of shame."

• 1:09:50Jocko Willink?

  Before a drafted man throws himself wholeheartedly into his work as a soldier, before the civilian makes up his mind to enlist in the army, he is stirred by, he is stirred and influenced by one or perhaps many of the following forces. He may be carried away by, this is, this is just laying out why people are in the army, and this is important to understand, if you're a leader of a bunch of people in the army, you gotta understand how they ended up there. So if you're in charge of a company, you gotta understand how people ended up in the position where they're working for you. Why are they there? How did they end up there? He breaks it down for people that join the army. One, he may be carried away by mass suggestion. An infectious martial spirit spreads through the community.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  Roused by government officials, speakers or writers, flags are waving, bands are playing, drums are beating and crowds are cheering. Boom. Two, he may become involved in a wave of war hysteria. Like the fervor of martial spirit, war hate is infectious. Men rush to arms at news of the enemy's evil designs or brutalities of a treacherous assault or intended invasion. Three, he may be urged on by a strong spirit of adventure. Four, the ambitious self-centered man, especially perhaps if he has been unable to achieve success in civilian life, may see war as an opportunity to gain personal glory and power. Five, he may be driven by his own combativeness.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  Some men delight in fighting for its own sake. Some may even be killers at heart because murder is outlawed in civilian life and because in many circles even taking a poke at a man or cursing him freely is frowned upon. Some combative men may find their first thrill of release in an attack on the enemy.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Six, he may be unconsciously trying to relieve a grouch by violence that is considered legitimate. The man who has spent a lifetime enduring unending series of disappointments, failures and obstacles and who is damned up in himself, ever mounting grievances and resentment may be able to turn all that ill will against the enemy. Seven, he may have joined the army as he would apply for a job. Think about the stark difference like between those couple there. We've got one person that just loves, wants to fight people or one person that feels like they've been a failure and everything and just gonna, has an opportunity to take that grudge out against the world. Right? I'm a murderer at heart. And then you've got another guy, hey, I joined because this is, hey, seems like a good job. They can just pay my GI bill or whatever.

• 1:12:22Jocko Willink?

  Eight, he may be, he may have been driven into army life by regard for public opinion. He may feel keenly the way his friends, especially the girls, regard a military uniform and a fighting man. He may hate the thought of being considered a slacker.

• 1:12:40Jocko Willink?

  Nine, it may be his desire to maintain his own self-esteem that moves him. He may have to end his secret shame at the thought that others are doing the fighting for him. Ten, he, his action may be based on a feeling of oneness with the nation and on faith in the leaders, in the nation's leaders. Eleven, he might be acting out of his faith in democracy. Twelve, he might be compelled by his spirit of sacrifice.

• 1:13:08Jocko Willink?

  All these reasons why men join the army, why they accept training in many cases, why they keep unwillingly, willingly, when they go on overseas to a fighting front. Yet by the motives, by then the motives usually change, or some of them do. And here are the chi- chief reasons why a man fights at the front. So there's a little difference here. So this is why they joined, and now it's why they're fighting. And this is something you hear about. It's kind of, it's a kind of a cliche thing. You know, he's fighting for the guy to his left and to his right. This is, this, we're gonna go into it a little bit, because that, that is what it is, and it's true. Thirteen, in a unit with good morale, he fights out of loyalty to his comrades in his unit. Boom, there it is.

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  This is important, though. Fourteen, or he may fight because he is led. Men at the front face danger and are often uncertain what to do about it. This is especially true in a unit with uncertain morale. It's like I said earlier, like sometimes the leaders, if you've got a good leader that's gonna make things happen, you're gonna make things happen.

• 1:14:14Jocko Willink?

  This is a good one. Fifteen, finally, a man may fight because there's literally nothing else to do. And of course, everyone uses the word literally now.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Literally everybody, yeah.

• 1:14:25Jocko Willink?

  And if you take it, if you remove that from your brain to, to make literally mean what it's supposed to mean. Think about the sentence, finally, a man may fight because there's literally nothing else to do. He and his comrades are in the war and at the front in battle. No one stops to figure out why he should escape from a burning house. So with fighting. So yeah, there's some people like, oh yeah, guess what? You have two choices, fight or die.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  And you're gonna fight.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Jocko Willink?

  How men meet defeat. The way a man stands up to a blow partly, of course, depends on how heavy the blow. When a man is faced with a very difficult problem or a series of them with any sort of obstacle or frustration, when things become too difficult, there are three sorts of things he can do. He can work at it harder, attacking the problem from new angles with increasing vigor. He can get mad and attempt to destroy the obstacle or himself or something else. And three, he can give up in despair and run away in apathy.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  The first way is the way of learning, right?

• 1:15:36Jocko Willink?

  When what seems like a good plan is hit upon and is tried, if this fails, there's a signal for more thinking. When a good working plan is finally evolved, success is achieved and the man has learned. So that's, that's the best thing to do, right? You try different solutions.

• 1:15:53Jocko Willink?

  All this activity is healthy unless the individual, oh, there's a little balance, there's a little dichotomy here. All this activity is healthy unless the individual becomes so engrossed with a single problem, so obsessed by it that he fails to eat or sleep or pay attention to other necessary problems. Can't get target fixation.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Getting mad over disappointments or failures is generally not profitable. It's particularly hard on the innocent bystander because of the way men have of shifting their grouch from the original obstacle to other persons or things. The man who fails to get a promotion he has been working and longing for doesn't take a poke at the officer who refused to recommend him, much as he would like to have it out with him, instead he's likely to kick his buddy in the pants so much as he raised, if he so much as raises an eyebrow. Leaders too may take it out on unoffending men who then wonder what's eaten him.

• 1:16:57Jocko Willink?

  Aggression may also be turned inward onto the self. Many a man goes about kicking himself, usually figuratively, but sometimes in real self punishment, such as banging the head, or punching, or kicking a hard object until the flesh is bruised. Of course, the extreme of self punishment for disastrous failure or frustration is suicide, but mostly suicide is just giving up. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This adage may be used to maintain courage, but the process is actually governed by natural law. The number of times a man will attempt to accomplish a certain job,

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  or to reach a certain objective, is governed in one direction by the importance of that particular success, and in the other direction by the effort and pain involved in trying. When the successful achievement means less than the individual, to the individual, than the freedom from the strain of trying to attain it, any man will abandon the struggle. Giving up is nature's way of protecting the organism against too much pain. So, that's my, don't... Once you've banged your head against the wall forty-four times, that's enough. You're not going to get through it on the forty-fifth, or the forty-sixth, or the forty-seventh try.

• 1:18:21Jocko Willink?

  You need to find a different way. It goes on. Giving up may mean defeat, but it does not always mean surrender. In most situations, what is given up is some particular way of reaching the goal, rather than a complete abandonment of the objective. This sort of defeat results in thinking, in fresh striving, in eventual progress. A man who has been unable to get a commission in the army may enlist, earn his stripes, and later reach an officer candidate school. Another kind of giving up results in compromise. The original objective is abandoned, but another more easily achieved is substituted.

• 1:19:06Jocko Willink?

  And this stuff is, this is, these are the things that people... People get the impression that, well, from me, oh, you just never give up. Like, never compromise. Yeah. It sounds really cool to say that.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:21Jocko Willink?

  There was an old, there was an old T-shirt back in the day.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:19:25Jocko Willink?

  It was for H and K rifles.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Jocko Willink?

  And it said, in a world of compromise, some don't. And it had a picture of like an entry team going into a building.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:38Jocko Willink?

  And of course, you hear that and you think that's right. No compromise ever.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Jocko Willink?

  But here's the problem. No compromise means if you don't win every single time, you will get defeated and destroyed. Cause you're not gonna win. And the problem of that is you're not gonna win every time. You're not gonna win every argument that you have. You're not gonna win every idea that you put forth. Isn't gonna be the idea that gets selected. And what you end up being is a person that can't work with anyone else.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  Or you end up a person that has one chance at charging a machine gun nest and you go straight forward up the hill towards the machine gun nest. And guess what? Everyone dies.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  You, you didn't achieve the mission and everyone is dead. Now, if you would have said, you know what? We tried. We lost two guys. We backed up. Now we're in covered position and we're waiting for some reinforcements. And when the reinforcements show up, here's the plan. We're gonna put down covering fire. We're gonna maneuver around to the flank or we're gonna get a heavy weapon in here and we're gonna shoot a bazooka at this thing, whatever.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  So this, when he's, when in the book where it says, um, give up. It's not giving up. It's more like giving up on a certain.

• 1:20:49Jocko Willink?

  He says, giving up does not always mean surrender.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So surrender is like, I give up on the whole mission, essentially. And giving up is like giving up, like just basically stop doing something that's not working kind of thing.

• 1:21:03Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:05Jocko Willink?

  We, we had this question on the podcast is when is it okay to quit?

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:09Jocko Willink?

  Like define this exact.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the definition, that's kind of.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  And I had the conversation with a, a guy that we both know who was, was making a great effort in a business. The business was not being successful the way he had envisioned it. And it was costing him a lot of money. It was costing him time. He was putting all of his efforts into it and.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  You know, he literally asked me, hey, man, if I shift to something else, is that quitting? And I said, it's quitting, but it's not surrendering. And I actually said, what is your goal? And his goal was not to be successful in that particular business. His goal was to spend time with his family and set up a safe financial situation for them. And he kind of got his wires crossed on thinking that this business that he had started was the mission, wasn't the mission. The mission was taking care of his family and spending time with his family. And he was actually failing to do either.

• 1:22:15Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes you have to, sometimes you have to make those adjustments. You have to quit, just because you quit one plan, doesn't mean you surrender.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I would get mad at young SEALs. When they would come up with their plan, they'd use the plan to go hit a training target. The plan would start to fail and they wouldn't adapt. They wouldn't change. They'd stick with their plan. I'm not a quitter. We're gonna keep going. Oh, really? Okay, cool. We'll kill everyone that you have. You can do buddy carries the rest of the night out here in the desert. I got all night.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  So it's essentially, when it comes down to it, it's almost like an issue with the language. Cause like quitting, giving up, like these are things that we're kind of trained to think are bad. These are bad things to quit and give up. So all you, I mean, and given what he's talking, you know, like nowadays, I've heard people use the word pivot. Like the guy you're talking about with a business, right?

• 1:23:10Jocko Willink?

  Gotta pivot.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, gotta pivot. It's like pivot, quit, give up. I mean, I'd rather use the word pivot because it sounds like, hey, I'm still on the, on the mission, on the path. I'm just taking a different direction, you know?

• 1:23:21Jocko Willink?

  We'd have to come up with a legitimate, what never quit? Which is what we're actually taught in the SEAL teams.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  But then when you say never quit, that means never surrender. That's what, that's what they mean.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  What it really means is never lose sight of accomplishing and doing what it takes to accomplish your long-term strategic goals. That's what it really means, but that doesn't sound as cool as never quit.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then, and then give up, same thing. Give up means like, this is too much for me, or I'm not willing to work hard through it or whatever. That's what it feels like it means, but in this book, it doesn't mean that.

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  I mean, here's, here's a little. Little dichotomy for me that kind of hurts and I know I think it's pretty much ego talking, but I, when I hear pivot, I always think, oh, things aren't going so well.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 1:24:09Jocko Willink?

  Giving up on that thing, aren't you?

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 1:24:11Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of a negative connotation, which is, which is not good. I'm criticizing myself for even having those thoughts because you do have to pivot in business. You do have to pivot in combat. You can't be like, oh, here's what we were trying to do and it wasn't working. So we're just going to do it harder. No, you actually have to say, hey, this isn't working and we're going to make some adjustments. We're going to pivot.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that's what that word was sort of introduced to that whole space to mean because of all these different. But then here's the thing though, on the, on the flip side of that, some guys, they'll give up. They'll straight up give up because it's too much work and be like, I'm going to take a new direction in life.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to pivot towards, uh, you know, more of the, uh,

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  More personal stuff.

• 1:24:50Jocko Willink?

  More personal things.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Meanwhile, they surrendered their whole mission because it was too much work for them, you know? Or it didn't come as easy or quickly or whatever.

