26: Omaha Beach and Beyond, Surfing, Relax during BJJ, Flanking, Manipulation

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:09 - "Omaha Beach and Beyond" Book Review 1:10:28: - Internet, Onnit Stuff 1:13:39 - Jocko Surfing 1:23:37 - Relax During Jiu Jitsu 1:31:36 - Tactics that deviate from The Art of War 1:35:49 - How do SEALS reconcile facing death? 1:46:34 - Taking Suggestions as a Leader 1:53:51 - More on Flanking 2:00:00 - Turning off "Manipulation" 2:09:25 - How do you stay Motivated? Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast Number 26 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh for a voice like thunder and a tongue to drown the throat of war. When the senses are shaken and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand?

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  When the souls of the oppressed fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand? When the whirlwind of fury comes from the throne of God? When the frowns of his countenance drive the nations together, who can stand?

• 0:48Jocko Willink?

  When sin claps his broad wings over the battle and sails rejoicing in the flood of death? When souls are torn to everlasting fire and fiends of hell rejoice upon the slain?

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, who can stand?

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  Good evening Echo.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 1:21Jocko Willink?

  That right there is a little excerpt of a poem by a guy named William Blake.

• 1:31Jocko Willink?

  And it paints war as

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  something so powerful, so evil, something superhuman.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  And the full poem is really a statement against war as it goes on and it's not that much longer, but it blames war on the politicians and on the kings and on the nobles. And it blames war on the religious leaders. But he asks that question over and over again, who can stand?

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  And I can actually answer that question.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  And I've seen who can stand. I've seen people break, but I have seen many brave men and women on the battlefield stand.

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  Stand against fear and death and stand against evil.

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  Stand as sin claps his broad wings over the battle and sails rejoicing in the flood of death.

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  And that's William Blake. Those are his words, but he's writing that in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He had no idea how bad war would get.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not saying war is worse in terms of individual horror, but in terms of scale, it can't be denied. I mean, World War I and World War II, the scale of horror, it would be incomprehensible to a man from Blake's time. He just couldn't understand it.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  So let's go to June 6th, 1944.

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  As the demon spread his wings over the beaches of Normandy.

• 3:55Jocko Willink?

  And men stood against his evil.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  The English coxswain tried to drop the ramp a couple of hundred feet from the shore when the sergeant ordered, "Take us all the way in."

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  Just then, machine guns opened up and bullets tore through the wooden sides of the landing craft, wounding four or five men. Men began screaming, "Open the damn doors!"

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  Just as the ramp went down, there was a pause in the incoming fire. We exited fast, diving into the water and holding on. Sergeant Trona was lying next to me when he was shot through the wrist. I crawled over to him and gave him first aid. We just let the tide wash over the lower portion of our bodies, using our fingernails to pull forward, inch by inch, to keep from drowning. I looked back at our assault craft, and both English sailors were dead. They were heroes, and paid the price for getting us in. They risked their safety to get us closer to shore.

• 5:07Jocko Willink?

  Private Thomas McCarter was the first fatality in our sector.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  His cries to me for help still haunt me. Weighted down, possibly wounded, he frantically struggled in the water as he cried my name, but I couldn't get to him. It was drilled into us that we must push forward to the objective and to let the medics take care of the wounded. We were subjected to grazing fire from crisscrossing fire from machine guns. I believed at the time that it would be better for me to push forward, since Tom was quite far away.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  These machine guns kept firing until we got to the seawall.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Tom was my friend, and I should have tried to save him.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  It took individual riflemen using grenades, satchel charges, and bayonets to neutralize the almost impregnable concrete bunkers. I didn't see any Rangers until later. In my opinion, the Air Force and Navy made it possible for us to hang on until reinforcements and more equipment arrived. They also kept the Germans from mounting an armored counterattack.

• 6:26Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, it boils down to the bloody foot soldier and his rifle to hold on to the real estate.

• 6:39Jocko Willink?

  And that right there was Private First Class Randolph A. Ginman, Company D, 116th Infantry.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-seven years old, uh, twenty-seven years old on D-Day. A mortar gunner.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  Now we're gonna hear from Private First Class George A. Kobe, Company D, 116th Infantry.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  Six hundred yards from the shore, the English coxswain lost his nerve and slowed the engine. This improved the Germans' opportunity to hit our boat. Captain Schilling was looking through the vision slit, looked back at the sailor and said, "You're not gonna drop that ramp here." Technical Sergeant Stinet was standing next to the captain. Suddenly, an 88-millimeter hit the ramp directly, blowing Captain Schilling backward, killing him instantly. Part of the ramp caught Stinet's left eye, knocking it out.

• 7:47Jocko Willink?

  With John Seffco, Vic Crumone, and Eugene Adrian, we finally made it to the seawall. How, I'll never know. It was the worst fire I was ever subjected to in all of my combat.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  Now we've got Private First Class Robert L. Sales, Company B, 116th Infantry.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  Joined the Virginia National Guard at age fifteen.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  About one hundred yards from the shore, the English coxswain said he couldn't get us any closer. As the ramp lowered, enemy machine guns opened up, firing directly into our boat. Like all great leaders, Captain Zap was the first off the boat, and the first one to get hit. Staff Sergeant Dick Wright was second, and also hit, falling into the water. A medic was third, and I didn't see what happened to him. I was fourth. I caught my heel in the ramp and fell sideways out of the path of that MG42, undoubtedly saving my life.

• 9:06Jocko Willink?

  All of the men that followed were either killed by Germans, or drowned.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  No one from my craft was ever found alive.

• 9:18Jocko Willink?

  The captain screamed, "I'm hit!" I tried to get to him, but he was lost in the surf. Men were all around me, in the water, bleeding from wounds, and screaming for help. I knew the boat was the target, so I got away from it as fast as I could. One of the first things I did was shed my SCR300 radio and my assault jacket. That radio was heavy, and I suppose it is still at the bottom of the channel.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  Mortar and artillery shells were landing all around, and one hit so close that it knocked me groggy. Luckily, a log floated by, with an unexploded teller mine still attached. I grabbed hold of it until my head cleared a bit. I remained behind that log, pushing it in front of me, using it as a shield as I reached dry... until I reached dry land.

• 10:11Jocko Willink?

  The first person I saw on the beach that I recognized was Dick Wright. He hollered over to me that he was badly hit. I watched him trying to raise his arms, but a sniper spotted him, and shot him through the head. His face fell into the sand, never to move again.

• 10:30Jocko Willink?

  I didn't try to go to him, because I knew he was dead.

• 10:35Jocko Willink?

  While pinned down on that beach, I watched incoming landing craft being shot at. One of them carried the battalion surgeon, Captain Robert B. Ware, a man I knew from my hometown of Madison Heights, Virginia. The doctor had flaming red hair. I watched him as he disembarked the landing craft and that machine gun opened up, cutting him down. What I will never forget was seeing his helmet fly off his head and showing all that red hair. I crawled on my belly, using the dead and wounded as a shield. Sometime later, I saw Max Smith from Shepherd Town, West Virginia.

• 11:18Jocko Willink?

