154: How to Effectively Communicate. Advanced Extreme Ownership Tactics, and Other Winning Tips for Life. Q and A.

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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 154 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  And we are going to go into some Q and A today.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  We got a bunch of questions to go through. I asked if anyone on Twitter had questions and I got a ton of them. So we're going to try and answer some of them. Some people, if you're listening and you asked a question like, what time do I go to bed? Or what kind of workout do I do? Or something like that, then I'm not going to answer it now because I've answered it a bunch of other times.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of fundamental things or it's in the Discipline Equals Freedom field manual. Or, you know, so these were some questions that had a, some of them, yeah, that we've heard some of them before. Maybe there's a different spin, but some of them I tried to pull back or pull out the fresher type questions for this. And ones that aren't entirely fresh, I'll try and cover very briefly with whatever the new sort of angle is. Because there is, there is a fact that,

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  you know, you go to a class and you learn two or three new moves in Jiu Jitsu. And that's good, but you also review just a, just a arm lock.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  And that is still beneficial, especially if it's from a new angle or a new instructor. They tell you, hey, you know, you move your hand a little bit further out on their wrist. If you're going for that thing and it helps you.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:30Jocko Willink?

  So there's little, little details.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  Cool. So let's rock and roll.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Cool. All right. First question, can you describe how difficult or no factor, leaving your family was before deployment? I hate leaving.

• 1:43Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Let me just answer that one. Yeah. It sucks to leave your family before deployment. That's the way it is. One thing that I've always said is, You know, to guys that were saying, oh, I gotta, I'm gonna leave my kids and it's horrible to leave. And I'm like, yep, it is. And they worry about it from the kids' perspective. I'm not gonna be around, you know?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, here's the deal. Men have been leaving to go and fight wars and do what they gotta do for thousands of years. And so your kids are gonna be okay. And what's good is they will see what you're doing, see your service and your sacrifice and you stepping up and holding the line for the nation. And tha- that will be a lesson that they will learn by observation. And so even they'll be sad, but inside they're learning. They're learning that there's things more important than yourself. And so it's a good lesson to be taught. Uh, yes, is it, is it horrible to leave your family?

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  It sure is, but it is a lesson for your kids and it is a sacrifice you're making for your country. And there is, there are benefits to it. You know, your kids, you get to come home and you'll see, and you'll see your kids, you know, be all excited and it's good. It's a good thing. So that's question one. Yes, it's harsh, but it's a worthy, it's a worthy cause.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Uh, kinda second part to the question. Did you cry when you learned that your childhood friend committed suicide while, while you were doing BUDs?

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah. So I mentioned that on a couple of podcasts ago that my friend Jeff killed himself while I was going through BUDs. He was a kid I'd grown up with, but I had, I had grown apart from him in the later grades, sixth, seventh, eighth grade and through high school, we kinda grew apart. So I did not, you know, I was, you know, I was sad by the situation, but I, I didn't, I wasn't super emotional about it. Because I, we had, we had kinda grown apart and had been, you know, I'd now was, was now in the Navy. So no, didn't uh, cry, but was definitely uh, sad about the situation.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Is it, I mean, kinda back to that first part about leaving.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Isn't like that, like a healthy dose of that, like, good for the kids?

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Because it's like now they know how to make do, you know, like if dad's there for every little thing kinda thing.

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Um, and then, you know, the inevitable day comes that you're gonna go, you know, leave or at least they gotta leave, you know? They don't have to depend on kinda dad being there.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  The trials and tribulations and, and those things, adversity will make kids tougher. That's just the bottom line. So this is adversity. And it's an adversity that kids, you know, they, they, it'll make them tougher, make them stronger. Yes, agree.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Next question. Any good recommendations for cutting back on alcohol?

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  Um, you know, just straight up, why, why would you cut back and not just stop? Um, at this point in my life, I don't, I don't drink anymore.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  And I know that some people have an alcohol problem. And so I think trying to cut back if you have an alcohol problem isn't a realistic thing to do because you'll take that slippery slope and, and just get drunk. Uh, so I think what you have to do is just stop. And I know that, and again, I, I, I'm not, I don't, I don't have a good familiarization to know what it's like to be addicted to alcohol. I didn't even, I didn't even really like consciously, oh, I'm gonna stop drinking now. I just stopped drinking because I was out of the Navy. I was working a bunch and carrying on and wasn't around those, you know, my bros anymore where we'd go out and have a beer.

• 5:42Jocko Willink?

  And so if that's not happening, then it's not happening. And that's one thing I'll, I'll say is I know that people that have alcohol issues, addictions, they always say you gotta change the people, places and things that you do. So the people that you hang around with that like to drink, you can't hang around with them. The places that you go where everyone likes to drink, you can't go to those places. The things that you like to do that involve drinking, you can't do those things. So there you go. I would say stop drinking. And hey, if you're an alcoholic, you gotta get medical supervision because that's actually, you can die if you're an alcoholic and you stop drinking. So you have to, you have to like go and get help, uh, but stop.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of those times, the people who are that far into alcoholism where they stop drinking and they die. That's like, usually they don't even wanna stop drinking. Usually that's just how I'm drinking, usually. But I think I might have more experience than this one, didn't you? But all those things, man, that's like a really concise in, in, in. It's, that's a good way to put, to put it like the people placing things, right, activities, whatever. Um, but a big part of it, like, and I said this before, where a big part where I would stop drinking. It was way easier when I just understood what it was, you know, like understood, like why, why? Am I just wanting to drink and why is it that when I start drinking, like it, it's kinda harder to stop?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  You know, then maybe I don't know the next guy, whatever. And then when I, once I understood like what's happening physiologically or whatever. I came up with my own little strategy and a big part of it was like, oh yeah, like I'm, my brain is like tricking me. Into thinking like, yeah, that you want this, this thing or whatever. That was like a major one. And the other one was, kinda has to do with the people placing things. It was, um. Where if I had a reason not to drink, like if I had a workout that I really took seriously the next day, or if I was gonna record or something. Dude, to do something where to be hungover or whatever would really mess me up. Um, it'd be way easier, you know, so back like, you know, in, in high, not high school, but in college, like in athletics and stuff like that.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  You never really drink during the week because you had practice the next day. You don't wanna be hungover in practice, you know, so it'd be really easy. Oh yeah, I'm not drinking today kinda thing. So if you can kinda set up your life where you have like something important. That you can kinda look forward to and really care about the outcome of. Something that's not necessarily mundane in your, in your mind, because a lot of times that'll kinda. It's a slippery slope when you're like, yeah, it's important, but it's mundane in your life. You'll be like, let's see how I can endure it. Kinda hungover. It's kinda worth it. It'll pay the price now, you know, kinda thing. But yeah, if you can set up your life where you, you have something that you find like important. To be functioning fully, that helps.

• 8:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, jujitsu. Train jiu jitsu on Saturdays.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:35Jocko Willink?

  That affected me when I was in the teams and we'd go out and drinking on Friday. And then when I started training jiu jitsu all the time, I didn't want to, I wanted to be good to go for jiu jitsu. So yeah, I just like, started, started to stop drinking on Friday nights, hard.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I would say this with jiu jitsu, I would say compete in jiu jitsu then because, and I don't know, people are different, you know, there's a spectrum, but to me, jiu jitsu, I mean, I'll train hungover jiu jitsu. In fact, jiu jitsu helps the hangover. If you can drag yourself out of the house.

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Which is actually isn't that hard. Once you do it once. If you go, if you're hungover and you're like, oh man, I really don't feel like going to jiu jitsu right now. But you just do it. The first time you do it, that's the hardest time. Every other time you're like, yeah, I did this before. This is easy. I'm not going to be suffering. You go, you know, depending on, depending on the level of hangover, you're going to suffer in jiu jitsu or maybe not after a while you get used to it.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, maybe, maybe I was training like at a higher level. And I, I, I mean, like seriously, not trying to be like a jerk, but like I would, this is back when I was training, training with Fabio and so Dean and I would show up and we trained for like three hours straight.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:37Jocko Willink?

  And like hard. And so if you're going to come in and do four rounds, yeah, you're a little hungover. It's no big deal. But if you're going to come in and you're going to train for, for, you know, an hour worth of class, then you're going to roll hardcore for, for two hours. You're not going to, trust me, you're not going to want to be all hungover, dehydrated and jacked up mentally.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I dig it. And if you're going to train that hard, then yeah, don't, you probably, it's going to be hard to drink and maintain that. Your typical person is not going to train that hard. I mean, yeah.

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  Cause they're drinking too much.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  If you're a competitor, no, even people who don't drink, don't train that hard typically in my experience. I don't know. But if you're training for a tournament, it's going to, you can take it way more seriously, just kind of in the back of your mind, you know? It's not just like, oh, jiu jitsu training. So again, I'm not saying, so that's not going to work if you're just practicing. So it won't work. I'm not saying that. I'm saying people are different. And if I use myself as an example, like I could, I could train, I could hang, I was, I was training with, like when I, when I'd go train like at Otto's or whatever with these crazy training sessions. Yeah, I would go slightly hungover, go Dean every Friday. So, okay, look, of course, I could probably train better if I didn't drink the night before,

• 10:50Speaker 01

  for sure. But I'm just saying, as a catalyst for stopping drinking.

• 10:55Jocko Willink?

  That didn't help you.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  It didn't help me as much as maybe.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it wasn't even like a catalyst to help me stop drinking. It was just the functionality of life.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  Was, oh, I've got to do this in the morning. Cool. I'm not going to get all hammered tonight so I can do better.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:11Jocko Willink?

  As a human.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's really the format right there, where you find, I mean, to me, you know, like it or not, like jujitsu, just the training, if I wasn't, if I was competing, oh, I'd easily stop drinking, easily. But just for the training, if I didn't have a competition or whatever, it wasn't, it wasn't, it didn't help as much as one might think.

• 11:31Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  But if I had something like, you know, if we're recording or something, something who, that you would think you might be able to even, it just depends on how important it is for you to be functioning at the best level you can, you know? If I get tapped out a few more times in jujitsu, it's kind of like, eh, whatever. So it just depends on who you are, is what I'm saying.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Oh, you didn't like that on the, either way, um, yeah, man, I think that helps, but that's going to be hard. Either way, if you don't have some kind of like format scaffolding in your brain to, like a plan, you know, like a little strategy, to be like, yeah, I'm just gonna drink less. Just kind of, I'm just gonna drink less. Like, it's pretty rare that that's gonna, yeah, it's gonna.

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's why I cut back. I said, don't cut back, just stop.

• 12:16Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Next question. Communication is often used as an excuse, both under and over,

• 12:27Speaker 01

  oh, under communication and over communication, for why the direction isn't clear. Any suggestions on balancing comms communication up and down with the right level of detail?

• 12:38Jocko Willink?

  Here's a jacked up answer. The answer to this question of how to balance comms is comms. You want to balance communications, you have to communicate. You have to understand, hey, do you guys know what's going on? You need to check and make sure that they know what's going on. If they know what's going on, great. If they don't know, then you didn't communicate with them enough. If you spent too much time communicating and and now they're looking at you with a blank stare like, hey, bro, we got this, then you communicated too much. So. And and ask them, hey, do you understand what's going on? Cool. And if not, do you understand why we're doing what we're doing? Cool. All right. Good. I'm gonna let you go do it now. So the answer to making sure you're not communicating. Either too much or too little is communication. I hate to say that, but that's what it is.

• 13:19Jocko Willink?

  There can be some of that can be nonverbal communication. You know, you can observe. If you if you give your guys a task and then you go out and observe them and you see that they can execute it really well, then you know that you've done a good job. Communicating it to them. If you go out to observe them and they don't know what they're doing and they don't know what's going on. Then you realize, oh, I didn't give them enough information. I need to communicate more. So you don't have to necessarily ask them. You can. Tell through observation and checking on them and seeing where they're at and what they're doing. If they actually understand what's going on. So, yeah, that's that's it. Pretty straightforward. Get your little feedback loop going.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that but it is kind of like, and I'm gonna use the word again, dance. It is kind of like a dance.

• 13:59Jocko Willink?

  No, it's a dichotomy. Yes, you can. Yes, you can communicate too much and you could communicate too little and you have to find the balanced thing. Because if you communicate too much, people stop listening to you.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  And then it's no longer communication at that point. Because it's kind of like if you're sleeping and I'm like, hey, okay, Jaco telling you what to do, like you. You can't hear me. It's not going into your brain. It kind of has to go in your brain. What I'm saying, you gotta catch. You gotta catch what I'm throwing. And, you know, and vice versa, if we're quote unquote communicating. So, yeah.

• 14:26Jocko Willink?

  You don't need to put quotes around communication. It's just a word.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  All right. Well, there you go. But if and if if one of those, even one of those things isn't happening, we're technically, we're not communicating. So like the whole over communication thing, that's like, yeah, someone talking too much and the other guy stops listening.

• 14:42Jocko Willink?

  Are you over communicating so far in this podcast?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  No, you're not.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, like how you say like feedback, you know, like that, that's an important thing. Because if you're like blah, blah, blah, blah, and how you say the, the blank stare, communication's gone. Communication's not going on anymore.

• 15:00Jocko Willink?

  Look on my face right now?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the one that, no, no, you're giving me feedback, which is good. See what I'm saying? So now I'm clear, I'm clear that you want me to move it along. See what I'm saying? It's good communication on your part. Here's the thing with you and your blank stare. In my experience, which I have a lot, by the way. Your blank stare communicates way more than just like a blank stare. For real. Mike Sorelli would, will tell you all about that. Like you'll, you'll have a whole conversation with me. And not even say one single word, for real. I know exactly what you're saying. See, like right now, I know exactly what you're saying. Anyway, next question.

• 15:35Jocko Willink?

  That's exactly what I was saying, actually.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Like I said.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  When taking ownership, how can you prevent your boss? Thinking you're a complete screw up? And stop it from escalating to a point where, where he starts blaming you for? Things you're not actually at fault.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  So this is one of those catch 22 situations where you actually don't think you're at fault. So when you actually don't think you're at fault. Then you're thinking, oh, I'm just taking ownership so that, that's like the cool thing to do. And that's what I'm trying to use this as to make, to improve my situation, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote, unquote, take ownership. And when you quote, unquote, take ownership, but you actually don't believe you're at fault. Then you're not at, you're not really taking ownership. So. When you look around at your mission, at your task, at what you're being told to do, and you say, oh. I've got to do this thing. Oh, it, it didn't go right, and I'm gonna take ownership of it and get it fixed. If you're just saying that, and you don't actually mean it, then your boss starts blaming you for it. Well.

• 16:36Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you should feel that way. Cause when your boss blames you for something, you know what you should be saying? Yeah, boss, I know. I said that this was my responsibility, and this is what I'm gonna do to fix it. You shouldn't, when your boss starts blaming for you for things, you shouldn't say. Well, no, actually, that's not my area of responsibilities. What you should say is, oh, yes, boss, like I just said, this is my fault, and here's what I'm gonna do to fix it. That's what you do. So you actually think about this. When you're, when you're the type of person that takes ownership of things, you actually can't get blamed for things. You can't blame me for things because I'm already volunteering and saying that this was my responsibility and I'm going to fix it.

• 17:20Jocko Willink?

  So, that's what you do. That's what you do. You take ownership and you take real ownership, which means when there's a problem, you look at it and say, this is, hey, this is my fault. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it. And when your boss says, hey, yeah, this is your fault. You go, I know, boss, I know, hundred percent. And this is what I'm going to do to fix it. And then you go fix it.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the thing that I didn't notice, I said this before too, but I think it's easy to sort of forget when, especially if you're thinking like this, which is, which I dig, man. Is the whole, what am I going to do to fix it? Because when you, when you like for real, uh, take ownership, whatever it's, because man, just like I said, it's almost like what you just said, where, where you, where you say you can't blame me.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  You can't blame me.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Cause I already took responsibility kind of thing because, and in a big way, it's not necessarily about blame. It's more about fixing problems that are gonna come up. Nothing's perfect, you know? So now it's like, it's more of like a, a way of dealing with problems, less than a, a whole blaming, taking blame thing.

• 18:21Jocko Willink?

  In culture, in business, in teams, people blame each other. That's what happens. And if you're the person that says, hey, you know what? This is actually my fault and this is what I'm going to do to fix it. There you go.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Jocko Willink?

  Then that blame, you, you can say, yeah, blame me. I'm, I'm the guy.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Cause that's.

• 18:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm the guy that made this mistake. It's no factor.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then you can just focus on fixing the problem.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  The thing is, the reason I bring it up is because it is easy to forget that part because that blame is so impactful. Yeah. With extreme ownership. I mean, apparently, obviously because it's like, hey, I took extreme ownership, like, why, why didn't he do his part?

• 18:56Jocko Willink?

  Saying it's my fault.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  That's not the main part. The main part is like, you gotta, um, fix it. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. All right. Next, next question. I have two warrior kid daughters who are very much on the path with pretty much everything but snacking. They're starting to put some weight on as a result despite tons of physical activity and good eating at mealtime. How can I coach them in this area without being overbearing?

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  I would say don't have snack food in your house. That's junk, which you probably do. Don't, and yeah, that's, that's real simple. What are they gonna do? If there's no snack food in the house, how are they gonna snack? The answer is they're not because there's, they can go out and eat grass from the yard if they're still hungry. But, uh, so that's, that's one thing. The other thing is you gotta be careful with, with kids, and I'll say this with girls especially. You start throwing that like, hey, you need to watch your weight. You can really mess with their body image. So you've got to be really careful about what you're doing with a kid, with a, with a little girl. Guess what? Little girls, little boys, guess what they are when they're, when they're little? The little pudgy little creatures, you know?

