485: We Are ALL Susceptible to Arrogance, Vice, and Villainy. The Hunn-Beating Proverb.

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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 485 with Kerry Helton and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Kerry. Good evening. So I stumbled across a document, we'll say, we could call it a book. And this document is called "The Hun Beating Proverb Book," which the title, out of the gate, caught my attention. It's published in 1918 by the Continental Publishing Company up in Canada. I believe it was in Toronto was where this company was. And it was published in 1918, like I said, and it was obviously geared toward warriors, in this case, the Canadian soldiers who were

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  fighting against the Germans in World War I. And the primary reason that the Germans were called Hunn, have you heard the Germans called Hunn before? Yes. Yeah. Okay, so it's the actual Hunn themselves were an ancient nomadic people that lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries. And there's probably one Hun that you, there's probably only one Hun that you've heard of, and that's Attila the Hun. But they're not that associated, like, okay, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the Caucasus, that's not Germany. So why are we calling the Germans Hunn? Well, it's because there was a speech that was given 27 July 1900

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  in Bremerhaven by Wilhelm II. And this was as the Germans were, German soldiers were going and being sent off to China to put down the Boxer Rebellion. This is what he said. He said, "If you come before the enemy, he will be defeated. No quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken. Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago, the Hunn under their king Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, so may the name Germany be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German." End quote.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  So it's a pretty freaking aggressive. Talk about some rules of engagement getting wild. No quarter, no prisoners. So that's what he's saying. They're gonna, they're gonna create a reputation like the Hunn had. Well, the Brits heard this. Now you fast forward to World War One, the Brits and eventually the Canadians and eventually the Americans. They took that speech and they, and they took that name. And they ran with it and started calling the Germans Hunn as an insult to them and their behavior. And so, so interesting, the subtitle to this little book is containing many proverbs that point to the destruction of arrogance, tyranny, villainy, vice, and the monstrous militarism

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  of which Germany has been guilty.

• 2:59Jocko Willink?

  And there's, there's actually, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna go through all the proverb, proverbs that are in this book, but there are, there was one, there was only one where I thought to myself, well, that's some straight just anti-German propaganda going here, but I'll, I'll point it out. But that being said, let's face it. When you talk about arrogance and villainy and vice, these are things that we can all be susceptible to that type of behavior, becoming a little bit arrogant, becoming, uh, falling to our vices. And so I think there's some, there's some pretty good wisdom in this book for all of us. So let's get into it. Let's get into the Hun beating proverb book. And by the way, there's

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  the book has no, you know, normally nowadays, if someone's gonna put out a book of wisdom, you know, or, or proverbs or whatever, they have a preamble and they'll kind of explain, you know, what they're thinking and where, how it came. There's none of that. It just goes right into it. And that's exactly what, so it starts off.

• 4:03Jocko Willink?

  A brave man is often a desperado. That's the first, first one we're going with here. And to me, immediately I thought of, this is the person that you're walking down the street, someone that has nothing to lose and wants to start a fight with you. Uh, that's not going to be a good move. So don't do that.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  Next one, a crooked stick will have a crooked shadow.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  Something to keep in mind. Who, uh, who are you interacting with? I mean, obviously they're not referring to sticks here. They're talking about people. So the crooked stick is going to have a crooked shadow. It's going to be hard for that to change.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  Next one, a curse sticks to no one but the cursor.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  Man, you gotta keep that in check. That's like similar to the ones you hear if you're filled with hatred for someone. It hurts you more than it hurts them. And that's why forgiveness is so important. Forgiveness is a big, you know, I got some things I'm, I'm kind of teeing up right now. I might go through it in the muster. But the idea of forgiveness, not only, not only forgiveness of, hey, I made a mistake and I take an ownership of that mistake. Well, if you take ownership of a mistake that was bad and it caused significant issues and you don't, you aren't able to forgive yourself for making that mistake, it's going to be problematic. Same thing with if you have someone that works for you or with you and they make a

• 5:34Jocko Willink?

  mistake and they take ownership or whatever, you take ownership, whatever the case may be, but you can't forgive them for what happened. It's, you're not going to get through it. Same thing with relationships. Like if you're, if your kids do something that you didn't want them to do, or they shouldn't have done, and you can't truly forgive them, it's not going to work. If you're married and your wife or husband does something that you can't truly forgive them for. Now, listen, are there some offenses that are unforgivable? I would say, yeah, there are. And if that happens, I wouldn't prolong what I believe to be the inevitable, right? But.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  If you can forgive them and it takes work, you know, because you got to put your ego in check because normally you can forgive someone, but your ego won't. You know, and then you hold that grudge against them forever and everything's a problem. You know, it's funny. I got some, some things that happened with my wife that I Big H? Big H. Big H. Like, uh, so she threw away, she threw away, I had this, I had this pillow. This was back in this is like 25 years ago. I had a pillow that was like really old. Cause you know, when you're a young dude in the Navy, you're not spending money on anything. So I had this pillow that was so old that it had become flattened. And it was sort of, it was probably like four inches thick, right?

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  But I, but I would, I would like take it when I was sleeping and like between my legs, like so my legs aren't like on each other sweating. Uh, I put it there, whatever. It just was like a, a little like, let's face it, it was a little bit of a lucky pillow. Well, I came home one day, that thing was gone. I probably had that pillow for 10 years, something like that. Kind of like this old futon, you know, back in the day. You weren't getting a bed. There wasn't no mattress firm. Or a place that was going to deliver me, you're just going to get, get a futon from a, you know, yard sale somewhere. So I had this pillow. She threw it away. And I still bring it up. Yeah, we, we laugh about it. I had a couple of tank tops.

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  You know, from, and they were old. They were like from bars overseas, kind of stained with Guinness and whatever, just gnarly old. But I had a lot of good memories in them. And some, one day I came home, those were gone.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  So now what do I have to do? Can I hold that grudge for, what's it been now? 28 years? Sure, I can hold it and we have fun with it. But imagine if you couldn't like truly forgive, if there's something, some offense, like I can forgive my wife that she threw away some of my prized possessions, which probably had a total accumulated value of like 20 bucks. But if you can't overcome that, if something happens to unforgivable, it's going to be problematic. And, and things are going to come up, man. They're going to come up. And so that's with relationships that you have, but then also with yourself, like if you, you're going to make mistakes in life. You're going to do things that. You shouldn't have done. And when that happens, you take ownership of them, of course.

• 8:44Jocko Willink?

  But just like I talk about when, uh, if someone close to you dies, like remember, don't dwell. You have to do the same thing with mistakes that you made. Remember, don't dwell. Yep. I made, I made that mistake. It was bad. Here are the consequences. Here, I'm not going to let it happen again, but I'm not going to dwell in the past and woe is me and I wish this never would have happened, et cetera.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Is that what forgiving yourself looks like to you? It's, it's like just not dwelling?

• 9:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think it's, I think it's understanding, just like when your kid does something stupid or your employee does something stupid, or your boss does something stupid. People are going to make mistakes, man. We're human. We're human. And, and by the way, it is extremely difficult to operate with people without, without forgiveness. Right? Because no one, no one goes through life without making mistakes. Your, your boss is going to make mistakes. If you can't forgive them and be like, oh, you know what? He had the best intent in mind. I get it. Or maybe, hey, he had a bad intent in mind and he got busted and now we all see it and he's

• 9:51Jocko Willink?

  asking for forgiveness or apologizing or owning it. And okay, cool. And that might take a little longer than an honest mistake. Like when someone has bad intent, much more difficult to forgive them, right? When someone is intentionally doing something that is wrong, it is not happening. Like it's going to be very difficult, much more difficult to forgive. But when someone makes a mistake, someone makes a mistake, you, you have to be able to say, okay, I get it. And, and not only that,

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  expectations, like if I put such high expectations on other people and they're, they're not meeting them, or even whatever expectations I put on them, you can't expect people. To always be perfect. And basically, a lot of times, like you, like you can't expect an A plus from people. A lot of times you got, you gotta expect kind of like a C, or maybe like a B minus. You know what I mean? And if you don't, if you, if everyone that gets a B minus, you, you can't work with and you can't deal with, it's going to be really difficult for you to go through life. It, it just is. It's going to be very difficult for you to be part of a team. It's going to be very difficult for you to understand that people have shortfalls. Like it's, people have shortfalls. You watch Peaky Blinders, right?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:07Jocko Willink?

  So, one of the interesting things about Peaky Blinders is, eh, eh, like you got the different characters in there. And you got Tommy and Tommy's, you know, pretty much making good calls and that he's like getting an A, right, for his making calls. But, bro, he's got like his brothers on heroin, his other brothers just like shooting people or getting in fights and, and his, like, eh, eh, like those other members of the family are doing things that are wrong and they're mistakes. Now, we could argue whether their intent is good or bad, but for the most part, they're just making mistakes. They're just making bad moves, bad calls, emotional calls. And Tommy's just kind of having to be like, oh, like, all right, you know? He's filled with forgiveness.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  Like he truly, like, eh, eh, he's forgiving his brothers on a daily basis for their shortfalls.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  It feels like there's a level of, all the things you're saying, right? Peaky Blinders included, there's like a level of understanding, I guess, where-

• 12:05Jocko Willink?

  Totally. You know, it's like, yeah, that's, that's, you know, that's, that's, that's what's his name? I, I can't remember the character's name right now, uh, but-

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Ar- Arthur?

• 12:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's Arthur. You know what I mean? Like, okay, you gotta go bail him out of jail again. And listen, at a certain point, uh, let's not get into the, let's not go down the road of enablement. But man, Arthur's kind of who Arthur is. You know, he is who he is. And at a certain point, you're like, eh, that's who he is. And what we have to do is set up an apparatus. That is enablement, right? If we're, and he tries to pull him out of it.

• 12:40Jocko Willink?

  And if you have someone that's got some self-destructive behavior like that, obviously you've got to draw the line. But, and, and part of forgiveness there, I think, is letting go. So if you want to go carry, you want to go down a self-destructive path, I'm going to do what I can to help you. Oh, you start drinking, you start doing meth, you start doing drugs, you start gambling, whatever that, whatever the vice grabs a hold of you. I'm going to do everything I can. Like, carry, bro, what are you doing? Like, let's stop this. Let's go, let's get you in rehab. I'm going to do all those things. And at a certain point, my forgiveness of you is going to be not just, just to kind of let it go. Hey, man, I did what I can do. You can't save everybody, by the way.

• 13:26Jocko Willink?