  And some other B Company men taking shelter behind a seawall. Some of them were badly wounded. I bandaged Smith's eye that was lying out of his face. I kept crawling back to the water's edge, dragging men out if they were still living. I didn't bother if they were dead. I pulled quite a few to safety. One of the medics helped to give first aid and comfort to the wounded. The first enemy soldier I saw was a prisoner. Interrogators had him on his knees. And his hands were locked behind his head. He didn't look so tough to me, but those guys up on the cliffs were plenty tough. You can't imagine how helpless it was to be lying on that beach and those machine

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  guns and snipers shooting anything that moved. At this point, we were not sure the invasion would succeed. Our company was shot up so badly that there was no organization or communication from other sectors to tell us how they were doing. If all the landing zones were as helpless as we were, the invasion was in jeopardy. We felt helpless and alone.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  We had many acts of heroism from B Company, men, with many of them unreported. Lieutenant William B. Williams, single-handedly, with hand grenades and a rifle, charged and subdued a pillbox.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  Sergeant William Pierce and Odell Paget survived the landing better than we did and were able to take a few men up to those rocks and cliffs and fight it out with the Germans. It was touch and go for quite some time in our sector.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  Not until St. Lo fell in July did we know for sure that the invasion was a success. D-Day was indeed the longest day, but there were many, many long days after that.

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  Day after bloody day, it was jumping over those hedgerows and men getting killed. We lost some very good men every single day.

• 13:24Jocko Willink?

  St. Lo was about 25 miles from the beach, and it was liberated on July 18th. When St. Lo fell, we felt confident that we were in France to stay.

• 13:36Jocko Willink?

  Surviving the war was another story.

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  So those were some excerpts right there

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  from a book by John Robert Slaughter. The book is called Omaha Beach and Beyond: The Long March of Sergeant Bob Slaughter. And those excerpts that I just read, they weren't Bob Slaughter, they were various other people that worked with him that he went back and interviewed.

• 14:14Jocko Willink?

  This is another guy, born in Tennessee, grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, enlisted in the Army Reserves at age 15.

• 14:27Jocko Willink?

  And as he's giving an intro to the book here,

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  this is what he says.

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  "I remember buddies with whom I spent passes to London, men I played cards with a couple of days before the landing, who signed their autographs on my Eisenhower D-Day missive, who shook hands with me on the javelins deck. Young man, young men, as I was, all killed during the largest air, land, and sea battle ever fought. Many more were maimed and never seen again. How could I forget this epic event even if I fail to recall the proper names and faces? Memoirs are not history, but history is someone's recorded memory.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Most of us remember noble and heroic deeds, but conveniently forget or fail to record the less than noble. I am no different. Many times I did and saw things that are best forgotten or left unwritten.

• 15:40Jocko Willink?

  War brings out the best and the worst in most of us. The Nazis were accused of killing, raping, pillaging, and burning. A few on our side were also guilty of these crimes. Soldiers on both sides looted for souvenirs, as did I. And yet, cruel treatment of the enemy was an unusual occurrence. I myself am proud to say that I once saved an enemy soldier's life." This book will attempt to show that ordinary men and women can do extraordinary feats if they believe the cause is great. Many GIs have said that they were merely fighting for each other.

• 16:26Jocko Willink?

  True, but I maintain another factor played a more important role, and it can be summed up with one word: pride.

• 16:37Jocko Willink?

  Regardless of their motives, I saw very few cowards in the 116th Infantry Regiment. May God bless the many, many more heroes."

• 16:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is one of those books where I'm

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  don't have a lot to add in some of these situations.

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  Now,

• 17:08Jocko Willink?

  Bob Slaughter was his nickname, Bob Slaughter, and when he got to England, they actually took him and a bunch of other soldiers and they formed him into a new unit called the 29th Rangers. And they trained these guys ultra hard. They did all kinds of stuff for 11 months getting ready for the invasion, these, these 29th Rangers. They did marching and mountain climbing in a crazy obstacle course. They trained in unarmed combat. They did log PT, cold weather training, I mean, just grueling training. And at the end of all that harsh training, for a number of reasons, they actually disbanded this group.

• 17:53Jocko Willink?

  And they sent them all back with their regular units. So they had a group of guys that got trained super hard, you know, like what we would consider a modern sort of special operation selection course.

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  They went through that, but then when they got done with this training and they were getting ready for the actual invasion, they took them, dispersed them amongst the regular troops. And the guy that ran this training for the 29th Rangers was a guy named Major Mill Holland. And he sent a letter to his daughter, and this is what he wrote. And this is after these guys got disbanded.

• 18:35Jocko Willink?

  He said, "Every boy should be made to play football and box and participate in all kinds of athletics. And above all, the Americans should be taught discipline and decent living."

• 18:49Jocko Willink?

  Then he should be given a year of the toughest kind of military training. Not the kind that we know, but the kind I gave my Rangers. God, I wish I had those boys now. We would tear the Germans stringy.

• 19:04Jocko Willink?

  I hear of the, I hear of those boys now and then, and although they are almost all gone now, they have done unbelievable things and are spoken of almost in a tone of reverence by officers and men alike who have fought with them. They were men.

• 19:23Jocko Willink?

  Train.

• 19:25Jocko Willink?

  And train hard. And learn about discipline. You parents out there, get your kids training, sports.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Decent living.

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  That's how you make men.

• 19:45Jocko Willink?

  Now, fast forwarding, because they went back to their regular army units and they continue to train and prepare for the invasion. And Bob Slaughter is assigned to D Company, 116th Infantry, 29th Infantry Division. And I'm fast forwarding right now, straight to D-Day. Straight to his perception of D-Day and what it was like for him.

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, this is, all that training that these guys have been through, and, and none of them had been to combat before. So this is it. Their first operation is D-Day.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  And this is what it's like. Back to the book. About a hundred and fifty yards from the shore, despite the warning from someone behind me to keep your head down, I cautiously peeped up. I could see that craft, that the craft about twenty-five yards to our right and a couple of hundred yards ahead were targeted by small arms. Fiery tracey tracer bullets skipped off, skipped and bounced off the ramp and sides as they zeroed in before the ramps fell. I said to anyone close enough to hear above the bedlam, "Men, we are going to catch hell. Be ready."

• 21:17Jocko Willink?

  Then it began to happen.

• 21:20Jocko Willink?

  Enemy artillery and mortar shells sent great plumes of water spouting skyward as they exploded in the water. Near misses rained us with seawater. I suddenly became very worried about what Jerry would do to us. How in the hell did those sons of bitches survive what we thought was a carpet bombing and unshelling of the beach?

• 21:45Jocko Willink?

  At slapped in sands, we trained with live explosions, but these were far more frightening. This time, they were shooting to kill every one of us.

• 21:57Jocko Willink?

  The craft slowed as we scraped a submerged sandbar, which kept us from a dry landing. Everyone wanted to get the hell off that rocking boat, but the coxswain had trouble dropping the steel ramp. When it finally slammed and splashed down, the front of the boat began to buck like a wild stallion, raising six or seven feet, turning slightly sideways, and then slamming down again. The first man went to exit off about mid-ramp. The craft surged forward and crushed the poor fellow to death.

• 22:32Jocko Willink?