• 20:08Jocko Willink?

  And sure, there'll be some genetic kids that have 2% body fat and a 12 pack of abs when they're six years old. But most kids are like little, little bit pudgy. That's part of their prepping for their growth spurt.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:23Jocko Willink?

  And if you're all freaked out about it, um, you know, just what you're gonna do is you're gonna put that in their head. They're gonna start looking in the mirror and you don't want to do that to your kids. So don't have any junk food snacks in the house. Give them some milk, right? Give them some warrior kid milk because it tastes delicious. It is like a snack and it's good for them. And it'll be, it'll be satiating. I know you don't like that word echo, but it'll satiate them. It'll make them feel full. So that's, that's a good kind of snack food to have in the house. And if you're gonna have other snack food, then make it beef jerky, make it some healthy, you know, some carrots, some, some celery. You know, make it some good, healthy stuff, but, um, yeah, like worrying about your kids starting to put on some weight when they're, I don't know how old they are in this particular case, but just be careful.

• 21:07Jocko Willink?

  You don't wanna, you don't wanna freak your kids out and get them with a, with a really paranoid body image, especially girls. They're getting it from a million different directions and you gotta be careful with it because that's a real, that can be turned into a real problem.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  And the thing that that actually you clarified really good to me one day. Where when you kind of implement change, you know, in a routine, especially if snacking is kind of like a routine or whatever. When you implement change, like it's good, there's gonna be some hiccups there, you know, like whether be, I don't know, in this case, like complaining, like, hey, what, you know, you're you're saying, hey, don't keep snacks in the house. So now there's no chocolate covered pretzels anymore, you know, like, hey, I remember the chocolate covered pretzels, they were right there in the little pantry right there. Now they're gone, like, what up? I haven't seen them in days.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  You're like, hey, we're not doing the chocolate covered pretzels anymore.

• 21:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Or whatever, there's gonna be some blowback there, especially from the little kids, you know, they can be like, well, dad, you know, there might be some complaining. So I think if we go in or when we go in, knowing those things, that helps a lot. So you're kind of prepared for it, you know, you can kind of plan what you're gonna say or how you're gonna handle it.

• 22:11Jocko Willink?

  Way too intense with this.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:13Jocko Willink?

  There's no chocolate covered pretzels, guess what? They didn't have them at the store, I'm not getting them, they're bad for us, we're not eating them.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  I dig it, but a lot of times when you have, you know, two girls or whoever.

• 22:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's good to get a pull-up bar.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they're not just gonna be like.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  Pull-up bar train.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they're not gonna be like, hey, oh, whoa, no chocolate pretzels? Oh, I'll just do pull-ups, it it doesn't work like that with the little kids.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  Bro, it's not that big of a deal to take to pull a snack out of your house.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Yes, I don't think.

• 22:37Jocko Willink?

  Especially if you get some beef jerky and you're like, ah, you know what, that's just bad for us and I don't want to eat it anymore. So I got some beef jerky here, it's really good, taste it.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yes, but to be ready.

• 22:44Jocko Willink?

  Seaweed, you know, the dried seaweed?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I like that.

• 22:46Jocko Willink?

  Eat that stuff like it was like they were damn octopuses.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  But that's good though, right?

• 22:50Jocko Willink?

  Octopi.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yes, I like the dry seaweed, yes, I was pounding some of that the other day with both of my kids, they like it, salty delicious. Anyway, what I what I'm saying is, I'm not saying necessarily make it a huge deal, I'm just saying if you're ready for the blowback, you know? Cause what if you're not ready, you think that.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'll I'll agree with you, just to so we can move this conversation along. In order to prep for huge stop the chocolate covered pretzels in your compound.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  You don't really agree with me.

• 23:14Jocko Willink?

  Come up with a a plan of action.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Little plan.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  A plan of action, an immediate action drill, when that six-year-old goes, dad, where are the chocolate covered pretzels? You have a very well rehearsed response, you can do some role-playing with your wife and you can go.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, I see what you're doing and and cool, man. I'm telling you, this helps, this will help.

• 23:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Because you, you know, the the poor kids, you care, you know, you care about the short term a little bit too, you know? Of course, the long term, you know, that's why you're doing the whole thing. All you gotta do is explain, "Hey, you know what? Hey, we're not doing that anymore 'cause it's not good for us."

• 23:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Straight up.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  That's a good point.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Not a huge, well, well.

• 23:57Jocko Willink?

  Rehearsed.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  Role play with your wife.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  No. Next question. Why isn't MMA or Jiu-Jitsu a bigger component of law enforcement training? This seems to be a huge missed opportunity.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it certainly is a huge missed opportunity. I plead with all law enforcement personnel to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, wrestling, boxing, Muay Thai as much as you possibly can. And I plead with law enforcement agencies of all types that I talk to, to get these types of programs in your departments because there is no doubt that it will help you, help your officers be better and more prepared to handle situations on the street. Just had a police officer come in here the other day that was just signing up and, you know, she just got done with the police academy and I'm so thankful that she's here because

• 24:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, "Yes, go and start training immediately and it will be so beneficial for you in your career, in your life." And one thing about all these things and any form of martial arts for like self-defense or self-defense situations or, you know, because that's sometimes what it turns into for a police officer, they're no longer, you know, once you, things, things cross over from where they're on offense to where they're on defense.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:24Jocko Willink?

  And for a police officer, this is a great example, like this was a female and hey, could a female 118-pound female police officer take a guy that was drunk, slightly drunk, a wrestler who's 240 pounds? The answer is no. She's not gonna fare well in that situation, but... If she knows, whatever she knows, if she knows, if she's trained, she might be able to prolong that conflict long enough for her backup to arrive. She might be able to stay alive, keep control of her gun, whatever, you know, keep control of the situation long enough that she, that she will get her backup there.

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  So that right there, that's the same thing I tell females that want self-defense. It's like, hey, look, I'm not saying you can't because you look at some of our female jujitsu players. They will choke out a dude, they're like, straight up. They will arm lock them, like for real. And 200 pound wrestler, they'll put a guillotine on them and choke them, put them asleep. So that's, that can happen. That's what someone that's really skilled to make up for their lack of strength and lack of size, uh, being a female. But what if, even if you're not that good, but you can postpone, you can prolong someone trying to grab you and take you somewhere. Someone's trying to do something to you, you can prolong it.

• 26:51Jocko Willink?

  The, the longer you can delay the, the, uh, offense from taking place, the better chance you have of somebody else coming along or somebody noticing, or that person just giving up because most, most criminals are, you know, weak minded and they don't want that kind of resistance. So yes, totally. Um, you're asking why isn't it? There's a bunch of reason, reasons why it isn't. And one of them, and I've talked about this before, but there was, there's been cases where people that were not trained enough. They were trained enough to be dangerous where they've choked guys to death. And that has happened. You crush someone's windpipe, you can be screwing around and, or you just, well, not screwing around,

• 27:33Jocko Willink?

  but you, you can be, you can be screwing around. You could, you know, you and I could, could start wrestling around. If you and I were white belts and we started going at it really hard, there's a chance one of us could get the other one in a chokehold, had a couple of drinks in us. And next thing you know, um, I put you to sleep, which is, oh yeah, I'm going to put you to sleep. Cause sometimes you choke your friend. You're like, I'm going to put you to sleep. Well, if I'm drunk and you're drunk and I put you to sleep and I don't really know that you're asleep yet and I'm squeezing extra hard because I'm drunk, next thing you know, I look up and all of a sudden your hyoid bone has crushed your windpipe and you're now gonna die. Yeah. So, that's happened in law enforcement. They've banned chokes, which is a horrible thing because choking is a, is one of the

• 28:15Jocko Willink?

  best and most minimal forces to use to subdue someone is to choke them. Yeah. Even an arm lock is gonna break their arm, it's gonna ruin their tendons, it's gonna hurt them. A choke doesn't even hurt someone, it just puts them to sleep. Yeah. Just incapacitates them. So, but that's one of the reasons why they don't teach it as much. The other reason is, they don't give enough training to law enforcement officers and they need to. Uh, they train a, a, an absolutely pathetic amount of time in what they call defensive tactics, generally the police officers call defensive tactics, which is them fighting and maintaining weapon retention and all that. They train a, a very small number of hours a year.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  They measure the time that they train in, in, in a year in hours, that's how little they train. So, my, my, my campaign I'd like to go forward with is, I think that police officers should spend one-fifth of their active duty time training. One-fifth of their time should be training, that's the way it should work. And I don't know how I'm gonna start that ground wave, but there's, that's such a solid idea that no one can argue against it. There's not one single argument against every police officer spending one-fifth of their time training. And, and if you want to argue with me about that, and the, the argument is, well, we won't have enough police officers out on the beat then.

• 29:45Jocko Willink?

  And here's the question back at that. Would you rather have eight highly qualified, highly trained officers out on the beat or 10? Officers that were barely trained at all and the answer is so easy to that question. So that's a bunch of things. I'll continue to push that as much as I can. And I know a ton of law enforcement people listen to this and just, you know, I think that's a great idea to start pushing from the ground. From the grassroots, we want one fifth of our time training. It's going to make us all better. It's going to prevent, think of all the time that's hours that are wasted in legal actions after there's a bad shooting or an injury or something like that. Think of all the stuff that gets wasted there. Take the officers and train them properly. That's what, that's what needs to happen. So hopefully it will.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  And then what would you suggest that, I mean, I kind of obvious what you can say, but you suggest like, you know, police officers going and getting training on their own. So like, you know,

• 30:42Jocko Willink?

  Yes, if you have to go get training on your own, go get training on your own.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Because most jujitsu places, they'll have a law enforcement like discount or yeah.

• 30:49Jocko Willink?

  Some kind of deal.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually this guy, you know Craig, right? Hanami, the guy from Hawaii. Okay, police officer up in Oregon, if I'm not mistaken, always doing jujitsu like with his uniform on and you can look, look him up on Instagram. You can see all the stuff he does with jujitsu and he applies it to law enforcement.

• 31:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And like, man, it's such a clear demonstration of the benefits and, and, and you know, whatever everyone who trains like, you know, it's like, man, it becomes really, after you train for a while, all this dealing with other people in chaotic situations, right? It's literally easy.

• 31:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's easy.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  So, man, yeah, get, watch Craig and his stuff and I don't, and here's the thing though, I don't know how that works with like work and you know, hey, you're at risk of injury. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what the whole deal is, but man, the way I see it, man, trains or Craig's over there. Training all the time.

• 31:39Jocko Willink?

  Train.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  And so, man, yeah, just train on your own. Until your situation arises with the law enforcement.

• 31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, hopefully they'll implement that sometime in the future, man.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Next question. Bow or not? In Jiu Jitsu, he's three months in, professor not bowing. I don't. Other practitioners bow. No one told me. When in Rome versus I'm not in a herd. Respect the professor, mats and practitioners.

• 32:13Jocko Willink?

  This is a pretty simple question. Some people bow when they go on the mat. Some people bow to the professor, some people don't. I don't, I just kind of do whatever and it doesn't really matter to me. And there's a little bit of paranoia in the question, which I, I understand, which is like, hey, hey, when in Rome do as Romans do, but at the same time, you know, I'm going to hold the line kind of on my personal values. So it's like, I don't, I'm not bowing, right? That's not my gig or I, it's respect. You gotta bow like there's both those extremes. And both of them can be articulated in a way that's fine. And to me, I'm just like, whatever. Oh, everyone, it looks like everyone's bowing, calling them to bow. Not, not that big of a deal. I don't, I don't freak out about it. It's not that big of a deal, I think.

• 32:53Jocko Willink?

  It to me, to me, the overall arching principle of my actions, bowing or not bowing, is more based on my overall principle of not making a spectacle out of myself one way or the other. Like I'm not here to like draw attention and be like, hey, I don't bow. Or hey, this is Jiu Jitsu, you need to respect them. I'm like over here just trying to train.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  Not trying to make a big deal out of myself.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  So if everyone's bowing, it's like, cool. Like, no, no big deal. I get it. Or if no one's bowing and it's like, hey, no big deal.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:27Jocko Willink?

  I, I guess people might be disappointed that I don't have some hard stance, right?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:33Jocko Willink?

  But I don't.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:34Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's some things I don't worry about. That's one of them.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yes, I believe that.

• 33:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, how about we just train?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, agree. And that'll sort itself out anyway, because if you're at a school, because some schools sort of require it, that's the protocol here at the school. But you can have that exact attitude, be like, cool, that's what we're doing. Cool. Because some people you bow on the mat, you bow off the mat, at the beginning of class to the, you know, to the picture, whatever. At the end, like the whole deal, but same deal. It's like bowing is not hard to do. It doesn't like, you know, affect your family life at home or nothing like that. It's just, just bow. Same thing with not bowing, doesn't affect your, you know, it's not hard to not bow.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  Now, I guess there's a line. In either direction, right? There, you know, where you could, you know, you could be telling me like, okay, when we bow, you need to bow and you need to praise.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:21Jocko Willink?

  Praise the, praise instructor, whoever. It's like, mm, mm, okay, probably not, I'm probably not gonna do that, you know, like, we're not, we're not worshiping, right? We're not, bowing is like, okay, a little sign of respect, cool, I got that. Uh, but we're not gonna turn a, a respect into a worship. There's a line that, that will not be crossed. The other direction is like, oh, you know, someone's teaching a class and I'm just gonna, you know, run my mouth and walk on the mat like it's no big deal. No, like, you're gonna be respectful to the instructor, of course. So, I'm just gonna find a little balance there, balance those two dichotomies.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  So what if you go as a guest or whatever at another place and their, their protocol is, in your opinion, like, sort of crossed over to worship?

• 35:05Jocko Willink?

  I haven't really been to an academy where it crossed over into worship.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Well, let's say it did, just a little bit, or like, would you go, as a guest, do you just go through the motions out of respect for?

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  I might, what I would probably do is go through the motions, but then do other uh, actions that would indicate to everyone that I have a free mind. And that I'm not down with what they just did, type of scenario. Like, I wouldn't be obnoxious about it.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  But I'd be like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do is take off my gi and sit on the mat right now. Oh, oh, that's not allowed? Okay, sorry, cool.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Oh, my bad.

• 35:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, no big deal, they put it on, like, ah, you know, cool, whatever, just kinda like, just indicate.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Would you say, at my academy, like, we don't care about these small things?

• 35:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe like, um, I don't know if I'd do that. Cause then you're just trying to, you're trying to, again, make a spectacle. I'm not trying to make a spectacle, man. I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to, just trying to be, you know, just trying to get some training in, man, to be honest with you.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I dig it. Yeah. So don't make a spectacle and get in the way, and let that spectacle get in the way of your training?

• 36:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, how often are we making, I mean, how often do people try and make spectacles out of themselves? It's like, people do that.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  And that's not cool. Like, don't do that. Don't be a spectacle. Just be, you know, I told a story before about the, the, when I went to University of San Diego and there was a professor there that was like, She was an American, but she was a Buddhist monk, right? You know, so she had at some point converted to Buddhism. And and she would shave her head and walk around in the robes and stuff like that. And I was like, we know, one of the tenants of, you know, being Buddhist is to like not make a spectacle of yourself. And yet, here you are, walking around a western campus. In a, you know, in a, in a uniform with a shaved head, that's not, that's not, that you are making a spectacle of yourself.

• 36:57Jocko Willink?

  So I was just like, I would, I would think it would be more like the Buddha to just wear, you know, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. And just have like, whatever, normal, just be a normal, just look as normal as possible. There's a whole like, there's a whole thing. That's sort of my, that's sort of, I I fall into, I fall back on that, you know, like a lot. So.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Cause you'd think that she might argue, well, this is how us Buddhists like minimize our whole efforts to have individuality or whatever. But at the end of the day, you are, yeah, like.

• 37:33Jocko Willink?

  Like when you're in Thailand, which is awesome, like the Buddhist monks, they're everywhere and they're, that's what they do. And so they're, they're not making a spectacle of themselves at all. And they come around and get rice in the morning. It's very cool. It's a very cool culture. But if you're in a culture of a Southern California university, there's no other Buddhist monks that are walking around. So you're kind of, and hey, maybe I'm wrong, you know, I don't, I'm not trying to disparage, you know, this individual. I'm just saying from my perspective, I was like, hmm, if you really want to have the, the low profile and not bring attention to yourself and give up, you know, gi- give up the, the trappings of ego.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  Right? You want to give up the trappings of ego, then you don't want people to notice you. If you don't want people to notice you, you dress like a gray man. You dress just like kind of normal. You know?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Forgettable.

• 38:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So anyways, not trying to get like deep into the religious aspect of uh, jujitsu and robes.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:41Jocko Willink?

  But that's just kind of my opinion.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  I dig it. Alright, next question.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Did you ever have CCT, did you ever have a CCT attached to your unit? And if yes, how was having them alongside and what advantages did they bring to the battlefield?

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  So CCT is an Air Force Combat Controller and they're special operations guys. They're awesome guys. They go through really hardcore training and I didn't really, I worked with them occasionally, um, not very directly on a couple of occasions. They were great guys. But I never worked with them enough to, to be talking about them all the time because I just didn't have that experience, you know, I don't talk about, uh, bull riders either because I don't know many of them, you know, so it's just, it's just that, uh, but they're great guys. I know they have an awesome reputation and my friends that have worked with them, uh, loved to work with them. If there was a guy that was, I've had a couple of guys, uh, kind of heard names of, so for as far as coming on the podcast, yeah, of course I'd have one on the podcast of, uh, without question, no problem.

• 39:45Jocko Willink?