• 1:25:00Jocko Willink?

  We're going to pivot, we're going to pivot hard.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  If we need to.

• 1:25:04Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Check. Next. Ability to accept defeat in such ways is no fault of character. In fact, a man who can take it and still do his best without bitterness is highly regarded in the army and in civilian life. But there are other ways of meeting defeat or disappointment that are destructive and may result in psychological casualty. The familiar sour grapes reaction is what happens in a man who has set his heart so firmly on a particular achievement that he can't give it up and face the fact. So he belittles or runs down the very job he wants so much to have.

• 1:25:45Jocko Willink?

  He says pilots are all crazy or fools and the whole flying game is a gyp.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:25:53Jocko Willink?

  We have to talk to good deal Dave Burke about that one.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Good deal.

• 1:25:56Jocko Willink?

  No, because, and that, that, that definitely happens. You know, you get someone that's trying to achieve, you don't even care about a black belt.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:03Jocko Willink?

  It's not even that big of a deal.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, cool, don't get one because apparently you're not.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Sour grapes.

• 1:26:08Jocko Willink?

  Sour grapes.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  You know where that expression comes from? Yeah. So I didn't either until I was well into adulthood. So it's like an old, what do you call them? Little fable. I don't know. I don't, what is it when it's like a story that didn't really happen, but it was like, so,

• 1:26:24Jocko Willink?

  A fable.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Super short. So this fox.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Was hungry. Saw some grapes up on the vines, right? And so the fox is like dang, they're pretty high. So it's all good. I'm gonna jump up. I'm gonna eat those grapes. Cause I'm hungry.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Jumps up, misses the grape. He can't jump high enough. So he's like, alright. He, he comes back and he's like, you know, I just gotta jump higher. That's all. So he jumps even higher, still can't, still can't get him. Tries again, still can't get him again, still can't get him. Finally gives up, doesn't pivot, gives up. And while he's leaving, he says, these grapes were probably sour anyway.

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 1:27:03Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Don't like that.

• 1:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, more likely to occur is a sort of symbolic running away through feigned illness or physical defect. Defect. A man faced with failure to pass an examination for a promotion. Or he has long for may suddenly announce that he is colorblind or night blind or has some other previously undiscovered defect that would prevent a success. Or he may become actually ill and be honestly unaware of the connection between sudden sickness and frustration. This is a

• 1:27:40Jocko Willink?

  feigned fi- physical defect is a big one for people that don't make it through some kind of military training program.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  So what is that?

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  It's like

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  We're like

• 1:27:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, what happened? Oh, I, I hurt my leg.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Right. And maybe they did it or wait, are so are they blaming something that actually is occurring or are they just sort of making it up?

• 1:28:00Jocko Willink?

  Physical effect. Hey, I couldn't do this because my leg was hurt. That's why I didn't make it through the program because I got this, I got that.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay. And then the other thing that they make is sometimes people actually get sick. But it's because they're, you know, like the, the mind body connection.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Huh, that's crazy.

• 1:28:21Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Each man, no matter how strong mentally and physically, has his limits beyond which the strongest will cannot drive him. The wise man learns his own tolerances and cautiously retreats, if possible, to a more defended position when hazards and obstacles he is in danger of are too great.

• 1:28:43Jocko Willink?

  It's amazing that they so clearly understood this. This is 1942 or something like that. And they're saying, look, they're saying the exact same thing. That's a big revelation to say pivot. They're saying the same thing.

• 1:28:58Jocko Willink?

  Rage, a two edged weapon. A group of tanks stands in a field, silent, motionless and dead. Suddenly switches are thrown, motor start and they become alive. Noise bursts from their exhaust and they roar to attack. A gun is inert and dead until a high explosive powder is set off in its chambers. A bomb without nitroglycerin is a dud. All weapons are mere useless pieces of metal until the release of energy brings them to life.

• 1:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Man too, as a weapon of war, must have energy released to galvanize him into acting. Fighting soldier. And the high explosive that sets off a man's fighting power is emotion. There are certain things that a man can do in an automatic way without the fire of emotional energy, but these things would win no wars. Without fear and without rage, he could not even defend himself if the enemy were aiming at him and about to fire. Slap a man's face and he will become enraged. Drop a bomb beside him and he may become terrified.

• 1:30:07Jocko Willink?

  But although the two feelings may seem different to, may seem to the man very different, inwardly, the changes that take place in his body are similar. His heart beats faster, his blood pressure rises, his blood is shifted from internal organs to the muscles, his digestion stop, stops, sugar in his blood increases, his hands tremble, his voice quivers, the body wastes in the bladder or bowels may be expelled. He becomes alert and ready for instant action. Whether all this extreme preparation for action by the body is a good thing for the soldier, or whether it will eventually, or whether will actually endanger his life, this depends on the circumstances.

• 1:30:47Jocko Willink?

  When in primitive hand-to-hand combat, when the last ounce of energy of which the body is capable must be summoned instantly for one tremendous spurt of running to get away from peril, or for one outburst of physical strength to down the foe, rage or fear will pour into blood the adrenaline necessary to rouse that vital energy.

• 1:31:13Jocko Willink?

  If immediate vigorous action is impossible, however, and if life depends instead upon the cool-headed use of skill, self-control, and discipline, then violent emotion can put the soldier in mortal peril.

• 1:31:31Jocko Willink?

  So this one thing can kill you or save you.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's an interesting differentiation there where it's like, hey, if the task kind of requires like skill and stuff, bro, you gotta control that. You gotta, you know, you can't be doing it. But if it's like, hey, if you, sometimes, because it's facing that in life and whatever, sometimes it just, bro, you just gotta power through some stuff every once in a while.

• 1:31:55Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about it.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  You know, and actually, you're the one, you said how, put quite eloquently, uh, what is it, sometimes?

• 1:32:03Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you have to use your logic and sometimes you have to use emotion.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, when your logic fails.

• 1:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Freedom field manual. It's this thing is in the field manual. Sometimes if your, if your logic fails, like if you can't think of a good reason, why should I do another set, or why should I go compete in this thing? You have to let your emotions get a little, get in the game.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  And then, and then sometimes your emotions get shut down.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Jocko Willink?

  Because you think this is just stupid. This doesn't even make sense.

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, then you gotta let your emotions go. What do you mean it doesn't make sense? Because you're being weak.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Yep. You don't like that. And that's bad. Actually, the logic one, a lot of times is, well, it's more, more dynamic, I'd say, because you can have full, well, I don't know about you, but I can have full conversations in my head. And the working out one was a big one where I'm like, think about how you'll feel after. That's gonna be the benefit, you know? But then at the same time, I'd be like, hey, wait, but you could easily rest right now.

• 1:32:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  You can get recovered, you know, so it's like.

• 1:32:59Jocko Willink?

  You're one of those guys that has a huge, huge. Surplus of standing by things that are like, look, you know, the most important part of working out is rest. You you don't, you don't grow, you don't get stronger when you're working out, you actually get stronger when you're resting.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Yep, when you recover.

• 1:33:18Jocko Willink?

  You got that little voice, you got that that one little monkey on your shoulder that's whispering those things.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but now I got you who in like.

• 1:33:26Jocko Willink?

  The big monkey.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, even bigger one because and I got this from you essentially where it's like, okay, I can, this is kind of the conversations going on in my head typically. So yes, I can be like, yeah, the recovery, that's how you, you know, get the gains, whatever, that's on one side. Then the other side is like weight, but you want to train, train a whole, there's way more to working out than just getting bigger and stronger. There's more to it. There's mental exercise, there's mental toughness exercises in there, there's doing, you know, discipline, all like all these things. Oh, yeah. And and they're more like they're longer lasting like things to to develop, you know, like when you develop them, they apply to more things.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  So you I can be, I can easily be like, hey, I don't feel like it today, that's my body telling me I should rest today.

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  I really don't feel like it physically. And that is true, it's probably true, but what else is true is if I can train myself to to power through these sorts of situations, even though they're true, that's going to serve me way better in life. So if I develop that.

• 1:34:32Jocko Willink?

  I'll not allow this.

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm like, dang, so now I got two monkeys.

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  I was explaining some of that stuff to my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter about how competi- competition is good. And the reason competition is good is because life is a competition. It is a straight up competition. And if you're not good at competing, if you don't get comfortable with competing, that's going to be a problem when it comes time to compete, which you will have to. You're not going to get through life without competing for things, for whatever. You're it doesn't, it doesn't happen. You're gonna have to compete for a job, you're gonna have to compete for, you know, to to meet someone, to be to be your wife or husband, you're, there's a competition going on for that.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:16Jocko Willink?

  You they're just not like down for the cause out of the gate. No, you gotta fight off other humans.

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:22Jocko Willink?

  To get. What you want.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Jocko Willink?

  Whether it's a spouse, whether it's a job, whether it's a promotion, whether it's a part in the school play. There's other people that are gonna be trying. I was telling my little daughter this. You think they're just gonna step aside when you show up?

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:40Jocko Willink?

  You want the lead role?

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  Yep, you gotta.

• 1:35:43Jocko Willink?

  No, it's a competition and you must destroy the competition. And the way you do that is you compete. You compete in different things a lot. You push yourself and you figure out what it takes to step up.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Jocko Willink?

  Like wrestling a lot. Wrestling puts a lot of pressure on kids. And it is straight competition, mono e mono, or in the case of my daughter, what is that? Female.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Womano?

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  Womano versus womano. It is straight competition, you against another human being, one of you is gonna win, one of you is gonna lose 100% of the time. That's what's gonna happen and it's all on you.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:22Jocko Willink?

  So, that's really good for, for, for people. It's good for kids.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 1:36:28Jocko Willink?

  Jiu Jitsu competition, same thing. And then you just get, you can just say any kind of competition.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like a, well, a dichotomy too, you know, in, in the spirit of accuracy. It's kind of like life, not to get too deep here, but life is, is half competition, half collaboration. So, it could be different, could be 60, 40 and whatever, whatever.

• 1:36:49Jocko Willink?

  100% competition for me and a bunch of collaboration for you.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  But, but.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  No, but here's the thing where, yeah, you get people who lean too, too far towards competition. They start to alienate people and they can't, you know, maintain relationships, like all these problems.

• 1:37:06Jocko Willink?

  They're playing the short game.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Short game, yes, and the collaboration thing as well.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  The long game, that's not a factor.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:12Jocko Willink?

  Because they're realizing, oh, I'm gonna win in the long game.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:37:16Jocko Willink?

  So, this short game is a sacrifice, no problem.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:37:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause I wanna, you know, I'm not gonna do something that's gonna create an antagonistic relationship with these people that I'm gonna count on in the future. So, guess what? We're gonna take a little hit right now. We're gonna make some, you know, we, you make compromises because you're focused on the long game, because ultimately.

• 1:37:37Jocko Willink?

  It is a competition.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it is a competition. Sure. Um, not everything's a competition. A lot of it is a collaboration, but within, I mean, most times we collaborate to compete.

• 1:37:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? So it is, it's like a little balance, like a little dance you're doing with collaboration competition. That's why I thi- I think anyway, I don't know, but from what I can view or see, observe. That, yeah, if you lean too much towards competition.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  You, you jam yourself up and if you lean too much towards collaboration.

• 1:38:07Jocko Willink?

  There is a dichotomy.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  You jam yourself up too. It's like you can't, you can't succeed. It's like you can't get out of like your little cloud.

• 1:38:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it should be balanced. And if you are competing on things, because there's people that compete on things that don't matter.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that don't matter. And then while, or they compete when they should be collaborating.

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true too. Or they're afraid to compete. So they don't compete at all.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:30Jocko Willink?

  So there's all kinds of problems, but yes, I, what am I, I'm speaking a little bit simplified for my daughter. Because what my dau- what I want my kids to realize is that there is competition.

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:44Jocko Willink?

  And that they're part of it, whether they want to be or not. That's the point that I'm trying to make. And so when I talk to my daughter about something and she gives me a kind of a shoulder shrug about something. When it's not a shoulder shrug situation.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:57Jocko Willink?