  And when, and the demon of vice, whether it's alcohol, whether it's gambling, whether it's drugs, whether it's, whatever vice someone grabs a hold of, that's a demon, man. In their heads, it's a demon. It's, you can't be overcome sometimes. So being able to say, yeah, the demon, the demon won. Like, if you got in a grappling match with Gordon Ryan, and you lost, I wouldn't be mad at you. I would think, hey, man, I wish you would have trained more, but you know, you lost to Gordon Ryan. If you lost the battle to alcohol, I'd be disappointed. I'd be bummed out. But I would, I would have to at some point go, that's the way, you know, he lost, he lost that battle.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  And I don't, I don't even know if this is right or wrong. At a certain point, that demon is stronger than you are. And I can, I can't actually, I can't get in the ring with you, right? Just like I can't, if you're, if you're grappling against Gordon Ryan, I can't, I can't get in the ring with you. I can't. I can't get on the mat with you. If you're grappling with alcoholism, or you're grappling with drug addiction, or you're grappling with gambling, or whatever that vice is,

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  I can stand on the side and coach you. I literally can. I can stand on the side and coach you, just like I can coach you against Gordon Ryan. But you got to do the work and you got to make it happen. And if you lose either one of those matches, I I at a at a certain part of my

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  mentality, my brain and my heart, I have to go. You got beat by the demon and I forgive him. I mean, I'm not going to give him money. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I can't afford to invest anything else with him, but I don't hold against him. I hope everything works out. And, and you know what's, it's the same thing. And we're talking about vices, but the same thing with, you know, when someone's got, when someone's got a big ego, it's like, yeah, you, you lost that battle, man. Right? It's a bummer. It's sad to see. I, I actually don't even hold it against you. Like if you get out of control with your ego and arrogance and you, you mess up your life, which happens more often than people think.

• 15:41Jocko Willink?

  Even then, I'm like, yeah, he lost that battle. You know, he lost that battle against that demon. I hope he, I hope he can reverse it, get a sweep, maybe get on top, maybe score some points. But I'm not even mad at that. So, which is a very critical jump in thought process because if you think about if you got your personality, right? And let's say you have a little bit of arrogance and so you do some, you do some things and you do some dumb things, you whatever little move you make and you take care of yourself and you don't think anyone can see, like you're doing these little things.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  I get it, man. You're up against a tough demon, man, that the ego is a tough demon and it's strong. And I hope over time we can get you to change. I hope you can see that, you know, you don't need to be that way. And maybe you even ruin our relationship. Maybe you do things and you, you screw me over and I'm like, okay, I guess, you know, Carrie can't really be around anymore.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  But even then, I'll be like, if a year later you come back and you're like, hey, dude, I was really messed up. I shouldn't have done that. And I'd be like, cool. Sounds like you got a sweep on the demon and now you're on top and we can be good again. So

• 16:53Jocko Willink?

  I think that, uh, forgiveness is just such a key component of, of.

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  Of going through life, of going through life. If you can't have forgiveness for yourself, if you can't have forgiveness for others, you can have that curse from this quote right here, that curse that you're trying to put on other people, it's gonna come back and get you.

• 17:19Jocko Willink?

  Check, next one. A clean glove often hides a dirty hand.

• 17:27Jocko Willink?

  You know, pretty straightforward. A deceitful peace is worse than an open war. Okay, it's definitely a good one to pay attention to. That's right up there with hold your friends close and your enemies closer, right? So having a, having a, a relationship that's based on lies, that's based on deceit, but we're still putting up a front that everything's cool. That, according to this proverb, is worse than just like, let's fight.

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  That's one thing that was nice about being in a platoon was generally speaking, it's too, it's too close contact that you can have this sort of deceitful peace. It, it's gonna come out like you, there's too much, there's too many friction points for a, for a friction point that's getting heated up to not set a fire. What's it like in the Marine Corps? Same thing?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, very similar. Uh, we use PT as an outlet for this all the time. You know, we, we work out zero five PT, you know, every day. And we, uh, framed it as training, right? McMap, uh, so Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. You know, we do a little.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  Framed it as training.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, we, you know, go back behind the shop. We sit, you know, do a little, uh, bullpen, uh, circle. Put the two people beefing in the center and back to back. And you say, go, and you gotta start from back to back and you make it happen from there.

• 18:53Jocko Willink?

  Let's get it.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  You know, and we exercise those demons, bro.

• 18:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Get it out of the system.

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's better than having, uh, you know, deceitful peace.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:05Jocko Willink?

  Now, does this mean you go open war on everybody? No, that's not what we're saying. And by the way, you, you, so many of these little moments of like, uh, always tell people the truth. You know, I know there's been people saying you never lie about anything. Jordan Peterson was like hard on this and people would ask me about this kind of thing. And I was like, yeah, but start with yourself. Start with yourself.

• 19:31Jocko Willink?

  If you're going to tell the truth to, you know, if I want to tell you the truth about something, I need to start by telling myself the truth. So if you're doing something that I don't like, the truth is there's something wrong with me. The truth is I'm letting something bother me. The truth is I haven't, uh, given you the guidance. Truth is I haven't explained things to you properly. So start with yourself. Start, if you want to start an open war, start that open war with yourself. That's where it begins.

• 19:59Jocko Willink?

  Next one. A few vices darken many virtues. This is in the military, they have a, a saying. I believe it's one aw shit can cancel out a hundred atta boys.

• 20:14Jocko Willink?

  If you make one mistake, it's like, it's all thrown out. And here you've got someone that's got a really good, lots of good things going on, lots of good virtues, but they got that vice. Or a couple of little vices and that darkens everything. So be careful. Next one, after one vice, a greater follows. That's like the gateway vice, right? The gateway drug.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Slippery slope.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  The slippery slope. Who was it?

• 20:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think of, I, we had, I think it might've been Chad Robishow was on the show and he was talking about, um, getting people that were like drug dealers. And how, if you find a person, like they were looking for human traffickers. And how do you find a human trafficker? Well, you just start with someone that's selling drugs because if they're selling drugs, then they're smuggling drugs. If they're smuggling drugs, then they're smuggling more drugs. If they're smuggling more drugs, then they're smuggling people and they're selling people and they just don't care. So, and it's not, it's not 10 out of 10, but it's like eight out of 10 or seven out of 10. If you're willing to get on that slippery slope, eight out of 10, you're going all the way down. So be careful with that little action that you take.

• 21:28Jocko Willink?

  That little action that you take that might not seem that bad. And I'll tell you what, especially these days, I done, you know, I work with law enforcement a decent amount. And you start looking at the numbers of fentanyl overdoses. Again, I'm just taking like a tangential turn here, but whereas when you were a kid, Carrie, you could go out and try some ecstasy or whatever. And whatever, like all good, you know, you're at work on Monday morning. Or you're back at school Monday morning. These days, you go out and try some ecstasy, which is supposed to be a little fun night drug. And next thing you know, you're, you're ODing from fentanyl. So

• 22:07Jocko Willink?

  that's an involuntary escalation of vices that you're going to get. So kids out there, don't do it. Don't do it.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  You, you said something the other day, you were like, we were talking about stuff that was going on and you were like, I don't accept that. And that was such a powerful thing, you know, it was just something when I, when I heard it, I was like, damn, like I need to, I need to start saying that to myself about some things, you know, where it's like, no, you know, there, I don't accept that. There's no next step down the slippery slope.

• 22:36Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Just negative, keep moving.

• 22:38Jocko Willink?

  You know, I actually, I need to keep this, I was thinking about, um, occasionally I'll get asked, you know, what views have you, what views have changed for you? And I'm normally like, well, not really many. I, I don't really know any because guess what? What, what view, what, how did your view change on leadership? Well, it's cover, move simple, prioritize, next you decentralize command, take ownership of things like that really hasn't changed. But one thing that if you listen to the past 10 years of the podcast, in the beginning of the podcast, when people would ask about alcohol, I'd be like, well, you know, there's a bonding and it's okay. And it's like, uh, you do some stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I was somewhat forgiving.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the forgiveness, somewhat forgiving of alcohol. And now I just have no forgiveness. I'm, I have nothing good to say about it. And I believe it is just a hundred percent bad, a hundred percent bad. If you listen to early podcasts, I probably sounded like alcohol was fifty percent bad or sixty percent bad.

• 23:39Jocko Willink?

  But now I, now I think it's one hundred percent bad. There's nothing good is going to come from it. That's one vice that's going to lead to others. You're not getting rolled up at two o'clock in the morning. Uh, for a fight sober is not happening. It's not happening. So let's keep that in mind.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  Next one, a fool's tongue is long enough to cut his own throat.

• 24:08Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, let them run their mouths. That's another thing you know, I get asked of, of, you know, how do I get people to listen to me? But also, you know, I got this person that loves to talk so much. Well, let him talk. Let him talk, but keep going and eventually they'll be quiet.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  A grinning face often hides a foul heart.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  Good little heads up there.

• 24:36Jocko Willink?

  A headstrong man and a fool may wear the same cap.

• 24:43Jocko Willink?

  By the way, there's some older language in this and there's, you're going to find there's a lot of the word fool. So keep that one in mind. You're just going to be hearing a lot of fool. But isn't it interesting? A headstrong man and a fool may wear the same cap. What are we talking about here? We're talking about being so stuck in your ways and so set on your own idea that you're acting like a fool.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  But I'm determined. Nope. You're, you're, I'm just a stubborn, I just have a, I just have a strong personality. That's a great one, right? I was one of these people got a strong personality. Oh, so you're an idiot. So you're a fool.

• 25:19Jocko Willink?

  If it's really, you know, this goes, uh, the, the explanation effort meter. If how hard is it for me to explain my idea at a certain point, if it's so hard to explain to you, Carrie, why we should do things a certain way, or why should we go to this place, or why we should do this thing? If it's that hard for me to explain, maybe I should check myself. Maybe I'm just being stubborn. Maybe I should not be a fool.

• 25:47Jocko Willink?

  Uh, all players cannot win.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  Important thing to think about. All players cannot win. And I think it's the most important thing to think about here is how often are you the player that's not going to win? If you're me, it's quite a bit. I was, I wasn't winning much, you know? It's, if we think we're going to win every single time, we're going to have problems. All players cannot win. And sometimes you're going to get bested by someone else and that's frustrating. I was talking to a kid the other day about winning and losing and it was actually a female. And I said, well, do you like winning more or do you hate losing? And immediate response, I hate losing. Immediate response.