  And what we, what we had was we had Anglico, which was Dave Burke and his guys. They were the guys that were doing the CCT type mission for us when we were in Ramadi. So, uh, that's one of the reasons why we didn't work with them very much on that deployment, the previous deployment. We had my own, I had my own JTAC and that's who we worked with. So just, just, uh, just didn't have that opportunity. So they're awesome guys though.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Next question. Jaco, currently in a busy and stressed place in life and keep looking back at what could have been, how do you bounce back to doing you and not getting in your own head? Appreciate what you and I could do. Thank you both and God bless.

• 40:25Jocko Willink?

  Alright, uh, you know, we can look back all day long at what could have been and it doesn't matter. Well, the only thing that matters from the past is what you learned from it. So let's learn from it and look at the future. And one, one thing I'll say is,

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  It's like this saying about when's a good time to plant a tree?

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:44Jocko Willink?

  Do you know when the best time to plant a tree is?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Right now.

• 40:48Jocko Willink?

  Either twenty-two years ago or right now, right? Like that's, look, you didn't do it then, so guess what you can do? You do it now.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  When's the best time to start a savings account?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Same deal.

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's the same thing, like I, you know, twenty years ago or right now? So, if you sit there and say, oh, well, I could have done, if I wish I would have done this years ago, I wish it, well, guess what? You look up at a year and you don't have that little sapling now. You could have a little sapling, right? You have nothing, so it's not that big of a deal. Hey, hey, you, you went through life, you made some, you wasted some time? Good, you didn't waste it completely. First of all, you learned from it, you got experience, you had fun, you did other things, you, you learned about, you learned about relationships because some girl dumped you and you realize that you can't overcommit to a, to a liar, you know, like you learn these things, right? So, the, just because things were negative experiences in the past and they didn't feel good to go through,

• 41:42Jocko Willink?

  doesn't mean that they were all bad, because you still took something away from it and you learned from it. So, that's part one. Part two is, what are you gonna do? Plant a tree today. That's what you're gonna do. Plant a tree today and start to nourish that tree and take the lessons that you learned to sprinkle on that tree and feed that tree so it can grow fast. That tree that you plant today should be able to grow faster than the one you would have planted twenty years ago, because you have the knowledge on how to, on how to nourish that tree and feed that tree so it can grow quicker. So, just get on the path. Don't, don't play around with what's going on in the past. Learn from it, move on.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, that goes along with how, like, that little speech, it wasn't a speech, but a little talk you had with me about, you know, you gotta play the long game or whatever, and, and kinda in this case, same deal, where it's gonna, and, more so than even play, you are playing the long game, but keep the long game in mind, because that's, you know, those thoughts like, dang, I should have, I should have went to college, or I should have, shouldn't have went to college, I don't know, whatever. This whole what could have been kinda deal. That's like your mind saying, like, right now, if I would have done that back then, right now, I would have this. And that's the part that kinda messes, like jams you up mentally, right? Where you're like, man, I could have had this right now. So, when you think, so you don't, so as a result, typically. In my experience, anyway.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Which is almost none, but typically, I think, like, wait, I, because when I think of what could have been, because of this thing that I kind of want right now, I don't want a seed right now. I want what I could have had. That's what I want.

• 43:14Jocko Willink?

  You can't have that, so plant the seed.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, but, look how emotionally or mentally, that's not where your mind is. Your mind isn't like, hey, I can't have that, I accept that, and so let's think of the future now. Your mind doesn't do that. It's more like hung up on, on that, right? What you don't have right now, that empty void that you have. You don't want to fill that void with a seed. A seed doesn't do nothing for me. Not even a sapling, that doesn't, a full grown tree. That's what I want right now. That's what I could have had. So how is a seed the problem, or, or the solution to my problem? But if you're looking at the big picture, the long game, as you so eloquently put it, that day. Brother, the seed is nothing but a tree at a different time. That's really what it is, see what I'm saying?

• 43:59Speaker 01

  So that is a, that is a solution, see what I'm saying?

• 44:02Jocko Willink?

  That might be the most philosophically, uh, bold and, and unbounded statement you've made on this. The seed is nothing but a tree at a different time.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 44:12Jocko Willink?

  I like how you did that. Good job. It's all been worth it. The pain and suffering of listening has finally paid off.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Good, cool, man. Thank you. Anyway, so yeah, I think if like, you can keep that long game in mind, that's helped me like a lot with just even like small little things. You know, stuff's like uncomfortable, I don't want to do this right now. But you know, this exact thought, like, man, I'm, I'm looking forward to the day that I'm not, I'm thinking the opposite of what could have been. I'm think, now I'm thinking, I'm so glad I planted that seed last year, or whatever, you know? So you can look at the long game and, and kind of fulfill all that stuff.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Alright, anyway, next question. Hi, Jaco and Echo. My name's spelled wrong, by the way, here, but. Hi, Jaco and Echo. Quick question. I really get, I get really bad anxiety doing almost everything. For example, when talking to people, I always feel like, as if I'm gonna say something stupid, and this makes me start to stutter and lose my train of thought, and I just go blank.

• 45:17Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I'd say on that one, uh, first of all, you gotta condition yourself, you know, you gotta practice, you gotta rehearse. Uh, actually, first of all, I would say, go get some speech therapy, someone to help you out, because that will, that will be beneficial to you. Getting someone that's a professional to, to come in and say like, okay, here's the drills that we're gonna do. Uh, my buddy that drums in my band, he, there's drumming drills that you can do so you can get your left hand to do something different than your left foot, and your right hand to do something. There's drills that you can do to overcome, because if you're like me, you're not a drummer, I, my right hand and right foot are gonna do the same thing at the same time. My left hand and my left foot are gonna do the same thing

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  at the same time. But there's drills that you can do to overcome that. And there's drills that you can do with speech, so you can practice and you rehearse and you think about it, then you'll get better at it. And the, the cool thing is, like, once you start to build some confidence, then you get more and more confident, and you'll get better and better at it. The other thing I would say is, talk about things that you know, right? Don't try and explain things that you don't know. Don't try and, try and come up with some theory that you don't understand and try and just roll it out off the tip of your tongue because you don't know it. So, just when that's happening, just sit back and kind of formulate your thoughts and think, okay, of all the things I'm thinking right now, what do I actually kind of have a grip on? Maybe it's a question. Sometimes forming something in a question will make

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  it easier for you to state it, because you're saying, hey, I got a question. And now you're not putting pressure on yourself to come up with this perfect yarn of why that you, this theory that you have. Instead, you pose something as a question, that'll take some pressure off you. And talk about things that you know. And if you don't know it, then ask a question about it, and that'll get you more comfortable. And you keep talking and keep trying, and over time, you'll get better and better at it. But you, you have to, you have to not jump in, like, don't go and volunteer to give the speech at the local club, right? No. Volunteer to, when people are having a conversation, say, hey, can I ask a question about this? Start with that. That's like the easiest entry point. No one's expecting you to say anything brilliant when you ask a question. They're just expecting you to

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  ask a question. So it's not that big of a deal. And then just build on that, man. It's exposure therapy. Exposure therapy.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  When you transitioned from E to an O,

• 47:43Speaker 01

  how did you approach working with with men you previously served with as enlisted now that you were an officer?

• 47:51Jocko Willink?

  This is such an easy question because the bottom line is when I transferred from being an enlisted guy to being an officer, I didn't change anything in the way that I treated everyone. I treated people the same. And when I was a young enlisted guy or a senior enlisted guy, well, more senior, I was never like a, I would, I only made it to E5 before I went officer, but when I was in my third platoon with other guys that were not in their third platoon, I treat people like, hey, man, with, you know, hey, this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna make it happen. Now, I gotta caveat that for the guys that were in platoons with me when I was in the E5 mafia. Hey, I was a little crazy with the hazing and like it sucked to be a new guy in one of my platoons and I get that. But as you guys have told me,

• 48:36Jocko Willink?

  you appreciated it. Once you got a little, you know, once you saw the big picture, there was appreciation. But no, from a, from an actual working relationship, hey, you know, what are you gonna do? You're gonna stay humble, you're gonna treat people with respect regardless if you're above them or below them in the chain of command. There's this saying that I didn't talk about when we had Derek Herrera on and it's, it's pulled from that speech by Jacqueline, by Gunnery Sergeant Jacqueline. He says at the end of the speech, he says, "Not above you, not below you, always beside you." So think about that from a leadership perspective. Not above you, not below you, always beside you. So that's, if you have that attitude, look, I'm not above, when I'm, I'm not above you and I'm not below you.

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  Like, we're equals and we're trying to figure out how to best solve this problem. And if you treat people like that, regardless if you're above them or below them in the chain of command. You'll treat him with respect and humility, you'll be fine. And that's what I did. I didn't treat anybody any different. And I mean, I had, I had guys that worked for, that worked for me that had been my peers or that I had worked for before, when I, when I went through that transition. And it was like no factor. It was literally no factor. Because these guys were, you know, when we were friends, we worked together, we focused on getting the job done. When they were above me in the chain of command, what did I do? I worked hard and focused on getting the job done. When they were below me in the chain of command, oh, no, it's like, hey, they're working hard. Did they become less of a person? Did I become more of a person?

• 50:06Jocko Willink?

  No. No. I put a different rank on my sleeve. What does that mean? Nothing. It doesn't mean any, it means, yeah, what does it mean? It means that I'm gonna be given this brief instead of some other guy. Cool. No big deal. You know what? Why don't you give the brief? I'm fine with that. So, yeah, respect, humility, and never above you, never below you, always beside you. It's a good little thing to think about there.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Did you ever have the situations where you're throwing darts at the guys back at the bar, you know, for your hazing situation?

• 50:40Jocko Willink?

  Nah.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  No shirt?

• 50:42Jocko Willink?

  We did some pretty, we did some pretty rough hazing, though, for sure. You know, lots of, yeah, it was, it was not fun. It wasn't fun. It wasn't fun. You know, and it was part of the ritual back in the day. It's not as much as it, as it, it's not as much as that anymore. But, you know, guess what? Guys are fighting a war now. So, I'm not like, oh, those guys don't have it as hard. Guess what? When I got, when I was in the teams, when I first got to the teams, it was like, oh, cool. Oh, you're in the teams. Yeah. You're gonna get hazed. Ooh. Guess what these guys are gonna get nowadays? They're gonna get shot at. They're gonna get, you know, hit with IEDs. So, not that big of a deal. It's just a little bit of a culture change, and that's the way it is.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Next question. Dichotomy of leadership has some great principles. What is an appropriate philosophy concerning time to train versus manage out a direct report?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  When they have been in the role for over a year.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this changes from industry to industry to spend depending on the situation that you're in. And sometimes you don't have, you have a really tight timeline to get people up to speed. And if they don't get up to speed, you gotta get rid of them or otherwise it's gonna cost the team or it's gonna cost the company money. So how long are you gonna give them? You're gonna give them as much time as you think you can give them before they start detracting from the team. You're also gonna make sure that you're not investing so much time into one person. To try and get them up to speed that you're ignoring everyone else and now it's having a negative impact on the team. So you just gotta look at the timing. Again, I worked with construction companies where if they don't get a job done on time, it'll cost them sixty thousand dollars a day. They don't play around. Like they need someone that's gonna be able to get the job done. You get some sales organization that's commission only.

• 52:20Jocko Willink?

  And there's somebody that's taking a while to get up to speed. They don't really care. It's not costing the company anything. So you gotta figure out in your industry, how much time that looks like and then you gotta set the expectations clearly. And once you've done that, you say, okay, listen bud, I've been working with you for this amount of time. Here's where I want you to be at this date. If you don't get there, we're gonna move you out, man. That's the way it is. Pretty straightforward.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Next question. I have to coexist at times with an individual who knows I'm ex-army. He purposely makes pro Taliban quips to piss me off. As I'm in a position, I can't do much about it. His intent to anger works, but I don't show it. What's some advice?

• 53:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, this guy's just, uh, just, I would just completely ignore him. You know, and actually, you know, hey, that's funny, man. Cool. He's obviously trying to get under your skin and just don't let him get under your skin. That's just all there is to it. Um, this person is worthless and. Just ignore them. I mean, you could go to the extreme of taking like in Mark's mission where Mark actually gets in on the joke.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:33Jocko Willink?

  You know, and if you want to, you know, but then you you might be crossing. Again, I don't know the specifics of the situation.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Jocko Willink?

  Because there's times where that's not like I wouldn't do that in certain situations like like no, I'll ignore you. But I'm not gonna play along with this joke, the way you're saying it. But there's times where I'd be like, oh, yeah, guess what? You know, I might play along with a joke just to diffuse it.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:56Jocko Willink?

  Again, this might be a this might be a guy that doesn't deserve that. But, uh, yeah. Ignore it, man. Go. Don't even worry about this idiot. That's that's my advice.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that ignore thing you do that super good where it's literally like you. You feel like you you got no feedback from my little joke, like if I make a joke to you or something. And it's almost like, did he not hear my joke? Because he just sort of moved on, you know, kind of thing. And it's really compelling me to like not tell that joke anymore, you know, kind of thing. And I'm assuming. It works really good, actually. Oh, and he he actually did have an example, like the guy would say, hey, you're aiding the Taliban with this with the check this week. Like, I don't know if the check is junk or this week's check. Anyway.

• 54:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  So it seems like he's trying to be funny, you know, like he's not trying to be a dick to the guy.

• 54:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, he says he's purposely trying to piss him off. And so for me, if you're purposely trying to piss me off, me getting pissed off is you winning.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  That's the payoff.

• 54:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm not gonna let that happen.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:58Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna win. How am I gonna win? By not getting pissed off.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And your little and your ignore tactic that you do in real life, by the way.

• 55:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I'm not saying like the ignore where you're like, like a little kid ignores, like a little kid. Just ignore them and they like turn their back. No, it's like, eh. Oh, yeah. You know, just like, just like meaningless, like your your little quips literally mean nothing to me whatsoever. So whatever.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's a skill too, which apparently you've honed over the years because it is, you gotta, you can't oversell it. You can't oversell ignoring somebody. Otherwise, you're like, oh, you're not ignoring. I got the payoff.

• 55:39Jocko Willink?

  I got it. Yeah, yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  So you can't oversell it. And, you know, underselling ignoring means like you're not really ignoring, I guess, but. If you can nail it, if you can nail it like literally your joke or your comments or whatever are falling on deaf ears, you know? And they don't like affect me at all. If you can nail that. Yeah, I would say that that would compel a normal person or this kind of person, whatever to stop. It work, I think that works with everybody, even little kids.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  Once again, you don't make a spectacle out of yourself.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:08Jocko Willink?

  Let it roll. Like you're not making a spectacle of like, I'm ignoring you. You don't make a spectacle of like, hey, shut up. You just play it in the middle and you just go through. Because, because there's things in life that don't matter. I'm not saying that you, that there, that there's, that there's things that you don't react to because there certainly are. And I'm not saying that you want to be this neutral person through, for all things. But there's things that just don't matter. There's things that just, they just don't matter. And this is one of them. This guy doesn't matter. What is, who is this guy? He doesn't matter. So don't put any effort into him. Just stay neutral. Oh, give him a smile and a nod and keep doing what you're doing.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Another tip too for this, don't tell other people. Like, oh, that guy's pissing me off with that number and you forgot about that thing.

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  Never.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Totally just forgot about it, yeah.

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  Never tell anyone when something pisses you off. Never.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  That way, because if you do, and then you're, you're nailing the ignore tactic. You're nailing it, delivering it perfectly. And then, and then you told, you told your friend or whatever, like, hey. So that guy knows that, oh, he's just ignoring me, but that really pisses him off, you know? So he'll just keep doing it. And, and here's the thing too about playing the game like, um, or, or going along with the joke. Like, oh yeah, that's funny. You just basically, you kind of involve yourself in the game. Sure, he's not getting the payoff necessarily, but he'll just change his tactic because you're still in the game with him, you know?

• 57:35Jocko Willink?

  You want to, you want to get out of the game. That's why, that's why in that particular situation. Um, you know, Mark and Mark Smith was trying to befriend.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:43Jocko Willink?

  Nathan James. So that's a different situation. He's not just trying to diffuse. Or he's trying to actually befriend him. And so then he needed to make a connection. So that's the clear difference. If this guy was like a coworker or a boss or a subordinate that you were trying to build a relationship with. Then I might take a little step, you know? And again, am I going to joke about somebody being pro Taliban? I'm not probably joking about the Taliban very much.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Probably not, no, yeah. Cool. Next question. Is it better to remain single if you have a dangerous or demanding career? In order to protect your family from unintended negative consequences? Or find a partner willing to embrace the risk and raise warrior kids together?

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  Hey, man. It's hard to live the life and it's a lot harder on your family than it is on you. Cause you'll be over getting after it and your family will be at home not knowing what's going on with you. So it's hard, but I mean, obviously. Having kids and raising little warrior kids with a with a partner that's in the game is is awesome. It's hard to find someone to get married to that's that. Good to go in the game, especially if they're real young. So I got real lucky. I married a girl that kinda. Got it. We'll say. And and I said this when I was on Ben Shapiro's show.

• 59:14Jocko Willink?

  That the quality that she had and still has that I think is is the most important. Is. Emotional independence and I don't even know if that's a thing. I don't know if I just made that up, but that's trying to describe that. You know, my wife doesn't need the the hey, honey. From me. She doesn't need to like a hey, how's everything going? She doesn't need that from me. She's fine. She's emotionally independent. And. And of course she's independent in the way that she can take care of. Whatever the kids and the puking kids and the kids diapers and the kids with and the broken water heater and the flat tire on the cause you can handle all that. Stuff too, when I was gone a lot. But most important.