  Then you aren't understanding that things are a competition and life is a competition. And you know what?

• 1:39:08Jocko Willink?

  It is hard to say, it's, it's, it's, it's very extreme to say everything in life or life in general or life as a whole is a competition. That's a real extreme statement and I can see, I totally agree with your point and you are correct that that can result in then a bad.

• 1:39:28Jocko Willink?

  A bad attitude and really not even just a bad attitude, a bad life. I mean, you can end up, like you said, you can alienate everyone and you can end up alone and you're competing and you're like, I beat that person, I beat that person. And now you're just, you've lost, that's the thing is you, you've lost a whole section of, of your competition, which is developing relationships with other human beings that you can then count upon in your times of need, or that you can provide for. It's like all, you've ruined everything. So, but what I'm saying is even that right there, if you think about it in terms of what I just said, you lost.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  So ultimately, to win the competition, you, you, you have to be aware of it. You have to compete. Competing, this is, this is probably the crux of what we're trying to say. Competing doesn't always mean,

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  competing.

• 1:40:20Jocko Willink?

  Smashing the other person.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Competing doesn't always mean that. Sometimes competing means actually letting the other person win.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  Competing sometimes means let it get compromising. Because I'm gonna win the long game. I'm playing the long game over here.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Jocko Willink?

  And you're playing around with the short game. You beat me, hey, good job. I'm gonna applaud you. Give you a golf clap.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it's true. Cause at the end, you know, you can collaborate all you want. But if you have like, you put it the long game, which is a really, really effective way to look at it, by the way, with everything. But if you can be collaborating and be, you know, the best team player in the whole wide world, but your goal, your goal is for your team, you're the team player, is for your team to win, whatever you're doing. And win, I mean, it's, here's the thing where I think people get emotionally jammed up when they hear like, everything's a competition and that shouldn't be like that or whatever. To win in life, win, meaning they think that like I win, you lose.

• 1:41:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's part of it.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  You know, but really when it comes, even like just genetically, right? You know how they say, you know, finding a mate or reproducing, whatever. It's like you're, it's like survival of the fittest, right? Darwinism kind of thing, like organisms compete for mate, compete for this. So it's kind of like, that's how it is, you know? It's not like I'm a person, you're a person, I'm gonna win and defeat you and you, you're the loser. It's not that, that thing. It's like basically you want to be successful and for, for most situations, for you to be successful, you have to kind of, you have to beat someone out of them, them being successful.

• 1:42:03Jocko Willink?

  And in order to be successful, you also have to play the game. You also have to play the game by the rules.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause otherwise you end up ostracized or in jail, right? Cause you could say, I'm gonna win. I'm gonna make the most money, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna steal it from people. I'm gonna do immoral things in order to get there. That, that would be a, everything's a competition attitude, but it's the wrong attitude. Cause you're not gonna win in the end. You're gonna lose, you're gonna be in jail. So you lost, but if you realize that it is a competition and you have to play the rules and you have to win the game and winning the game means that you are successful in a place where you can help other people and you've got what you need and that's what we're looking for.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:46Jocko Willink?

  Definitely dichotomy with that one.

• 1:42:49Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of dichotomies, going back to the book, it is possible, it is as possible to be literally blinded by rage as it is to be paralyzed by fear. A prizefighter knows that he can win against a stronger and more skilled opponent if he can rouse his opponent to violent anger in which he strikes wildly and fails to use his science. We see that all the time. You gotta maintain your composure. In a fight on the mats, even on the mats of justice for the jujitsu.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, big time. You know what? You know what movie was like the the epitome of that was A Few Good Men? Remember at the end when he was like, when he made him admit to it?

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  He, that's exactly what he did, man. Took him out of the game, got him all riled up, made him. It's bad, man. It was good. You can't handle the truth.

• 1:43:40Jocko Willink?

  That's right.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  That was a good speech though, by the way.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  He but he let the rage and the emotion cause a problem for him.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Chammed him up. He could have just, he didn't have to do anything.

• 1:43:49Jocko Willink?

  Nope.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  He he could, he just kept his mouth shut, be like, yeah, whatever.

• 1:43:53Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  Didn't do it.

• 1:43:55Jocko Willink?

  Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  He played the game really well.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:01Jocko Willink?

  Knew to attack his emotions.

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:44:05Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it funny that if you understand psychology and human nature, you can actually play it on someone and bring their own demise based on something that they're gonna do for themselves?

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:44:18Jocko Willink?

  That's why it's important to understand human nature. Back to the book, the main purpose behind all the long routine of military training and the preconditioning of troops to simulate battle conditions to drill into soldiers' fighting habits so deeply ingrained, so intimately second nature that they will persist in the face of the most overwhelming provocations to rage or panic. Long practice in shooting coolly at a target without undue excitement, without bloodlust, makes it possible for the soldier to shoot calmly as at his target when his very life and the safety of his pals are at stake. His hand must not tremble then, his keen eye and steady nerve must not waver.

• 1:45:00Jocko Willink?

  Fortunately, men in civilized society have been trained since early childhood to control and discipline their natural impulses. For the normal adult, it is entirely possible for intelligence to remain in command of his behavior and for even recently acquired habits to be retained in opposition to the instinctive impulses to run or drop his rifle and flail out with his fists. There are many degrees of anger, however, and although the violently enraged individual may be at the mercy of the enemy, a milder form of resentment of injustice and calm determination to avenge cruelty can serve to fill men with a fighting spirit that knows no defeat.

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  The difference between this cool anger and rage is like the difference between tempered steel and molten iron. Oh, that's a good one. Like the difference between a raging torrent that destroys blindly and the harnessed power of a Niagara that can be directed intelligently to wipe out the enemy. Such deep and controlled anger is not to be roused artificially by any group, before any group of men. It is the automatic result of an unpardonable offense. It rises like an unquenchable fire when a man's house is attacked, when his wife or children are abused, when his own native land is invaded.

• 1:46:25Jocko Willink?

  Such anger can be used not only for actual killing of the enemy, but also to provide the energy needed for work behind the lines. A soldier who is determined to defeat the enemy will do anything that he feels contributes to wiping out the foe, whether it is changing the tires on a truck, or unloading shells from a packing case, or policing barracks in his training camp. He will fight at his job. He will do that job well and will use his own initiative to volunteer for extra duty to think up ways of doing his job more quickly and more efficiently. Anger is infectious and can spread from one person to another through personal contact. Just to see the flushed face and tense expression of a wrath-y person may be enough to stir anger in others.

• 1:47:10Jocko Willink?

  The sound of anger in a raised voice, or the sight of angry behavior, is even more catching. Anger spreads most readily when the beholder is sympathetic. When he's able to put himself in the angry man's shoes, when the person who is injured is one of us. For this reason, the roused anger of a people is much greater and more moving than the sum of the individual angers within the group. They reinforce one another. Anger shared, controlled, and directed to the single purpose of destroying the enemy is a powerful force for survival and for victory. Anger is a gift.

• 1:47:56Jocko Willink?

  Is that a rage against the machine? It is indeed.

• 1:48:01Jocko Willink?

  Bringing out quotes.

• 1:48:05Jocko Willink?

  It goes on hatred of the enemy makes sense.

• 1:48:11Jocko Willink?

  The army is organized throughout for one single purpose, fighting. Soldiers must be fighting men with a fighting spirit. But some acts of aggression by soldiers are useless to the war effort effort and actually dangerous to the army. When competition, here we go, when competition between companies or regiments turns into bitter rivalry, when soldiers in town for a Saturday night pick corals with each other or with the townspeople, when race prejudices are permitted to develop within a camp, or when officers stooped professional jealousy, the harmful results can be as bad as those dealt out by the enemy.

• 1:48:50Jocko Willink?

  This is when Leif and I always say the enemy is outside the wire. Yeah. This, all those things are fighting inside the wire, fighting against ourselves. Such conditions make rifts in the solidarity essential to the fighting morale. They cause a deterioration of discipline, produce a state of anxiety and insecurity among the troops and worst of all, they actually drain off in ineffective petty squabbles, the fighting energy, every ounce of which is needed to bring victory. The thoughtful leader, knowing that no group or nation can long survive if it is torn by internal strife or dissension with its allies, is seriously disturbed by any tendency

• 1:49:31Jocko Willink?

  toward personal or factional friction within his command.

• 1:49:38Jocko Willink?

  He well knows that victory can only come if the whole group puts all its efforts into a unified cooperative battle against a common enemy.

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  You always end up with these little factions, right? And you have to try and prevent that. You gotta, you gotta watch out for those. They sneak up on you. It happens, it happens in any organization though. People start to relate to each other and then they pick a little common enemy even with Inside the Wire. And you know, it's like us against them.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true, huh? Cause in, in picking a common enemy, even on a social level, whatever, that, that like promotes cohesion within a group. Like apparently from what I read is like gossip, right? There's a purpose for gossip. Like if people gossip, it makes them like bond. It's weird.

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, no. And actually there's, this book talks about rumors. And we're gonna talk about that. What are the fruitful ripe terrain for rumors to grow? For gossip to grow?

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the act of doing it with each other.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  That's part of the reason. Part of, part of the reason is if you and I need something to connect on, well, we'll just make fun of this guy. We'll talk smack about this guy. And we kind of bond, right?

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  If you hate this guy and I hate this guy, bro, we're bros, man. We're in the game, we're in the game.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Saw you, so, and you know, the, this, and this says, and you say that you should, you should try to prevent those, you know, little like what he clicks or whatever, right? To kind of, is there, do you think there's benefit to them actually?

• 1:51:14Jocko Willink?

  There is benefit to them.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  Maybe just on a low level, like a minor.

• 1:51:17Jocko Willink?

  Not on a low level, there are benefits, but it has to be balanced. Because guess what? I'm the task unit commander of Task Unit Bruiser. I have Charlie and Delta Platoon. I want Charlie and Delta Platoon to be competitive against each other. So that they're pushing to try and become, try and make each other, or try, try and become their best. So they can talk smack to the other guys. We beat you in this thing, we beat you in that thing. Okay, cool. That's positive. I want that to happen. What I don't want is Delta Platoon figures out a good standard operating procedure and doesn't share it with Charlie Platoon. Because we want to keep outperforming them on this drill. Or vice versa. That's what we don't want to have happen. So you've got to balance these dichotomies. Yes, and you want to have these little competitive groups. And inside, guess what? Inside of Charlie Platoon, there's Squad One and Squad Two.

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  They should compete with each other and inside squad one and squad two. Inside squad one, you got fire team one and fire team two. They're competing against each other and then inside that fire team, you've got two swim pairs. And they're competing with each other. So you want to establish that healthy competition. But what you want to make sure is that it doesn't cross the boundary into sabotage.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. So it's like. It has to remain at all times, has to the little mini competitions or competitive situations. Have to remain within the boundary of the team goal. Like he can never cross over that, right? Like it has to be. It all has to support the team goal. Right? Whatever, whatever that means.

• 1:52:48Jocko Willink?

  We can't ever be taking away from the fact. That we have a unified mission to execute and achieve. We can never let anything undermine that goal.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:01Jocko Willink?

  Ever.

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:03Jocko Willink?

  And that right there.

• 1:53:08Jocko Willink?

  We, we throw around this term, putting the mission first, right? Like, oh, you gotta put the mission first. Like we throw that around. But if you think that through. To its ultimate end. It is the most powerful force that you can have from a leadership perspective. From you, from the way that you operate and the decisions that you make. Cause you, you look at some decision that get needs to get made. And if you, if you truly ask yourself the question, okay. How will this, will this move us towards our objective in a positive way?

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:43Jocko Willink?

  If it will, okay, we're moving in the right direction. It sounds like a good idea. If it's not doing that. You're, it's the wrong decision to make. And so it comes time to fire someone.

• 1:53:56Jocko Willink?

  You're firing this person because they talked back to you and they were, they got a bad attitude. Okay, so then you ask yourself, okay, what does this do to our mission, our ability to execute our mission?