  So I jumped off and moved away from the crazy erratic landing craft. Luckily, I didn't see anyone else get hit by the ramp. I was now struggling in water up to my armpits. Luckily for me, at six foot five, most of the time, my head was above water. Later, as I crossed the beach, my height would be a detriment, making me a larger target. Meanwhile, as I tried to get to shore, shorter men grabbed my clothing to keep their heads above water. Suddenly, as fear replaced seasickness, I was no longer cold. Most of all, I feared I would drown after being shot. Snipers hiding in the bluffs hit quite a few men.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  But most of the damage came from rapid firing, automatic weapons. In every war since gunpowder was invented, soldiers have experienced the dreaded feeling of being under live enemy fire for the first time. It was demoralizing to hear good men scream as bullets ripped into soft flesh, and others scream as the fierce flooding tide dragged the non-swimmers under. I remember helping Private Ernest McCandless, who was struggling to get closer in. He still had one of the precious boxes of thirty caliber machine gun ammo.

• 23:56Jocko Willink?

  I remember him shouting to me, "Slaughter, are we going to get through all of this?" I didn't know how to answer him, so I didn't say anything. To tell the truth, I thought we were all going to die. A body with its life preserver inflated floated by. The face had turned, already turned a dark purple. At first, I thought it was Private Richard Gomez who had a dark complexion. But I later found out that Gomez had survived the day. The fellow I saw was just one of thousands who died. There is no way to be sure if I had known him. Many of our company were hit in the water and drowned, good swimmers or not.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  I came ashore, surrounded by the screams of men who had been hit and were drowning under their ponderous loads. All around me, dead men floated in the water, along with live men who acted as if they were dead. The Germans couldn't tell which was which. The flooding tide washed everyone in.

• 25:03Jocko Willink?

  Lying at the edge of the high water mark, I watched a GI trying to cross the beach. He had a hard time running. I believe he was from the craft to our right. An enemy gunner cut him down and he staggered and fell to the sand. I can still hear the screaming. A well-marked medical corpsman moved quickly to help him. He was also shot.

• 25:27Jocko Willink?

  I'll never forget seeing that medic lying next to that dying soldier, both screaming for help. Within minutes, as I watched, both men fell silent and mercifully died.

• 25:42Jocko Willink?

  I saw men vomit at the sickening sights and others cry openly and unashamedly. All of us had to find it within ourselves to get across that sandy no man's land. This is where the army's strict discipline and rigorous training took over. Individual pride had a lot to do with it too.

• 26:15Jocko Willink?

  What an unbelievable first combat experience for these guys. And I want you to think about that, that image of you're in a boat. You're a couple hundred meters offshore, maybe two or three hundred meters offshore and you're looking two hundred meters ahead of you and you're starting to see tracers impact on this boat. That you know you're next.

• 26:41Jocko Willink?

  You know you're next. There's no turning back. There's the only thing you can do. There's nothing's gonna stop it.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Did you, you saw Saving Private Ryan, right?

• 26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  That movie?

• 26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  So, um, I mean, to me, they, they did a good job in capturing that moment where everyone's like, it's like real tense and you can slowly start to hear the boom, boom, boom. And the way it kind of builds and builds and how chaotic it gets, man. It's like the most, especially at that time, is one of the most real. Feeling uh movies, you know, involving more than.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  They did an outstanding job. They did an outstanding job in that opening scene.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  It's just so crazy like to hear the real account.

• 27:24Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And then kinda compare it and you know, when you watch the movie, you're like dang, that's crazy. That's cause you're kinda in involved in the movie. But when you think more and you're like dang this, this really happened. This is what really happened.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and and also, yeah, I mean, obviously the actors do a good job of portraying what's going on in their minds. But this is what was going on.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:48Jocko Willink?

  This is what he was thinking and seeing.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  They um, Steven Spielberg, put those guys through these harsh conditions during that, you know, so they'd kinda.

• 27:58Jocko Willink?

  Some little Hollywood boot camp.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but even while they're filming it, you know, to kinda help capture, um, I mean, obviously it's.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  You can't compare it to the real deal.

• 28:07Jocko Willink?

  They did an outstanding job. They really did. And the first time I saw that scene, I was uh.

• 28:14Jocko Willink?

  I was impacted.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  I was, I was definitely impacted.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 28:19Jocko Willink?

  And I'm, I remember um, I wasn't, with my guys in Ramadi, they were on an op, they were in a really. Uh hellacious situation and they were in a, in a Bradley fighting vehicle. And as they were going on to target, they, they were hearing rounds hit the outside of the Bradley as they were get, as the ramp was about to go down.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  And actually, I think, I can't remember this a hundred percent, but I'm pretty sure that the, the young officer in that vehicle. I remember him telling me, I remember him telling me about, he was like, damn. But he said he was screaming, don't put the ramp down.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, just leave it up, don't, we're getting shot at. And their baby couldn't hear him, so they just put the ramp down anyways. And so then what do you do? You just go.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  Dang. Yeah.

• 29:13Jocko Willink?

  So, back to the book. After I fired my M1, it jammed. To clean it, I slipped out of my assault jacket and spread my raincoat, only to discover bullet holes in my pack and coat. Suddenly overwhelmed with fear, I became weak in the knees. My hands shook as I tried to wipe sand from my weapon. I had to catch my breath and compose myself. By mid-morning, we had worked out, worked our way to the base of the hill. Men from other units began to gather. The regimental commander, Colonel Charles D.W.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  Canham, appeared from down beach with his right arm in a sling and clutch, clutching a Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol in his bony left hand. Canham didn't look like a soldier, but he sure as hell was one. He was tall and thin, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had a pencil-thin mustache. He yelled for the officers and non-coms to help him get the men across the beach and up the hill. "Get these men the hell off this goddamn beach and go kill some goddamn krauts!" In a nearby pillbox, a young lieutenant colonel, taking refuge from the enemy mortar barrage,

• 30:39Jocko Willink?

  yelled out to Canham, "Colonel, you better take cover, you're gonna get killed." Colonel Canham screamed his reply, "Get your ass out of there and help me get these men off this beach." The officer did what Canham ordered. So now we got somebody leading, a serious leader, Ed. In the book...

• 31:07Jocko Willink?

  Slaughter put the memorandum from Canham that Canham wrote to the troops prior to D-Day.

• 31:16Jocko Willink?

  So, I'm gonna read that. Twenty-nine May, nineteen forty-four memorandum. "To the members of CT-116 reinforced to be read by commanders to all personnel prior to embarkation.

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  One. The long away to day is near and prior to embarkation I want to wish each of you the best of luck in your forthcoming adventure.

• 31:44Jocko Willink?

  There is one certain way to get the enemy out of action and that is to kill him. War is not child's play and requires hatred for the enemy. At this time, we don't have it. I hope you get it when you see your friends wounded and killed.

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  Two. Learn to take care of yourself from the start. Remember the Hun is a crafty, intelligent fighter and will not have mercy on you. Don't have it on him. He will try to outwit you. Be on the alert.

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  Three. Fighting a war is the same as any athletic event, only war is for keeps. It is you or the enemy. Teamwork is the essence of success. We have the tools, the best in the world, and it's up to you to see that they are used properly.

• 32:43Jocko Willink?

  Four. Remember when you run into the enemy, contain him with the minimum to stop him, then move around him and strike him in the flank or the rear. In all your contacts with him be ruthless, always drive hard. The Hun doesn't like Yankee drive and guts. Show him that you have plenty. If you close with him, use your bayonet. Show him you can take it and dish it out. Don't be caught napping, don't let your Yankee curiosity get you blown up by a booby trap or a mine.