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  Is she could. She she didn't need the constant like emotional recharge from me. Cause she's a independent, stable human being of her own. So I think that's the kind of thing you've got to look for. Now, unfortunately, a lot of times dudes. Are attracted. To the person that's emotionally dependent on them because it makes the it's a little ego boost. It makes him feel good like, oh, she needs me around. And it's like that's so you gotta watch out for that. You gotta find someone that kinda has their own thing going on. Which also has to be balanced because if you find a female that is too has too much independence. Then guess what? She ain't gonna be around when you come home. She's gonna find somebody else.

• 1:00:45Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta find that balance as well. Uh, but if you can find that that right person, don't rush into it. Take your time. And and and she's in the game, then yeah, man, get after it.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  I gotta say, that's a good question.

• 1:01:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is. And you know, a lot of times, guys, guys, and here's another like, this is just an it's an answer. That's not really an answer, and yet it's fully an answer. Hey, I'm married and I'm thinking about going to SEAL Teams. What will this do to my marriage? It's like, oh, there's a fifty percent chance your marriage is gonna get destroyed. Cause you're gonna be gone all the time. Your wife is gonna be jealous of the teams. She's gonna be jealous of the travel. She's gonna be pissed that you're not home. She's gonna be pissed that when you get home, you're going to the bar with your boys instead of going to the recital. For the daughter. Like, that's that's a reality. So, yeah, I can't recommend it. At the same time, if you're squared away and you have a good relationship, yeah, it'll be awesome.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  It'll be awesome, but it's it's a really hard like when guys, when I meet a guy that's nineteen years old, twenty years old. And he says, yeah, you know, I'm I'm going to Bud's and I'm getting married this summer before I go. Straight up, that's a bad idea. That's a bad idea. Don't do that. If you're in that situation, don't do that. Because if you are, if you have a great relationship with that person, say, look, I'm gonna go through Bud's. I'm gonna be focused on that. It's gonna take me some time. I'm gonna show up at a team. I'm gonna go on deployment. I'm gonna come home. It's gonna take about three years for all this to happen. When we get done with that, when I get done with all that, we'll get married. Cause we are so strong and so tight that we can get through three years without, you know, being married. We cool?

• 1:02:33Jocko Willink?

  Let's see what kinda response you get from that.

• 1:02:37Jocko Willink?

  Because it's non-committal, right? Cause it's showing the female, hey, I'm non-committal. When actually you're saying, listen, it's not that I'm non-committal. I don't even know what holds in the future. I don't know what the future holds for me. It's gonna be crazy. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't wanna drag you through a bunch of crap. Let's just pause on moving forward with the marriage part. And once we get done with that, you know, give me, give me two years, give me three years. And then you can see if you still wanna be around. You, you think you wanna be around right now? You haven't had, you haven't had a dude that's going on deployment for seven months. After he gets done with a one-year workup where I was gone, in 12 months, I was gone nine months. That's a whole nother thing. You, you may not wanna be in that situation.

• 1:03:22Jocko Willink?

  You know, ma'am? So if you're in that situation, yeah, don't get married. And do, do people pull it off sometimes? Yeah. Flynn Cochran got married, I think, before Bud's. Yeah, yeah. And so that's, that's one guy. But, but it's a rare occasion. And most of the time, it doesn't work out as well as Flynn. And it worked out for Flynn. Why did it work out for Flynn? One of the reasons? He married a girl that is emotionally independent. And can do her own thing. And wasn't waiting on, you know, that, that, that emotional boost. Yeah. You know? So.

• 1:04:03Jocko Willink?

  There you go. So it's, and, and here's the, the final answer is like, you know what the right answer is. You actually know it. So many questions you actually know the answer to. Yeah, yeah. But you want reinforcement of them. And, but, but the only person that can answer these questions is you, the person. You gotta listen to what I'm saying, sure. But you gotta look at your future spouse and be like, or po- potential spouse. You're the one that knows. Now, what's hard is guys, especially guys, they go head over heels for females. Yeah. They go crazy. They go nuts. They don't even see straight. Yeah.

• 1:04:46Jocko Willink?

  You can't, I had guys in SEAL platoons where I was like, listen. Hey, bro. This girl that you're involved with right now is going to ruin your life. I want to tell you that. Let me tell you what she's done so far. You're not married yet. I know you want to get married in two weeks. So far, she stole your credit card.

• 1:05:08Jocko Willink?

  She's called the command four times to request to talk to the master chief about your orders. This girl is a nightmare. Please do not marry her. And guys are like, "Bro, you don't understand."

• 1:05:22Jocko Willink?

  And that's the way guys do it. And how do I know that? Because I was the same idiot when you're 15 years old. "Oh, my God, it's the only..." No. It's like, no, that's not the only girl. It's not. There's more. So just calm down. If you can, if the marriage is meant to be, let it be, but let it be in a year. Let it happen in a year. Don't be getting married in three months. Don't be getting married in two months. Don't get married in six months. Get married in a year. Get married in a year and a half. Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Do us all a favor.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Alright, there you go. Sounds like sound advice. Thank you. Next question. Could you talk about how you read a book to get so much out of it that you do?

• 1:06:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Here's what I do when I read a book. I read the book. As I'm reading the book, I highlight the important parts of the book. Then I go back through and reread what I highlight and pull out the creme de la creme of the information. Another small thing. If you're reading a book where there's lots of characters, write down the characters and kind of like give them a description so you can refer back to them when they show back up again. Because sometimes I'll lose track of characters if it's a complex book. And you just don't, you just don't know. So, that's what I do. I read slowly. Actually, it's horrible. I wish I read faster. I read at the speed that I talk just about. I read a little bit faster, but it's just about the speed that I talk. And I read every single word.

• 1:06:49Jocko Willink?

  And I will say this, when I do read a book slowly and like I do read, I remember a lot from the book, which is cool. But, read it slowly, highlight it, take notes. There you go.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Next question. What was plan B if you rang the bell?

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, um, there was no, I wasn't gonna ring the bell. Wasn't gonna happen. It seriously wasn't gonna happen. And but here's what could have happened. Injury. You can get injured in BUDs.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  And you, some injuries are more preventative, like shin splints. If you train properly beforehand, you probably won't get shin splints. But if you're doing a rock portage and you, there's big waves and you're bringing a boat, a Zodiac boat or a, a IBS boat up the rocks in big waves, you can just get your knee broke. Like it can happen. So then what would have happened if I would have gotten, I would have, you know, gone to the fleet, healed up, come back. That's what I would have done. Yeah, try again. It's a, that's one of the scariest things about BUDs from a guy that, like, the guys that I know that were like, yeah, we're never gonna quit. But they, there's a possibility you're gonna get injured.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can you get rolled, they call it rolled, right?

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you get rolled back.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  What about, like, even if you get sick, right? Like a doctor can be like, hey, you can't continue.

• 1:08:08Jocko Willink?

  Yep. That can happen. That can hap- that happens to guys in hell week. They'll get pneumonia.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:12Jocko Willink?

  And they're just, they can't, like, they're, they're not quitting.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  But they're coughing up blood. They're spitting blood out of their mouth and they're like, and the doctor's like, hey, are you okay? But I'm fine. And so they just have to, they just have to, uh, get rolled back. Yeah, it happens. There's very few people that don't get rolled back. Oh, yeah, it's a pretty small number that don't get rolled back at all.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Like for medical?

• 1:08:42Jocko Willink?

  Medical failure. If you fail something, you can get rolled back. If you fail a run, I forget, I don't know what it is right now. When I went through, if you failed a run, okay, you gotta write up. If you failed another run, you got rolled back.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  So you gotta do the whole thing again?

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do the whole thing again. Yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  For one run. Not just the run.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do everything again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  The whole thing?

• 1:09:02Jocko Willink?

  It's a nightmare. So I failed a run.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Jocko Willink?

  A swim.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  A, a, a obstacle course. Like, and then you just freaked out. I was so paranoid. I think you could actually, when I went through, you could fail one per phase. So there was three phases. First phase, second phase, and third phase. You could fail like one of each thing per phase. Which is, it sounds really lenient. But dang, you're doing, cause you're doing a timed run every week. A timed run every week.

• 1:09:38Jocko Willink?

  And then you're doing a million, they just call them conditioning runs, which is the most understated name for a run. Ever. Cause what they really were is just the most grueling, as fast as you could go through the soft sand runs.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Like for how long?

• 1:09:53Jocko Willink?

  Forever. No, no, no, dude, no. And not only that, you ran to, you ran to breakfast and back, then you ran to lunch and back, and you ran to dinner and back. And each one of those runs was one mile. So there's six miles before you ran anywhere, before your conditioning run and your timed run. You're doing a six mile run every day. Just, that's awesome. That is awesome. And that's not a sprint, sometimes you have to run fast, sometimes you run slow. But it's just like a, a lot of times just a little, you know, typical military shuffle.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:25Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Nah, man.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  Next question. What actual strategy should a jujitsu white belt employ during a roll? Other than relax, tap early, tap off, and etc.

• 1:10:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, those are other key points, but the other thing is I would say try and do moves that you've actually learned. Instead of, instead of doing something that you, that you, uh, just like you're spazzing out trying to do some random thing. Actually do something that you know. And if you get in a situation that you don't know what to do, remember the situation you were in, so that you can ask an instructor, hey, here's where I was, I didn't know what to do, can you please help me? Simple, pretty straightforward.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Next question. If a coworker were attempting to bully, intimidate, or make you generally miserable, do you go with it?

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Would you make a mention of your jujitsu knowledge? Or keep it a surprise?

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  I like that question. Uh, yeah, I would keep it. I'm, I keep everything a surprise. Right?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  The mystique.

• 1:11:29Jocko Willink?

  I just keep everything a surprise because I'm not here like, "Hey, you know, I do jujitsu, you better back off." You know, like, what is that? Instead, you're just like, "Hey, man." "All good." You know? And then let that guy find out for himself that, you know.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  The hard way?

• 1:11:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Either the hard way, or someone will be like, "Hey, man, you know that guy that you keep messing with? That guy trains jujitsu every day. He's gonna choke you up and put you to sleep." And then guess what he's gonna do? He's gonna get mouthy because he's already been, he's already been testing you and he's like, "Oh, he's kind of a wimp."

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah. I mean, there's no like, is there even a cool way you can say, "I train jujitsu?"

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  No, because even if you pull it off externally, like internally, you're like,

• 1:12:11Jocko Willink?

  You know who said it cool?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  I gotta. Jean-Claude Van Damme.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Hoiler Gracie.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:12:17Jocko Willink?

  Hoiler Gracie.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  I dig it.

• 1:12:18Jocko Willink?

  He was surfing. And I think Kid Pellegrino told me this story. But it might have been Hoiler that told me this. He was surfing. And somebody wanted to, you know, give him some beef.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Get nuts.

• 1:12:29Jocko Willink?

  Somebody wanted to like, you know, "Hey, what are you doing out here?" Type thing. And he was like, you know, he did what I would do. You know, he just kept surfing, kind of. And then the person started talking more, and then he started running his mouth. And then Hoiler said something like,

• 1:12:46Jocko Willink?

  "Hey, you like to surf. I like to fight. If you wanna fight, we can do that."

• 1:12:58Jocko Willink?

  And I thought that was a pretty cool way of saying it.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  He told that story, I think I was, unless he told it another time to you, at Brian Sargent's promotion to Black Belt.

• 1:13:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  I think Kid Paliro was here too. I forget. But yes, he told me.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  He told that story to like the group?

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  He told it to me, and I thought you were there.

• 1:13:17Jocko Willink?

  Did I say it right?

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, yeah, I thought there was like kind of more.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  He actually said it cooler than that.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  He said it cooler than that. He said it some way that was like, yeah, listen, you like to fight, you like to surf for your life. I fight for mine.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, for my life, yes, yeah.

• 1:13:31Jocko Willink?

  You surf for a living, I fight for a living. It was something even more than what I said, but it was good.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can fight or we can surf.

• 1:13:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was the kind of thing where you're like, if you were that guy, you'd think, you know, yeah, maybe I'll not do this whole thing right now.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  I remember thinking the same thing as you, like, dang, that was a really dope way to say it, you know?

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Plus, like, you know that that guy, obviously, he didn't know who that was. I'm assuming, which would be kind of crazy if he didn't, or if he did know who he was, but, and then what if hypothetically later he found out like who that was? And he'd be like.

• 1:14:06Jocko Willink?

  Occasionally, I've had people say things like, like, they kind of know, so they'll say like, oh, you know, let's go, you know, something like that?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Jocko Willink?

  And it's like, yeah, man, cool. That's always my answer. Oh, awesome. Yeah, cool. You want to go now? And they're always like, oh, no, no, no, I'm just kidding.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  All right, next question. What do you typically wear when you meet the bosses of companies and why?

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, hey, man, if you're working with Echelon Front, then pretty much what we all wear is the EF polo. The Echelon Front polo shirt. And, you know, we, we, we call the what we wear, business tactical.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  Just polo shirt and a pair of pants. And the question is why? Well, that's just because it's a, to me, it's the same kind of thing I've been talking about. It's just sort of a normal thing to wear, right? Don't really travel as much as, I travel as little as possible I can with a full suit. And, yeah, so just comfort and functionality.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Jocko Willink?

  There's the answer.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And of course you don't show up in your shorts.

• 1:15:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, no, we're professional.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  And rash card?

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  The, uh, remember you used to, uh, you used to wear a suit, right? Like back in the.

• 1:15:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, and I still wear, will wear a suit sometimes, but usually not, man, usually not. You know, even, um, usually people, people know who we are now.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Jocko Willink?

  And so if we're gonna show up, they realize what they're getting, which is like, hey, these guys are, these guys are gonna come in and talk to us and they, they know what the deal is.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Jocko Willink?

  And there's all the footage of us on, on the videos and stuff, we're wearing kind of the EF uniform, so.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Business tactical.

• 1:15:50Jocko Willink?

  Business tactical, get some.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Alright, next question.

• 1:15:53Jocko Willink?

  And I guess there is a, there is a, a, a small bit of like, hey, we're not,

• 1:15:59Jocko Willink?

  we're not standard business people, you know what I mean?

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:16:04Jocko Willink?

  It's like, hey, like you're in a room with people with a bunch of suits on and they're like, oh, who's presenting? Oh, it's that guy over there, cause he's wearing something different. Okay, we get it, you know what I mean?

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Just a little identifier, echelon front.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Jocko Willink?

  On the, uh, shirt.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:18Jocko Willink?

  All good.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  All good.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  How do you grow better, faster, stronger with your romantic partner over time without being a brute?

• 1:16:28Jocko Willink?

  I just, I don't even, I just kinda had to put this question in here, cause it was, I don't really understand, I mean, just because you're bigger and faster and stronger, doesn't mean you're a brute, right? What, what is that? I don't, how do you overcome that? It'd be nice to your, you know, your girlfriend.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Or your wife.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Um, what's the?

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  Your romantic partner.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  Like, what does that mean though? Like, if, if you're working out with your romantic partner? Or like?

• 1:16:52Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, I think you're just like, you're getting bigger and faster and stronger, and therefore you start treating your girlfriend like crap.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Duh.

• 1:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Like, no, it's like, no. And actually, you'll probably be nicer, cause you're bigger and faster and stronger, so. It's kind of a non-question, I guess, but I just thought it was funny.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:17:09Jocko Willink?

  Cause you think, you think, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do squats today, then I'm just gonna go yell at my woman.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Being a brute, well, the, being a brute, that part, I can, I could see that, you know? Cause you know, like, let's say, like, you gained twenty pounds, thirty pounds, let's just say. And it's like, oh, muscle, you're super strong now, you know? I don't know. And, you know, you come home, you're just more of a, like, the stuff that you do, you know, you're vacuuming. You know, like you're just way more brutish you are.

• 1:17:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I don't know, vacuum harder?

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Vacuum with more finesse, you gotta focus on the finesse part of it. Otherwise, you're gonna be all big, fast and strong. The, and I, I think I understand the question. But here's a, here's a tip. I haven't been married forever, but significantly long. Here's what I found out, like a lot of stuff, like as a guy, you think like, hey, I'm not really gonna do that. Because like, that's not important, you know? Like, you, you have a set of things that you think are important and they're based on certain ways of thinking. And the girl's gonna have things she thinks is important. And in my experience, which I, from what I understand is very common, that the things that some girls think are important,

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  they can't really put their finger on it or why they feel important or whatever, but they just do. You know, and the guy will be like, hmm, that's not important. You can't even explain why it's important. Therefore, you know, I win the whole importance, significance argument, right? So at the end of the day, they're not gonna do these things, just little things, you know? Show me that you care, like these sensitive things, things that go against being faster, stronger, more brutish. But if you can keep in mind that little, little things, even if you don't think they're significant, actually do make your romantic partner happy. And if you can consist, consistently maintain that regardless of how big, fast or strong you get, that'll help.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  She's gonna embrace your big, bigness, fastness and strongness. Take it from me, I know.

• 1:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  In cooperation and negotiation, is there a tell to know when you're breaking your personal code and compromising too much? Is, is it a gut check or is it gut check or logical?

• 1:19:42Jocko Willink?

  This is a weird one, there's a kind of a confusing question, so I'll just kind of, kind of answer it to the best of my ability. The, the biggest thing I notice when I'm, when I'm interacting with other people, the biggest thing that I pay attention to. Is, am I paying it, do I care about this particular thing because of me? Or because of it's gonna help the team? And if you can get through that, if you, if you really just say to yourself, hey, am I doing this because I'm gonna help the team? Or am I, am I doing this because it's about me? If you pay attention to those things, and I'm not saying that every time that you say, hey, you know what?

• 1:20:27Jocko Willink?