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:54:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, the guy's a turd and he doesn't know his job well and he's been slacking off. Okay, and no one likes him. Guess what? He's getting fired. But, okay, wait a second. I don't like him. I don't like him because he rubs me the wrong way. I don't like him because he's got a big ego, which means he's brushing up against my big ego, which is making me hold it against him. And by the way, he's come up with a couple of ideas that were better than mine and I resent him for that. And by the way, he's asked some questions during my last brief that were really hard for me to answer. He kind of put me on the spot, right? So all these things, and so I racked those things up and I start, and now I put together my little clique. Who's, I start saying, hey, you know, he does this and he did this on this op and all of a sudden I got a reason.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:48Jocko Willink?

  And now I need to ask myself, okay, am I furthering the mission? If I get rid of him, who's going to replace him? He has experience. Who's going to replace that experience? He's another body. Who's going to replace that other body?

• 1:55:00Jocko Willink?

  And so if you make your decisions based on what's good for the team. By the way, what's good for the team is what's good for the mission. You have a team to accomplish the mission. If your team is dysfunctional, you're not going to accomplish the mission. If your team is destroyed or part of your team is lost, you can't accomplish the mission. So if you really truly look, is, is what I'm doing accomplishing? What about your family, right? Your family mission is to provide for your family and take care of your family. When you start looking at things from that standpoint, hey, I really want to get this new car.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:35Jocko Willink?

  Right? I really like this new car.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:55:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay, we know that that's an emotional decision.

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:41Jocko Willink?

  Buying cars for most people is an emotional decision, myself included. Americans, it's not even just Americans, people love cars. I don't know if it's because the advertising thing, but cars represent freedom.

• 1:55:58Jocko Willink?

  You have the ability to travel hundreds and thousands of miles on your own accord. Yeah. And maybe you just need to travel to the grocery market. But still, the car gives you freedom. And then the car in a deeper level is a reflection of you. Yeah, your identity, for sure. It's your, yeah, this is, it's literally something that you get inside of. And when people look at it, they're looking at the metal and steel version of you in your own mind. Yes. So it can be hard to drive a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan with a duct tape on the, on the window. Sure. It can be hard.

• 1:56:40Jocko Willink?

  The fires, the fires in San Diego in 2003, were you here for those? Yes. They poured ash everywhere. So that ruined a lot of paint if the cars were sitting outside. So my 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan had all peeled paint, looked like just, just horrible. Sure. Peeled paint. It was like a dark red, but then there was these flakes of clear stuff all over it falling off. Damn. So if you looked at that car and I saw that car as a reflection of me, it was pretty, pretty low reflection, you know? Nothing against my brothers out there that are driving the minivans. Props, you got the family, you make that your priority. Cause what I could have done back in the day was say, you know what?

• 1:57:25Jocko Willink?

  I really want to get

• 1:57:28Jocko Willink?

  whatever. Yeah. The, the Ford F-350 Super Duty duly extended king cab. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Oak trim. That's me. Yeah. I want to look like that on the outside. Yeah. So then what is my decision making about? Do I need that vehicle? I live in San Diego, by the way. Mm hmm. I live in San Diego. What do I do with my vehicle? I drive to work, I drive home, I take my kids to the jujitsu tournaments. That's what I do with my vehicle. Mm hmm. Do I need an F-350 Super Duty duly extended cab diesel 7.3 power stroke engine? Do I need that? I don't know, kind of. No, I don't. So what is the mission? What is the mission?

• 1:58:12Jocko Willink?

  First of all, we know that when I buy a car, it's going down in value. If I buy a piece of property, I buy a house, I buy a home. That's going to go up in value over time. Sure, it might go up and down a little bit, but over time, it's going to go up in value. Over time, my kids can have that in 30 years. They don't want that Ford in 30 years. That thing's barely even running in 30 years. So what is my mission? My mission is to provide for the family, protect the family, take care of the family, set them up for success in the future. What do I need to drive? I need to drive a Dodge Caravan. That's what I need to drive.

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  So if you frame things correctly about what your broad mission is, you're going to do better off. You're going to make better decisions as a leader. That's the way it's going to be.

• 1:59:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, and by the way, speaking of leaders, here we go back to the book. The most serious of all causes for an epidemic of dissension is the bad leader.

• 1:59:23Jocko Willink?

  When, as sometimes happens in any organization like an army, men have placed over them a man they do not trust. One who loves to show his authority and throw his rank around. Or an unreasonable martinet. The whole outfit will be filled with resentment. Since it is impossible to show this antagonism to the officer who is at fault. The troops go around with chips on their shoulders, daring each other to knock them off. The only way to wipe out such an infection of dissension is to track down and remove the cause. If men believe they have a grievance, even if the complaint is unjustified. They should be permitted to tell their troubles to someone in authority.

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  If an officer gives them a patient hearing, investigates conditions with a fair and open mind and explains his findings to the men. They will usually be satisfied, even in cases where it is impossible to do much to correct the objectionable state of affairs. This is such good advice. Guess what? When you're in a leadership position, you're going to have people that are going to complain about things, that are going to see problems. And what you should do in those situations is listen. Listen to what the team has to say, listen to what that individual has to say.

• 2:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Get feedback. That's what you should do.

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, just telling their troubles to a willing listener serves to get the air cleared. And in cases where men make constructive suggestions for correcting conditions, they will take in the organization a pride that they never had before. So, a guy tells you to do something, or asks you to do something, or gives you a suggestion, use it and give them credit. These are reasons why for many years in our army, any officer or soldier has been free to tell a grievance to the inspector general, sent periodically to each place where there are troops. Inspector general is like a internal affairs type situation. But you shouldn't need to resort to that. You know, if you're a good commander and a good leader,

• 2:01:30Jocko Willink?

  when the internal affairs people show up, they get told, hey, everything's awesome. They have no grievances to put out there because they already told you. And then you gave them an answer. And then people say, what if I can't answer the grievances? Well, then will you figure out what the answer is? If you, if, if my subordinate comes to me and says, hey, this is, we're not getting the right food out here. Well, I don't just say, well, sorry. No, I say, okay, let me see what I can do about it. Hey, this is what's going on, by the way. There's a lack of flights heading in this direction. The supply trains are getting blown up by IEDs. We have an alternate plan for food. We're going to try and make it happen in a couple of months. But right now, we kind of got what we got. And now what do you say?

• 2:02:13Jocko Willink?

  Screw you? No, you go, okay, I understand. We're at war, for crying out loud. I understand I'm not going to get steak dinner every night. It's not happening. Even though we might want it, we're not going to get it. So, hear out those grievances.

• 2:02:33Jocko Willink?

  Some people get concerned that...

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  If you start taking grievances from people, then it turns into a bitch session.

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:44Jocko Willink?

  Right? You've heard this word, this, this term before? The bitch session? I'm actually, in general, not scared of bitch sessions. I'm not scared of them because if you ask me a good question, or you ask me a question, I should have an answer for it. I'm the leader. If, if you're in my platoon and you have a question for me, I should be able to answer it.

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:07Jocko Willink?

  If you have a bitch, I should be able to give you a reason why that is occurring. And why we either can move forward with some kind of a corrective measure, or why we cannot because of the following limitations that we're under.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:19Jocko Willink?

  So I'm not really scared of bitch sessions unfolding. Have I seen them become unproductive? Absolutely. I especially see them become unproductive when, when, when we start to like lose the conversation. And if the leader, if you ask me a question and I say because.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you say, hey, why can't we get better food? And I say because.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  Then you say because of what? And I say because I said so. Now we're gonna have a problem.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:53Jocko Willink?

  Now this bitch session just became unproductive. If you say, hey, Jaco, you know, we've been here for two months, why can't we get some better food? I'm like, you know what? Right now, I don't even know. Cause I, I agree with you. The food is pretty bad and I like food. And so let me take a note here. I'm gonna write down, I'm gonna send it up the chain of command. We can figure out, A, what's going on, why we don't get, have good food? And B, if there's a way we can possibly start making this happen. I hear you.

• 2:04:21Jocko Willink?

  Bitch is now subdued, right? The complaint has been subdued.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:28Jocko Willink?

  Because I gave you a legitimate answer. I didn't even give you a solution by any stretch. I just gave you an answer. I just took your information and heard what you had to say, which is legitimate. I've seen people where they, they, they send up a complaint and they, they get subdued. But then the, the leader doesn't follow up on the complaint. Like I don't follow up and actually go up the chain of command and say, why aren't we getting better food?

• 2:04:52Jocko Willink?

  That's gonna be a problem. Next session, it's, hey, you said you were gonna do something. What's the answer? And I say, well, I uh, uh, but the bit. Now you're mad.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Rightfully so.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's really it. That's really the, that what tells the tale. Cause like, okay, so a bitch session, right? That'll, I mean, a- along with complaints come, what I think is more important than like the complaint, or the issue that's complained about, more important is the motivation to complain. So, let's say, uh, the food is, is junk, right? If I think, if I'm mad about that, if that bothers me, whether it be because I think the food should literally be better. It should be better right now.

• 2:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  I don't know why it's bad right now, but I think it should be in that makes, that bothers me at the very least. That produces a motivation to complain. But if, the food can be just as bad, but if I have an explanation, I have no motivation to complain because I'm not mad at that. It's understandable. So a bitch session will, will develop when those feeling, those motivations to complain are maintained or escalated. So like if you're like, so why, uh, because, because I said so, I'm still mad.

• 2:06:03Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  Bro, and I'm even a little bit more mad because of the way you said that to me. So that's when those bitch, bitch sessions will come. Or if you get a couple of people making the same complaint and then another couple of people, like, you know, kind of refuting it or something like that, where anywhere where there's emotions kind of.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  And one, one key factor that you brought up is the, is the building up, right? If you're constantly communicating with your people, then the bitch sessions don't build up. It's when you decide, which when you don't, when you lock yourself in your own vacuum and you don't listen to what anyone has to say. And then once every six months, you go, hey, guys, we're gonna have a, a Q and A. If you guys have any questions for me, you guys can come in there, you guys can ask me your questions. Well, these guys have been brewing up questions for the last six months. They got some questions. They got some questions, boy, and they're gonna hit you with them hard. So you, that if you wanna prevent the bitch session from getting out of control, guess what? Communicate with your people more often. It'll take that question about, why is the food so bad? By the time it's six months deep and that guy's been eating crappy food for six months,

• 2:07:07Jocko Willink?

  there's almost no solution that you can provide that's gonna be good for him. And by the way, you wasted six months of trying to find a solution. So that's just wrong. So you're, you're already starting off with a, with, in a really negative situation.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  So communicate with your people a lot. Don't be afraid. If some people say, what if they ask me a question? I don't know the answer to. Cool. You say, hey, let me write this down. Let me run this up the chain of command and find out what's going on with that. Cause I don't know the answer. What if they, what if they asked me a question that I don't like the answer to? Right? I don't like this. I don't like what I've been told.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  Wait, you as the leader?

• 2:07:42Jocko Willink?

  So I'm as the leader and someone says, you know, I get told, hey, you're not getting food because we prioritized one of the other platoons. And they're getting all the steak, which by the way, would never happen. But if they did that, and then I, and then someone says, hey, why are we getting this bad food? And I go, well, it's because they gave it to the platoon. You know, I, I, I wouldn't say, I would, I would answer the question truthfully, which is like, listen, this is what's going on right now. For some reason, they gave the other platoon all the steak. Believe me, we have no greater champion for steak in this platoon than me. I am personally flying to see the boss and I'm going to figure out what's going on. We will get steak. You know what I mean?

• 2:08:23Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to just being mad or, or not wanting to give the answer or trying to hide it. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why we're not getting steak. You know why you're not getting steak. Tell everyone. Yeah. Don't, the more open you are. And of course there's a dichotomy to this too, because we can go too far in telling the truth. We can tell people the truth about things that they don't need to know about, right?

• 2:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:43Jocko Willink?

  So you do have to be careful about that. You, you, you have to be careful. You have to be judicious in telling the truth. You have to make sure that it makes sense.

• 2:08:55Jocko Willink?

  In accomplishing the long-term mission. If I tell everyone that we're not getting food because we got cut off. And we're out here on our own and we're, we have about three days worth of food and water. And by the way, we're not going to live and we're all going to die.