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  Five, take care of your arms and equipment. Conserve your ammunition, make every shot count. Keep your weapons cleaned and oiled. Their proper functioning at the right time may mean your life. Every soldier must realize the importance of supply discipline and see that he himself does his part in conserving supplies. More than one battle has been lost because munitions and other supplies were not available.

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  Six, do not eat your K and D rations prior to D-Day, D-plus-one day. You won't get anymore until D-plus-two.

• 34:02Jocko Willink?

  Seven, the Navy and Air will give us plenty of support. General Montgomery was very optimistic in his talk to the officers yesterday. At this de- at this time, no one knows how much resistance we will meet on D-Day. We may be able to walk in without trouble, we may have to fight for your life. To meet the worst and make up your minds now that you're going forward regardless and it is a one-way ticket. We are not giving any ground at any time and we are not leaving until the job is done.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  To each one of you, happy landings and come off those craft, fight like hell.

• 34:48Jocko Willink?

  Canem.

• 34:57Jocko Willink?

  Lays it out. Definitely lays it out. I think those guys...

• 35:08Jocko Willink?

  I think those guys couldn't have, couldn't have heard any better information.

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  Keep clean, keep disciplined, be ready. Flank the enemy.

• 35:21Jocko Willink?

  Always hear that, flank the enemy.

• 35:27Jocko Willink?

  So now these guys are

• 35:31Jocko Willink?

  in kind of in a holding position. They've they've kind of secured some chunks of the beach into a little bit of the high ground. And now going back to the book, we began to think about defending against the expected counterattack that we were told would take place in less than 24 hours. To bolster our defenses, we took turns making special trips back to the still dangerous beach in order to find more automatic weapons, ammo, and supplies. When it was my turn to go down, I was horrified at what I saw. The debris strewn beach was a disaster area. The incoming flooding tide brought with it the bodies of hundreds of our proud regiment.

• 36:12Jocko Willink?

  Scores of our men with bloodstained shirts rolled in the surf among helmets, assault jackets, gas masks, and M1 rifles. At the edge of the water, I saw a burning landing craft that had been trying to deposit a Sherman tank down its ramp. The tank was also burning and abandoned. From our perspective, the battle looked hopeless.

• 36:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's something that he said that a couple of times. He didn't think they were gonna win. You know, despite what Canham said, "Hey, we're not gonna give up any ground." Well, guess what? I don't know if we're gonna be able to hold this ground. We might all die here.

• 36:58Jocko Willink?

  And yet all these men pressed on.

• 37:03Jocko Willink?

  Here's a little, here's a little look at the German attitude right here.

• 37:09Jocko Willink?

  "I saw a regimental intelligence officer armed with a carbine interrogating a German prisoner. The prisoner was on his knees with his hands behind his head. He was rather small and frail looking. I was surprised to see he was not wearing the usual square-shaped battle helmet. Instead, he wore a gray billed cap.

• 37:30Jocko Willink?

  The lieutenant asked the prisoner, among other things, where the minefields were. The soldier answered only with the accepted Geneva Convention requirement of name, rank, and serial number. We had been instructed not to take prisoners for the first two or three days, so I expected the officer to eventually shoot the prisoner."

• 37:51Jocko Willink?

  Again, the interrogator screamed, "Where are the damn minefields?"

• 37:57Jocko Willink?

  Again, he received the same reply, "Name, rank, and serial number." The lieutenant's car being barked, but the bullet was aimed at the ground between the prisoner's knees. The arrogant German looked straight at the officer and said with a smirk, "Neeked here." "Not here," he pointed between his knees. "Here," he pointed to his head. "This told me something about our adversary."

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  So, you had, I mean, you, we, we, we know that people will fight to the death. We know that they get brainwashed. I mean, you look at any history, this, this sounds like a young kid, probably raised from the young, very young age, as a Nazi, as a loyal Nazi, just like the Japanese that fought to the death. That's what we have here, in many cases.

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Combat deaths are ugly and sickening.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  A bullet or piece of red-hot shrapnel tears flesh, gristle, and bone into gruesome wounds. A few hours in the sun causes a body to swell grotesquely and turn dark purple. The stench is unbearable. Such deaths were tragic insults to all those handsome, young GIs just beginning their lives, who would not fulfill their dreams.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  Many of those killed were, like me, barely teenagers when they enlisted, just starting to grow to maturity in the army.

• 39:45Jocko Willink?

  Those comrades and I spent many happy weekends and furloughs together, soaking up culture and drinking bitters. We shared living quarters, read each other's mail, and more significantly, shared the misery of training in the most extreme of elements.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  The 116th Infantry lost from 800 to 1,000 men on D-Day and D-Company lost at least 72.

• 40:15Jocko Willink?

  Of the dead, 20 of them were from my hometown of Roanoke.

• 40:21Jocko Willink?

  Five of nine of our officers were killed, including Captain Walter Schilling, Lieutenant William Gardner, Lieutenant Merle Cummings, Lieutenant Vincent Labowitz, and Lieutenant Alton Ashley.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  There were 12 non-coms killed, including these Roanoker's. Sergeant James Obenschein, Staff Sergeant James L. Wright, Sergeant Russell Jack Ingram, and Sergeant George D. Johnson, Corporal Jack Sims.

• 41:00Jocko Willink?

  Add to the list of the dead 23 privates.

• 41:06Jocko Willink?

  And another 32 wounded, many of them severely.

• 41:13Jocko Willink?

  And yet our nightmare had just begun.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  Brutal.

• 41:22Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely brutal. And I wanted to rattle off those names of all those people from the hometown. You know, when we see a soldier or a Marine or a sailor get killed now, you see what it does to a town, you see how it impacts a town. Imagine 20 from one little hometown.

• 41:54Jocko Willink?

  They move past the initial D-Day and now they start to head to St. Lo. And this is where you've heard about before, if you know anything about history, you know anything about this part of the war, this is when they get into hedgerow country.

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  And they're fighting from hedgerow to hedgerow. And these hedgerows are, you know, these ancient, I guess they're not structures, they're hedges, but they're completely difficult to get through. You have to cut through them or drive through them with tanks or whatever, and they hold up. And every one of these hedgerows becomes like a mini battle.

• 42:29Jocko Willink?

  And they're brutal battles.

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. "The sight of another terrible death that occurred at this time haunts my dreams to this day." "My squad and I were digging a machine gun emplacement behind a scrubby hedgerow. We had just finished fixing the camouflage when I happened to see a junior officer with field glasses scanning the front. I could tell he was a newly arrived replacement. His uniform and equipment were relatively new and unworn.

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  The sharp report of an 88mm fired from some, somewhere nearby and sent me diving. At the same time, the high explosive missile hit the lieutenant's upper torso. The second squad and I were splattered with gore as the spotter was blown backward, minus his head.

• 43:20Jocko Willink?

  Number two gunner, private first class Sal Argory, vomited. And I nearly did too.

• 43:30Jocko Willink?

  The dreaded German sniper was almost as highly respected as the 88. Sharper shooters gave no warning, taking careful aim with sniper scoped Mausers.

• 43:42Jocko Willink?

  The receiving end would hear the sharp crack and instantaneous whine of the bullet.

• 43:48Jocko Willink?

  If you heard the report of the bullet leaving the muzzle, it wasn't for you.

• 43:53Jocko Willink?