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  Which is a drive, you know, some people are driven by that. You know, Michael Jordan, you hear these stories and if you watch The Last Dance, you watch The Last Dance, right?

• 26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like someone beats him in some freaking card game and he would let it fester inside of him.

• 27:01Jocko Willink?

  But, and that's cool. If you're going to use that to drive, but you know, every game in life is not just a game. There's real things in life where you, you sometimes are going to lose. All players cannot win. And I think it's important to recognize that. Recognize that all players cannot win. Look, try hard to win. It's kind of like the, uh, winning at all costs statement that I did a few years ago. And boy, we suckered in a lot of people with that one. And Echo made it into a whole video and he set it up real nice. It was me saying, you know, we have to win at all costs. And that was the big hook, as you guys in the media world say, right?

• 27:44Jocko Willink?

  Me saying, you gotta win at all costs. And people were like, yeah, that's right. But then you go into the video and into the statement that I was making was what that means is win at all costs, what that means you have to compromise. You have to make exceptions. You have to, you have to take a different path than you originally thought you were gonna take. You have to open your mind. You have to change your own perception of the world sometimes.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Those are the actual costs.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  Those are the costs. Yeah. Yeah. The cost means, oh yeah, I'm actually gonna not get credit for this thing. Oh, that's winning at all costs? Yes, it is. That's all cost. The cost is I get no credit for, for the victory. How's that for a great cost? Some people can't handle that.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Heavy cost.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  Some people can't handle that cost. They'd rather lose. Their ego would rather lose than not get credit for the victory. It's freaking ridiculous. So important thing to keep in mind. All players cannot win and you might be that player that's not gonna win this time.

• 28:46Jocko Willink?

  Here's one for you. Ambition breaks the ties of blood.

• 28:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay. You see what I'm saying here? Ambition breaks the ties of blood.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Our ego, our ambition, we can get so wrapped up in trying to win that we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll screw over our family for that.

• 29:13Jocko Willink?

  That's wild. That's wild. It happens. Very disturbing that it happens. But it happens that people become so possessed with, with that idea.

• 29:29Jocko Willink?

  That they can screw over their friends and family. So keep, why is that important to remember? Well, number one, you need to check yourself because you need to make sure you're not doing that. And number two, recognize that other people might do that because it seems so foreign, right? You got your bro. And you think there, there's no way they would do something against me. And yet they can. So use caution, ambition can break the ties of blood. Anger manages everything badly. We know that one, all too true. Anger manages everything badly, 100%.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  Don't, we don't make good decisions when we're pissed.

• 30:19Jocko Willink?

  An envious man is a squint eyed fool.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that interesting? When you're envious and you're looking at someone that's with a squinty eyes seeing what someone else has that you want. You're a fool. You're a fool. Don't let that happen.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  An occasion lost cannot be redeemed.

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  A real, a basic form of this one. I don't know if you've ever heard me say this before, but uh, if you miss a workout, you can never get it back. Is that why you were smiling immediately? Like if you miss a workout, you can never get it back. This goes back, uh, my very first SEAL platoon. My, my LPO, my leading petty officer. He would say, always go out. And the way he meant it was always go out to the bar. Straight up, this was back in the day, bro. Like there was people, there was some, there were some alcohol being drank back then, unfortunately. Myself included, but you always go out like we'd get, we'd fly somewhere and you'd get a, a layover somewhere.

• 31:30Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you think, oh, I'll go hit the gym. Nope. Well, go, go out, always go out. Well, I, in my mind, as a young kid, I turned that into always go out, like always go, always go do the thing. And that became a pretty, a pretty solid mantra. Always go out. Cause listen, you don't always need to go out and you got a chance to go do some training. Obviously an operation, that's a no brainer. Like if there's an operation going, we're going. Like I'm on that thing. I'm not gonna be like, well, I'm not sure. No, we're going. That's what we're doing. Um, because an occasion loss cannot be redeemed. You can't get it back. You can't get it back.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  What's that tendency we have? Like, what is that tendency where it's like, oh, I can make it up tomorrow or whatever?

• 32:21Jocko Willink?

  I would say laziness and/or fear. So laziness is like, well, you know, I can do it tomorrow. Fear is like, I don't know if I should do this today. So it's one of those two things. And going back to the movie Soldier, which I know, which I know you appreciate. Who's that guy that stars in that?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Kurt Russell.

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  Kurt Russell. What a underrated movie. And to be quite honest with you, as a, I, that movie didn't come out until later in my life, but that's kind of the way I envisioned myself as a child, right? And in that movie, the, the woman, he, he's a soldier of the future who just has one job and that's to fight wars. And he gets abandoned on this, on this other planet where there's sort of people living there and he develops a relationship with his family. And the woman one time asks him, you know, it, do, do you feel anything? And he says, yes. She's like, what, what do you, what do you feel? He says, fear and discipline.

• 33:29Jocko Willink?

  The reason I say that is because there's two things that can make you not go. Fear and laziness. What overcomes both of those things? Discipline all day long. So whether it's lazy, it's overcome by discipline, or it's fear overcome by discipline. Now hopefully you feel more fear than laziness, but either one of them got the same answer. On the backside, discipline all day.

• 33:55Jocko Willink?

  Next one arrogance is the obstruction of wisdom. Yeah, check. If you already think you know everything, you don't need to hear, you don't need any information from anybody else. And so you're not going to get any smarter. And boy, isn't it crazy that you can be 30, 40, 50 years old and still be in that zone? Look, I get it. You're 18, you're 15, brah. You think you know everything? Cool. I get it. But by the time you're 30 or 32, you might wanna, you might wanna open up your mind a little bit and put your ego in check. Or you're not gonna learn anything.

• 34:31Jocko Willink?

  Next, base gains are the same as losses.

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  What does that mean? Well, there's the whole, there's the whole term base. Are you familiar with that term? No. So base i- in the way, language, the old, the old version of this word was like kind of bad. Evil base. It's when you read Shakespeare, it's like base thoughts will bring you. So, so it's, it's negative. And borderline evil. It's not quite evil. And I would say it's sort of, uh, base would almost relate to our animalistic nature. I should have looked that one up. But if you use your sort of animalistic or

• 35:18Jocko Willink?

  brushing up against evil nature to achieve something, it's the same as a loss. Check. So when you cheat and you win, it's the same as a loss. So be, and that's the same with anything in life, right? We're stealing something. It's not really a gain. It's a loss. You're cheating. It's not a gain. It's a loss.

• 35:41Jocko Willink?

  Next one, bad eyes never see any good.

• 35:46Jocko Willink?

  What kind of lens, something I've been talking about a decent amount lately? What kind of lens are you looking at the world through? The, the thing that, the thing that's interesting about this is.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  People, we don't even understand that we have a lens on. We don't even understand the biases that we see the world through. And so if you are looking at the world through a negative lens, it's kind of funny right now, there's a lot of political things going on. And it's, it's very interesting to watch people that would be cheering for one thing, six months ago are now cheering for the opposite thing. And people that were cheering for the opposite are now cheering for something different.

• 36:28Jocko Willink?

  Anything that Trump does is bad. Anything that, you know, boom, like that's it. Doesn't matter what he's doing, it's bad. So if that's the way you see it, that's the way you see it. Or anything that Trump does is good. And it doesn't matter what he's doing, if he's doing something that's good. And that's the way you see it. So just be careful.

• 36:51Jocko Willink?

  No one's perfect. They're gonna make some mistakes. Elon Musk, everything he's doing is great or everything he's doing is bad. No, it's actually, he's a human. Apparently.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Allegedly.

• 37:03Jocko Willink?

  He's a human. And so he's, is he gonna make some mistakes? Yeah, of course he is. Is he gonna do everything perfect? Of course he's not. But depending on the eyes that you're viewing the world through, can really screw your vision up really bad.

• 37:18Jocko Willink?

  So be careful of that. Big heads have big aches. Big heads have big aches. Couple of different ways to take that one. I mean, I guess you could go with the ego thing, right? You know, if you've got a big head, you've got big aches. The other way to take that is

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  the more aware you are of what's happening in the world, the more pain you're gonna feel.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  That's another reality.

• 37:47Jocko Willink?

  Cats hide their claws.

• 37:54Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 37:56Jocko Willink?

  They're all soft and they purr and they snuggle up to you and then they scratch your eyes out.

• 38:05Jocko Willink?

  Covetness, covet, covetousness brings nothing home. Going back to the jealousy thing, you're gonna see some themes here. That's one of the themes. Being jealous of people coveting of what they have is not going to bring anything home. Go get to work. Dude, you like, you like the car that that person has and it makes you mad, it makes you jealous? Go get to work and you can buy the car. It's my recommendation. The jealousy and the envy isn't going to bring anything home. It's not going to get you a new car.

• 38:33Jocko Willink?

  Cowards die many times before their deaths.

• 38:40Jocko Willink?

  Reality.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  Corruption of the but, of the best becomes the worst. Corruption of the best becomes the worst. So when the good people get corrupted, man, you gotta watch out. It's gonna get ugly.

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  Cowards like adders coil and hiss. Oh yeah, the loud mouth. Out at the bar, right? That loud mouth, he's scared. It's a good, it's a good lesson to teach kids. Is that the person that is talking a bunch and you know, uh, being a bully, generally that's because they're a coward.

• 39:21Jocko Willink?

  So keep that in mind. Crimes generally punish themselves. There's, there's a, an underlying theme in this of fate.

• 39:33Jocko Willink?

  Like if you're doing bad things, you're gonna get, you're gonna get hung up eventually. I like that. I, I believe that to be true as well. That's why I say if you do the right things for the right reasons, you're gonna win in the end. Well, if you're doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons, you're gonna lose in the end. Totally believe that. I've seen it over and over again. Now, can the loss come at a heightened state? Like after you've achieved a lot? Yeah, I can. By the way, you can achieve a lot and still have a miserable life.

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  Because everything you've created is a lie. You can do that. That won't be good.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Plus, this one takes time and nobody wants to wait.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  I didn't really get this until I was a little older, you know, you have to be able to.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  Example.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Well, you just, you just have to see some of this stuff play out, right?

• 40:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  And it may take years where this dude screws you over, you know, and it's, it's high road or low road. And you choose the high road because, hey, what, what's the low road going to get you other than that little immediate thing, right? And then, but over the, if you believe that and you take that high road and you wait year, two years, it happens. Every time it happens.