• 2:09:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we should be happy with this.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, that's, that's not going to help my mission. Now I could, I could turn that into something that says, listen, well, here's what's going on right now. We're cut off and here's the mission that we're going to undertake to make this happen. It's probably not a great example, but I think we all understand that there's times if you screw up a video, if you put a video together for me and it's got the worst Christmas music to the video.

• 2:09:33Speaker 01

  Another terrible example.

• 2:09:35Jocko Willink?

  I don't just drop the hammer on you and say you suck at editing, even though I kind of think that at the moment. Instead, I say, hey, I like what you put together, you know, maybe can you explain why you did this music selection? Cause for me, it's a little bit different than what I would expect.

• 2:09:47Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah. Thank you for that.

• 2:09:52Jocko Willink?

  Check going back to the book incidentally, but most important. I keep, I keep adding emphasis to things that are literally not in this book. So what that actually says is incidentally, but importantly, it doesn't say most important. I added that. It's the second time I've done that. I've, I've taken something to the next level, even though just on my own accord.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  Hey, you're feeling it, man. You're feeling it.

• 2:10:14Jocko Willink?

  So what it says is incidentally in parentheses, but importantly,

• 2:10:20Jocko Willink?

  this method of dealing with this dissatisfaction cheats the fifth columnist and saboteur who may lurk in the camp. It is much safer for the army that men should pour their gripes into the ears of an officer than that they should spill them in a beer joint in town or in any other place where outsiders can listen. Another method of handling dissension and overt aggression is by punishment. This is the chosen method of dictatorships and autocratic organizations generally. The method is commonly used even in America and most children have to learn that when they feel aggressive, punishment is not that far away.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  So another thing you can do when somebody asks, you know, a question, hey, Jaco, can you tell us why we're not getting any steak? I'll tell you why we're not getting steak because you haven't worked hard enough. Guess what you're doing tonight? KP duty. Or whatever, you know, like when I punish you for asking a question, that's like what autocrats do. Dictators do that. Back to the book, sometimes the soldier's troubles cannot be attributed attributed to any one person. They are due to the conditions of war or of army life. An ambitious and energetic man may find himself so wound up in red tape that he cannot do a good job. An organization may be all set to go forward to an objective, but is hindered by failure of supplies,

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  by shortages, by weather. No one is to blame.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  Which I kind of disagree with that statement because I always, if you're in charge of that,

• 2:11:55Jocko Willink?

  if you're in charge of that, then guess what? You should have figured out how to get the supplies there in time. You should have figured out a contingency plan for the weather, but

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  what they're talking about is sometimes things go wrong and continuing on that this natural need for someone to blame and punish when things go wrong, responsible for much race and religious prejudice is also the cause for most quarrels that grow up between allies and between one branch of the service and another. So when you have these inner service rivalries, it's because there's no one else to blame. When you have organizations where the, the production guys, that the sales guys are selling stuff and the builders of the stuff, the engineers that design the stuff, aren't getting it to them in time.

• 2:12:45Jocko Willink?

  When they're getting it to them in time, that's fine, but just the market is down and they start hating on each other. When they should be focusing on how to adjust to the market adaptations that need to be made, or the market adjustments that need to be made. Instead, they're going at each other's throats. Why? Because they're, they're looking for someone to blame. Don't look for someone to blame. Figure out what the problem is and solve it.

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "An occasional individual in any large group appears to contradict all the rules about how aggression was built up." "He will turn nasty when he's..." This is a really interesting psychological profile. So I'm going to read this again. "An occasional individual in any large group appears to contradict all the rules about how aggression was built up." "He will turn nasty when he is treated with kindness and becomes very docile under punishment or frustration." "He is excessively polite and cooperative as long as he is kept in a subordinate position, but when he is put in command of other men, he becomes tyrannical and overbearing." "Such peculiar behavior is often the result of too severe punishment of self-assertion or aggressiveness in childhood."

• 2:13:54Jocko Willink?

  This man is carrying around his own grouch and resentments bottled up inside him. He is deeply anxious to punish and hurt other people. But as long as he is faced with a threat of punishment himself, he retains his childhood fear of showing his feelings. As soon as other people treat him decently and no longer appear like a threat to him, then his meanness lashes out. People who have this curious reversal of normal reaction to other people's kindness or aggressiveness often like to boast that they are tough or hard and that they respect a man who will stand up to them. This boast is an explanation that fools many people, even including the explainer himself. Actually, the respect they claim to feel is nothing but an unconscious fear,

• 2:14:37Jocko Willink?

  a secret fear that the rebellious subordinate will punish them. Such men make poor leaders. They make their subordinates angry and uncooperative. They work best when alone.

• 2:14:52Jocko Willink?

  And this continues on. The good leader is not afraid of criticism from his subordinates.

• 2:15:04Jocko Willink?

  Amen, I guess, is what I would say to that. A good leader is not afraid of criticism from his subordinates. He will encourage it as a constructive and cooperative way of eliminating causes for resentment and dissension. And he will use it himself in dealing with his subordinates. But the criticism should be constructive and directed at some true cause of the difficulty, not some imagined evil or some harmless and defenseless person of the group. It should not be a means of passing the buck. Here's some rules for critics to keep in mind. So when you want to start throwing darts at the old man. One, stick to things that can be corrected.

• 2:15:46Jocko Willink?

  Don't criticize dead issues or unalterable situations. You ever notice some people just get stuck? They get stuck on something and they'll just never let it go. Hey, that happened three months ago. I get it was a bad decision. If I could go back in time, I'd do it a different way. I didn't. That's the call that got made. Here's the adjustments we've made from what we learned and here's where we're going forward. Are you good with that? Yeah, but I'm just saying it was.

• 2:16:18Jocko Willink?

  Two, be specific. Keep to concrete issues. Say what. Three, limit the issue. Don't blame the brass hats or the men in general. Say who, that's a good one. A lot of times we just like to blame them, right? They did it.

• 2:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:38Jocko Willink?

  Suggest practical solutions to problems. Don't arouse emotion without suggesting what to do about it. Say how. Five, stick to facts. Don't swallow rumors, especially axis-inspired rumors.

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Six, criticize leaders or men for their acts and policies, not for their personalities. Seven, put blame where it belongs. Don't find scapegoats.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask, why is, I wonder why it's so like appealing, or for lack of a better term, to blame other people? Cause I, I mean, I guess when you think about it, it feels like, if I don't have to blame myself, that's a safety thing, right? So we'll start there and then sure, someone will blame other things that are not people like, I don't know, the weather or the, you know, whatever, but it's like, it's almost like, it seems more satisfying to blame other people. I don't know, maybe because they uh.

• 2:17:43Jocko Willink?

  It feels satisfying because it takes the blame off of you.

• 2:17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but even, even more than like blaming the weather, right? Weather is like, it's almost like, it's, it's, it's more satisfying because if I can blame someone else, because someone else has the capability of actively trying to get in the way of my success. So it's almost like, this is what it feels like. I don't know, I'm just wondering.

• 2:18:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because I don't feel good about blaming anything or anybody or anyone.

• 2:18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it could be because, yeah, because you're really in touch with like, you know, that part of things. But I'm just saying, just by nature, because it has to be a natural thing, right? It has to be like a natural reaction to something, I would think, you know, and different people have it worse than others.

• 2:18:25Jocko Willink?

  I would say that that's a, that's a reaction that's not too natural. And it's a reaction that you have to nourish and raise correctly in yourself. Because when you, when a little kid spells, spills the mil-, when you walk into the kitchen and your daughter's sitting there and the milk is spilled over, she says, You say, what happened? And she says, the milk spilled.

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:48Jocko Willink?

  She's blaming the milk, an inanimate object.

• 2:18:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Already, and she's four years old, five years old, right?

• 2:18:56Jocko Willink?

  I'm the same way. Everyone starts off that way. It's, it's a blow to our ego to, to take the blame for things. We don't like to do it.

• 2:19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:05Jocko Willink?

  So it's not like, it, it's something you have to mature into. It's something you have to figure out over time. And the more you figure it out, the better off you're gonna be. And I was talking with Dave Burke about this.

• 2:19:18Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 2:19:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And he was like really fired up one day. And the, the fire was coming.

• 2:19:29Jocko Willink?

  I forget even what, you know, how we got on this topic.

• 2:19:33Jocko Willink?

  I, actually, I do think we were talking about a client that we have at Echelon Front. And he was trying to explain to them that everything, like trying to explain to the boss, the CEO, everything, everything is your fault, everything. And the guy's like, no, no, I get it, but.

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:57Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, no, everything. No, no, no, I get it. No, no, it's, I'm, I'm all about Extreme Ownership. I get it, man. That's a great book. And, uh, you know, I'm definitely taking ownership of what's going on here. But, and there's always a but. But the market, but the, the guys that I hired, but the person that, that I partnered with, but the person I bought the company from, but it, it goes on and on. But the real estate that we leased, it, it just goes on and on.

• 2:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  And guess what? If none of those are your problem, none of those are your fault, guess what? You're never gonna fix any of them. So the idea that, that this stuff is a hundred percent your fault.

• 2:20:37Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent your fault that's going on in your team. That's that it's hard to get that through your brain, anyone's brain.

• 2:20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird. Like you ever, you know, when you're a kid or something. Or whether you witness someone else do this, or you do it where it's like, let's say you lost something, right? And sometimes the first reaction, who took my whatever? What do you mean?

• 2:20:58Jocko Willink?

  That's a seal curse. So the seal curse, if you lose something, as soon as you say, hey, you took my, or hey, somebody stole my, as soon as you, those words come out of your mouth, you're gonna, it's gonna appear in front of you. You can actually do it. Like to, to find something that you've lost, you just blame someone and you'll find it immediately.

• 2:21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:17Jocko Willink?

  That's probably my earliest memory in the SEAL teams of, hey, don't blame people. Is that right there?

• 2:21:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:22Jocko Willink?

  Because if you, you can't find your Sekumara life jacket or whatever, somebody took my Sekumara. Oh, there it is. There's the Willink stencil, the J K O stencil is on that one right over there. It was, it was underneath another one.

• 2:21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:35Jocko Willink?

  But yes, that's something that we all do.

• 2:21:36Speaker 01

  But it's like a natural thing to think, because, okay, so I have these, these slippers at home.

• 2:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Do you mean flip flops?

• 2:21:44Speaker 01

  No, that's the thing. They're, they're Nike.

• 2:21:46Jocko Willink?

  Because in Hawaii, we call some flip flops slippers.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. But these are slippers, slippers. It's kind of like you can just fly in and out of like when you're walking and whatever. And so flip flops, like if, let's say you're wearing, flip flops are thongs, slippers, right? That's what flip flops are. So they're not that, because if you're wearing socks, which I have been recently, because it's kind of chilly. But.

• 2:22:09Jocko Willink?

  Weak.

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  So I'll wear socks, but so you can't just slide in and out of flip flops with socks on, not that good. You know, if I'm gonna take out the trash or something like this. So anyway, I have these slippers, they're real comfortable too. They're like just regular Nike, like slippers, whatever. So when I can't find them for a moment, you know, there, there's literally like six or seven places that are far away from each other. By the way, in my house, that six, seven places that they could be.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  The struggle is real. Echo Charles, my slippers are located far distances. Inside my own house, but they're really far apart. Okay.

• 2:22:46Speaker 01

  I look in what place number one, they're not there. Place number two, they're not there. I automatically go. My wife took wearing my slippers or someone grabbed my slippers. You know, that's like the thing. Even more so than the, you know, the four or five other places that I could easily, you know, so I think that's why I think it's a natural thing.

• 2:23:04Jocko Willink?

  It is a natural thing. Yes, you are correct.

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  Blame some.

• 2:23:07Jocko Willink?

  I've been saying that for the whole time you and I have been doing this podcast. It's a natural thing to blame someone else.

• 2:23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:13Jocko Willink?