  German snipers nearly always aimed for the head if it was visible and in range. Most infantrymen never removed their helmets except when they shaved, and I confess that I slept in mine. The 8mm bullet could easily pass through the helmet, through the head, and out the other side with enough energy left to do more damage." I saw men get hit between the eyes or just above the ears, which killed them instantly. If the bullet missed the helmet, the entry hole was usually neat and showed only a small trickle of blood. But after the steel jacket bullet hit the helmet or the skull, the bullet flattened, causing the wound to shatter the other side of the head away.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  They start receiving more fire. He jumps for cover.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  And then back to the book. I climbed back on the path, shaken but unscathed. Within minutes, I had another surprise. As I approached an opening on the right side of the hedgerow, I heard someone moaning. Crawling carefully through the opening, I came face to face with a young German paratrooper who had been hit by a large chunk of shrapnel. He had a very serious upper thigh wound and his left trouser leg was bloody and torn. This was my first encounter with the enemy up close. The German paratrooper is a fierce and fanatical warrior, easily distinguishable by his round helmet and baggy smock. My first reaction was to put him out of his misery and keep going.

• 45:38Jocko Willink?

  I believe he knew what I was thinking.

• 45:41Jocko Willink?

  He begged tearfully, "Comrade, bitte." Which means "friend, please." He was an impressive-looking young soldier, about nineteen years old. My age. He was as filthy as I was, with long, brown, stringy hair. I'd always thought most German soldiers had short blond hair. He had an athletic build, about five feet ten inches tall, about a hundred and eighty pounds, and a handsome face. I suspended the promise I had made at the beach about not taking any prison prisoners. I thought this that was then and this is now.

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  I just couldn't shoot a wounded human being at point blank range. I made sure he didn't have a weapon hidden on him. Then I tied his belt around his upper thigh which stopped the blood from gushing. I gently swabbed the dirt from his wound and applied sulfur powder. His wince turned to a forced grin. He was in pain, so I gave him a shot of morphine and a drink of water from my canteen. Then I let him have one of my Lucky Strike cigarettes and lit it for him. As I left, he smiled weakly and said in guttural broken English, "Danke, God bless, good luck."

• 47:04Jocko Willink?

  That changed my thinking about taking prisoners. I still hated the enemy, but I couldn't kill one at close range, especially if his hands were up. I sent one of our medics to finish what I had started. I hoped the German would recover, and that his war was over.

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  That's compassionate human being right there.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, doesn't it kind of, in a way, put into perspective, but more shed the light shed light on,

• 47:41Speaker 01

  potentially, the overall attitude where you're fighting a war and the enemy is more this entity of an enemy. You know, it's not like, "I'm gonna kick this guy's..." I mean, I'm sure it's like that sometimes.

• 47:53Jocko Willink?

  It's not personal, yes.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:55Jocko Willink?

  And the US and the military, and we still do this, they're gonna dehumanize the enemy as much as they can to make it easier for you to kill them.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:04Jocko Willink?

  That's why you call them Krauts, that's why you call them Dinks, that's why you call them, whatever the slang, you know, which would now be all be considered racial terms or or politically incorrect terms, there's a reason. They're trying to dehumanize these other people. They're trying to dehumanize the enemy so that you can more easily kill them. And when you come face to face with them, all of a sudden, they become human.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't that crazy, though, like this whole crazy thing, whole, it's probably the craziest thing imaginable for this guy. He comes face to face with a guy that, that... You know, kinda in between the bullets, so to speak.

• 48:45Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  And he's face to face with this person and then really what the whole experience was reduced to in that moment. Is this one person helping another person, you know? And then even and it impacted both of them, obviously, you know, where the guy was like, hey, God bless. Almost like, hey, man, we're in this war. I dig it. Almost like a football game or something. Like, hey, man, I dig it. Different teams. Hey, good luck. He told him good luck in a war.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Man, it's man, that that whole human factor when when you're exposed to it, even with the enemy, dang it. That's gotta be strong, huh?

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, definitely, definitely can be. I mean, would in in World War One, I mean, there was times where. And this is really famous. There was times where they got out of the trenches and played soccer on Christmas Day against each other. And then the next day go back to slaughtering.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  You know, crazy, that must feel in in this weird way. That must feel so good, you know, to be like. Like, you know, like you ever gotten like when you're a kid or even as an adult, when you get in a like an argument with someone real bad. Maybe your friend or or not, whatever. You get a real bad argument with them. And I don't know, it lasts a day or two or a week. I don't know, whatever. It's real bad. And at the end, you guys make up and you guys are like back friends again. It's almost like. Man, it's such a good feeling, maybe because of the contrast or I don't know, maybe because. I don't know, but it's like it has to have like that kind of feeling when you're in this crazy war. You're like, I hate this so much hatred. And just aggression and.

• 50:17Jocko Willink?

  You gotta remember, this is, there's plenty of guys, there's plenty of Germans that got smoked right there without a second.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  And he just had that moment and maybe if that guy would have looked a little bit different or acted a little bit differently.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Something happened more quick, like faster or something, you know, it it just slowed down just for that second and and. Sucked them right, sucked them both right in.

• 50:38Jocko Willink?

  What happened later, the next people that came in, the medic might have gone over and said, wait, you sent me over here to work on a German?

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  That could have happened too. You just never know.

• 50:52Jocko Willink?

  Now, we're gonna start getting crushed with some artillery.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, Jerry pounded the 116th all day and two nights with Blockbuster 155mm and 105mm artillery. Near misses caused enough concussion to make our ears ring and our heads ache. The pounding rounds of salvo after salvo of earth-shaking artillery were relentless and frightening. During the bombardment, I shared a long, shallow slit trench with one of my first D Company replacements, Private Louis Cass, from Chevy Chase, Maryland. We nicknamed him Junior early on because of his boyish looks and demeanor. Junior was from an affluent family and had volunteered into the Army upon graduation from high school.

• 51:46Jocko Willink?

  He didn't look like the type that could last very long in brutal combat.

• 51:52Jocko Willink?

  Our slit trench was covered with wooden sheathing and topped with a roof of piled dirt. Like thousands of other infantry soldiers subjected to such heavy bombardment, Junior and I were a pitiful sight.

• 52:06Jocko Willink?

  Fine yellow dust sifted through the cracks in the roof and stuck to our sweaty skin and eyes. If the dust had been black, we would have looked like very tired coal miners. The yellow dust turned to mud around our swollen, bloodshot eyes. When nature called, we had to answer in the safety of our slit trench, lying down.

• 52:29Jocko Willink?

  All the training and experience in the world could not have prepared us for this kind of harassment. Those box car sized shells sounded like they were flip-flopping end over end and screeching straight for our hole. This went on hour after hour, all day and through the night.

• 52:51Jocko Willink?

  Many good soldiers cracked. And who could blame them?

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  The long bouts of duty had been taking their toll. It was extremely rare for an infantryman to go unscathed for very long. Many twenty-niners were wounded two, three, or four times fighting through the hedgerows of Normandy. All of us were praying for the million-dollar wound, which missed vital organs, bone, and nerves, but would give us a long stay in an English hospital, sleeping under clean, white sheets, and, at least in fantasy, in the care of a beautiful nurse.

• 53:34Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, battle fatigue and self-inflicted wounds had become serious problems. At least once, nearly all combat soldiers, if they are honest, consider shooting themselves in order to get out of the hell of battle. Self-inflicted wounds, however, are considered disgraceful, and if proven in a court martial offense. Nevertheless, many respectable KIA and wounded in action were, in reality, self-inflicted or friendly fire accidents.