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  Yep. That's true. That's the truth. You see that with careerists in the military. Like someone that's just trying to get the next rank and they're doing the thing and they're kissing up and they're trying to grab the credit. They, they, they get promoted, bro, for sure. But man, they develop that reputation. Eventually that reputation catches up with them. So crimes generally punish themselves. Debt is the prolific mother of folly and crime.

• 41:10Jocko Willink?

  What a good one.

• 41:13Jocko Willink?

  You do not need, you do not need the 2025 brand new Cadillac Escalade. You don't need it, dude. You are much better off buying a 19, or no, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. 2017 Dodge Grand Caravan.

• 41:36Jocko Willink?

  You're better off than you are going into debt to get that Cadillac. That's the move. And when people go into debt, they start to freaking panic. And that's when, that's when folly, meaning dumb decisions or even crime. Bro, there was a, a seal that got rolled up for smuggling weapons. And I, I forget the details of the case, but he smuggled a bunch of weapons out of Iraq or Afghanistan and sold them in America. And he netted like, I don't know what it was, like 30 or 40 grand.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  And got rolled up and got, and went to prison for 15 years or something like that. For 30 or 40 grand.

• 42:30Jocko Willink?

  It's just like when people start getting behind, man, they do dumb shit. So do your best not to get yourself in a position where you're where the world has leverage on you.

• 42:43Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to be in that situation. You ever go buy a car that you really wanted? Have you ever done that before?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:52Jocko Willink?

  You are at such a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation. You need to be able to walk in to buy the car that you don't even really want this car. In fact, party should be like, I shouldn't even buy this car. I don't even want this car. And go negotiate, then you're gonna be do much better job with negotiation.

• 43:08Jocko Willink?

  When you're not, when you're, when you really want that thing, you get jacked. Well, when you get in debt, now all of a sudden you really need to get out of debt. And you start doing dumb things, start making emotional decisions.

• 43:22Jocko Willink?

  Next deceit and treachery make no man rich.

• 43:29Jocko Willink?

  Now you could argue that one a little bit, right?

• 43:33Jocko Willink?

  First of all, we have to look at what, what do we mean by rich? As our brother Bob Marley said, you ever seen that clip before? Oh, it's classic, right? What you mean wealthy?

• 43:44Jocko Willink?

  He's like, are you a wealthy man? What do you mean wealthy? You mean money? Maybe not. You mean friends? You mean joy? Yeah, very wealthy. So with that definition, I think we're all day. Now, do you see some people get rich while they're doing deceitful things? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Story never ends there, though, but the story doesn't end. Punishment takes some time. It'll get there. Bottom line deceit and treachery are not going to work out well in the long run. Make a little short term, but you might get some money in the wallet. Where are you gonna be in the long run, though?

• 44:17Jocko Willink?

  Deadly poisons are often concealed under the sweetest honey.

• 44:26Jocko Willink?

  Debt is the worst kind of poverty. Again, it's one thing to be broke, but it's another thing to owe.

• 44:33Jocko Willink?

  Another thing to owe. So be careful. 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan, man. All day. I'll always be thankful to that 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. Cause I drove it for 13 years. And I owned that thing. And boy, what a great piece of leverage that is on the world. Just be like, oh yeah, it doesn't matter. I'm all good over here. I don't care who sees me driving this thing. You know?

• 45:01Jocko Willink?

  I was definitely one of the top, probably the top five toughest guys in the world driving a minivan.

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  Don't, but debt is the worst kind of poverty. Now, do you have to buy a house? Yep. Do you have to get a 30 year mortgage? Yep. Do you want to, is that acceptable? Yeah. Especially if you get a good rate right now. The rates aren't great. But you get that nice three or four percent rate, maybe even a 2.25. You probably won't see those again. But is it okay to go into debt? You're going to buy a house? You're going to live in that house for a long time? Yes. It's understandable. That's not the kind of debt we're talking about. The kind of debt we're talking about is a 2025 Cadillac Escalade. That you cannot afford.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  So be careful. Envy is the rottenness of the bones. So good. Envy shoots and others. Envy shoots at others and wounds itself.

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. So basically before those last two, being jealous and being envious are not going to be healthy for you.

• 46:13Jocko Willink?

  It's, and the more jealous you are, the more it's going to, it's more it's going to wreck you. I've seen it wreck people before. I've seen that just eat people up, man. So be very cautious.

• 46:25Jocko Willink?

  You kind of, sometimes you might have to impose it on yourself a little bit. Cause it's very natural for your ego to be jealous and envious. And sometimes you're going to be like, lock it up, man. That person achieved something. I'll hear, I'll hear somebody make a quip about someone being successful.

• 46:43Jocko Willink?

  And I'll say, good for him, man. That's awesome. Don't you think that's kind of awesome?

• 46:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, I gotta put myself in check sometimes like, why does that person get, oh yeah, it's because they worked hard.

• 46:58Jocko Willink?

  They just got lucky. Oh, did they just get lucky? They just happen to wake up and build this little empire that they got, or put that product together, or get that thing out there, or whatever. You just happen to do that? That was his luck? No, dude, you don't know what they did.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  It's sticky too, but like people, it leads to this obsessive thing. That's when it gets real nasty, right?

• 47:18Jocko Willink?

  Like, what do you mean?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  When envy turns into this obsessive, can't take your eyes off it, constant, you know, constant hating. That's where it gets dark.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's nothing better to represent that than the story I tell about Seth where Seth, I bought this new house. And it was like, it was a rundown crappy house, but it was in a prime location. If you surf, we surf. And I had a couple people that I know, friends, we'll say, that had seen the house I was gonna get and come by the house as we were, you know, like, setting it up. We hadn't closed on it yet. And we're kind of like, oh, you know, they pointed out a bunch of problems with it. Of course, all kinds of problems, you know.

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  And I hadn't told Seth, I told him I was getting a new house, but I hadn't told him where it was because I didn't want to jinx it. So finally I get the keys to the house and I go, hey, bro. And this was in the early days of texting, right? Not that early, but this is 2012. I sent him a text like, hey, bro, I got the keys. Meet me at the new house. He's like, send the location. I sent him the address and he was like, yo. And he showed up and walked in and was like, bro, we're set. Bro, we are set. And he was totally stoked, totally stoked. No envy, no jealousy, just freaking stoked for his bro that got a kick ass location.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  That's our location.

• 48:53Jocko Willink?

  That's our location. Well, that's where he was at, man. It's like, and I'm not kidding, an hour later, he showed up the house with surfboards for storage on the location. So that's what we're doing. Don't let the envy, don't let the jealousy rot your bones. Next one, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. And by the way, look, we can say that about our country, right? But let's not forget about ourselves. That's another way of saying discipline equals freedom. Right? It's another way of saying it. You want to keep that freedom, man, you gotta stay vigilant. You gotta not let things. Thing that I like about the term vigilance is that you gotta stay vigilant so you don't get surprised.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  Look, you get catastrophically hit with something that we know that. What happens is those little things. Those little creepers that start taking away your freedom a little bit at a time. One donut at a time. It's going away. Gotta be careful.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  Evil doing costs more than doing well.

• 49:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Those little shortcuts you think you can take? That are gonna save you some time, save you some money, they ain't.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  Evil often triumphs but never conquers. Again, this is like a short term win. Doing something that's that's not 100%. Short term win, long term loser.

• 50:22Jocko Willink?

  Evil minds change good to their own nature.

• 50:28Jocko Willink?

  And there's another theme in here from these things.

• 50:33Jocko Willink?

  And what I like, this is like goes back to the lens thing like if I'm, if I'm evil and you're doing something, I'm looking for why the evil reason that you're doing it. So I, I look around the world and I change things to fit my own narrative. Cause I'm a bad person. And that happens too often.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  Evil conduct is the root of misery. Sure. You're doing bad things. It's gonna be, it's gonna, it's gonna catch up with you.

• 51:04Jocko Willink?

  External sheep, internal wolf.

• 51:10Jocko Willink?

  As you can see, I, it's one of the few that I highlighted, right? External sheep, internal wolf. This is

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  a- another tangential connection to this is discipline.

• 51:28Jocko Willink?

  And, and no compromise. And no mercy. All those things, which I say a lot, I, I only say them about myself. Right? I'm not going to compromise with myself. I'm, I'm going to impose discipline on myself.

• 51:49Jocko Willink?

  And the way you carry yourself.

• 51:54Jocko Willink?

  Externally, like a sheep, internally like a wolf. Now, in this day and age, there's a lot of people that carry themselves like wolves. Right? There's like a lot of people that, that, uh, what did Craig Jones, Craig Jones had a great little clip that, that I saw, of course. But he was talking about videos. He was talking about videos of apex predator animals and Navy SEALs and ice baths. And basically it was a bunch of people externally acting as the wolf. And he was, uh, making fun of that, rightfully so.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  So what this is saying is, you know, be cool.

• 52:43Jocko Willink?

  Be quiet and carry a big stick, right? Externally sheep, internally wolf. You ever, you ever approached someone or been, uh, confronted by someone and you said to yourself, oh, this person's, this person looked like a, a sheep and I can see now that they're actually a wolf.

• 53:03Jocko Willink?

  That happens.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, in jujitsu, when you tie up with someone, you immediately know what is happening. Even if the person is, you know, like Jeff Glover, 150 pounds. When you tie up with him, if you didn't know anything about this dude, but you knew jujitsu, you would tie up with him and you'd go, oh, there's something going on here. External sheep, internal wolf.

• 53:30Jocko Willink?

  That's how it is. That's how it should be. Same thing when you get some of this big jack dude just freaking walking around like the alpha. And you tie up with him, you're like, dude, ain't happening. Ain't happening. Now, it's hard to do that on the regular in jujitsu. Like, cause you can be a big, tough, alpha acting dude, and you can't get away with that for more than a couple of days on the mats before you go, I thought I was alpha, I'm not.

• 53:55Jocko Willink?

  Externally sheep, internally wolf. Next one, falsehood is cowardice, truth is courage. Tell the truth about what's going on.

• 54:07Jocko Willink?

  False in one thing, false in everything.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  Little, that's very similar to that. Have you ever heard the expression, the way you do anything is the way you do everything? Very similar, right? Very similar.

• 54:25Jocko Willink?

  And that's a good thing to keep in mind for the little things that you have to do on a daily basis. Just the little things. And it's a good thing to keep in mind when you're dealing with someone else and you start to see things that are not in line with what we're doing. Because if they're false in one thing, it's a reasonable assumption to make that they could be false in other things. Maybe not everything, but at least other things. Some of these, uh, some of these proverbs are extreme. Meaning everything or nothing. And I'm not, I'm not an everything or nothing kind of guy. So even this one, false in one thing, false in everything?