  That's why this idea of extreme ownership of actually taking ownership of the problems that you have is very important. And it's hard to enact. It's not, it's not comfortable. There's no one. And even when people read the book and they listen to every podcast and they talk about it with their troops, even then. It's very easy to slide into an excuse and you blame someone or something else. And the problem with those excuses are they don't ever solve themselves. They don't fix themselves. You can control you. So take control over everything. Take ownership of everything so you can make them the way that they should be.

• 2:23:54Jocko Willink?

  What's the dichotomy in this? That's why we wrote dichotomy leadership. Some people took that and said, okay, well, I'm just going to do everything myself.

• 2:24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, tacos and hold everything. So now I'm gonna, you know what? Echo, send me a script for the video you're making right now. I want to review it, right? Send me a, what's it called when you like draw the pictures? Send me a, send me a storyboard for your next video. Ownership. No, that's not what I'm talking about. There's a balance.

• 2:24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:22Jocko Willink?

  So you have to keep it. You have to keep it balanced.

• 2:24:26Speaker 01

  So this question you might not, might not really care about the answer. So is it easier to blame another person or? Just something else like some, something that's not a person.

• 2:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay, this was your original point. And to me, it's the, the point is moot. I feel equally horrible. I actually feel more horrible blaming blaming another person. You seem to feel better about.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I feel worse. I feel bad. I'm bruh. I'm with you.

• 2:24:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:24:50Speaker 01

  Whether you believe me or not, blaming like something other than yourself, it does feel really, really whack.

• 2:24:56Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:24:56Speaker 01

  Really whack. But, and that's kind of the rule now. I think after like four to six months of like dealing with you and this stuff. It's like you became like a rule subconsciously or whatever.

• 2:25:09Jocko Willink?

  So easy to identify when other people do it too.

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  Yes, fully.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, I was.

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you feel it in yourself, even if you have the thought, like you feel it. But so I was, I was thinking, wondering. And I guess it doesn't matter, right? Because the rule is the rule. But is it easier to blame a person? Because it's more comforting.

• 2:25:31Jocko Willink?

  No, it's easier to blame a thing because then you, then it's free. There's no guilt involved. The weather was bad. That's why we failed. Well, the weather doesn't get mad at you because whereas I'm like, hey, Echo screwed up and dropped the ball. That's why we failed. You are going to be mad at me. The weather is not gonna, hey, you got a flat tire. That's why I'm late. You should have left earlier. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're like, that's blaming, that's me taking ownership.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:53Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:25:53Speaker 01

  But it's easy, but wouldn't it be more comforting to be like, hey, someone flat? Like, let's say you, you walked out to your car and your tire was flat. It'd be more comforting if someone was actively trying to get in your way. Cause it seems more like, okay, that's why I got defeated by this situation.

• 2:26:08Jocko Willink?

  I don't have those feelings.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  Someone was actively doing it.

• 2:26:10Jocko Willink?

  I, I think to me, saying, hey, I walked out, yeah, there was a nail in my thing. Now, you might take that one step, but somebody left a nail.

• 2:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, see what I'm saying though? I mean, I wouldn't, I, I don't think I would. Maybe I would.

• 2:26:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't know why you're, you're sweating this distinction. Don't blame other people or other things. That's what you do. You don't blame other people or other things.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  I'm reveling in the understanding.

• 2:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Don't revel in it.

• 2:26:30Speaker 01

  Just do, huh?

• 2:26:31Jocko Willink?

  Just own it.

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  Take action. Yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right.

• 2:26:35Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? We're going to wrap for today. We haven't even, we haven't even covered the major, the, one of the main reasons why I'm covering this book. We haven't even got to yet. So if we haven't even gotten to it yet, I don't want to jump into it right now because it's good. This is a book where I'm highlighting entire pages, entire pages. I'm just so I want to have time to discuss this properly and we will not have time to discuss the rest of this properly today. So, one thing we do have hopefully time to discuss properly.

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  It's questionable because I know someone said the other day, I said on the podcast, hey, all we need to do is, you know, just wrap this up. And they looked at their podcast player and there was forty seven minutes left. So it took you forty seven minutes. I'm blaming you. I know, I know, I am, I know I am at least partially guilty for lengthy sections of the podcast because what I can't refrain from doing is making a little comment that spurns you to talk about Hawaii five oh, other important topics.

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  So we'll continue with this book next week. Right now, if you if you want to compete

• 2:28:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:28:04Jocko Willink?

  in life, look, I'm not saying you gotta look at life as one big competition, win or lose. But I'm saying you should at least consider that that's kind of happening, whether you want it to be happening or not. In that, in that view, you want to

• 2:28:26Jocko Willink?

  get on a path, a path of victory, a path of discipline, a path of winning. And I know you have some things that might help us in there.

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, I do.

• 2:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 2:28:38Speaker 01

  So it is one of these, so if you like the way you live your life, right? You're, it's like you're preparing for a battle metaphorically or whatever, right? So sure, you're not competing with me or with whatever in every, in every single little thing, right? In fact, you're a big part of what you do is collaborate with me.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:28:57Speaker 01

  Collaborate with other people.

• 2:28:59Jocko Willink?

  But it's so we can win.

• 2:29:00Speaker 01

  So we can win. Exactly right. And in addition to that, if you wake up just one moment and you're in the company, the heated competition of whatever.

• 2:29:12Speaker 01

  You're gonna be more prepared to win.

• 2:29:15Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Cool. If you, if you put yourself in stressful situations, you'll be more prepared when the real stress comes.

• 2:29:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's say jujitsu, for example, right?

• 2:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Stressful situation you can put yourself right into.

• 2:29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 2:29:30Jocko Willink?

  On a daily basis.

• 2:29:31Speaker 01

  Think about this too, where, you know, the whole collaboration, competition balance goes. Okay, me and you, we're competing in jujitsu with each other when we train, right? Or, or, and we're competing with ourself because you're using me to just get better in general. So sure, there's a part of it that's like, you're trying to defeat me, whatever. But the main part is you're trying to defeat how, you know, the, the gut, yourself.

• 2:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:29:58Speaker 01

  Beat, you know, a month ago or a day ago, whatever.

• 2:30:00Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:30:00Speaker 01

  Trying to get better, right? And to do that, you have to collaborate with me, who's gonna provide that stress.

• 2:30:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  On you. See, so it's always like, I think there's always an overarching competition.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  That's what's called the long game.

• 2:30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. With varying levels of outcomes.

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  Lots of little competitions along the way. Some of them are important, some of them aren't, some you gotta surrender.

• 2:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:25Jocko Willink?

  Because it's gonna propel you further in the long game.

• 2:30:28Speaker 01

  Some of them will feel like they should be a competition when they should be a collaboration. They should be. Okay. Anyway, back to jujitsu. Okay, jujitsu, we're doing, we're all doing jujitsu. If you're not, then just do jujitsu. You have to. You essentially have to, to, to know the path broadly.

• 2:30:48Jocko Willink?

  One thing that's good about jujitsu is it is also, I talked about combat and war being a revealer. Jujitsu is revealing too. It reveals about, things about yourself, it reveals things about human nature, reveals, reveals things about your ego. It reveals things about your temper, it reveals a lot of things. And it reveals those things about other people and you start to be able to sense and understand other people better. Because you see their reactions, you see how they respond, you see how they get through or don't get through trying situations.

• 2:31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really.

• 2:31:23Jocko Willink?

  And so there's some really good benefits beyond the fact that you will get a good workout. Beyond the fact that you will truly learn to defend yourself in. Bad situations, you will also learn about life.

• 2:31:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:31:39Jocko Willink?

  You will learn about people and you will learn about yourself.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:31:45Jocko Willink?

  So go down to your local jujitsu academy and tell them you want to train some of the jujitsu.

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  That's kind of abstract though, the what you said, it's true, oh, you know, you'll learn about life, not abstract, sorry.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  It's not even, dude.

• 2:31:57Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, okay, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. It's general though, here's, here's something specific.

• 2:32:01Jocko Willink?

  What if I told you I've learned more about life?

• 2:32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  And people and myself from jujitsu than I have learned about self-defense from jujitsu.

• 2:32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I don't know what specifically.

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  Specifically true.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:16Jocko Willink?

  Cause I don't think, I've learned a lot, but you learned so much about actually fighting.

• 2:32:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:32:22Jocko Willink?

  So that's kind of a, what I just said, not really.

• 2:32:25Speaker 01

  Could be for others though.

• 2:32:27Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot.

• 2:32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:28Jocko Willink?

  But I don't want to exaggerate.

• 2:32:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:32:30Jocko Willink?

  And lie.

• 2:32:31Speaker 01

  Well, here's why we, well, here's why I started in, in whether, I mean, I think you started before this event, so, okay. So, there's, there's this family. They said, hey, we developed this martial art, you know, whatever.

• 2:32:44Jocko Willink?

  Is there a reason you're not saying the Gracie family?

• 2:32:46Speaker 01

  It was gonna, it's gonna develop it into a cool story, but yeah, so the Gracie family, they developed their martial art, they were like, hey, this is our fighting style, a real fighting now. So let's, this is what we're gonna do, we're gonna invite everyone from the, all around the world with whatever fighting style, no matter how big, no matter how small the guy is, whatever fighting style, we're gonna invite everybody to come, come like fight. No time limit, no rules, no nothing, just everyone's gonna fight, see who's fighting style is the best, right? Sounds like an old school like movie or something, yeah?

• 2:33:15Jocko Willink?

  But it's true.

• 2:33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, straight up happened, nineteen ninety-three, right, yeah, Colorado. So they come and Hoist Gracie, who's hundred sixty-five pounds.

• 2:33:27Jocko Willink?

  No, he's not a hundred and sixty-five pound, he's, he was one eighty-five. I don't, I don't think so.

• 2:33:31Speaker 01

  I think he was like one sixty-two or three, actually.

• 2:33:34Jocko Willink?

  We'll check with Hoist.

• 2:33:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'll see, one, two, three, one, two, four.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  Have you rolled with Hoist before?

• 2:33:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:33:40Jocko Willink?

  He's not small, bro.

• 2:33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's tall.

• 2:33:42Jocko Willink?

  He's tall.

• 2:33:43Speaker 01

  But he's thinner, yeah.

• 2:33:44Jocko Willink?

  He's thinner, but he's not like skinny.

• 2:33:48Jocko Willink?

  And he wasn't skinny back then. He must have weighed at least 180. I'm gonna give him 180. Well, we'll talk to Hoist and get confirmation. We'll talk to some of our people.

• 2:33:55Speaker 01

  I think 160.

• 2:33:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, anyway, if he was 160, I would have to check the scales.

• 2:34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, nonetheless.

• 2:34:03Jocko Willink?

  Now, have you ever heard that they reason Hoist was fighting and not Hickson is because Hoist was smaller and slender and looked less imposing than Hickson?

• 2:34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Who did look imposing.

• 2:34:15Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, and that was kind of of an added like.

• 2:34:17Jocko Willink?

  Who looked more imposing? Who looked more imposing? Hickson Gracie or Ken Shamrock?

• 2:34:22Speaker 01

  Ken Shamrock.

• 2:34:23Jocko Willink?

  Ken Shamrock looked real imposing.

• 2:34:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:34:25Jocko Willink?

  That's why it was so shocking when Hoist at 160 pounds apparently tapped him out.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the story, the story, the facts go, this is what happened. You can watch them on the old videos. So they called it the ultimate fighting challenge is what they called it, the UFC. Sure, so Hoist Gracie surprisingly beats up everyone. This wasn't the kind like you have one fight in one night. This is like.

• 2:34:50Jocko Willink?

  Four fights.

• 2:34:50Speaker 01

  Who, if you win, you go on, you know, no time limit, by the way. Full contact fighting. Headbutt, like, whatever.

• 2:34:58Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:34:59Speaker 01

  Kicking the groin, whatever. Anyway, Hoist Gracie beats everybody, including Ken Shamrock, who's like, what? He was like 220.

• 2:35:06Jocko Willink?

  He was at least 220.

• 2:35:08Speaker 01

  Shoot, fighting wrestling, like, just a badass guy.

• 2:35:10Jocko Willink?

  He went for a footlock.

• 2:35:12Speaker 01

  He went for a footlock, yeah.