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  So we have some massive stress. Stress that's driving men to shoot themselves.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and another mention of the million-dollar wound.

• 54:23Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  You know, like the ticket out, you know?

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  And he's saying, "At least once, nearly all combat soldiers, if they are honest, consider shooting themselves in order to get out of the hell of battle."

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Landmines and booby traps were also common ways to be wounded or killed. Hearing the news of who had gotten hit was always hard, and every day, new faces replaced seasoned infantrymen. It was easy to distinguish a new arrival from a veteran. The old-timer could be eighteen or nineteen years old, but if he had survived a week on the front, he was considered old. And we all looked it.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  On a diet of K rations, we all lost weight. Our ribs, shoulder blades, and Adam's apples stuck out. And our filthy ragged uniforms hung like worn-out drapes. Our eyes were blood-red and sunken, and we had bleeding sores on our exposed skin. Ordinarily, ordinarily, these would be telltale signs that a man needs a month's rest. But we all knew there would be no rest until Saint Lo was taken.

• 55:43Jocko Willink?

  Knowing that there was no immediate end in sight drove some fellas over the edge. A few good soldiers who couldn't take the pounding day after day committed suicide.

• 55:59Jocko Willink?

  This was the case of Stanley Corsiak, a nineteen-year-old private born and raised in Chicago. He was a tough, athletic little soldier. He made the D-Day landings and had fought well through the hedgerows.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  But everyone has a breaking point. His squad reported that Stan, who had seen many of his close friends killed or severely wounded, had begun to act strangely. He cried often, especially during incoming artillery barrages. And sometimes, his crying reached the point of hysteria.

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  Instead of the usual disciplinary action for similar behavior, he was sent back to the kitchen area for a break from the action. Many of us thought that a few days' rest, a couple of hot meals, and a warm bath might rehabilitate him.

• 56:54Jocko Willink?

  But he was in more pain than any of us had realized.

• 56:59Jocko Willink?

  Why couldn't we see that he had reached his limit?

• 57:04Jocko Willink?

  Private Corsiak found a Cook's Springfield .03 rifle, removed his shoe so he could pull the trigger, and blew the top of his head off.

• 57:17Jocko Willink?

  One of the Cooks heard the shot and ran to his tent.

• 57:22Jocko Willink?

  Stanley Corsiak had had enough of the constant fear, the filthy grime, the ear-shattering explosions, the putrid smells, the excruciating pain, and the maiming and deaths of his close friends.

• 57:36Jocko Willink?

  Stan Korsak died on July 2nd.

• 57:42Jocko Willink?

  The record book shows he was killed a non-battle casualty.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  In my book, Private Korsak died. An American hero. So we gotta know. That this demon that we're dealing with now.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  Has been around for a long time.

• 58:11Jocko Willink?

  And you know, that's a classic situation where his death, Stan Korsak's death. Is reported as a non-battle casualty. Which means no one labeled him a suicide, which means how many people did that happen to?

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  And it was never captured, it wasn't reported.

• 58:35Jocko Willink?

  And so now, we never dealt with it.

• 58:40Jocko Willink?

  And if you don't deal with things, if you don't capture the lessons learned, if you don't recognize these things, how you gonna fix them?

• 58:49Jocko Willink?

  As Bob Slaughter pointed out. It was almost impossible for one of these guys to go day after day after day and not get wounded.

• 58:58Jocko Willink?

  And he ended up getting wounded. Got shrapnel frag in his back.

• 59:06Jocko Willink?

  Gets pulled off the battlefield, luckily. And sent to an English hospital.

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he says about that.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  "It is one thing to visit a wartime army hospital. But something quite different and much worse to be a patient in one.

• 59:29Jocko Willink?

  Lawmakers would consider armed conflicts more carefully before rattling the proverbial saber. If they were forced to visit an amputee abdominal burn or plastic surgery ward."

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  You hear that lawmakers? Before you send boys off to war, you need to go and spend some time in a hospital. With wounded vets. And make damn sure your decision that you're making.

• 1:00:05Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "I recovered in a ward dedicated to abdominal wound. Abdominal wound patients. A bullet or a piece of metal shrapnel puncturing the stomach can cause a lifetime of embarrassment and misery. The aftermath of a gut wound is either death. Or eternal marriage to a colostomy sack.

• 1:00:30Jocko Willink?

  The stench in that ward was predictable. It was tough to share quarters with seriously wounded patients. At night, the moaning and groaning and sometimes screaming made it hard to sleep.

• 1:00:45Jocko Willink?

  Many of the men there died.

• 1:00:49Jocko Willink?

  I remember one particularly sad loss. Swarthy Tony from Brooklyn. Was the third floor clown. The shift nurses fell in love with him because he kept the ward laughing with his teasing and practical jokes. But one night, his cherished laughter came to an awful end. On a Saturday night with a skeleton crew on duty, Tony began to complain of a sharp pain to the gut.

• 1:01:18Jocko Willink?

  A floor nurse was paged and after several tries, she arrived. By that time, Tony was screaming as two orderlies quickly wheeled him into the emergency room.

• 1:01:29Jocko Willink?

  Two hours later. Tony was dead of gangrene poisoning.

• 1:01:38Jocko Willink?

  Facial disfigurement was terrible and more devastating to the patient than any other kind of wound. A few men had lost arms or legs, either partly or completely, and as a result, some of them became so-called basket cases. Even so, and it's sad to say, some severely maimed men were actually happy about their condition because they were going home. Their combat days were over. So the war ends, and actually, Bob Slaughter does go back. He recovers from his wounds, he goes back, he's there for the Allied victory.

• 1:02:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's another just fantastic story of how that all happens. And then, he was out of the army. And this is what that feels like. Back to the book. "On July 13th, 1945, I was suddenly separated from the service, discharged at Fort Meade, Maryland, with a few dollars in my pocket and the khaki uniform on my back. I was suffering mental as well as physical wounds, but there was no one to counsel me. I was a civilian again, but I was not comfortable socializing with other civilians.

• 1:03:08Jocko Willink?

  I was 20 years old with an 11th grade education and no skills other than soldiering. I was left alone to find my way home to Roanoke, Virginia. There was no treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome. It was simply called battle fatigue. Those of us who had returned from the war were left to tough it out."

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  The years rolled by, our hair grayed and thinned, waistlines grew, and many of our company associates developed health problems. Our generation smoked cigarettes and drank hard liquor. Many of our men who had hiked halfway around the world became sedentary. We didn't like to exercise. We traveled to the beach or went to swimming pools thinking that sunshine was good for the skin. Many were disabled by wounds, drank and smoked too much, and died prematurely. The war still took its toll, long after it was over.

• 1:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Rarely did anyone talk about the war.

• 1:04:23Jocko Willink?

  The media were silent, our children uninterested, and we ourselves sought to forget.

• 1:04:42Jocko Willink?

  I got married, raised two sons, and went to work for a mid-sized newspaper in a mid-sized community.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  I found time to acquire a modicum of education, coached Little League baseball, and was grateful to live a normal, American life.

• 1:05:03Jocko Willink?

  Too many of my Army buddies failed to reach their 25th birthday, and many of those who did were never the same.

• 1:05:14Jocko Willink?