  I need to take care of me a little bit. Because you, you have to remember that you have your strategic goals too, right? But most of the time, the success of the team is gonna help your strategic goals. Now, so, so for me, I'm my constant thing is, hey, why am I, why, why does this concern me? Does it concern me? It's basically, does this concern me because of my ego or not? And if it doesn't concern me because of my ego, then it concerns me because it's not gonna benefit the team. So, let's help the team. So that's, that's what I, that's what I look at the most when I'm negotiating, when I'm cooperating, you know? If, if, if you and I were negotiating a deal, right? And I was gonna buy a, a car from you.

• 1:21:10Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, you know, you wanna sell it for me to, for 10 grand? And I wanna get it for nine. How much of it, and you're like, okay, you know what, Jaco? I, I got it on the lot for, for 8,800. Can you give me $400 over the, what I paid for it and give me 9,200? Or whatever. And I'm like, no. I'll only, how much of that is me just, it's just my ego? I just wanna win the ego fight against you? And how much of it is me like, hey, that's actually a pretty good deal? And, and why not take care of this guy? Cause I don't know, I don't really know you, but hey, man, maybe we'll buy something else in the future. Maybe I'll, you'll, you know what I mean? So, am I trying, is, is it my ego?

• 1:21:56Jocko Willink?

  Or is it just a bad deal? If you're like, hey, nope, it's 11,000. And I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm not gonna pay that. So, it's not, it's not my ego, that's just not a good deal. At 10 grand, it's not a great deal. At 9,200, it's a pretty damn good deal for me. And it's, you're gonna make some money. And I'm happy that, that you're gonna make some money. Cool, you know what? Let's shake hands, let's make a deal. There's times where, this is, so this is the point. There's times where my ego, I'll be like, no. I don't care. I don't care if you're only gonna make 200 bucks. That's, that's your problem. You shouldn't have paid so much. When in my heart, I know like, hey, that's actually a good deal. I'm getting a really good deal, but my ego is not letting me have closed, close it. Um, that can be, that, that, that can be a problem. So when I'm negotiating with someone

• 1:22:39Jocko Willink?

  and it's not a good deal, they're not gonna get me to do what they want me to do. It's just not gonna happen. If it's a fair deal, hey, we'll make it work. If it's not a fair deal, it's gonna be problematic.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:52Jocko Willink?

  You don't wanna present me with unfair deals, cuz I will not be accepting them.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Also, does it seem like, this is more of a question, I guess, to you, you, you kinda gotta like, be truthful to yourself, like consciously too, right? Cuz when, cuz you give it like how you say you gotta ask yourself, is this, is this good for me and my ego, or is this good for the team? Like, as far as me not compromising my, uh, you know, not compromising on my personal code or whatever?

• 1:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's values that I will not compromise, right? There's values that I will not compromise.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  I would think that that'd be for a very specific reason, you know? You know how like some people, they'll be like, I'm just not like that, but they don't really know why. Like, hey, well, I don't know, maybe cuz my dad told me that one time when we were fishing or whatever. They, it, it, so there's a difference is what I'm saying. So, but here's the thing, and I say this cuz this is what I'll do sometimes. I'll be like, hey, you know, this is more important because of, you know, I don't know, my health.

• 1:23:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you'll rationalize.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and, yeah, I'll essentially like twist the truth to myself to, to kind of explain to myself again, um, how important this is, you know, for the team, you know, one of those things. If that's important, there's other ways to do that, you know?

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  So, so to, to your point, that's what I'm saying. When I'm thinking about decisions, I'm asking myself, hey, is this my ego, or is this, or am I doing the right thing for the, for the team?

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Jocko Willink?

  Cuz there's, that's what you should be checking on, right? If you're doing it for yourself, most 99% of the time, if you're doing something for yourself, that hurts the team, the long term is not gonna be beneficial to you.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:28Jocko Willink?

  The long term is not going to be beneficial to you.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  Because you're doing something for yourself. Everybody sees that. You don't think they see it, but they see it.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:38Jocko Willink?

  So you try and do things that are gonna benefit the team.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:41Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes, I mean, ninety-nine percent of the time, when you do something that benefits the team, you're gonna benefit from it as well. But you have to see the long game, cuz sometimes the short game, it's like, oh, no, if I do this for the team, that means I'm gonna miss this, this weekend, and that sucks. Well, guess what? In the long term, when you work this weekend and cover for the other guys that couldn't make it in for whatever reason, you're gonna have a better relationship with them, and they're gonna cover for you next time. It's like, it's long term, it's gonna be good.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:09Jocko Willink?

  But you're worried about you.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  And that's, that's a problem.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Playing the long game again.

• 1:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, always gotta play that long game.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Next question. Best way to get your te- get you team in, okay, best way to get your team to buy in to your vision?

• 1:25:25Jocko Willink?

  Let it be their vision.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Oh, let it be their vision.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Let the vision come from them, right? And the more the vision comes from them, the more the plan comes from them, the more they buy into it. The more you force the vision and force the plan down their throat, the less buy-in that you're gonna get from it. Now, you, if you're super persuasive, you can do a better job of coming up with a vision, but why do that? Why not say, hey, guys, you know what? We're gonna put together the direction that this team is going. Give me some feedback, give me some bullet points. Hit me. Now, they all come back with bullet points, you assemble them together, and it's like, hey, this is what we're gonna do. Boom, everyone's on board.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  That easy.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Our plan.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so much easier with our plan. A- and you, if you're scared of that, and I think of, oh, if I give the team the opportunity to come up with a plan, they're gonna come up with a plan that sucks. Well, how well did you train them if they come up with a plan that sucks? You haven't trained them very well. Most of the time, if you train them decently, they're gonna come up with a plan that's close enough to the, a decent plan, that they can go and execute it. We can all execute it together. That can be part of the vision. Let's go.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Hey, Jaco, what would be better verbal communication with concept of prioritize and execute when talking to my wife?

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  She oftentimes feels overwhelmed with how many decisions she has to make. She hates when I use the words of prioritize and execute.

• 1:26:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, the root problem there isn't that she hates the, the, the words prioritize and execute. The problem is, is that you're, you're telling her what to do. That's, that's, you know, instead of being like, hey, you know, hey, if you just prioritize and execute. There's, if there's at least an, at least a 50% chance that she doesn't even want to hear your suggestion. She's just telling you, cause it's, she's venting to you.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:11Jocko Willink?

  So for you to be like, man, those are a lot of decisions to make. That's hard. If you were to say to her, how do you?

• 1:27:19Jocko Willink?

  How do you handle this? Cause I know you're doing this every day, girl. I'm impressed. How do you do that? And then she says, well, you know, it's hard, but here's what I do.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Jocko Willink?

  So if it was just a matter of renaming it, it's like, hey, we'll call it. Hey, you know what you need to do is grade and go. Or what, what you need to do is rank and roll. What you need to do is triage and check off. What's what you need to do? Or, or designate and do. That's what, you know, there's a bunch of different ways you could phrase it, but that's not what's making her. Respond in a negative way. She's responding in a negative way. Cause you're saying, hey, here's all you need to do is prioritize and execute. That's a show. What she needs is some sympathy, some listening, allowing to vent. And then you can say, hey, you know, if you've done that properly, you can say, well, you know, I did read that book.

• 1:28:11Jocko Willink?

  And they kind of say when there's a bunch of crazy things going on, like you've got going on. They say to do the same thing that I see you do. Which is you pick the most important one and then you kind of focus on that. That's pretty cool.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  You do that pretty well, by the way.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  You do that well. Yeah. You do that really well.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  So just take a little different approach, man.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Jocko Willink?

  It's not just the words. The words are not putting, I hate to break the news to you, but the words are not pissing her off. You are.

• 1:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Listen to her.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  It seems like.

• 1:28:40Jocko Willink?

  You ever notice some people, they come to you with a problem, they don't want a solution?

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  It happens all the time. They just want you to sit there and listen to them.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Jocko Willink?

  My wife does that for sure.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:28:50Jocko Willink?

  For sure. You know? Hey, there's this problem. Oh, why don't you do this? It's not that easy. Okay, fine.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Jocko Willink?

  Why don't you just tell me more about the problem and I'll sit over here and listen?

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Don't say that, by the way. You gotta do that, that part.

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it it's almost like, well, it is like. It seems like. That, yeah, that they don't mind so much the suffering of the problem. Suffering, I'm overusing that word, I know, but like, they don't mind the suffering. They just wanna, they don't wanna suffer alone. So if like, oh, yeah, I'm having like these issues or whatever first is like, hey, come suffer with me, sympathize, empathize or whatever. We can suffer together. That, that's, that's why I'm coming to you in the first place. So I can get closer to you, whatever, whatever. I don't know that I'm totally.

• 1:29:33Jocko Willink?

  Reflect and diminish. Do you remember when I talked about that?

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:35Jocko Willink?

  That's like a such a good tactic.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Jocko Willink?

  In this situation, reflect the emotions back to them.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Jocko Willink?

  But diminish them a little bit. So if they're all freaking mad about something. You go, oh, I can't believe that. But you don't be as mad as them, but you don't be. Hey, calm down. You don't, you don't say, hey, here's just, just prioritize and execute.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's a rough one.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Actually, to be honest, like, I've felt that before where I'd come to, my brother's typically the one, like, I've come to him with like a problem. And here's the thing, I didn't want like sympathy or empathy primarily, but I wanted a little bit, you know, so you can't just roll, sit there with your. Apple or whatever, all casual, like, yeah, all you gotta do is put this, you know, like, kinda like, you're so done, it's, you get this feeling. I'm not saying they're saying this.

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  You wanna know why? Your brother or you or whoever can look at that problem and like come up with a solution? It's because they're detached, they're de facto detached from the problem. So when you're all wrapped up in the problem, you're like, hey, I don't know what to do because I got this, this and this. And your brother's like, well, just do that.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:39Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, you get mad. But he's able to see what to do because he's on the outside.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Jocko Willink?

  So if you can learn to detach yourself, you won't have to rely on getting other people to help you.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Jocko Willink?

  If you can't detach and you're all wrapped up in the emotions of the situation, you're gonna, you're gonna have to go someone to help. And then when you do, don't get mad at them. When they just tell you the solution.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:59Jocko Willink?

  But, but, but when you reverse the roles and you take ownership of trying to provide solutions, you gotta realize that it's your fault that your solution isn't being welcomed.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's kind of the point where like, I'm trying to gain an understanding, you know, cause easy when you're detached and this person is like, why are you complaining about? Like, because this is how you feel. On the front of your mind, you're like, why are you complaining about this? Why don't you just solve that problem and never complain about it ever again, you know? That's the feeling the other person had, that detached person, the hu- you know, in this case, um, the husband or whatever. So what I did was I imagined my situation that I'm on the other side where I kind of like, I know what it feels like to kind of want some sympathy. I don't want sympathy and that's it, you know? But, of course, but I want some of it. So imagine that feeling that, or I imagine that feeling that I got from my brother at times when I come to him with a problem that I'm, that's bothering me or whatever.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  And the part and the fact that it's bothering me means nothing. All my, and so the fact that, the way he presents a solution with no empathy and sympathy almost says, actually, it feels like it says, you're so dumb. Like, you're dumb.

• 1:32:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  You know, like, why are you wrapped up about this thing? You're dumb, kind of thing.

• 1:32:09Jocko Willink?

  So from a leadership perspective, from his perspective, he should recognize that what he needs to do is massage your ego a little bit, make you feel good about it, be like, oh, man, that's a hell of a problem to have. You know, one thing I could, maybe you could do, I don't know if you'd be, I don't know if I could do it, but you could probably do it, cause you're a little bit better at this kind of thing.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:24Jocko Willink?

  You just throw, just do that little.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  That's a good tactic right there when you say like, what, what you, what you kind of do. Kind of like, you're like one of these individuals, one of the rare people who knows how to deal with it and it's like empowering.

• 1:32:37Jocko Willink?

  The thing that you do that I can't really do is I see you do it though, is you prioritize an exit.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:32:43Jocko Willink?

  Wish I could do, I just get all scatterbrained. Start focusing on all kinds of different things at the same time and that's a problem.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:32:50Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, there you go. Get some.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Next question. My warrior kids want to know is warrior kid number three in the works?

• 1:32:58Jocko Willink?

  Yes, Warrior Kid 3 is in the works. I am on chapter 10. Yeah, unfortunately, I've been on chapter 10 for a couple of days. Not because it's taken me a long time to write chapter 10, but I didn't write yesterday or the day before. Because we were doing multiple podcasts, which is a bummer. But be back on the path today, as a matter of fact.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Well, technically, you're on the path. Your path is just super wide. You know, you had to switch lanes for a little bit. You know, you miss the exit, but good, you know, boom, you're back on, in that lane, on the same path.

• 1:33:30Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, and we're looking at, we're looking at spring publication for that. Once again, getting it out there. Really having fun writing this book as the characters develop.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm, more complex, some complexity.

• 1:33:42Jocko Willink?

  There's some complexities, there's some situations that Mark hasn't really had to deal with yet, the primary being Danny Reinhardt. So brace yourself for the impact of Danny Reinhardt.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Brace yourself. Alright, next question. Your lifestyle is intense and intentional. How do I even get started living like that?

• 1:34:02Jocko Willink?

  Let's just break this down real easy, okay? Number one, if you want to live like more focused in your life, choose to. Decide that you're gonna actually live like that, do that. Write down whatever it is you want to do.

• 1:34:18Jocko Willink?

  And then before you go to bed at night, write down some things that you can do tomorrow that are gonna help you move towards the goals that you have. And then set your alarm clock for early in the morning, wake up and do the things that you wrote down. Stay on that path.

• 1:34:34Jocko Willink?

  That's it.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and do you think that you've just sort of grown accustomed to just dealing with it that way? Because you know, the more you do it, yeah. So that's kind of the hard part, right? To get off the ground, see what I'm saying?

• 1:34:46Jocko Willink?

  To break the gravitational pull of laziness and apathy, yes.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and of course that, but I feel like that in this kind of situation, like when you live how intently intense, sure. But you've kind of always been intense, but that intentional situation, because it's pretty easy. If you know a goal, it's pretty, I don't say easy, but it's simple, like to reach that goal is really clear, you know, like. You're gonna have to fight through obstacles, all this other stuff, but if you don't really have an intentional like goal, it's hard to just kind of float there and be like, I need to be, I don't know, vaguely successful. It's like it's, it makes the whole deal harder. And so a lot of times like a normal person would, they don't have specific goals for every aspect of their life. You know, they'll have one in maybe with their career or something like that,

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  or fitness or something like that. But everything else is just sort of, hey, I'm living day by day, doing the best I can kind of thing. But if you can, whether it be write it down or whatever, if you can have it in your brain consciously that, or remember essentially like what these goals are, it makes it a lot more clear. And then the more you kind of follow those goals, the more it becomes like habit like you. That's what I think.

• 1:35:54Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  Next question. How do the finest civilian leaders differ from the finest military leaders? Or in other words, what character traits do military leaders develop that are more difficult or rare for civilian leaders to develop?

• 1:36:11Jocko Willink?

  They're really, the leadership is leadership and the good civilian leaders have the same good qualities that the good military leaders have and vice versa. And Leif, Leif was talking about this the other day that, you know, he, he tells people like, hey, man, I wish you were in the military. Wish you, you would have been good. You know, you would have been a good infantry officer. You would be a good SEAL platoon leader. That would have been cool if you were in the teams. Because you're a good leader in the civilian sector, you're a good leader in the, you'd be a good leader in the military. So there's no, and now there are strengths and weaknesses for leaders in both of those situations. And there's military leaders. You take 10 military leaders, there's all kinds of strengths and weaknesses different between all, each one of those 10. And there's all kinds, you take 10 civilian leaders and there's all kinds of different strengths and weaknesses amongst those 10.

• 1:36:56Jocko Willink?

  And if you put them, if you flip them back and forth, it doesn't matter. There's still going to be random strengths and weaknesses. Some guys are good at present, presenting things. Some guys are good at simplifying things. Some guys are good at articulating things and, and those groups wash out regardless. There's great military leaders that aren't very articulate, but they figure out a way to get done. There's great civilian leaders that aren't very articulate, but they figure out a way. There's great military leaders that are really good at simplifying things. There's great civilian leaders that are good at simplifying. There's people that are not good at that. So they find the correct solution, the people that'll compliment them as leaders and move forward. But no huge difference. Actually, there's no, there's no difference. There's, there's just, there's good leadership and there's bad leadership.

• 1:37:37Jocko Willink?

  That's it.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Hey Jaco, love your books and podcasts. When it comes down to the wire and you need to make a quick and tactical decision amidst chaos, how do you keep your head straight?

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  This is just, everyone knows the answer to this by now, detach. Take a step back, take a step back off the line, take a step back from the tactical situation that's going on. Turn your head, look around, see what's going on, assess it properly, unemotionally, and then make a decision. That's it. You gotta learn to detach.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Easy money. Next question, Jaco.

• 1:38:10Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not easy. If it was easy, people wouldn't ask me that question 12 times a day.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  Simple, not easy?

• 1:38:15Jocko Willink?

  It is simple, but it's definitely not easy.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  No, it's not. And I'll tell you, it's not only not easy, it's almost so hard that you don't even like see it happening. It's like you're blind to it.

• 1:38:28Jocko Willink?

  Most people are blind to it. That's why it's such a huge advantage from a leadership perspective. If you can be one inch above everyone else, you can see infinitely further than they can. Cause, cause let's face it, they have a limited, when you're, when you're at one level, when you're at six feet, you can see what you can see. You go to eight feet, you can see things that they can't see. They literally can't see them. So therefore you know things that they don't know. And all of a sudden you seem brilliant because you can literally see things that they literally can't see. So take a step back, turn your head, look around, detach from your emotions. Detach from the chaos. That's it.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  And the emotions, that's like one of the major things that's making you blind.