• 2:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Which is crazy.

• 2:35:13Speaker 01

  And Hoist got on top, yeah.

• 2:35:15Jocko Willink?

  And Hoist knew to defend it. That's even crazier.

• 2:35:17Speaker 01

  Yep, got on top and choked him out. And then guys like who, I don't think people talk enough about this guy, Pat Smith, and it's Patrick Smith.

• 2:35:24Jocko Willink?

  A beast, yeah.

• 2:35:25Speaker 01

  Bare knuckle kickboxing champion, it's like 250 and O. That's what it said on the, on the video. Um, bad, just a tough badass guy. He was beating guys up real bad. In fact, he beat this, this ninja guy up on UFC 2.

• 2:35:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:39Speaker 01

  That I was like, as a kid watching, I was like, dang, that's like, this is brutal, man. This is like scary brutal. And nowadays, that's nothing, you know, you watch UFC now, it's nothing. But nonetheless, it was brutal then. And Hoist Gracie beat him up, and Hoist Gracie beat him up. He, he didn't do a submission hold on him. He just had him in mouth.

• 2:35:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:35:58Speaker 01

  And punched, he tapped due to strike, you know. Anyway, so the point is Hoist Gracie with Gracie Jiu Jitsu, which is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it's interchangeable nowadays. Beat up everyone proving that it's like the ultimate fighting style.

• 2:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:13Speaker 01

  So that's why that's the number one reason I think most people go into jujitsu.

• 2:36:19Jocko Willink?

  That's definitely a good reason. I think well back that I would say this, that's the number one reason in nineteen ninety-three, nineteen ninety-four, nineteen ninety-five, why people wanted jujitsu. I think jujitsu now is, I think jujitsu as a whole is more popular. You can get jujitsu from anywhere. I mean, at wrestling tournaments, there's all kinds of kids, they'd walk around jujitsu t-shirts on, they didn't, why even, they weren't even, they weren't even, they were, they're twelve years old.

• 2:36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and now.

• 2:36:44Jocko Willink?

  They don't remember nineteen ninety-three. Think about something that happened, whatever, twenty years before, what year were you born?

• 2:36:50Speaker 01

  Seventy-seven.

• 2:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Think of something that happened in nineteen fifty-seven.

• 2:36:54Speaker 01

  I can't think of one single thing.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I'm saying. That's when the first UFC happened to these kids, twenty years before they were born.

• 2:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:01Jocko Willink?

  They don't remember it. It's not even a thing.

• 2:37:03Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:37:03Jocko Willink?

  What they do remember is like, oh, some kid down the street knows how to fight. He choked me. I want to learn that.

• 2:37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, if they're watching Ultimate Fight Night last night or the other night or whatever, and they saw Crone Gracie.

• 2:37:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:37:18Speaker 01

  Choke out the guy in UFC.

• 2:37:20Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:37:20Speaker 01

  In the first round.

• 2:37:21Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:37:21Speaker 01

  Someone's gonna join jujitsu because that, anyway.

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  That is true. Yes, that was true. A beautiful display of jujitsu.

• 2:37:28Speaker 01

  Very.

• 2:37:29Jocko Willink?

  From Crone Gary, from Crone Gracie.

• 2:37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that always feels good because it's a reminder, because it's easy like now, because everyone knows jujitsu, you know, varying levels or whatever in UFC. But when you get a guy who's like so good at jujitsu, every once in a while, like he'll, and Damian Maia would do this too, where they'd remind everyone like how powerful, if you're just really good at jujitsu. And, and the other guy doesn't quite have those elements or whatever.

• 2:37:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, it reminds me of that. Dean Lister, he reminds me of that a lot.

• 2:37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Nonetheless, we're all doing jujitsu and we need a gi. What gi do we get? We get Origin gis made in America.

• 2:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Yep, yep.

• 2:38:05Speaker 01

  From the cotton all the way up to the gi made in America for jujitsu. Not many other, our martial arts is just for jujitsu specifically.

• 2:38:13Jocko Willink?

  Not Aikido.

• 2:38:15Speaker 01

  They're not made for Aikido, no.

• 2:38:17Jocko Willink?

  For jujitsu, made in America, they're. They're the best geese that you can get.

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:38:23Jocko Willink?

  There's not even any question about that one.

• 2:38:25Speaker 01

  Originmain.com.

• 2:38:26Jocko Willink?

  Also got rash guards, rash guards. If you need rash guards for your no geese situations, they got T-shirts, sweatshirts, jeans. Pete just sent me a picture of jeans coming off the rack. They're in production at this time. Jeans. So be ready to get jeans.

• 2:38:46Speaker 01

  Also supplements from Origin Labs. Best kind of supplements, the kind that maintain your joints, joint warfare. I incurred a hip injury.

• 2:38:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:00Speaker 01

  The other day. It was really bad that night. So I, oh, I don't overdose. Can you overdose on joint warfare?

• 2:39:06Jocko Willink?

  I'm not sure. I haven't tried.

• 2:39:07Speaker 01

  So I add just one pill. Usually I take.

• 2:39:10Jocko Willink?

  How many do you take at night?

• 2:39:11Speaker 01

  Three. Okay. I take three a day.

• 2:39:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay. I take three in the morning, three at night.

• 2:39:14Speaker 01

  Okay. So I went two and two.

• 2:39:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:39:16Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I'm just gonna do this or whatever. And it is surprising. The difference between night one of the injury and night two of the injury was surprising, given how the injury felt.

• 2:39:28Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 2:39:29Speaker 01

  So this is, yeah. So joint warfare, and these are the, now I think these are the most important kind of supplements there is.

• 2:39:35Jocko Willink?

  I think I agree with you. Joint warfare, krill oil, discipline, and discipline go. When you need a little bit of, need to get, need to get up on step is what we call it in the teams. Well, and what that means is you're in a little Zodiac boat and the Zodiac boat going across the water with a 55 horsepower engine. If you're out on the, on the west coast, on the east coast, they use a smaller engine. On the west coast, you use a big 55 horsepower engine because you're out in the Pacific and the waves are freaking huge. But the, it reaches a point where it kind of, the, the boat's like trying to push and then it gets on the, it's like in the water and then it gets kind of on the surface of the water.

• 2:40:16Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden it goes, and then you're going fast. You're on step. We call it getting on step. I don't know where that comes from. But in Zodiac.

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  So it's like the perfect zone where it can catch the water.

• 2:40:29Jocko Willink?

  It catches the water.

• 2:40:30Speaker 01

  But no drag.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  Yes. It's the minimum amount of drag for the boat. And that's what I feel like when I take discipline go.

• 2:40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:40Jocko Willink?

  Say I gotta go, let's say I'm going to meet with someone. I take like, you know, in a meeting, I'm going to be working with a company. Take some discipline and go get the mind firing correctly. That's that. Don't forget about milk.

• 2:40:53Speaker 01

  Additional protein.

• 2:40:54Jocko Willink?

  Additional protein.

• 2:40:55Speaker 01

  Delicious.

• 2:40:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you can call it additional protein, or you can just call it dessert straight up.

• 2:41:02Jocko Willink?

  Yesterday, I had three scoops of Warrior Kid strawberry milk. And I was just sitting there drinking it and being happy about the whole world.

• 2:41:13Speaker 01

  Guilt free.

• 2:41:14Jocko Willink?

  Guilt, but look, can you, can you, can a beverage make you happy to be alive? Yes, Warrior Kid strawberry milk can make you, it can make you happy to just be in the world. And just be looking and be sipping on it and being and having a whole, a whole big cup. And you're just, every sip is, you're not, you're not even, uh, what's the word? You're not even rationing yourself at all. It's just blatant sipping. Just free form, just as much as you can put in your mouth, like just beautiful strawberry milk.

• 2:41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:48Jocko Willink?

  And I'm really getting crazy now where I'm, I've, I'm really scatterbrained. I'm like peanut butter milk.

• 2:41:55Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:41:57Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, that's that.

• 2:41:59Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 2:42:00Jocko Willink?

  All that stuff is at originmaine.com.

• 2:42:04Speaker 01

  Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store. And that's where you can be on the path for sure. Be on the path requirement. But if you want to represent while on the path, go to jacostore.com. Got some cool shirts on there. More rash guards.

• 2:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:42:22Speaker 01

  More representative of the path specifically. Some hoodies on there, some hats.

• 2:42:28Jocko Willink?

  Yep, truckers hats specifically or flex fit.

• 2:42:31Speaker 01

  Whatever you like, bro. Both. However, you want to represent. And here's the thing, look. I don't, I don't know if I'm going to put zip up hoodies on there. I don't know. I think so. That might not be your thing.

• 2:42:42Jocko Willink?

  They better be so thick.

• 2:42:44Speaker 01

  Maybe they'll be.

• 2:42:45Jocko Willink?

  That the whole world. That the whole world stops and says hmm.

• 2:42:49Speaker 01

  If I was in somewhere cold, I would wear that. That's what the whole world will say.

• 2:42:53Jocko Willink?

  Because actually that makes sense. If you go ultra thick with the zip up. The reason you want zip up is because you got other clothes on. It's awkward taking it on and off over overhead. That's why you got the zip. Because it's it's a real heavy duty.

• 2:43:07Speaker 01

  I prefer the zip, light or heavy.

• 2:43:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:10Speaker 01

  But you prefer the pullover as you indicated at one point.

• 2:43:14Jocko Willink?

  Like the pullover, if we're talking about, you know, medium weight.

• 2:43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:20Jocko Willink?

  But if we're going ultra heavyweight, which no one has showed me ultra heavyweight. I want to see ultra heavyweight. I want something that actually is hard to pick up, kind of.

• 2:43:30Speaker 01

  Physically heavy, alright. Well, nonetheless, I think I'm gonna go with some zip up stuff for Jaco's store. That's what I think. That's I don't know, brainstorm.

• 2:43:40Jocko Willink?

  As you brainstorm that, let me see the samples and let me talk to the producers of the fabric.

• 2:43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:47Jocko Willink?

  So I can make sure that it is the heaviest and most durable and warmest fabric.

• 2:43:51Speaker 01

  Alright, I will. I promise. Alright, there it is. It's again, it's at JacoStore.com. Go on there. If you like something, get something. Good way to represent while you're on the path. Also, Jaco White Tea. If you are a tea drinker or not a tea drinker, still drink Jaco White Tea for various reasons. So I gave some of this to my neighbor. We're doing some things, you know, and she goes, oh my gosh, yes. You know, like it was the one in the can.

• 2:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:44:24Speaker 01

  Um, so my wife gave her three of them and she's like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. This is so good. And it's so hard to find tea in a can that's certified organic.

• 2:44:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:35Speaker 01

  Like that was the front running thing for her. So I'm like looking at her like, understanding that she has no idea that she can like deadlift eight thousand pounds now or you know, like all these other added benefits. But nonetheless, it really demonstrated how vast the benefits, you know, and appealing.

• 2:44:55Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of a weird perspective to have on life when you. When you rate certified organic over a guaranteed of deadlift of 8,000 pounds.

• 2:45:05Speaker 01

  I know clinically, you know, it's crazy.

• 2:45:07Jocko Willink?

  That's a little bit strange.

• 2:45:08Speaker 01

  But nonetheless, after, you know, a little bit of thought, I understand because you know, there's a nice lady that lives next door and, um, you know, I dug it either way. But one of the added benefits was brought to the surface and I liked it.

• 2:45:20Jocko Willink?

  Jack, speaking of benefits, subscribe to the podcast, which we were gonna stop saying until people noted that they didn't subscribe to the podcast until Echo actually said it on podcast 164. Or no, 163. And someone's like, I listened to 163 podcasts and hadn't subscribed.

• 2:45:37Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 2:45:38Jocko Willink?

  So subscribe to the podcast or Echo will keep telling you to. And don't forget about the Warrior Kid Podcast lagging, lagging on the Warrior Kid Podcast. And I got told by young Alana, you know, Alana?

• 2:45:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:45:51Jocko Willink?

  I got told by Alana's dad.

• 2:45:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:45:54Jocko Willink?

  He said he, she's like, he said she has memorized the first, whatever it is, 21 podcasts.