  After what they'd been through, they just couldn't adjust to the real world. Many of them fell prey to alcohol, loose women, radical religion, or isolation, anything to help them get through each day, month, and year.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  Seven of our D Company men committed suicide.

• 1:05:37Jocko Willink?

  Compared to those and thousands more, I have been blessed.

• 1:05:42Jocko Willink?

  In some ways, writing this book, a process that has taken me almost fifteen years, has been the last leg of the journey.

• 1:05:53Jocko Willink?

  I realize that I speak for many who never had the chance to speak for themselves, and I have done my best to pay them tribute.

• 1:06:03Jocko Willink?

  My hope is that this memoir, in however small a way, will perpetuate their memory and stand as a witness to their sacrifices.

• 1:06:16Jocko Willink?

  It saddens and worries me that so much of the world, including America itself, refuses to learn the hard lessons of the past.

• 1:06:27Jocko Willink?

  Now that I am in my eighties, I am well aware that the long march that began so many years ago is about to come to a halt.

• 1:06:38Jocko Willink?

  I am proud to say that my generation helped save the world from tyranny, prevent the extinction of an entire group of people, and preserve the democratic freedoms of our wonderful American way of life.

• 1:06:53Jocko Willink?

  I wouldn't change a thing, except to wish that my dear Army buddies

• 1:07:02Jocko Willink?

  could be here too.

• 1:07:10Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:07:13Jocko Willink?

  John Robert

• 1:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Bob Slaughter died on May 29th, 2012.

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  And William Blake, the poet.

• 1:07:31Jocko Willink?

  You asked, "Who can stand?"

• 1:07:37Jocko Willink?

  And I will tell you it is men like Bob Slaughter that stand.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  And it's men like him that encourage me.

• 1:07:49Jocko Willink?

  And tell me in no uncertain terms that we are capable of more.

• 1:07:58Jocko Willink?

  We can do more, we can be more.

• 1:08:04Jocko Willink?

  We can stand.

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  Not much to say after that one, Echo.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  No, sir.

• 1:08:19Jocko Willink?

  Not much to say.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't, um, obviously I can't help but agree fully, you know, and, and a lot of these, um, you know, when we go through these books, it just, man, it's crazy how much it puts into perspective. You know, we, everyone knows about World War II, everyone know, you know, most people we know about World War II, we know about the wars, but that's, we don't really know about the wars, you know, we don't know about the, the details that we don't know about individual experiences, which really is, that's, that's what makes the wars.

• 1:08:54Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  And we don't know anything about that.

• 1:08:57Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting, I, this book was recommended to me from, from Twitter, from one of the troopers out there. And so we have Band of Brothers, right? And everybody knows Band of Brothers, not everybody, but most people, more people know Band of Brothers. Cause it was a book and then it was a big HBO movie and it was, it was awesome.

• 1:09:19Jocko Willink?

  This book is less well-known.

• 1:09:23Jocko Willink?

  But what you have to know is that there's thousands and thousands of stories that we don't know and we will never know. I mean, some of them we will try to know, but there's so many stories that we will never know.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Jocko Willink?

  That moment in combat when this guy tried to save that guy and they both did something completely heroic and they both died and we never will know.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:09:49Jocko Willink?

  So we have to cherish what we can find out, what we can learn.

• 1:09:57Jocko Willink?

  But there's just so much there and so much sacrifice that was made. And as I always say, what are we doing right now?

• 1:10:11Jocko Willink?

  To honor that sacrifice?

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  More, that's what we need to do, more.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:10:27Jocko Willink?

  And with that,

• 1:10:30Jocko Willink?

  let's make a, uh, let's make the hard transition once again to the, the rough transition to the interweb for some questions.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Speaking of interwebs, interwebs,

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  on it.com slash Jocko is where you can get 10% off of the spectacular supplements. Namely,

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  krill oil and shroom tech.

• 1:10:58Jocko Willink?

  What about Alpha Brainy?

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  That's good that you remembered that. You must have been on Alpha Brain.

• 1:11:04Jocko Willink?

  And also you might wanna just do yourself that favor. And get some of those warrior bars.

• 1:11:12Jocko Willink?

  What else?

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Um, if you're in the mood to support this podcast, before you shop on Amazon, click on the Amazon link on Jocko Podcast.com or Jocko Store.com. Sometimes people have been saying, hey, there's a problem with the link. Like, you know, it's not working or whatever. Um, some browsers have ad blocker or has ad blockers activated on it.

• 1:11:37Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  So disable the ad blocker for that page. And you can do it. And I'm still working on the Canada one. I don't know if we can even do the Canada one and the UK one. Anyway. Uh, click through the, the Jocko Store or Jocko Podcast.com and before you do your Amazon shopping and you can support that way. Or get a shirt or a coffee mug or a bumper sticker from Jocko Store.com.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  And we, we weren't keeping it a secret or nothing, but we do have a new shirt out.

• 1:12:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, we do.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Know the darkness. To appreciate, you know, you know, the saying.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Well, I know that this, I know that this podcast can get a little bit dark from time to time.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you know how like your, your original, um, one of your original things was, you know, you go through life and certain people, all they see is, is the good things. So they get kinda desensitized to like the re- the, the just small little good things in life, you know? So when you, when you, and that's really everything anyway, where, you know, when you, there's no tall people if everyone's the same size. So you kinda gotta know both, you know?

• 1:12:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Both short and tall.

• 1:12:47Jocko Willink?

  No, I've said it many times and, uh, I think I, there originally, I think I originally said it on the Tim Ferriss Show. And he said, he said something along the lines of like, hey, Jocko, I've struggled with depression. How close should you get to the darkness?

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Cuz I was talking about some dark things and I said, well, Tim,

• 1:13:10Jocko Willink?

  if you really wanna know the light, then you gotta know the darkness.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:14Jocko Willink?

  So Echo made a T-shirt about the darkness.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, just says another, and here's the thing, I kinda added another dimension to it. It's, it's all black. It's black on black. So, so you can't, you know, it's all dark. You can kinda see it. Anyway, it.

• 1:13:29Jocko Willink?

  Cool, cool. New shirt.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  New shirt out. If you want that one. Um, yeah, there it is.

• 1:13:36Jocko Willink?

  Let's get to some questions from the interwebs.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  First question.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Jocko, what is your relationship to surfing? Could you surf on active duty? And what does surfing do for you?

• 1:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so my relationship with surfing. Number one, I was lucky to have a guy that, when I was a kid up in Maine.

• 1:14:04Jocko Willink?

  That said, "Hey, I'm gonna teach you how to surf." This guy was a lifeguard. He was an outstanding surfer. And he said, "I'm gonna teach you how to surf." And I was a ten-year-old kid and I said-

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  In the ice water?

• 1:14:12Jocko Willink?

  In the freezing cold water. And I said, "Yeah, awesome." And so he gave me an old surfboard and put me out there and taught me how to surf when I was ten years old. And it definitely, you know, surfing up in Maine is a little bit different. Because it's dark and it's cold and you gotta do a little bit of suffering if you want to enjoy the benefits of it. You gotta know the darkness, as they say.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Anything about the darkness of surfing. On Kauai, it's not very cool.

• 1:14:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Kauai, you didn't have to deal with that. So, so that's how I got into surfing and surfing, a lot of people will tell you when you, when you do it, it's, it's somewhat addictive because it's a very, a very, you know, kind of paradoxical thing because it's very relaxing and at the same time, it's very kind of exciting. I guess is the word. You get a little adrenaline, but you get a little mellowed out too. So it's a very fun thing to do. Good for you. It's good for your brain. It's good for the soul.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:06Jocko Willink?