• 1:39:18Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:39:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Whether it's emotions, whether it's anger, whether it's frustration, whether it's panic, whether it's stress, all those emotions will have the same result on you and your decision making, which is you won't see what's actually happening.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Jocko, how do you build a relationship with a boss that consistently loses his temper on a regular basis?

• 1:39:46Jocko Willink?

  Stay calm, don't overreact, let them vent to you and don't make a big deal out of them losing their temper. Just be, just be like, just absorb it and be like, hey, it's all good, boss. Yep. You know, let them vent and then when they calm down a little bit, you know, just don't even, don't go like, man, I'm glad you calmed down. No, just be like, you know, say, okay, hey, you know, here's where we're at with this decision, you know, I'm gonna bring this to the troops or whatever, you know, just, just be calm and then eventually, hopefully, you get a relationship that's strong enough that you can actually say something to them like, hey, man, you know, I know you, I know things drive you crazy, but you know, it's you,

• 1:40:26Jocko Willink?

  it's always a lot better when you're just kinda calm and everyone kinda has a lot of respect for that, you know?

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:32Jocko Willink?

  But again, that's one you gotta be careful with, because they might just go, what are you talking about? You don't know about respect? They might lose their temper right there.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:38Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, I'm just gonna be calm, not overreact, absorb that kinda thing.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Next question. I'm struggling to be an effective leader because I'm told that I don't have the right tone. I'm too direct and coarse and I'm not too sure how to fix it. I'd appreciate any and all help. Thanks in advance.

• 1:40:58Jocko Willink?

  If you can, record yourself while you're talking to people, like when you're on the phone with someone, just record it. Take out your, your, your cellphone and record and see what you sound like, because you might be surprised at what you sound like. A lot of times, people don't realize what they sound like. You might have to overcompensate for a little while and be like overly pleasant and nice to people, which, which to them might sound like normal, but to you, it'll sound like you're being just totally over the top nice, because you're like, how are you today?

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  And they're thinking, oh, that's nice. He's actually having a conversation with me. And in your mind, you're like, these are just pleasantries. I don't think I should be, you know, it's like, no, just calm down. It's actually great feedback. It's awesome that people have actually told you that you are too direct and too coarse. So what does that mean? You're offending people. If you're offending people, do they listen to you? The answer is no. So how do you not offend people? And in your mind, you're thinking, hey, this is the way I am. You know, I'm just one of these people that's direct. You know, you just, I just put the word out. And it's like, no, actually, all you do is piss people off, offend them, and now they don't listen to you. So don't be that person. Let's try and build relationships. Make that your key goal. Make your goal not to get your point across to them, but to build a relationship with them. Make that your goal.

• 1:42:14Jocko Willink?

  And then the rest of it will start to come together. Get you moving in the right direction.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and sometimes, I'm not saying this person is like this, but sometimes, people who are direct and coarse, like they sort of take pride in it.

• 1:42:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  So if you can search your mind and be like, hey, am I taking pride in this a little bit? Know that like you're, you're, you're going full speed in the wrong direction there with that, you know? If that's the case, that makes it a lot easier.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  Here you go. Yep. Affirmative.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Next question. I serve in the Coast Guard and operate in high-risk surf operations, where not only do I have victims in the water who gave a high risk, who have a high risk of dying, but also my people and myself have a high probabilities of being injured or killed. I enjoy my job thoroughly and perform on the job, but it's the waiting that's brutal. How do you manage stress, stress in the off time? So it's not overwhelming.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  Look, you gotta train hard. You gotta be prepared. You gotta rehearse. You gotta drill worst-case scenarios. You gotta be in awesome physical condition. You gotta do all those things.

• 1:43:24Jocko Willink?

  You prepare as much as you can. You can't worry about things that you can't control. So the things that you can't control, what can you control? You can be in good physical shape. You can prepare for your equipment. Make sure you know how to operate your equipment. You can drill worst case scenarios to make sure your team understands the procedures that you're supposed to do. So you take control of all the things that you can control. You do those to the nth degree. The things that you can't control. You, you just gotta not worry about them because that's what's, you're actually, you're actually less prepared because you're worrying about other things. You can't sleep because there's a storm coming and you know that there's going to be some rescues. It's like, hey, you've prepared, you've trained, you've got your equipment already, you've rehearsed with your teammates. Like, that's what we do. And there's some things that I can't control.

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  And I'm okay with that. And not to get too crazy, but like worst case scenario. And not to get too like dark, worst case scenario, what happens? Worst case scenario, what happens? You die. That's the worst case scenario that happens. Um, okay.

• 1:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you've got your insurance taken care of. You've got your SGLI set up. You know, you've written letters to your family to tell them what to do. And that you've had a great job and that you loved what you're doing, what you're doing and, and that that's the way it goes. You know, part of life is death, a hundred percent. Think about that, a hundred percent. So if you can

• 1:45:02Jocko Willink?

  compartmentalize the, the things that you can control and say, okay, these are the things I've got control of. And then you look at the worst case scenario, which is the worst case scenario. I mean, I guess the worst case scenario is like, hey, if you, you could, one of your teammates, you know, dies, that's, that seems to me to always be the worst thing. Or you die. Well, what are you gonna do? So to prevent my teammate from dying, I'm going to train, prepare, do everything I can in my power. And one of the things in my power to do is to not be scared of things that I can't control or not worry about things that I can't, can't control.

• 1:45:35Jocko Willink?

  And then, like, hey, I could die doing this job. That could happen.

• 1:45:42Jocko Willink?

  What do you do about that? You prepare for it. You, you write your will, you make sure that your W, your W2 or page two, I believe it's called. Your page two in the military service records so that they know what to do with your finances. You fill out your SGLI form. You write a, you write a letter to your friends and family. That's what you do. And then you go out and you do your job. The fear. The fear of death.

• 1:46:12Jocko Willink?

  That you have in your mind is more likely to cause a problem. It's more, you have more, if you're afraid of death, you're more likely to die than if you say, you know what? If this happens. God forbid, guess what? I'm living the life I want to live. And I'll, I'm going to die doing this. It's like that, if you can get over that hurdle right there. That's a huge thing. And the, the more comfortable you are with that. The less chance of you actually dying there is because you won't be scared of it. You won't be hesitant, you won't be paranoid, you won't lose sleep. You'll be like, okay. So, so just truly think about it. Like, man, you're, you're doing an important job. You're going to try and save people's lives.

• 1:46:55Jocko Willink?

  There's inherent risk in that, but it's what you want to do, it's what you chose to do. There's, you deal with that. And if you can get through that. That's a huge step. Does this mean you want to die? No, it doesn't mean that at all. Doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that at all. But if you're like, you know what? I could die. That's one of the possible outcomes here. It's highly unlikely, but it is a possible outcome. If it happens, I've lived the best possible way I can. I've prepared for my family, friends to be taken care of, to understand what happened. And I'm, I'm okay with that. That's, that's my recommendation.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Jocko, I'm very goal oriented.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  I'm very goal oriented. My friends say that they want me to achieve this and that, yet they still are vaping, partying, being lazy, and overall don't walk to talk. I want to be an AF special tactics.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  Air Force.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Air Force special tactics officer, and I don't have time for those distractions. How do I get them on track?

• 1:48:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, this is a pretty straightforward one for me. What I do is I walk the walk. And keep walking. And if these guys want to walk the walk with me, um, cool. But if they want to vape. And party and be lazy.

• 1:48:24Jocko Willink?

  Those aren't the kind of guys you want around in with your team anyways. You know, so unless they get on the path. That leads to the right place, I mean, you can tell them, hey, man, this isn't going to get you there, but. Don't spend a bunch of time trying to pick up and drag people that don't want to drag themselves. Not that you go into an organization like a special tactics in the Air Force. You don't want to be carrying other people. You don't have to motivate. Other people, you want people that want to do the job themselves. So don't spend a bunch of time um with these people that don't want to get after it.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  Jocko, when things start moving fast and feel out of control because you're really getting after it. Work, family, jujitsu, and countless other things. How do you slow it down? And get the feeling back of being in control?

• 1:49:17Jocko Willink?

  What you do in this situation is go harder. You go harder. What you do is, and this is, think of it like this, think of it as a sprint. You're getting bogged down, there's a bunch of stuff going on, grab a hold of a bunch of them and sprint and get caught up. That's what you do. You sprint, you get caught up.

• 1:49:36Jocko Willink?

  I do that kinda right now and I didn't start doing that. I really started having to do these little sprints that I do sometimes now. Like maybe a year ago. Where I just have to just just buckle down for three days and do nothing but work. Just that's it. Nothing but work. I'm I'm in the middle of one right now. Like just what what I did over the last few days is like work, work and more work. So it's a sprint. But then you get caught up, you get things under control. And then you can you can go back to a more sustainable pace because you can't sprint forever.

• 1:50:14Jocko Willink?

  You cannot sprint forever factually. Right? That doesn't work. Yeah. So if you think you're gonna run alongside a vehicle. Because you can sprint, that's not gonna work. Eventually, the vehicle is gonna outpace you and you're gonna be left behind. So you have to you have to choose a race that you can win. But sometimes, just like in a running race. You gotta sprint to get ahead. And then once you get ahead, you can, you know, you can fall, you can you can go back to a sustainable pace. But that's that's what I do. I go into like a little period of mass production. I prefer slow and steady. Absolutely. I prefer just to keep on the disciplined path every day, doing what needs to be done.

• 1:51:00Jocko Willink?

  You know that we talked about plant and a tree earlier? Like writing a book, nothing feels better writing a book than when you look up after. After a month of writing and you got thirty thousand words because you wrote a thousand words a day. To sit down and write thirty thousand words is a gut check. It's a gut check. For me, it is. Because I don't enjoy doing that for long periods of time. I don't enjoy sitting there typing because the words are already pretty much in my head. So it's just a manual labor. Yeah, yeah. But it's not manual labor where you get to move rocks. It's a manual labor of pecking it into a keyboard. Yeah. That's not fun for me. There's no, there's zero physical benefit.

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  But to look up after a month and say, I've got thirty thousand words, that's almost a book. Right? Yeah. So.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  I prefer to do that, but sometimes because I've saddled myself with many different things going on right now. Sometimes I get behind and I have to sprint. I have to just say, okay, you know what? This is gonna suck for three days, but I'm gonna get back on track. And here we go. So that's what I do. When I started feeling like other things are kinda getting to hang me, like, hey, man. Maybe you have to, for work, you have to sacrifice jujitsu for whatever, two days. You're like, yep, I'm not gonna train, but I'm, that's gonna save me a total of five hours in the next couple of days and I can get a lot of work done in five hours. I didn't do jujitsu yesterday.

• 1:52:32Jocko Willink?

  Did I want to? Yes, I did. But I said, okay, I'm gonna sprint right now. I gotta get this other stuff done and I had to prioritize. So that's, that's what you have to do. And guess what? You know, then you get through that sprint, now you can go back to your sustainable thing, which is jujitsu every day. Just work out every day, which is, you know, write your, write every day. Do your work every day. So try that. Try just buckling out. Tell your family. Tell your jujitsu instructor. Be like, hey, listen, I'm gonna be gone for three days. I got, I gotta get caught up. So stand by and boom. Tell your family, look, hey, I'm sorry for the next three days.

• 1:53:12Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna hear much from me. Cause I'm gonna stay at work late. I'm gonna get a bunch of stuff done and just sprint hard and give them a little reward at the end. Hey, when I get back on Tuesday or when I get back on the Friday, we're gonna go out for dinner. We're gonna have a good time. But I gotta sprint, gotta get caught up. So there you go.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  That's actually a really good, good little tactic right there.

• 1:53:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is a good tactic. Oh, a little reward. You like that?

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Well, the whole deal, both of them, like basically to make sure that you communicate with all these people that might be affected by your thing. Even like in small ways, like how you say, hey, I'm gonna sprint right now. You'd, you'd be, oh, I'm sometimes surprised on how that, just that little thing is so effective. Like, you know, like, I don't know, I'm, I'm gonna go to jujitsu at, you know, a, a weird, different time that maybe my family's sorta depending on me. Not in a big way, but just a little bit depending on me being there, right? And I'm gonna go to jujitsu instead. If I say a one week before I do that, if I say, hey, on this day, you know, like. I understand, hey, usually I'm here, I dig it, but hey, I'm gonna go this day. This training just kinda means a lot to me this day and time, whatever. A week before.

• 1:54:13Jocko Willink?

  Heads up, they love it.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  Love night and day. Try do it the the hour before versus the week before night and day. One situation is like, yes, oh, we got your back. Oh, do it. And the other one is like disdain.

• 1:54:27Jocko Willink?

  Guess what my wife thinks? She thinks I'm going to Jiu Jitsu every day and I am.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:32Jocko Willink?

  But she's just like, so in fact, it's surprising to her. If I'm ever like, oh, you know, she'll be like, oh, you didn't leave yet? I'm like, no, I'm actually working. And she'll be like, oh, okay. That's what she realizes I got some work to do.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  Man, but that's a good, that's good to remember it, you know? Cause you, it's easy to get caught up in like, hey, this is me and my sprint. I'm the one gonna have to buckle down, you know, sort of thing. So it it kind of maybe gets in the way of you thinking like, hey, it's for other people too. You know what I'm saying? And then that that additional one where it's like, yeah, when I'm done, you got another reward. Cause then if you communicate, they don't need the reward. I mean, you know, depends on who it is, but typically it would, it would make sense for them not to need the reward. Cause we're all good.

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  Reward scenario.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Don't do it too much, they expect it. But that's a good, I think that's good. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that one into rotation. Next question, hey, Jaco, a lot of respect for you and your work. I have a question. How do you draw the line between doing things you're uncomfortable with? To develop and just torturing yourself unnecessarily?

• 1:55:39Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty, it's pretty straightforward question, actually, and a pretty straightforward answer. Does it benefit you or not?

• 1:55:46Jocko Willink?

  Does it benefit you? And and there is some level of torture that benefits you. Because it just keeps you mentally and physically tougher. So there is benefit to to some level of torture, right? There's also a level of torture that is not beneficial for you. Actually, it takes you backwards and it's gonna injure you. It's gonna break you down. It's gonna break you down mentally. It's gonna break you down physically. There's times like I've talked about this, like there's times when I've gotten on a plane. Where I get on a plane, this is when I know I'm just done training. Which is I get on a plane and I, cause normally on a plane, I can like really hammer out some work.

• 1:56:25Jocko Willink?

  I can get a podcast, I can read a book, I can just really go hard because there's no, I don't sign up for wifi on the planes. I just do work. And um, when I get on a plane and I'm just like. I'm gonna watch him, I'm gonna go into this thing and watch, and I remember the last time I did, I watched Zoolander.

• 1:56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:56:45Jocko Willink?

  Which is a funny movie, but there's no, zero positive benefit to my humanity by watching Zoolander. But that's, that's it. So, so I just like, okay, mentally, just need a damn break, you know? And same thing with physical, like there's times where you're physically, like there's times, this is an interesting one. When you're training jujitsu, if I have an injury that's recovering, and let's say normally I do eight rounds, ten rounds. When I have an injury that's recovering, I have to have the discipline to say, you know what, I'm only doing four rounds today.

• 1:57:26Jocko Willink?

  Because when you get to the fifth, sixth round, I'm tired, I'm making mistakes, seventh, eighth round, now I'm actually gonna get injured again. So I wanna recover from the injury, so I take some, I take, I have to have the discipline to say no. Because the lack of discipline says, I'm just gonna train more, I'm just gonna train harder.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes you have to take a little, a little bit of a breather. And so if you're doing something that's uncomfortable, but it's making you stronger, or smarter, or faster, yeah, that's good. If you're doing something that's uncomfortable, and it's not beneficial to you, then that's not smart to do, except for the occasional gut check. Which is, hey, this is just gonna suck.

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:10Jocko Willink?

  This is just gonna suck, and I'm gonna do it anyways. And that's fine.

• 1:58:18Speaker 01

  You're kinda different than people. In the concept that you're talking about, I think, yeah, that's universal, which is good. Like, you know, you talk about like going on the plane, right? Even like the way you're like, that is no good for humanity, you know, I know that was like a joking way of putting it. But the thing is, that is good for you, and it's.

• 1:58:38Jocko Willink?

  What is? Zoolander?

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  Zoolander, whatever you watch, or something that, that's like not work, cuz it's like, you know, compared to a workout. Rob Jones does this a lot, he'll compare it to like lifting weights or workout, which is good, I think a near perfect analogy, the working out thing. It's, it's essentially just your rest between sets, that's all it is. So if it's like, yeah, you don't get rest between sets? Oh yeah, see how much weight you can lift then? Probably not that much. But there's a difference between resting for like two minutes between your sets and then resting one day.

• 1:59:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I agree. Sometimes, though, sometimes you can say, oh, I need a rest, but you don't really.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  That's what I mean. Yeah.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  And so you gotta be careful of that.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:18Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you gotta go, oh, this is just torture, so I don't wanna do it. But you're really just being mentally weak.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  So you have to be aware. You have to do things that suck sometimes.

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Some workouts just suck.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:29Jocko Willink?

  And they're awful. And they're torture, but they make you stronger. They make you better and they make you tougher.

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:35Jocko Willink?

  So you do them.