• 55:09Jocko Willink?

  I'd be more like, false in one thing could be strong possibility, false in some other things. So definitely true. Maybe it's not to the extreme that you're false in everything.

• 55:23Jocko Willink?

  Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Yeah, no doubt about that.

• 55:31Jocko Willink?

  Fortune makes a fool of him who whom she favors too much.

• 55:39Jocko Willink?

  Fortune makes a fool of him whom she favors too much. So you get lucky once and you start counting on that luck. You gotta be careful. You got lucky once, bro. Don't think you're gonna get lucky every time. It ain't happening. My uncle was a car salesman and he had a small car lot where he sold used cars. He's retired now, but he had his own little car lot, you know, probably had 10 to 15 vehicles for sale at any time. And he had some buddies that he was friends with and that kind of hung around the car lot with him. And one of his friends won the lottery back in the eighties and won.

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what the number is, but what the way they do the lottery, if you win the lottery, they take that whole bunch of money and maybe sometimes I think you can choose a lump sum or you can choose to get paid out over time. I think the lump sum is a little less anyways, this this individual chose to take the payment over time. And it was something like 20 years, maybe even 30 years, but it was 30 years and it calculated out to like, I don't know, 30 grand, 40 grand a year. So he'd won millions of dollars. And he had won it in his early twenties and do don't quote me on the details of this, but I'm giving you the, the, the,

• 57:04Jocko Willink?

  the overall concept of the story. The dude had won millions of dollars, paid out over time. It ended up being 30, 40 grand a year. And so he didn't really ever have to work. And he just lived off this money. And what he did was he hung out with my uncle a lot on the car lot and hung around. And, you know, whatever. And so my dad was down there. And went to the car lot and was, you know, saying hi and whatever. And, um, the guy was there. And he was like, well, you know, this, this is my last year of getting the money.

• 57:45Jocko Willink?

  And next year I won't be getting my, my checks. I won't get my check for winning the lottery. And my dad said, well, what are you gonna do when the check stops coming in? And the guy says, I'm gonna win again.

• 57:58Jocko Willink?

  So just be careful, right? You get lucky once, you may not, may or may not get lucky again. And if you think you're gonna get lucky and you count on luck, we can't count on luck. Fortune makes a fool of him whom she favors too much.

• 58:16Jocko Willink?

  Next one, force can never destroy right.

• 58:22Jocko Willink?

  Check. Now, what you gotta be careful of is force can impose itself for a, for a prolonged period of time.

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  And that can be problematic. If you look at some of these countries that have been ruled by tyrannical leaders. Those tyrannical leaders aren't right, but they can stay in power for a long time. North Korea is an example. So it's not right, but they're just being imposed. Can't destroy it, but dude, you can, you can suffer for a long time. From fame to infamy is a beaten road.

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. From fame to infamy is a beaten road. Meaning there's plenty of ways to, there's plenty of ways downhill. And it's a lot easier to go downhill than it is to keep going uphill. So use caution.

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  Gambling is an express train to ruin. Okay. Fair enough.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Careful.

• 59:25Jocko Willink?

  Gambling. Do you ever gamble?

• 59:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:29Jocko Willink?

  You used to roll, didn't you used to roll to Vegas a decent amount?

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was work. I was going to trade shows.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  You never got out there on the blackjack table? Just got it on?

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Occasionally, but very rarely. I, I don't like the idea of the chips being pulled away. I don't like that, man. I, I don't like losing money. It bothers me. Um, and, and gambling is just, it goes too quick. I'm never been a fan.

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've, I've gambled plenty, but never had the pull, you know? Never had the big pull for it. You know what's weird is you ever heard somebody say, I have an addictive personality? And, and. I think I I said that for a while, probably when I was like thirty, twenty five to thirty. The call I have an addictive personality. It's almost like a little humble brag, isn't it? You think it's a humble brag?

• 1:00:18Jocko Willink?

  I have an addictive personality.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  It feels more like it has a negative connotation to me.

• 1:00:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Personally, you know, but that's probably because I'm kind of one of those people.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  You legit have an addictive personality. Yeah, I guess I guess you and I see it differently because I was would hear people be like, oh, you know, I've got an addictive personality. It was almost like a humble brag. And I and I think I used to do that. I used to do like the humble brag of like, oh, I got an addictive personality that could go good, just get so into stuff. But I realized probably ten years ago, I actually don't have an addictive personality. I don't think. I don't get addicted to things. Gambling is one of those things where I could do it, have fun, go to Vegas, go to Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe, by the way, good times. Go to South Lake and gamble the whole time for seventy two straight hours, by the way, because we're not sleeping when we're in South Lake as a young single SEAL. Hey, it happened.

• 1:01:10Jocko Willink?

  So gamble the whole time and just leave, won money, lost money, doesn't really matter. And still be like, whether I ever gambled again or not, didn't really care. So and and drinking was like that for me as well, was like, oh, we're going to party this whole weekend. And and then on Tuesday at work, I'd be like, you know, some guys be like, who need another drink? And be like, oh, I'm fine. So I didn't really have that addictive personality. Now you're a little bit different.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Little bit different.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Well, more more practically, though, I think is is is just easy for me to like, come upon something and like incorporate it into the thing, right? Just into what we're doing. And

• 1:01:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, you just made that sound so innocent, like just incorporating the thing into what we're doing. Yeah, you're like, yo, I could see how you rationalize that.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Well, that's that's like nowadays, even still, like practically, right? So I used to used to drink. It was a problem. Don't drink anymore. Haven't drank for a long time, right? But

• 1:02:12Jocko Willink?

  How many years you not drank for?

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  It'll be fifteen this month.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  And that was cold turkey scenario.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  That was cold turkey scenario.

• 1:02:20Jocko Willink?

  How was that?

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Ca- caveat, though. I was physically separated from any opportunity to drink alcohol for a period of time.

• 1:02:29Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  In which, but after that, I kept it going.

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  And how was the withdrawals?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Uh, pretty, pretty bad, you know, for the, that first period of time, first couple of weeks, because I was a everyday drinker. You know, it was just an everyday thing. Um, and I was hung over.

• 1:02:45Jocko Willink?

  Did you think in the state of drinking every day, did you think you had a problem? Or were you just like, dude, this is just how I roll. I don't have a problem. Look at that loser over there.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  Can't even handle their booze. I'm over here GTG.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Just lies.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Well, I thought I drank as much as any other kid my age, because I, I quit drinking when I was 23. So when I was 21, 22 years old, I'm getting after it every night. I thought so is everybody else, you know, I'm, I'm a 22 year old kid drinking. We all do this, you know? Uh, so I didn't think of it as a problem. Was it creating problems? Freaking catastrophic issues in my life? Yeah. But at the same time, I, you know, it's real easy to be like, uh, just bad luck, you know, whatever. You, you try not to make the connections in your mind between all the dots, you know?

• 1:03:33Jocko Willink?

  Mental jujitsu.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Straight up, straight up, just rationalization, justification, all that stuff, especially my brain is pretty strong.

• 1:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, when you, do you feel like you get addicted to other little things? Like sometimes people go from being alcoholic, they become like a marathon runner. They become a, a workout fiend. They become a video game. What? Did you, did you have another outlet or did you find another outlet?

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, hundred percent.

• 1:03:59Jocko Willink?

  Next outlet?

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Uh, so I, I definitely like threw myself into, I, I started getting addicted to like the endeavors, like the things I was doing, right? So, uh, I started doing school, then working a job, then working a weekend job. You know, for eight, 10 years, I had three jobs essentially.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  Was that a conscious, like, I'm just going to make myself busy or was that just your brain going, I need to, this is what, this is what I'm, this is what I'm doing. This is what feels good?

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  A bit of both, but honestly, I felt like I needed to make up for lost time. Like I felt like I was way behind the pack. And I needed to do more to get back to where I needed to be, but also being, just being engaged in those things was, was helpful, helpful for me, especially like early on after not drinking, uh, instead of. You know, uh, being at the bar and partying, I was working the door, you know, as security or whatever. Uh, and then

• 1:04:56Jocko Willink?

  So you were still around booze?

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Jocko Willink?

  Even after you quit?

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was, it was tough in the beginning, uh, but after that, there was this point where I kind of started defining myself as a person who didn't drink. It, it became something I was very proud of.

• 1:05:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  And it was like, you know what? I, I don't, I don't do that. So it's almost like I started looking at alcohol as a, a commodity. It wasn't even alcohol anymore. It was a thing that I was around that you paid for, you know, and it wasn't like something I was thinking about or interested in like, you know, partaking in or.

• 1:05:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, that attitude of it being weak. Cause when I was a young kid and I was like straight edge and we were getting after it, it was, it was kind of empowering, right? To be like, dude, you're weak and you don't have control. And it was, it made me feel good, right? Uh, and then unfortunately, when I got in the SEAL teams, I was like, oh, that's okay. That's what we're doing. And I got on board with that, which is again, it's unfortunate. It's me being a young, uh, weak minded myself. Because when I was a young 15 year old and I was a hardcore kid and straight edge was the thing that we were doing and people that weren't doing it were

• 1:06:15Jocko Willink?

  weak and lame and stupid. And then I got in the SEAL teams and it was like, okay. And now I'm a little bit older and it's like, okay, well, you know, this is what the, this is what the frog men are doing. And unfortunately it was like, okay, this is what we're doing. And bad move. But the idea, which I'm back to now, which is like, oh yeah. As I said earlier, it's like a hundred percent bad. Alcohol is a hundred percent bad. Drugs are a hundred percent bad. Now look, I, maybe the psychedelic stuff, which I've never tried, I've never done any drugs before, but. So I, like I said earlier, I can't sit here and say like, all bad. Look, I know the psychedelic

• 1:06:56Jocko Willink?

  things have helped some of my friends out a lot. So the retreat, the whatever, the voyage that they go on and all that stuff. But for a normal human that is going to day to day life and is using drugs in their day to life, like you go and do some ayahuasca voyage to heal up your brain. Okay, I'm not, I'm not pro or con that. I just know the fact that it's helped some friends. I also know it's made some other people messed up. So I'm not an authority and I don't have enough knowledge to speak about it. What I can tell you is this, if you're doing some kind of drugs, alcohol on a day to day basis, it's not good for you. It ain't good for you. And in this day and age, if you're thinking about doing drugs and you're a 15 year old kid, uh, you're wrong. And you're doing something

• 1:07:41Jocko Willink?

  stupid. You're doing something that can get you killed, but never mind get you killed. Like, what do you want to do with your life? These drugs aren't going to help you. They may seem cool at the time, but what you do need to do is take the attitude that Kerry just talked about, the attitude that I just talked about, which is like, oh, if you're doing drugs, you're weak. You're dumb. You're putting your life at risk. You're putting your potential at risk. So don't do it. That's what we're saying. That's what I'm saying. You on board with me? Cause I want to quote for you. All right. That's what we are saying. So keep those things in mind. You can get derailed, by the way. And, and here's another thing that's interesting is I know people, I have friends that drank their whole life and no big deal, no factor, literally no factor. And I've known people that has wrecked their lives and killed them. So there's two ways. And you know how you know which one

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  you are? You know how you know? Hell. You wake up dead one day or you don't wake up. There's no, you can't like, hey, let's run your DNA and we'll see if you're going to be an alcoholic or not. It doesn't work that way. It's like, oh, it, you just happen to like drinking and you just ruin your life. Or you happen to like drinking and you're fine. Why take that chance? I don't think it's worth it. I had a friend that, uh, or my, my old neighbor, my old neighbor's nephew was a, was a meth head. And he said, the first time he tried meth, that was the only thing he ever wanted to do for the rest of his life was more meth. That's how powerful it was. And that's the effect that alcohol can have on some people.