• 2:46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good.

• 2:46:02Jocko Willink?

  And I said, I looked at her and I said, I'm sorry, I'll make more. And she said, it's okay. But she didn't mean it. I don't think she meant it. I think she was kind of like just being nice. She's a nice girl. I don't think she wanted to say, yeah, you should make some more podcasts. Cause the first 21 are getting worn out. Warrior Kid Podcast, uh, good podcast for kids to learn of really solid lessons about life. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap, IrishOaksRanch.com where Aiden, who's a warrior kid, is making soap. Got his own business. He's 13 years old. He's got his own business. He's got product moving. He's shipping stuff. He's got credit card. What is that thing called? The credit card system.

• 2:46:47Speaker 01

  Oh, like the, you can, yeah, the point of sale deal.

• 2:46:50Jocko Willink?

  Point of sale system running. You're 13 years old. Got a point of sale system running. Got production, got manufacturing happening. Hey, it's soap. Is it on iPhone? No, but you know what? What were you doing at 13 years old? You weren't, you'd have a manufacturing line set up, I don't think. So if you want to support kid, a kid, a warrior kid that's getting after it, IrishOaksRanch.com and get yourself some soap so that you can. Stay clean.

• 2:47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:17Jocko Willink?

  Youtube videos.

• 2:47:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:47:19Jocko Willink?

  If you like watching Youtube videos, that's not good. You probably don't need to watch Youtube videos. They're distracting, they take up a bunch of time. If you do feel the need, you might as well watch this Youtube video of this podcast. Or the smaller excerpts of this podcast that are clipped out. Or you can even watch Echo's legit videos, which are videos that Echo has modified with CGI, straight up.

• 2:47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:52Jocko Willink?

  Straight up CGI. Computer generated graphics. That's what Echo is good at. That's his thing.

• 2:48:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:48:02Jocko Willink?

  He's good at that and he's good at curls.

• 2:48:06Speaker 01

  Not as good as I was before.

• 2:48:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So subscribe to the Youtube channel and then you can watch all these videos. Psychological Warfare, don't forget about that. Echo is just showing me a funny thing on the Gram.

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  The Gram.

• 2:48:23Jocko Willink?

  Instagram of a girl that was lip syncing a Psychological Warfare video. And I have to say, it was awesome. I'm gonna try and find it and put it out there so everyone can see this girl is super fired up and good at lip syncing.

• 2:48:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:48:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she knows.

• 2:48:37Speaker 01

  It was like spot on.

• 2:48:38Jocko Willink?

  Spot on.

• 2:48:39Speaker 01

  Like if you didn't know you or her, like you'd be like, bro, this girl's voice is weird. You know, because she has your voice, right? Because it's, it looks really good.

• 2:48:47Jocko Willink?

  She did a good job of that. Psychological Warfare, little assistance getting through moments of weakness in your day. I'll tell you what to do. I'll tell you why you should do it and then you'll go do it. Psychological Warfare, iTunes, Google Play, MP3 platforms. Check it out.

• 2:49:05Speaker 01

  Yes. Also, for legit fitness gear, while you're still with developing your home gym, which we always are, I still am.

• 2:49:16Speaker 01

  This is where you get your stuff. Go to onit.com slash Jocko. A lot of good stuff on there. I just got a stormtrooper. Oh, wait, I told you this last time. Okay, so I made a mistake. So stormtroopers are not clones. Stormtroopers are like

• 2:49:30Jocko Willink?

  Individual humans.

• 2:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that they raise from kids or whatever. Clones are the clones from the Clone War. Who came from Bobo Fett or Django Fett, one of them.

• 2:49:42Jocko Willink?

  Once again, bro, you're out of my league.

• 2:49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I was talking out of my, I got scolded by my brother and various people for not knowing my show.

• 2:49:50Jocko Willink?

  Jade Charles jumped on you like you just.

• 2:49:52Speaker 01

  He was literally listening to it in my presence. I didn't know he was listening to it. He paused. He's like, brah. And I'm like, you know, one of these, you know, kind of like your wife's like, he was like that kind. And I was like, yeah, and he's like, the stormtroopers aren't, and he was, he was mad. Nonetheless, I still got the stormtrooper kettlebell, which has nothing to do with any clones. It's just dope and it's a kettlebell, which is good for, you know, you're working out and stuff. Anyway, I got it from on it. That's where they have the best, the best kettlebells, the best stuff. Go on there, get something from there. It's really good stuff. Onit.com slash Jocko.

• 2:50:25Jocko Willink?

  We also have some books.

• 2:50:27Speaker 01

  What kind of books?

• 2:50:28Jocko Willink?

  Well, books for reading, I guess you might say. Mikey and the Dragons. How did you like Mikey and the Dragons?

• 2:50:34Speaker 01

  Outstanding.

• 2:50:35Jocko Willink?

  How often do you read it?

• 2:50:37Speaker 01

  So I re, it's not on any kind of rotation, but I've read it three times. To the children, yeah.

• 2:50:44Jocko Willink?

  And did they support?

• 2:50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you know what's funny? They, not only do they like reading it, they like watching the video. Which, and I'm working on the whole book video. So when I work on it or whatever, they, you know, the

• 2:50:59Speaker 01

  I'm not always uninterrupted, we'll say that. So they'll see me working on that. Then I get constant interruption because they want to watch it. They want to see it. But it, I mean, I, I dig it because it is fun.

• 2:51:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:10Speaker 01

  Really good book.

• 2:51:11Jocko Willink?

  Mikey and the Dragons, a little lessons for kids in that book. It's probably meant for a little bit younger ages than the other kids books. I've written Way of the Warrior Kid. And Way of the Warrior Kid Two, Mark's Mission. And now we have Way of the Warrior Kid Three. I'm trying to get that up for preorder on Amazon. The subtitle is Where There's a Will. And some challenges presented to Mark in this latest book. Thankfully Uncle Jake is around to guide him and show him the path.

• 2:51:46Jocko Willink?

  Also, we got Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. It explains all the people that ask what you work out, what did you eat, what time did you sleep? All those questions are all in there. And then all the questions that are, how do you, how do you get out of bed? How do you, when you want to procrastinate? What do you do when you're tired? What do you do when you're angry? What do you do when you're afraid? All those questions, I put all those questions in one big book. It's called the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And it's a book that you can give to someone and they will be happy.

• 2:52:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:52:25Jocko Willink?

  And they will not, they will, they will get more from the book.

• 2:52:31Jocko Willink?

  Then just a good read. They'll get a little shift in their perspective in life. And they might even hopefully get themselves heading down what we like to call the path. The path of discipline.

• 2:52:48Speaker 01

  I think you were right about that when you say that it's like the book that you sort of wish you had.

• 2:52:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:52:54Speaker 01

  Like when you, I would say maybe not when I was like a teenager because I don't think I would have the capacity.

• 2:53:01Jocko Willink?

  Want ready for it.

• 2:53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, to accept, you know, this kind of, but like young adulthood, maybe like 23, 23 ish.

• 2:53:09Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:53:09Speaker 01

  That'd be like, man.

• 2:53:11Jocko Willink?

  And what's crazy is I've got people that are 54. The one of the coolest things was I, I met a woman at the muster. She was like 55 years old. And she was all excited. She saw me and she's like, hey, and I was like, hey. And we were working out and we got done with the workout.

• 2:53:29Speaker 01

  Oh, you started in the gym or something?

• 2:53:31Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, in the, in the PT muster.

• 2:53:33Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  And she says to me, she says, you know why I'm here? And I was said, actually, I have no idea why you're here or how you got here. And she was in. Costco or Walmart or Target and saw the Discipline Equals Freedom field manual. And she just looked at it and said, I'm buying this. I don't even know what it is. I'm buying it. Got home, opened up, read it. Next day, gets up 4:30 in the morning, starts working out. Like, that's what we're talking about. From zero, this is a person that doesn't know anything about me, about the podcast, about any of the other books. Just that one book picks it up and says, this, I'm just gonna get this. And she was fired up. She, she lost weight. She was just crushing things.

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  So, that's a good book to get for yourself. It's a book that I read. Keeps me on the path.

• 2:54:26Jocko Willink?

  And if you want the audio version, it's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms. There's obviously Extreme Ownership, first book I wrote with my brother Leif Babin.

• 2:54:38Jocko Willink?

  It's about leadership. It's about the leadership principles we learned in combat and how you can apply them. And then I talked about dichotomy of leadership today, because sometimes we can take any principle and we can go too far in one direction or another. That can cause major derailment of your organization, your team, your life. So, read the dichotomy of leadership so you can know and understand and recognize the pitfalls of going too far in one direction or the other. On top of those two books, we got a little company called Echelon Front. It's a leadership consultancy and what we do is we solve your problems through leadership. That's what we do.

• 2:55:18Jocko Willink?

  Whatever problems you're having in your organization, those problems are a leadership problem. No matter what those problems are, they're a leadership problem. That's what they are. And if you want to get those problems fixed, go to echelonfront.com and we'll be in touch. Also, the muster, which is a leadership conference 2019. We got May 23rd and 24th in Chicago. We got September 19th and 20th in Denver. We got December 4th and 5th in Sydney. All of our shows we've ever done have sold out. These are going to sell out too. If you want to come to them, go to extremeownership.com and...

• 2:55:56Jocko Willink?

  Work it out EF online just launched EF online in January. If you can't come to the muster, if you are living in a situation where you can't come to the muster, you can't afford the muster, but you really want to get the information from the muster. Awesome.

• 2:56:17Jocko Willink?

  You liked extreme ownership and you want to get more out of it. Awesome. You like listening to the podcast and you want to dig a little deeper. Awesome. All those situations is why we made something called EF online. Had a company 18 months ago. Guy said, Hey, I want you to train everyone in my organization. I said, yeah, do it. No problem. And then I was like, wait a second. How many people do you have? 87,000 globally. Guess what? I, I was like, okay, let me, uh, let me, let me get back to you. Cause I humanly physically could not do that. So I, I had to think about how we're going to scale this thing. We talked to Leif and like, let's go, let's go digital. And it's

• 2:56:59Jocko Willink?

  a little scary because in the Navy, we did like the digital training sometimes online HR type training and it was all lame. And so I was nervous about it, but once, once we saw the new technology, which exists, which is awesome. That's what we did. So we spent the last year putting it together. It's interactive. You do role plays. You put yourself in combat situations as a leader. You put yourself in business situations as a leader. You got frequently asked questions. You got all kinds of choose your own adventure scenarios that unfold and you get the briefings and explanations and details around the principles of combat

• 2:57:37Jocko Willink?

  leadership. It's all in there. So if you want to check that out, it's at EF online.com EF online.com. And also we have EF Overwatch where we are finally taking.

• 2:57:54Jocko Willink?

  Combat proven leaders from special operations and combat aviation and we're putting them into companies that need leaders that understand the principles that we talk about in the books and on this podcast. So efoverwatch.com is where you go if you are either someone that's looking for talent or someone that's looking for a change of careers after you're done with your military career. We're waiting for you there. And if you want to talk to Echo and I more, if if three hours wasn't enough, if you need to tell us something else, or you want to tell us something else, or you want to ask us something else, that's cool. We are on the

• 2:58:37Jocko Willink?

  interwebs. We are on Twitter. We are on Instagram and we are on that Facebook. And Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And of course, thanks to everyone that is out there in uniform, holding the line. Our military personnel, police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, border patrols, all you first responders.

• 2:59:06Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for everything that you do to keep our safety and security intact.

• 2:59:13Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else that's out there listening.

• 2:59:20Jocko Willink?

  Remember what this book said, and that's remember that real defeats other than death itself are psychological in nature.

• 2:59:32Jocko Willink?

  And that the important contests in life itself are psychological in nature. So know who you're dealing with, know who you can count on, know your enemy and what his strengths and weaknesses are. And most important, know yourself.

• 2:59:49Jocko Willink?

  Know your own nature so you can avoid the pitfalls that we are all susceptible to. Know yourself so you can stand up in any situation and keep getting after it. No matter what.

• 3:00:09Jocko Willink?

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