• 1:59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a perfect, and then if you wanna do the workout analogy, right, where you're like, okay, so there's those two dichotomies, if you will. So it's like, okay, rest between sets, cool, I dig it. You do work and then you rest between sets, that's the whole thing, right? Format. But you're like, okay, I, if I need two minutes of rest in between my sets for this specific workout, for this specific outcome, or results from the workout, then boom, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna rest for two minutes. So there's difference, in that case, there's a difference between resting two minutes and then resting fifteen minutes. You don't need all that rest. Now you're just cruising. Now you're just avoiding the next set, or putting it off, or doing whatever. There's a difference. But on the other side, the more extremist side of the spectrum, the workout can be like not two minutes rest.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  The workout, the whole workout could last two hours long, no rest between sets. That's the workout. But when the workout's done, you've still gotta rest and recover from that workout. So just cuz you don't have a set amount of sets in in your work day to day, still doesn't mean you you need that rest between sets, or at the very least, rest between workouts.

• 2:00:39Jocko Willink?

  One thing that I got used to in the military, and I can see it in companies all the time, like, I could work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, never stop and never get everything done.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  That's something to think about. So then you have to say to yourself, well, how productive am I gonna be and what's important and what's not important? And you gotta make sure that you, yeah, you're right. If you take no rest, you won't be able to function properly.

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  And for me, like, I could write twenty-four hours a day and not write all the books I'm, I wanna write. I could do jiu-jitsu twenty-four hours a day and not get as good as I wanna get. I could work out twenty-four hours a day and not get as strong as I wanna get. So you have to figure out how to balance all those different items together to figure out, like, okay, what is an acceptable level at each one of these components?

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's gonna take, kinda identifying the results that you want that are acceptable to you, you know? So, yeah, like, what do you call, there's the, you know, like NASCAR, right, right? You've watched Streets of Thunder? I don't know, the one with Tom Cruise, that is a NASCAR, something of thunder. Days of thunder.

• 2:01:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  Anyway, he's like racing and he's like, hey, you gotta do a pit stop. Everybody gotta do a pit stop. But it seems weird, you know, when you're like racing and you're like, hey, I'm ahead of everybody. I'm not gonna stop right now. I'm worried, you know, but bro, your wheels are gonna fall off, bro. So you gotta pit stop sometimes.

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Sure.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  Watch some Zoolander, whatever. And then when you're done, you can be way more productive because those tires are new now. They can fly around the track, grip, everything. See what I'm saying?

• 2:02:08Jocko Willink?

  Concur.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  So it's part of the game, is what I'm saying. Next question. How does the introduction you gave to Mike in the equipment room square with extreme ownership? No judgment, just try to.

• 2:02:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, so Mike Sorelli, when Mike Sorelli came into Task Unit Bruiser, because his other, his other task unit had had some leadership issues. And Mike was sort of the collateral damage in that whole thing. And so they moved him from that task unit, which was Task Unit Charlie, into Task Unit Bruiser. And when he came in, I brought him into the equipment room at SEAL Team Three, which is where I would counsel my junior officers, because there was, there was construction going on at SEAL Team Three at the time, and there was no ceiling, so everyone could hear you in your office. And so I would go into this equipment room and brief guys if need be. And I just brought Mike Sorelli in there and I had a,

• 2:02:59Jocko Willink?

  a counseling letter for him to sign, and it said, there's no drama in Task Unit Bruiser. Don't bring any into it. And that's it. It was like really straightforward. I'm gonna have to ask him if he still has it. But I don't know why this person thinks that that doesn't square with extreme ownership. As far as I'm concerned, that is, I had a guy that was coming into a unit that had been together for seven or eight months, gone through workup and ready, getting ready for deployment. And I just had to take ownership of the fact that I had a guy that was showing up, that I didn't know I did get feedback. I got feedback from multiple people, multiple sources. And my bro source was like, hey.

• 2:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Sorelli, he's fucking good to go. And I was like, okay, cool. So I knew he was good to go, but still. I wanted to set the uh the expectation right for him so that he knew like li- like. Man, he might think that that was his first. Task unit he was with, you know, he might think this is the way it is. It's like, no, that's not the way it is. So for me, it was just, hey, we're just, we're just taking ownership. For me was, hey, I'm just gonna take ownership of this, make sure he knows what's going on, make sure he understands the expectations, make sure that we're not gonna have any drama in here. Cause we don't have any drama. There's no drama. Like we have problems, we solve them. We don't backstab each other and tell on each other and stab each other in the back. No, we have a problem. We get together, we solve the problem. That's how it is. And so that's all, you know, no, I don't even think that's a.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  I'm I'm I'm not even quite sure. I'd have to get more details on this question to figure out why. That didn't seem like the right thing to do from my perspective. It was. You know, it's great when you, when you have somebody come on board and they go, hey, man, here's the expectations that are going on. Boom.

• 2:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, cause that was before he did anything. It's not like he did something and then you were like, hey, you're bringing drama. Don't do that here. It wasn't that.

• 2:04:51Jocko Willink?

  It was like, hey, man, we don't have drama here.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:53Jocko Willink?

  Don't bring it in here.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  You good with that?

• 2:04:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:56Jocko Willink?

  And Mike Sorelli said, Roger that, sir.

• 2:04:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 2:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, of course. So and you know how much drama he brought in? Zero.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so in a way, I mean, I don't know, looking at it from the outside. It seems like that was. Uh you know, the the essence of extreme ownership. You're gonna use some anticipated problems. I'm gonna do everything to mitigate, you know, whatever, all these things. And I'm gonna go a preempted problem solving mode tactfully.

• 2:05:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  You know, in your way, you know, in the locker room or whatever.

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it wasn't even like I was like. You better not. I didn't even accuse him or anything.

• 2:05:32Speaker 01

  You'd punish him.

• 2:05:33Jocko Willink?

  I actually literally said, there's no drama here. Don't bring any. I didn't say like, you, we know, you know, I didn't like point my finger. No, it was like, hey, man. Hey. Cause in my mind, I'm thinking, you know what I'm thinking in my mind? Hey, I got a prior enlisted marine. That's gonna be in my task unit. I got another body and he's an experienced guy with, you know.

• 2:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was totally stoked. Yeah, I was totally stoked, man.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:00Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, dang it.

• 2:06:02Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 2:06:02Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 2:06:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think we got time for one more, man.

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  One more question. Sure. How do you stay on the warpath? When everything seems to be going wrong? Good question.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  You think that's a good question? Well, here's, here's what I think is strange about that question. It's sort of like the question I, I just answered about like sprinting.

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:24Jocko Willink?

  It's easy to, when things are going right, it's easy to stay on the warpath. Right? You don't even need to be on the warpath when things are going great.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Jocko Willink?

  Cause everything's happy. There's no war going on. You're at peace. People are, you know, delivering food to you. And you're getting a massage.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:42Jocko Willink?

  There's no, there's no, you're not like, oh, I need to be on the warpath right now while I'm getting a back massage. While I'm getting food delivered to me. That's not happening. When you, the, the actual time that you need to go on the warpath and you need to go harder on the warpath is when things are going wrong, wrong. That's when you need to dig deeper. That's when you need to, that's when the whole like idea of saying good.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  That's when it happens. When things are actually, when you're getting tested by the world.

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  That's when you want to do it. So, when you get tested by the world, that's when you get the opportunity to show the world what you're made of.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  That's when you get to say, bring it on.

• 2:07:30Jocko Willink?

  Bring it on. Oh, things are going wrong? Bring it on. I actually look forward to that.

• 2:07:36Jocko Willink?

  Because this is when I get to exercise my discipline. This is when I get to show the discipline. I get to put the discipline to work. It's the moment I have been waiting for. Cause let's face it. If things were easy, then, then I could just sit around and slack off. Right? That's what, that's what could happen. When things are easy, when things are going right, that's when you actually can slack off a little bit because things going right. I don't recommend it. I recommend actually when things are going right, you go hard. But when things are going wrong, you need to go even harder.

• 2:08:14Jocko Willink?

  So if everything's going wrong, it doesn't matter to me because I'm on the path. I'm gonna stay on the path, on the warpath. And I'm gonna get my situation rectified stat. Get some.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Jiggy.

• 2:08:34Jocko Willink?

  Alright, that's like two hours or something right now, so let's um. I don't know, speaking of the warpath.

• 2:08:43Speaker 01

  The path.

• 2:08:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:08:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:08:45Jocko Willink?

  How could we get people to, you know? How could we assist with people being on the warpath?

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  Step one jiu-jitsu, that's it. Actually, maybe that's step. Yeah, man, that's step one, straight up. Depends on where you are to begin with, so let's face it. Anyway, jiu-jitsu, so you need your gi, right? No need to ask anymore. Get a Origin Gi, OriginMaine.com, 100%.

• 2:09:07Jocko Willink?

  100% made in America.

• 2:09:10Speaker 01

  Yes, that too.

• 2:09:10Jocko Willink?

  100% good gi to get, the gi to get, and also 100% made in America. Made in America.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  From the dirt to the gi top, straight up. Yeah, cuz let's face it.

• 2:09:23Jocko Willink?

  From the topsoil to the gi top.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  From the topsoil to the top of the gi, yeah, fully. And for those who care about the aesthetics of the gi, these aesthetics are, how should I say? Made specifically for jiu-jitsu, for sure.

• 2:09:43Jocko Willink?

  By jiu-jitsu people.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  By jiu-jitsu people, yes. But they're like, they're cut, you know how like they're cut like for jiu-jitsu. See what I'm saying? And they look dope too, by the way, if you care about that kind of stuff.

• 2:09:54Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:09:55Speaker 01

  Joffrey, you wanna make like you don't care, but you care.

• 2:09:58Jocko Willink?

  No, I am and always have been impressed by specifically dragon weave.

• 2:10:05Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:10:06Jocko Willink?

  Come on.

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:07Jocko Willink?

  When you see a dragon weave gi or you're not like a, like.

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  I still am impressed with it, you know, when you see, yeah.

• 2:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Have you seen the machine that they? That they figure out how to weave that thing. It's like an old, it's in Pete's office and it's like a, it's the, I'll, I'll have Pete post a picture of it. But it's like, it looks like a mechanical thing from, from eighteen ninety-eight. I bet you it's from nineteen thirty. I bet you the thing is actually from nineteen thirty. We'll have to ask Pete what year it is. But that's the actual thing. It's the old school thing that you figure out, you, you program is the word. But it's not, there's nothing, there's nothing digital about this. You program what the fabric is gonna look like from this machine. It's freaking, it's cool.

• 2:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, yeah, so that's the dragon weave. Also rash guards, also a hundred percent made in America. Um, T-shirts, other things.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  Some cool stuff on there for sure. Supplements as well.

• 2:11:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, and um, supplements for your joints, eh? For your being.

• 2:11:15Speaker 01

  Being.

• 2:11:16Jocko Willink?

  As a human.

• 2:11:18Jocko Willink?

  And for your operational capabilities.

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:22Jocko Willink?

  So joint warfare for your joints, krill oil for your being.

• 2:11:28Speaker 01

  And joints.

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  And joints. Discipline for your operational capability.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Lift.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:37Jocko Willink?

  Lift your cognitive and your physical capabilities. And then of course we got that milk.

• 2:11:45Speaker 01

  Some additional protein for that. One. I had a big milk shake, put dark chocolate in it, by the way.

• 2:11:51Jocko Willink?

  You said that on the last podcast.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but this time I put, yes, and I put dark chocolate, yeah, outstanding.

• 2:11:57Jocko Willink?

  With what flavor milk?

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  Peanut butter chocolate.

• 2:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Is that your go-to?

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  Currently it is. It was the mint.

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Currently it is for me too.

• 2:12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it, it's in a rotation and, and it's all based on like how I feel.

• 2:12:09Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna tell you, I'm, I probably have had peanut butter six times in a row.

• 2:12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  Which it used to be not happening. It would be mint six times in a row. And then right now I'm just so down with that peanut butter.

• 2:12:25Speaker 01

  Down the, yeah, on the peanut butter train situation. But yeah, so the, and these supplements overall, especially the joint ones, like milk, it's easy. It's like a kinda, and it's just me alone with my thoughts. I'm like, this is kind of a glamorous one. The protein, hell yeah, my muscles. Right? But the joint warfare, they don't get like the glamour.

• 2:12:44Jocko Willink?

  Here's what, here's what one of my buddies was telling me yesterday. One of my brethren seals was, is using vanilla gorilla. And he's like, I'm, he's like, I'm putting it in everything.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:12:57Jocko Willink?

  Everything he makes.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:58Jocko Willink?

  Coffee, boom, vanilla.

• 2:12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  Uh, tea, boom, yeah, I don't know about tea, but his main thing was coffee.

• 2:13:04Speaker 01

  He's a psycho.

• 2:13:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's putting it in his coffee.

• 2:13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:06Jocko Willink?

  And he said it's like a sweetener, but obviously it's like not, right? It's not bad for you.

• 2:13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a sweetener because it makes it more sweet.

• 2:13:15Jocko Willink?

  He was, he was, you know, you know, when you talk to people and they get like the, the like little, the little kid look in their eyes?

• 2:13:22Speaker 01

  Giddy.

• 2:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he had that, he's like, I put, I put the vanilla gorilla there and I just hit it with the, I could say he was getting fired up when he said he hit it with the blender stick. I was like, fuck off, man.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  It's in the blender stick, the wand one?

• 2:13:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so technically I do the same thing, but I put the coffee in, it's like a, or an espresso or whatever, in the milk.

• 2:13:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, dang.

• 2:13:42Speaker 01

  So it's like a milk shake with like the, it's the same deal, but I'm sure the ratios are different.

• 2:13:46Jocko Willink?

  I don't even like coffee.

• 2:13:47Speaker 01

  It is, and that's the thing, it is. So if you, if you, uh, like, like coffee ice cream, you know, like that kind of stuff, or coffee ice cream and like black coffee, those are two different experiences for sure. So coffee ice cream, that's a delicious flavor one, it's like nice.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:14:02Speaker 01

  Delicious, so it's kind of the same deal with the milk.

• 2:14:04Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of delicious, um, strawberry and chocolate warrior kid milk for your children. I, this, this could get some kind of a, you know, I'm not gonna put myself in for a Nobel Peace Prize.

• 2:14:20Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  But like, hey, we are helping the children

• 2:14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:26Jocko Willink?

  of the world in a big way.

• 2:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:29Jocko Willink?

  With strawberry and chocolate warrior kid milk. Because there's no other thing that you're just, as a kid, as a kid, you're about that little Snickers bar hitter, right?

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, or these bad snacks in the, as a case maybe.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Bad snack hitters, right?

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  You right?

• 2:14:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:14:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'll check with Theo Vaughn on that one.

• 2:14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause he understands hitters better than me. But if you can give your kid a strawberry or chocolate milk hitter. They're just gonna be so stoked and they're gonna get stronger.

• 2:15:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:15:01Jocko Willink?

  Literally.

• 2:15:03Speaker 01

  Healthier, yeah.

• 2:15:04Jocko Willink?

  Pete, I told Pete, I said on the Warrior Kid podcast that Warrior Kid Molk will make you stronger. He's like, I don't know if you can legally make that claim. I'm like, well, it's already been said, so.

• 2:15:18Speaker 01

  And it's straight up true.

• 2:15:19Jocko Willink?

  How can you, wait, how can you not, how can that not be legally made? Because does protein rebuild your muscles? Answer, yes. Does Warrior Kid Molk have protein in it? Yes. I guess we gotta get the kids to Jack Steel too.

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  Or just grow up as a kid, healthy. Yeah, you'll get stronger as a kid growing up. You don't have to Jack any steel.

• 2:15:38Jocko Willink?

  So we are technically and legally authorized to say to the children of the world, Warrior Kid Molk will make you stronger. If I get the Nobel Prize for that, you get a Nobel Prize for helping children around the world?

• 2:15:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:15:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay, then I deserve it.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, all right, there you go. And not to go too deep into the whole thing about getting stronger. Like if you make the claim that something's gonna make you stronger, I think that is fine, like legally, because legally you can't like diagnose. It wasn't with the, there, there are certain, there's a list of things you can't do. You can't diagnose, you can't.

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, treat.

• 2:16:16Speaker 01

  Treat, do, you know, do, if they're specific kind of, they're more medically based, I think, but I don't know.

• 2:16:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, the only thing that we really, the only claim that we make, which is scientifically proven, is the, is the deadlift capabilities, if you drink Jocka White Tea, is eight thousand pounds.

• 2:16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:34Jocko Willink?

  Which I mean, obviously, no one's gonna, no one's gonna argue with that one.

• 2:16:38Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 2:16:39Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's just facts. So if you want some of the, if you want some Jocka White Tea, because you need a bigger deadlift, which you probably do,

• 2:16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:48Jocko Willink?

  then you can get that from Amazon.

• 2:16:53Speaker 01

  Well, the cans from Amazon.

• 2:16:55Jocko Willink?

  The cans from Amazon.

• 2:16:55Speaker 01

  The tea you can get everywhere.

• 2:16:58Jocko Willink?

  Everywhere meaning?

• 2:16:59Speaker 01

  Online, just go online, man.

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:17:01Speaker 01

  Jaco White Tea, it's on the store.

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay, there you go. On, on what store?

• 2:17:05Speaker 01

  Jaco Store, Jaco's Store, it's called Jaco Store. And the website is JacoStore.com, it's online.

• 2:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you say the website for Origin? OriginMaine.com?

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah, for all the, the Jaco, uh, uh, Joint Warfare, Molk, the Gies, the Rashka, the Origin stuff is all at OriginMaine.com. I did say it, but you know, that's a little reminder.

• 2:17:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  But Jaco White Tea is everywhere. Including JacoStore.com. Also on JacoStore.com is where you can get your shirts when you're representing on the path. See, and that's a big part of being on the path. Actually, that's a good psychological and physical, in my experience.