• 1:09:08Jocko Willink?

  It's like the same exact effect that crystal meth has. It's like, oh, this is what I want to do. So don't roll the dice.

• 1:09:16Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, even someone that lives every, even someone that I sit, sit here and says like, oh, no factor. It is a factor. It is a factor. Alcohol is a negative factor regardless of whether you can handle it or not. It's a negative factor. It makes you, kills your brain cells, wreck, wreck your, it's poison. You're putting poison in your body. Don't do it.

• 1:09:37Jocko Willink?

  Check. Tangent. Complete. Next one.

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  God helps the strongest.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  This is basically a message from God to lift as far as I can do squats and deadlifts. Get one, get some. God permits the wicked, but not forever. It's another good one. Time, time is the ultimate kind of adjudicator of justice. And God's gonna let people do here wicked things, but, but not for the long haul. It'll catch them. And that's in the next, uh, one here. God's mill grinds slowly, but surely.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  That's so metal.

• 1:10:23Jocko Willink?

  That's so metal. It, God's mills grind slowly, but surely. So things are gonna take time. And by the way, that should also be a positive thing because if you're doing good work, you might not get rewarded for it today. You may not get rewarded for it tomorrow, but you'll get rewarded for it.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Joe Moss. Joe Moss, he, he says this thing, time and pressure.

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  Time and pressure.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Every, every time I say something, he's like, time and pressure. And it, you know, it's.

• 1:10:49Jocko Willink?

  It's true.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Fact.

• 1:10:50Jocko Willink?

  Keep, keep putting, keep grinding yourself and God's mill is grinding as well, slowly but surely. You'll get yours. And if you're doing good, you'll get yours. And if you're doing bad, you'll get yours.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, what I like about that one is if you feel like you don't trust someone or you feel like you're you're hating someone, go and talk to them like like go open your eyes. Basically, it's real easy to sit in a vacuum and hear stories about someone and hate them, but you go and shake hands with them and get to know them. Likely you'll be able to overcome that. Hatred is the vice of narrow souls.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Fair enough. Hasty climbers have sudden falls. Yep, no shortcuts. It's you. When you're on that rapid pace of growth, just be careful. The hasty climbers have sudden falls. Hell and destruction are never full.

• 1:11:58Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. That's a that's a just a little note, right? Just a little note. Hell and destruction are never full. There was a T shirt. Well, I actually the boy sent me one, but it said, uh, make buds hard again. Teams are full. It said on the front, make buds hard again. It said teams are full in the back. You know, we got enough. Well, hell and destruction's not full. And if you set yourself upright, there's plenty of room waiting for you.

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  Here's a good one. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  You're going to make mistakes. You're going to do things wrong. Don't cover them up. If you cover them up, you're gonna have problems. So one of the rules in tasking a bruiser, no cover ups. I think Leif and I talked about on the podcast. You can't, if you try and cover things up, it will come out. It's 100. It's 100% going to come out. Do the big cover up. We call it the big cover up. Oh, the big cover up. Nope, doesn't work. Can't do it. Makes it worse. Oh, it's good. It's definitely gonna make it worse. And and part of that came from when I was the admiral's aide, that, you know, I got to see all these things that were happening. And one of the things that happened was there was I gotta get this story right, but there

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  was a like an army, an army element down south of Baghdad. They shot and killed a guy and they and they planted an AK on him. And they got rolled up and the guy with the kid, the sergeant went to jail for like 10 years. And what I know is if you shoot someone and you report what they were doing and why the individual was shot, then as long as it's within the rules of engagement, you're gonna be okay. So what does that mean? Uh, you know, here's the guy, he was by the side of the road, he was digging a hole. Like there's reasons why people need to get shot. They're putting

• 1:14:00Jocko Willink?

  in IED in the road, etc. And these guys got, these guys got rolled up and I forget how they got busted. But there was, again, I'll cover the story at some point, but somehow they got rolled up and busted. And the sergeant goes to jail for like 10 years. And it was like, oh yeah, if you do a cover up, you're definitely going to be in a much worse position than if you say, hey, here's the situation, here's what followed, here's why the shots were taken. And the army, when I got to Ramadi, the army had a, a means of describing this, which was good shot, bad result. Meaning here's what the shooter saw, here's why the shooter

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  took the shot. And it turns out that the shooter was wrong. But the shooter didn't have bad intent. And this is a good shot with a bad result. Like, okay, check. So the other end of the spectrum is we're gonna try and cover this thing up. And when you try and cover things up, it just don't work, man. It doesn't work, comes out in the end.

• 1:15:04Jocko Willink?

  He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses.

• 1:15:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's a good one. He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses. Yeah. To me, I think immediately of how you, what you say, right? You're running around talking smack about other people, like, keep your mouth shut.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  He who lives wickedly always lives in fear.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Ain't that the truth? He who lives wickedly always lives in fear. Needless to say, the other end of that spectrum, if you're doing good things, you don't have to be afraid.

• 1:15:48Jocko Willink?

  He who seeks trouble never misses it.

• 1:15:53Jocko Willink?

  Ain't that the truth? You know, I don't know if you saw this clip. Echo and I were talking and I was talking about the the bus shit been happening thing by Theo. With Theo Von. They were, when Conor McGregor got in trouble for throwing a hand truck at the bus and and Theo Von did a little rant. This is, this is the first time I ever saw Theo Von. And he was saying that, you know, everyone's all surprised that, that he threw that he threw the hand truck at the bus and he's like, bus shit's happening. Bus shit's been happening. People are surprised now. He goes, you go down to the Greyhound. What are you gonna see? You see people copping pills, selling pills. Adults drinking Similac.

• 1:16:37Jocko Willink?

  And I, I just kinda said, you know, that's really, really true. People get surprised when bus shit happens, but bus shit's been happening. So guess what? If you're looking for trouble, you're gonna find it.

• 1:16:50Jocko Willink?

  You're going out at, at one o'clock in the morning in the streets and you're surprised when you get into a fight or you're surprised when someone tries to harass you and you end up in a scrap and you end up in jail, you're surprised about that because you're drunk? It's like, no. If you're, if you're seeking trouble, you're gonna find it.

• 1:17:09Jocko Willink?

  Next. He that boasteth of his ancestors confesseth that he hath no virtue of his own.

• 1:17:20Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. Yeah. He that boasteth of his own ancestors confesseth that he has no virtue of his own?

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  Yep. When you call back to your, uh, your, your ancestors about why you're proud. Like, hmm. Might wanna check you, might wanna check yourself.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  He that gets money before he gets wit will be but a short while master of it. So if you get money like young, maybe you win the lottery at 22.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a short time that you're gonna have that money. He that grasps at too much, holds nothing fast.

• 1:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Can't hold on to too much. A little prioritize and execute hint here, right? We're trying to do too many things at once, trying to hold on to too many things at the same time. You're not gonna hold on to any of them.

• 1:18:18Jocko Willink?

  He that is too secure is not safe.

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  Apply this to your kids, right? You can keep your kids 100% safe, but you'll end up with a kid that is not safe.

• 1:18:31Jocko Willink?

  You might say, oh, I don't want my kids to, they might get hurt doing jujitsu. Yeah, they might get hurt doing jujitsu. They'll get hurt a lot worse getting beat down in the school system.

• 1:18:40Jocko Willink?

  So, and it's the same with us, right? There's a, there's just, there's just way too many ways to go through life without any risk whatsoever. And if that's how you go through life, you won't be in a good situation.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  You won't be in a good situation. He that sings on Friday weeps on Sunday. Yeah. Gotta put that, put that party animal in check.

• 1:19:07Jocko Willink?

  He that will not be counseled cannot be helped.

• 1:19:11Jocko Willink?

  That's an ego. He jests at scars who never felt a wound.

• 1:19:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Really is easy to open your mouth

• 1:19:26Jocko Willink?

  and make pointed comments about someone and the situation that they're going through when you've never gone through it yourself.

• 1:19:34Jocko Willink?

  It's always better just to keep your mouth shut. It really is.

• 1:19:40Jocko Willink?

  It really is better just to keep your mouth shut. You know, something negative to say to someone like, why? What are you gonna get from it? And what are the chances that when you make a comment to them, you find out the real story?

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  End up being an idiot?

• 1:19:58Jocko Willink?

  Next, he who waits for dead men's shoes may go long enough barefoot.

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  Bro, you gotta make it yourself. You gotta, you gotta do it yourself. You can't be waiting for somebody else. Can't wait, wait for the dead men's shoes. You gotta go out and make some shoes yourself.

• 1:20:18Jocko Willink?

  He who fears to suffer suffers from fear.

• 1:20:22Jocko Willink?

  Write that one down. Yeah, you're gonna suffer. You're gonna suffer. You're gonna work hard. You're gonna be, you're gonna be on the mat suffering. You're gonna be in the gym suffering. You're gonna be in, in the, in the classroom suffering. But if you don't do that, if you don't step out, you're gonna be in fear.

• 1:20:42Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna be in fear all the time.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  He who stumbles twice over the stone, over one stone deserves to break his shins.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, fool me once, uh, that's on, that's on me. Fool me twice, that's on you. Uh, fool me once, that's on you. Fool me twice, that's on me. That's a similar one. He who thinks he knows the most knows the least. Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:11Jocko Willink?

  Keep your ego in check. He who is so full of himself is quite empty. Bam.

• 1:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Hell is full of the ungrateful.

• 1:21:27Jocko Willink?

  His shield is turned the wrong way. That's the, that's the whole proverb. His shield is turned the wrong way. What does that mean? That means you're looking at all these other things that are attacking you. The problem is you. You are the problem.

• 1:21:45Jocko Willink?

  You're the person you gotta watch out for. I, I used to, uh, brief the young SEAL officers that were in the junior officer training course. And one of the things I was, I'd put up, uh, I'd put up a picture of like Al Qaeda,

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  AMZ, I'd put up like all the Hamas, Hezbollah, I'd put, I like pictures of all them. And I'd say, who's your, who's your worst enemy? And everyone would make their guesses. And the, the next one would just be you. The next slide would be you. You're your worst enemy. You, if you have much more potential to hurt yourself than any of those terrorist organizations out there, guaranteed, guaranteed.

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  So you might just have your shield turned the wrong way.

• 1:22:27Jocko Willink?

  You might just have your spear pointed at the wrong person. It's going back to that thing I said about telling yourself the truth. Yeah, point that spear of truth at yourself.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  If a fool has success, it ruins him. Check. If fools went not to market, bad wares would not be sold.

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  Check. If one, two, and three say you are an ass, put on the ears.

• 1:23:04Jocko Willink?

  So if you've got a bunch of people saying you're a jackass, you might wanna like, put on the ears of the jackass and actually listen to what they're saying. This goes into the reading the comments type thing.

• 1:23:15Jocko Willink?

  Cause some people are, or like, I don't care what other people think. Listening to other people's opinions, I get it. I get it. And the reason I get it is because you're gonna have people that are negative, of course. You're gonna have some haters out there. You're gonna have people that don't agree with you, and that's fine.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  To an extent. But if you start getting one, two, and three, and five, and 10, now you're going, wait a second. Maybe it's me. This is feedback. Yes, we, we, we, we call this feedback. We call this the feedback loop. It's sort of like when you're a boss, and no one that you're bringing on the team seems to work out well. Hmm. Do you think the problem is all the people you've been hiring for the last five years? Or do you think that you suck as a leader?

• 1:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Or you're, you're, you don't get promoted once, okay. What about five times in a row? You might, you just might be the problem.

• 1:24:12Jocko Willink?

  So, you, listen, do you need to react to every single opinion that you get from other people? No, but do you need to pay attention to it? Yeah. And there could be a certain point where you say, this might be on me.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Next, if thy hand be in a lion's mouth, get it out as fast as thou canst.

• 1:24:38Jocko Willink?

  You know what's interesting about that one is it's like situational awareness, right? We get in situational awareness scenarios where we're not paying attention to our freaking hand is in the lion's mouth. And once you recognize that your hand is in the lion's mouth, we can get it out. So financially, right? You start seeing like, oh, I'm having a little trouble right now. Oh, stop your spending. Or, oh, you know, I'm freaking hung over for the fifth day in a row. Oh, I'm in a bad situation. Get your hand out of the lion's mouth. As fast as you canst.

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Let's, let's wrap. We got a bunch more of these things to cover. Let's wrap this up for today with this one right here. We are bound to forgive an enemy. We are not bound to trust him.

• 1:25:32Jocko Willink?

  Again, going back to this theme of forgiveness, which we started with a little bit. Yeah, you got to forgive your enemy. But this doesn't mean you need to trust your enemy 100%, right? There's a big difference. And that's up, down, and across the chain of command. And by the way, this applies to yourself as well. Because, just because you forgive yourself, you make a mistake. Just because you forgive yourself doesn't mean you're not vigilant anymore. It doesn't mean you don't trust yourself anymore. And this is one of those things where recognizing that you're not as aware of yourself as you should be is of

• 1:26:16Jocko Willink?

  utmost importance. And I go back to

• 1:26:20Jocko Willink?

  The situation that happened with me with my friend Griz died and so 1993 and the assistant platoon commander we had, Alton Lee Grizer, just a great dude and I was very, very good friends with him. Like, very good friends. Just, just an awesome guy, charismatic, funny quarterback from the Naval Academy. Gregarious leader, just a great guy. And we got along incredibly well, had a lot of fun. And he was killed. He was killed in a, in a, he was murdered in a terrible situation, right in Coronado, California.

• 1:27:02Jocko Willink?

  Awful. And so when he died, you know, I was very, obviously I was really, uh, broken up and really sad. And

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  as the way I was acting was

• 1:27:21Jocko Willink?

  about me.

• 1:27:24Jocko Willink?

  That I had lost my buddy and I was sad and I was gonna miss him. And my, one of my other very close friends, actually he was my, my actual best friend and roommate at the time, who knew me, who I'd gone through SEAL training with and done, uh, multiple platoons with.

• 1:27:47Jocko Willink?

  And he, he pulled me aside and he was like, hey,

• 1:27:52Jocko Willink?

  you're not the only person that lost Griz.

• 1:27:57Jocko Willink?

  And he was, and I knew exactly what he was saying and he was a hundred percent right.

• 1:28:04Jocko Willink?

  And I realized at that moment, oh, you, you cannot trust yourself a hundred percent that you're doing the right thing all the time.

• 1:28:18Jocko Willink?

  And so

• 1:28:20Jocko Willink?

  that's an important thing to keep in mind. And I talked about, you know, forgiveness and forgiving yourself. We are bound to forgive an enemy. We're not bound to trust him. And I apply that to myself as well. Like, I'm, I've made mistakes, obviously, made mistakes, forgive myself, but I'm not like, oh, I forgave myself and now it's okay.

• 1:28:40Jocko Willink?

  Now it's okay to do this. It's like knowing that you can go to confession on a Wednesday or on a Sunday and being like, well, you know, I'll just, I can do this sin right now and I'll just confess later. I'll be all good to go. No, it doesn't work like that. So you have to keep in mind, you have to, you can forgive yourself. You can forgive your enemy, but that doesn't mean you abandoned any, for lack of a better word, any suspicion, any little bit of paranoia. You need a little bit of paranoia about yourself. I'm paranoid about myself. I'm paranoid about myself. When I was in the SEAL teams, I was very paranoid about recheck my gear, make sure I have

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  everything, reprogram those radios, make sure they're good to go. Like everything was, there was a little bit of paranoia that was fueled by a lack of trust. And when my buddy told me, "Hey, you're not the only person that lost Grizz," it planted a little seed of mistrust in my soul that I know from that day on, I need to make sure that

• 1:29:51Jocko Willink?

  I see myself properly. And I see myself from other people's perspectives. Because other people's perspectives are going to be different than mine. And if the only person that's I'm seeing, the only person perspective I'm seeing is mine, guess what that makes me? A self-centered loser. So, we're bound to forgive an enemy. We're not bound to trust him. You have to forgive yourself, but that doesn't mean that you stop paying attention. And you stop putting yourself in check. And you stop assessing to see what you're doing, how you're doing it, and where it's taking you.

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  So with that, we'll save the rest of this for the next podcast. And in the meantime,

• 1:30:44Jocko Willink?

  we can't really,

• 1:30:47Jocko Willink?

  we can't ever stop, we can't ever trust ourselves 100%. We can't ever stop being a little bit paranoid. Just like we have to continue to push ourselves.

• 1:31:02Jocko Willink?

  We have to continue to stay vigilant

• 1:31:05Jocko Willink?

  in all aspects. That means we're working out. That means we're training. That means we're getting after it. And you know what that means? That means we need some fuel. And in this case, we're talking about Jocko Fuel. So check out JacoFuel.com. What's going on at Jocko Fuel right now? Kerry, what do we need? What do we need? What do we got coming out? Anything special?

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  So when this podcast comes out, we should have two new flavors of hydrate powder out, which is going to be pretty sick. Island orange and tropical.

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Tropical punch.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Tropical punch.

• 1:31:36Jocko Willink?

  I have them both. I mean, it got a little early. Yeah. And they're good to go. Yeah. Freaking tasty. Different people like different flavors and those are really good. They're really good. They're really good.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Delicious.

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Gives you the just tropic vibes all day on the tropical punch and the orange tasty. When's the coffee and donuts coming out?

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Coffee and donuts is coming out in beginning of May.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  So that'll be a coffee and donuts flavor protein.

• 1:32:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  For the people.

• 1:32:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's very concerning, right? I know there's a lot of concern, a lot of debate, you know, is it? Is it the right thing to do for Jocko to come out with a donut flavored freaking protein drink? The answer is yes, right? The answer is yes. We ultimately got to the point because listen, I put myself into a box. I painted myself into a corner where I can never actually have a donut again for the rest of my life.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:32:31Jocko Willink?

  With as much shit of I've talked about donuts, with as much

• 1:32:36Jocko Willink?

  negativity that I've thrown donuts ways, there's no way I can ever have a donut again. I can't put one in my mouth. I'd have, I'd, it would, it would be wrong, morally wrong.

• 1:32:47Jocko Willink?

  But coffee and donut flavor. Look, am I anti donut flavor? No, bro. Let's face it. I'm not anti donut. But let's face it, I'm pro donut flavor, but.

• 1:32:59Jocko Willink?

  It's not something that we took lightly. So ultimately, we got to the point where donut and coffee, which is a tasty flavor, we went with it. So that's coming. We got some, we got some coffee and donut flavored milk protein powder coming your way.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Got a little 95 milligrams of caffeine in that one, too.

• 1:33:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, did you put the caffeine in it?

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Yep. That's the coffee part.

• 1:33:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  Are you sure about that?

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Positive.

• 1:33:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, 100%?

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:33:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, right on. That's cool. I know that when we made the sweet cream coffee RTD, we, once again, we were like, well, do we, do we put caffeine in it or not? Ultimately, the answer was yes. People are drinking coffee for a reason, especially, people love that morning little protein, 30 grams of protein plus the caffeine on the sweet cream coffee. That's breakfast deluxe.

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  Right there.

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  Easy.

• 1:33:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, easy. So we got that coming. JacoFuel.com. You can check that out. You guys know what we got. We got hydrate, we got protein, we got energy. God, this energy drink is good. So good and good for you.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Have you moved off the 50/50 tactical tea or you, are you still going hard?

• 1:34:09Jocko Willink?

  I'm pretty consistent on the 50/50 tactical tea, the iced tea lemonade.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Lemonade.