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  I, I don't even know what you're gonna say, but I know what you're gonna say.

• 2:17:47Speaker 01

  What, it helps you stand the path is what I'm saying.

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're not gonna eat a donut while you're wearing a Disc Michael's Freedom t-shirt.

• 2:17:52Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 2:17:53Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, it's physically impossible.

• 2:17:55Speaker 01

  I think so, yes, yeah.

• 2:17:57Jocko Willink?

  You'll be like, you'll, you'll be like the Exorcist, you just won't be able to stop yourself from throwing the donut box in the garbage can.

• 2:18:03Speaker 01

  You know what's weird, and I'm being serious, it's like now-

• 2:18:07Jocko Willink?

  Get behind me, Satan.

• 2:18:09Speaker 01

  Now, like, I can't eat a donut, even if I'm by myself, like, I can't. Like, it's, it's embedded already because of like the ethos of the path.

• 2:18:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  It's like, it prevents me physically from eating a donut.

• 2:18:23Jocko Willink?

  The only donut I could eat is one that is, is an actual piece of steak cut into a circle with a piece missing from the middle.

• 2:18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:31Jocko Willink?

  I might do that.

• 2:18:32Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:18:32Jocko Willink?

  I might make a steak donut, just to get some.

• 2:18:36Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing, though, there's such thing as like little protein donuts.

• 2:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but if you look at the ingredients.

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  I don't know, though. What if it was like a paleo pro, you know, how when people make paleo stuff, it's like kinda solid sometimes.

• 2:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Why not just shape it like a stick?

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  I know, really, I think you have a point, though.

• 2:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Start putting it into a donut scenario, it's just unacceptable.

• 2:18:56Speaker 01

  I think that's the thing, it's like the fact that it's a donut kinda is that's what kinda creates the little thing in my, in my brain. Anyway, anyway, back to the store, Jaco Store. Hoodies on there, shirts on there, hats on there, a lot of cool stuff on there, if you wanna represent, if you wanna represent in the wild. JacoStore.com, grab something.

• 2:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Keep you on the def core path.

• 2:19:22Speaker 01

  Also, okay, we talked about Jaco IT, obviously. Also, you want to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. That'll kind of keep you in tune, so to speak. Seems obvious, I guess, but it seems like a small thing, but hey, it's good to subscribe. Stay in tune, stay in touch on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, you know, anywhere where you listen to your podcasts, go ahead, subscribe. Also, the Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 2:19:47Jocko Willink?

  Is the Warrior Kid Podcast better than Jocko Podcast?

• 2:19:51Speaker 01

  I personally don't think so. At the end of the day, what do you say? Net, you say net-net? You ever heard that expression? Net-net? My brother says it all the time. Anyway, net-net, I like the Jocko Podcast better. Here's the thing, no. It's not like just cut and dry. You know why?

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  There's like legit competition.

• 2:20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and here's the thing.

• 2:20:11Jocko Willink?

  If you were to observe them from a completely unbiased, you probably don't like the Warrior Kid Podcast because you're not in it.

• 2:20:18Speaker 01

  I can't freaking rebuttal my stuff. Maybe. Here's the thing, maybe.

• 2:20:23Jocko Willink?

  You like hearing yourself.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  Here's the, no, no. Here's the, here's the part that kind of, kind of, what is it like, is like a rebuttal to my own opinion. Warrior Kid Podcast, every single one of those was, was like ninety, like, I would say eighty-five to a hundred percent impactful. Like, every little thing, like, that felt like applied to me. Where I can like, whether it be in a big or a small way.

• 2:20:48Jocko Willink?

  No. Applied to you as a human man.

• 2:20:52Speaker 01

  Some things, yes, applied to my.

• 2:20:53Jocko Willink?

  Six years old or whatever you are.

• 2:20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, but, and I'm not saying it doesn't apply to my daughter, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it applies to me directly, whether it be me in my own life, or me, how I'm gonna deal with my daughter now, or my son or whatever, hun, like, all of the things, pretty much, like, that's kind of the, so, net-net, yeah, Jocko Podcast, sure, I like better. Maybe because there's kind of more, more thing, I don't know why, but that's my answer. But I will say this, maybe the.

• 2:21:23Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe you might be right, but maybe because there's so, there's not as many Warrior Kid.

• 2:21:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:31Speaker 01

  Maybe I need more, I need more to shift over to, for that to be better. I don't know.

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 2:21:36Speaker 01

  Either way, that's on iTunes, Stitcher, oh yeah, that's on, that's a podcast as well that you subscribe to also YouTube. Warrior Kid YouTube.

• 2:21:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's Warrior, yeah, speaking of YouTube, there's the Jocko Podcast channel on YouTube. There's Warrior Kid Podcast on YouTube, which we separated so that your child won't be watching Warrior Kid Podcast and then all of a sudden have the Rape of Nanking Podcast creep into their zone, right? So we separated them, but they're both up there, they're both available. And also on the Jocko Podcast, that's where Echo puts up videos of, with enhancements to them that make them, make the message more impactful, in his opinion.

• 2:22:20Speaker 01

  Well, you know, hopefully, we'll say hopefully.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like I said though, the, the Mikey and the Dragons video, which has moved to the top slot, in my opinion, for your videos, which is a bold statement.

• 2:22:35Speaker 01

  Cool, yeah.

• 2:22:36Jocko Willink?

  It's a bold statement. People have got tears in their eyes from a two-minute video about a kid's book. That's pretty impressive.

• 2:22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I do have to say, I, I even had tears in my eyes, here's the thing, that's, I, for real, and I'm not gonna be like all humble or whatever, I don't think it's necessarily because of me making the video. Because, like, well, I don't know, I'm only speaking for myself, where, okay, so the, the, the king died, this is a story within a story, it's a story of a story in a story, so there's like three layers there. But, so the idea of the king dying and then the kid being like young and having this big responsibility heaped on his shoulder, then, shoulders and him being scared, for some reason, I don't know, I just get just like all whatever about that, or emotions, I don't know, sensitive about that kind of stuff, so.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  When it's like you explaining it and you say it like you're not being all tough Jaco, you know, see what I'm saying? Like you're doing it like appropriately, see what I'm saying? And then so it's like that, that's really what kind of affected me. And I think sure, I laid it out in a way where it's like kind of delivered in the appropriate way, but.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Is it, is it, oh, I was gonna ask if it was more impactful because you and I know the whole story. But people that don't know the whole story, that didn't have the book yet were like, oh my god.

• 2:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  It was cause, cause when you know the whole story, it's like, oh, that's cool. But then people that didn't know the whole story were just like, oh.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  You know what? Actually, no, another thing because Jade said the same thing and he didn't read the whole story. And he, and he actually had little tears in his eyes. He's like, yeah, I have tears in my eyes. I don't know why. Like trying to act like it's just so confusing, you know? But meanwhile, he's all like being all emotional. I saw what went on.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  So that's the, uh, that's the YouTube channel. You can subscribe to that. That'd be cool. We'd appreciate it and all that stuff. Plus you can leave, the, the big thing about if you subscribe to the YouTube channel, um, you need to comment about Echo because the only compensation that Echo receives for participation in this podcast is being able to read YouTube comments that say, Echo is so jacked.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  So go on YouTube, subscribe and then write Echo is yoked, Echo is jacked, Echo is looking massive, all that kind of stuff. Cause that way he'll be happy. I can just pay him with that. That's what he gets paid with.

• 2:24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the worst idea I've ever heard.

• 2:25:00Jocko Willink?

  It's not that bad.

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  Nonetheless.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  But you do like it.

• 2:25:03Speaker 01

  Nonetheless.

• 2:25:04Jocko Willink?

  You pointed it out to me before.

• 2:25:06Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 2:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Yes, he did. You did.

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  When?

• 2:25:08Jocko Willink?

  You were like, you were like, oh, there's always someone that says I look jacked.

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  I never said that.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you did.

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  Anyway, I, anyway, psychological warfare.

• 2:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  If you don't know what that is, is what it is. It's an album with tracks. It's on iTunes and Amazon Music and stuff. It's an album with tracks Jaco saying, helping you, us, he's helping us. That's what he's doing. Jaco is helping us through moments of weakness when they arise and they'll arise. You can't sprint forever.

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  Good point.

• 2:25:38Speaker 01

  And you, you might, instead of taking appropriate action, when you realize you can't sprint forever, sometimes you might want to take a little bit more rest between sets. You don't have to.

• 2:25:50Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes you might want to take too much rest.

• 2:25:52Speaker 01

  You might want to, yes, exactly right.

• 2:25:54Jocko Willink?

  And you will not ever look jacked if you're taking too much rest between sets. So get psychological warfare on iTunes, Google Play, MP3.

• 2:26:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, and you'll get past those moments of weakness. Because Jaco will just help you through it, just by telling you that's like a little spot, you know? When you're slacking.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  A little spot in reference to weightlifting.

• 2:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, if that's the analogy.

• 2:26:18Jocko Willink?

  Right, because you, someone's trying to lift and they can't quite get it. And so they help you lift it a little bit, they give you a little spot. So you're referencing weightlifting.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Yes, but in this case.

• 2:26:26Jocko Willink?

  Is that how you get jacked?

• 2:26:28Speaker 01

  In this case, instead of weights, it's your slacker, um, weakness. That might come, I'm not saying we're all weak, but sometimes, some of us, a lot of us are, sometimes. Anyway, Jaco's there for you, boom, psychological warfare. Also, if your workout's boring, even if it's not boring, get more fitness gear. So, I incorporated, okay, get it from Onnit, right, Onnit.com slash Jaco. Fitness gear, rope, battle ropes, rings, kettlebells, of course. To me, if you don't have the kettlebells, I feel like there's like one little element, big, small, I don't know, depends on who you are. But there's one little element of life that's missing, that's my opinion. But, when I got the rings, that changed my whole workout.

• 2:27:13Speaker 01

  So what I do, what I, you know, the, like, you do a bunch of cool stuff on rings. I do, I only do a handful of things, actually not even a handful, like two, three things. One of the main ones are like, um, you know, when you, I make them go super low, like maybe waist, maybe.

• 2:27:27Jocko Willink?

  Handstand pushups in them?

• 2:27:28Speaker 01

  No, bro, I'm still a beginner at the rings, but, so, I'll hold them in front of me and then I'll do, it's kind of like an ab roller kind of thing.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Do you use one arm at a time or both arms?

• 2:27:38Speaker 01

  Both arms, and then sometimes I'll go like wide and narrow, whatever, so I'll do those, I'll do like sets of 10. And you can adjust like how high, so how hard and easier it is, whatever.

• 2:27:47Jocko Willink?

  One millimeter off the ground.

• 2:27:49Speaker 01

  You gotta go full extension, you can, get there, I'm gonna get there. Nonetheless, between every exercise, uh, actually no, between every set, you do a set of 10. That's like the workout, because it's not super exhausting to do it, you know, so it's like an active rest. It's good, man. I think it'll take your like workout to the next level. To the thing, people say that, take it to the next level, that doesn't even mean anything.

• 2:28:14Jocko Willink?

  Let me ask you this, even if it doesn't take it, if it takes this, will it help you get jacked?

• 2:28:19Speaker 01

  Anyway, let me briefly explain what that means to the next level. So like when you do, I don't know, deadlifts, or I don't know, shoulder press or something. Like when you're, God, as you guys see, curls, oh big time, curls and triceps. When you do these things, you're like, since you're like core or whatever is stronger, and this is just what I'm like, what you feel. When your core is strong, it feels like you have way better balance. You have like way better control of, of the weight, so you get stronger overall. Boom. Just, just from rings. Anyway, yeah, anyway, on it.com, that's, that's where you get all this cool stuff.

• 2:28:55Jocko Willink?

  If you want to get your mind smarter and tougher and get your brain more jacked.

• 2:29:04Jocko Willink?

  If you want to get your brain more jacked, uh, we've got some books, uh, Mike and the Dragons. That is out. There are more being printed at this time. I'm printing as many as humanly possible. Order it immediately so that I know and I can get it to you. Um, it's coming. So it's, we've, we've shipped out some, we got some more coming in right now. So yeah, if you haven't ordered it, ordered it yet, then order it now. Uh, the feedback is awesome right now and thank you for posting the reviews on Amazon. That's so cool to read and see little pictures of kids reading the book and I'm just super stoked on that book. So thank you for that. And Way the Warrior Kid for the kids that are maybe just a little bit older.

• 2:29:46Jocko Willink?

  That's a book about getting on the path for kids and it's going to help them in every possible element of their life that I can think of right now. It will, it will, it will help them.

• 2:30:00Speaker 01

  I think so too.

• 2:30:01Jocko Willink?

  It'll make them smarter. It'll make them work harder. It'll make them understand discipline. It'll make them stronger. It'll just help them across the board. That's Way the Warrior Kid. And then the follow on mission, the follow on book to that is Way of the Warrior Kid, Mark's Mission.

• 2:30:16Jocko Willink?

  The next is the discipline equals field, the discipline equals freedom field manual, which is a book about how to get after it.

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, the book.

• 2:30:26Jocko Willink?

  It's the book about how to get after it. It isn't, it is not a throwaway book by any stretch.

• 2:30:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:30:32Jocko Willink?

  It is, how would you describe it?

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  A manual.

• 2:30:36Jocko Willink?

  It's a manual, but I mean, um.

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  It's an instrument.

• 2:30:38Jocko Willink?

  No, what's the word you used earlier? Uh, aesthetically.

• 2:30:42Speaker 01

  Aesthetically.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  Aesthetically, could you possibly look, just look the external part, just the cover of the field manual and think maybe I'll do a little extra work today?

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:30:55Jocko Willink?

  That is entirely possible, right?

• 2:30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully, and it.

• 2:30:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know what's in it.

• 2:30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:01Speaker 01

  Get after it material.

• 2:31:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:02Speaker 01

  The, um, oh, and I was thinking about this too, not extensive thought, but there's an audio version of this.

• 2:31:09Jocko Willink?

  True, true.

• 2:31:11Speaker 01

  Which is cool, which is good, but it's kinda like one of those things where you kinda like, man, I kinda want the physical book, even if I'm, if I'm more of an audiobook person. I, I want that physical book because of its aesthetics.

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Heavy, it's heavy, it has black pages. Let's just put it to you that, let's just start with that. Have you ever seen a book with black pages? No, you haven't.

• 2:31:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:31:33Jocko Willink?

  Get the, get the field manual right there. If you do want the audio version, then it's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play. It's not on Audible because I wanted you to be able to use it as a alarm.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:31:45Jocko Willink?

  Some of those things, little warnings. Yeah. Tracks, ready to be played at a moment's notice.

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the thing too, where.

• 2:31:51Jocko Willink?

  Like if you timed, if you timed, if you set up a timer where when you were going to lunch.

• 2:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Sugar coated lies play, keep that in check, for real.

• 2:32:00Speaker 01

  Man, perfect example, and, cause the thing is like, some of these like chapters or whatever, you're gonna identify with more than let's say the next chapter, you know, especially like if you like donuts or pastries of sorts, you know, the, the sugar coated lies one, you're gonna be referencing that one a little bit more, right? So it's like, okay, you know, so you have that option now. That's good, I'm putting on the timer, that's good.

• 2:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, yeah. The, the next book is, well, I'll talk about two books together, Extreme Ownership and Dichotomy of Leadership, these are two books about the lessons learned on the battlefield. Myself and Leif Babbin wrote the books, he was in Task Unit Bruiser as the Charlie Platoon commander.

• 2:32:43Jocko Willink?

  And we took the lessons that we learned over there. We brought them back. We started teaching them to the SEALs that we're getting ready to deploy. And we wrote Extreme Ownership. When we got out and started working with companies and saw that all the lessons that we learned transferred to the civilian sector. And then we wrote the dichotomy of leadership as a follow-on book, which some people are saying is better. I don't know which one is better, but I do know that they will make you better. They will make you a better leader. So, check those out. Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy Leadership, Mikey and the Dragons, Way of the Warrior Kid, Mark's Mission, and Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  You can get your brain jacked, which is the word of the day. Echo, Echelon Front, that's a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. So, if you have a team, if you have a company, if you have a business, and you want to get your leadership aligned, and you want to get them functioning at the highest level, you can go to echelonfront.com. We solve problems through leadership. That's what we do. We got the muster coming in 2019, Chicago and Denver, and we're also doing Sydney. So, check out extremeownership.com for details on that. All of the past musters have sold out. These musters will sell out

• 2:34:04Jocko Willink?

  as well. So, try and get in on it early, so that you can come. We actually turned people away. We turned a pretty good number of people away from muster 007 in San Francisco, and that, that doesn't feel good. You feel kind of bad. So, try and register early for that. And then, of course, EF Overwatch. This is where we are taking people from our old community, the Spec Ops, Special Operations Community, and the Combat Aviation Community, folks that were leaders and tested as leaders on the battlefield. And now, we are taking those tried and tested leaders and placing them into civilian organizations to help

• 2:34:48Jocko Willink?

  the leadership in those companies and teams. You can go to EFOverwatch.com if you're either a vet that is looking for your next mission, or you are a company looking for your next high-level leader.

• 2:35:06Jocko Willink?

  And if you have more questions, or you have answers for us, we are available on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the military folks out there that are protecting us from evil around the globe. And thanks to police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, Border Patrol, and all first responders, thanks for holding the line 24 hours a day here on the home front. And to everyone else out there, thank you for your questions.

• 2:35:47Jocko Willink?

  But as I said earlier, most of these questions, you already know the answers to. You already know the right thing to do. You already know what you're supposed to do. You already know how to get on the warpath and stay on the warpath. It's by getting out there every single day. And getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.