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  The iced tea lemonade is my, definitely my go-to flavor. As you can see, I'm kind of doubling up right now because I got the pink lemonade here right here as well.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  You have two open flavors.

• 1:34:22Jocko Willink?

  I got two because I was kind of going back and forth. But yeah, definitely the iced tea lemonade is my, is my go-to, but all the flavors taste good now. Now, look, back in the day, back in the day, when the only person that was judging the flavors was me, it's a lesson learned, right?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Your own perspective, right?

• 1:34:42Jocko Willink?

  I can't, there's only one perspective we were looking at, mine. And if you had the early version of the go energy drink.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  Chances are you didn't like it. Now you might have liked the way it made you feel. You might have liked the health benefits to it. You might have liked the fact that it wasn't going to turn you into a diabetic. But you probably didn't like the taste. That's because it was based on me. So we opened up our perspectives. We got well, now we have like the full tasting profiles and everything like that. But you'll find one. You'll like them all. You'll probably love three of them.

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  I'm fully on the Blue Raz train.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  You're on the Blue Raz train right now.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Everything Blue Raz, man.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really? The hydrate too?

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Hydrate pre-workout. Yeah, all, all day.

• 1:35:23Jocko Willink?

  Check. How often are you taking pre-workout?

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  I'm a regular user.

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink?

  Just regular user, daily, every day?

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  Not, not every day. Um, but my, on my big days, you know, like leg day, we're, we're doing some pre-workout, you know? But I do about a half a scoop. You know, I'm not going crazy with it, but.

• 1:35:41Jocko Willink?

  I use it when I need it. And when I need it, boy, it's good to have. It is good to have. Like you got that day where maybe you didn't get the right sleep. Maybe you were expended a bunch of energy the day before doing whatever. Like, like maybe you rolled that jujitsu and you're just kind of full body doms. Having that pre-workout in the, in the chamber if needed is freaking good to go because it, you will 100% feel it.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  And it gets you, I like the way it's not, it's, I like the way it's sort of like being a frog boiled in water where you don't really, like you take and you're like, okay, cool. And the next thing you know, you're halfway through your workout and you're just getting after it. And you're like, oh, that's right.

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:25Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  I got to be a guinea pig for Ashley and Jocko Fuel. She's, you know, one of our, um, formulators and she, she sent me a little sample of a new pre-workout that they're working on.

• 1:36:36Jocko Willink?

  That one's extreme.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  And I took that and I gave her some feedback on that one. The, it has the same thing as the regular one where the, the big jump for the Jocko Fuel pre-workout for me is the mental, it's actually like the mental focus. I feel like I get really zeroed in, which is awesome. Um, because I'm not distracted by my phone or finding the right song or I'm, I'm in the zone. And I was giving Ashley some feedback on that new, new formula. It's the same, except, uh, are you familiar with, uh, Mind Muscle Connection?

• 1:37:12Jocko Willink?

  Proceed.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  So this is for me. This is where in a workout, you're really thinking about the

• 1:37:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  That you're training.

• 1:37:19Jocko Willink?

  This is like thinking about the growth of my muscle at this time.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:37:22Jocko Willink?

  To make it grow more.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  So I'm in the middle of

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Did you have a spiritual moment with this?

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Straight up, I was connected to the source momentarily during a lift after that. Pre-workout that Ashley let me try and it was outstanding. So looking forward to that one.

• 1:37:40Jocko Willink?

  Check. What else we got? We got greens. Somebody posted the other day a little picture of a little kid just getting on the greens train.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  That's how you know?

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's how you know it tastes good. That's became, that became some of our best taste testers is like the entire Jocko Fuel fam of kids. Like Joe Mass's kids, like they're drinking mole, like nine mules a day or whatever. So it's the stuff tastes good greens. All the joint health stuff that you got, check out JacoFuel.com. You can also get it at Walmart. Which is really convenient, man. You can roll into a Walmart, Wawa, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, militaries, commissaries, A fees, Hannaford, Dash stores in Maryland, Wakefern, ShopRite, HEB down in Tejas. They're not playing around either. You go a whole wall down there of Jocko Fuel. Meyer up in the Midwest, same thing, wall of Jocko Fuel. Wegmans.

• 1:38:33Jocko Willink?

  Harris Teeter, Publix down in Florida, crushing. By the way, everyone in Florida, what up? Appreciate the support down there just clearing shelves. Y'all are down there clearing shelves and Publix. So that's awesome. Much appreciated. Lifetime Fitness, Shields, small gyms everywhere. Jiu-Jitsu gyms, whatever kind of gym you got, if you want Jocko Fuel in there, email J F sales at JacoFuel.com. We'll get you taken care of. Also, you need some clothing when you train Jiu-Jitsu. You could use gi, you could use no gi. Either way, we got you covered at OriginUSA.com. We got the training gear, we got jeans, we got boots, we got t-shirts, we got joggers, we got everything that you need, hoodies, the whole nine yards.

• 1:39:15Jocko Willink?

  And guess what? If you're concerned about the tariffs and the way that's going to impact your shopping habits. Well, don't worry because at Origin USA, everything is 100% made in America. There's not tariffs going on anything because it's all American. The cotton is American, the buttons are American, the everything's American, the zippers are American, everything's 100% American made. They're not made by in the sweatshop overseas that's ruining the environment and enslaving children. We're not doing that. We haven't been doing that.

• 1:39:45Jocko Willink?

  American made, originusa.com. Go get some, support freedom, support America. That's what we got going on.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  We've also got Jocko's store, the Jocko store at Jocko's store.com where you can get your discipline equals freedom gear. You want to represent good, uh, being on the path with T-shirts, trucker hats, hoodies, beanies. Uh, you can get it at Jocko's store.com. We also have the shirt locker, which is a little subscription scenario. Uh, where Echo Charles makes a new shirt every month.

• 1:40:15Jocko Willink?

  Bro, look at you just go, just got Echo script.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro.

• 1:40:19Jocko Willink?

  You just get, you gotta memorize.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's funny because there's just so everyone knows there is no script.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:40:25Jocko Willink?

  Like Echo just says the same, just like I do, like we're saying what we say and you've been listening and you're just rolling it out.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:40:33Jocko Willink?

  Subscription scenario.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Subscription scenario. That's what we're doing. Yeah. So interesting, uh, good shirts, uh, cool designs. Check that out at Jocko's store.com.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Also primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. We got steaks for you. Tasty steaks. Go tune into the steaks at Colorado Creep Beef, Colorado Craft Beef.com, primalbeef.com. We got you covered. Hot dogs, burgers, uh, jerky, beef sticks.

• 1:41:08Jocko Willink?

  Colorado Craft Beef has beef tallow. We've been cooking in that. Now you know what that is?

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we've been cooking. I haven't been putting on my face. Like some people are straight up putting the tallow on their face. Have you heard of this?

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  I have heard of this.

• 1:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. I haven't done that. That's not really my thing. I've never really put anything on my face or my whatever, you know, like that's not my jam, but. Cooking in it, like you throw some, you need to, you need to cook something up, you need to throw some of them dogs in there. Throw that tallow in there. Never mind the other crap you can put in there. No, you're good to go. Put that beef tallow in there.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  I'm a cookin' with butter person. I throw butter in there. It tastes better. You put beef tallow in there, game changer.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink?

  GTG.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Oh man, tastes incredible.

• 1:41:49Jocko Willink?

  So check that out. ColoradoCraftBeef.com, PrimalBeef.com. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also check out jockounderground.com. That is where we do a lot of Q and A. We answer your questions. It costs $8.18 a month. If you can't afford that, then it's okay. Just email [email protected] because we want to have a platform that we don't have to worry about getting censored or whatever. That's why we made that. So check out jockounderground.com. Also, we got a YouTube channel. We got Psychological Warfare. We got a bunch of books. I've written a bunch of books.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Final Spin, which is a novel. I've written a bunch of leadership books and I've written a bunch of kids books. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, five. Go and, go and get those kids, go get those kids books for your neighbors. For your nephews, for your, your own kids, the neighbors' kids. Just get these kids on the path, man. They need it in this day and age.

• 1:42:45Jocko Willink?

  And finally, Extreme Ownership, The Economy of Leadership. Written a bunch of books. Check them out. Also, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. It's called Echelon Front. Echelon Front. That name is from being on the front. There's several different echelons of leadership inside the military. And at the highest end, you got the commander in chief. And then you got the chairman of the chiefs and it goes right on down the chain. And those are, those are leaders. Sure. But we're talking about the leaders, leadership where the rubber meets the road, the front echelon.

• 1:43:22Jocko Willink?

  So check out echelonfront.com. You want to come to one of our events. Our next event is in San Antonio, Texas. It's coming up in like a couple of weeks. I think we have a few seats left, April 29th through May 1st. If you want to come and check that out. Want to check out one of our battlefield events, our council events, our field training exercises. We got you covered. Go to echelonfront.com. Or if you need us to come inside your company and check out what is happening and help you get aligned with your leadership, echelonfront.com. We also have online training, an online training academy. It's the Extreme Ownership Academy. And if you want to learn these leadership skills for life,

• 1:44:04Jocko Willink?

  go to extremeownership.com, take some of our classes. There's some free, at least go take the free classes, at least do that. And there's no like big upsell at the end. No, it's not like that. It's just free, free information, free knowledge. Go check it out, extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also, check out heroesandhorses.org and Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. And if you want to connect with us, you can check out Jaco.com. And on social media, I'm at Jocko

• 1:44:47Jocko Willink?

  Willink. Carrie is at Carrie Helton. Just be careful, because when you go in there, you enter into the algorithm, bro, it'll grab hold of you and you'll ruin your whole life, basically, or waste it at a minimum. So just be careful. Don't let the algorithm get you. And thanks for listening. And also, thanks to all the men and women out there right now, wearing the cloth of the nation. Thank you for your sacrifice and sacrificing your freedoms in order to defend our freedoms. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all other first responders. Thank

• 1:45:30Jocko Willink?

  you for your sacrifices to protect us here at home. And everyone else out there, we can all be susceptible to arrogance and vice and villainy.

• 1:45:47Jocko Willink?

  But we also have the power to controls those to control those flaws and those shortfalls. And a good way to make that happen is to keep these temptations and the and their consequences of these temptations, keep in front of mind. Think about them. If you don't think about them, that's when you get caught. If you don't pay attention to them, that's when they sneak up on you.

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  And things like these proverbs that we covered today can help you stay on the path. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Kerry and Jocko out.