  And when I was on active duty, if you're on active duty in the SEAL teams, yeah, you can surf. And I definitely surfed. Sometimes more, more, I was more focused on surfing than others. When I really went BJJ crazy, I wasn't doing anything else with any free time other than jujitsu. So, that's, but yeah, there's guys, there's guys in the SEAL teams that, that actually manipulate their career around surfing. Because you can get stationed and you can go on trips to great surf spots and, and all that. And there's some, there's some pretty amazing surfers in the SEAL teams, in the military as well. But I mean, I only know about guys in SEAL teams. There's a guy named Ivan Trent,

• 1:15:49Jocko Willink?

  whose, whose dad was Buzzy Trent, a famous old pioneer surfer in Hawaii. And Ivan Trent, there was a picture when I first got in the SEAL teams, there was a picture of Ivan Trent dropping in on a giant wave at Wamia Bay, the famous Wamia Bay. So, there's some great surfers. It's definitely a little subculture inside the teams and, and you could definitely, you can definitely surf a lot. I mean, you're, you're living in San Diego or Virginia Beach. I mean, Virginia Beach has waves sometimes. San Diego has waves a lot of the times. And what does it do for me? Well, one thing is it gets gets you outside, gets me outside. And gets you out into nature. And what I like about nature?

• 1:16:34Jocko Willink?

  Nature. What I like about nature is nature makes you feel small. That's what nature, to me, that's what's good about nature. That's what, that's why nature puts things in perspective, because nature makes you feel small. Makes you realize, you know what, look at the ocean, I'm nothing. Look at the giant wilderness I'm in, I'm nothing. So it just keeps you in check and kee- keeps you in perspective. That's one of the, that's actually one of the things that the, probably the only thing I don't like about jujitsu is pretty much the most part. It's inside. It's inside the gym on the mat. And so, you know, you can do it outside, but it's, it's hard to do outside. This, the mats get super hot.

• 1:17:15Jocko Willink?

  It's just not, it's just a thousand times more efficient and convenient to do inside.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  It's novel outside.

• 1:17:22Jocko Willink?

  It's novel, exactly. It's cool to do sometimes. And at my old house, I had like a full outdoor jujitsu area, which was cool. And I had a shade structure over it. It was good, it was good. But you have to have something to that extent before, it's not like you can just do jujitsu outside and you, you can do it, it's, but it's novel. And you know how the, you know, if you do it in grass, you get the grass itches.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  For some reason, I don't know what it is, when you do jujitsu in grass, you're all itchy.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But even that's kind of not, you know how like? This is more when you're younger, you know, when you first learn jujitsu.

• 1:17:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. When you first learn it, you're doing jujitsu everywhere.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  You're at the party and.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  Everything's a mat when you're a blue belt. You're just looking at everything like it's a mat. And, and yeah, so I think, I think with other people, um, you know, some people, obviously you're not by the ocean, but you know, anything outside, running, hiking, biking, swimming, you do even playing outdoor sports like soccer and shooting basketball outside. Just whatever, just get outside, just get outside. Get out in the air, feel it. And I'll tell you one more thing about jiu-jitsu and surfing. There's a little connection there. There's a little connection between jiu-jitsu surfing. I don't know what it is.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  I know what it is.

• 1:18:34Jocko Willink?

  You know what it is?

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you later.

• 1:18:36Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know, you got like even Kelly Slater, who's, you know, what is he, the 11 time, 12 time? Champion of the world in surfing. He does jiu-jitsu. You got guys like Joel Tudor.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Tudor, yeah.

• 1:18:49Jocko Willink?

  JT. If you don't know who Joel Tudor is, he's just a legendary longboard surfer. And actually, he's from San Diego, so we kick it with JT from time to time. And actually, I see him on a regular basis at the, at the longboard surfing contest, cause both his kid and my kid surf in the long, on the longboards. But Joel, Joel Tudor, who's a, who's a, literally one of the most, you know, many people consider him to be the best longboard surfer of all time.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Oh, dang.

• 1:19:21Jocko Willink?

  Of all time, yeah. You didn't know he was that good, did you?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  I knew he, of all time, I didn't know that, but I believe it.

• 1:19:28Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not, I'm not gonna make that declaration, cause then a million people will say, no, it should be this guy. But there is many, there are many people in the world who consider Joel Tudor to be the best longboard surfer of all time.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  I met, I met Joel Tudor in jiu-jitsu. He just started coming and he, there, Shannon was like, hey, roll with him, he's good at jiu-jitsu. So I was like, oh, cool. He was like a brown belt at the time and I roll and he's really good at jiu-jitsu. And I was like, okay, cool, Joel. And I see him during the day, it was like mellow group. And he'd come to the ad roll with Joel sometime.

• 1:19:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  I'd be like, cool, Joel Tudor, he's this kinda guy who's smaller than me, we'll say, and he's better than me. Cool, cool. One day, you know who told me Joel Tudor was a badass longboarder?

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  Who?

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Cake nuts.

• 1:20:10Jocko Willink?

  Ah, Cake nuts.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Hey, is that Joel Tudor in that picture right there with you and Shannon? I was like, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, he's, bro, that's a longboarder, he's so badass, that's funny.

• 1:20:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And, and, and not only is he so awesome at surfing, his jiu-jitsu is sick too.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Very, yes.

• 1:20:25Jocko Willink?

  So Joel Tudor's one, and then you get, then the, once you go, once you go Brazilian in this scenario, then there's all kinds of surfing going on. Cause that's a culture down there, you know, Fab, I mean, my first instructor, Fabio Santos, he, he's a, he's a badass surfer, Hoiler, Hickson. Uh, even Kid Pallegro. Yeah, so, so there's definitely, and, and when you just meet guys surfing, there's like a decent chance that they train the jiu-jitsu. And so you said you know what the connection is?

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  I know of some connections, yes.

• 1:20:59Jocko Willink?

  Educate.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  It's one of these things where kinda on the surface, it feels like you against this big wash of a challenge, right? But really, it's not. It's not like this challenge that you take on. It's more of a challenge that you kinda just ride with and it's more you yourself, so. And, and on top of, and that could be, that could be mountain climbing, whatever, but this is jiu-jitsu and surfing is it always changes. It's not different. It may seem same in one way or another, it's same, but every single experience is different. And it's not something you can just take control of, you know, it's not one of those things. It's you have to, you have to ride the wave.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  And in surfing, it's literally in jiu-jitsu, it's you gotta go with it. You can't fight it, just like you can't fight a wave. You gotta, and it's, um, and they're both that. So of course, yeah, they take balance, but those are just little small physical.

• 1:21:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause other sports take balance too.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  But yeah, it's, it's you, I mean, it's kind of a spiritual type thing to say it's you against yourself. But that's really what it is. It's like you have to improve yourself. You don't, it's not about conquering this, you know, maybe psychologically it is, but it's still within yourself and it, and it's constantly changing.

• 1:22:22Jocko Willink?

  That's getting philosophical. But I like it. Yeah, no, that's good. And my last comment on that was both of them, both surfing and jiu-jitsu. Empty your, they emptied my brain out. They emptied my brain out and they, they give me a nice clean slate to do other things with. So that's that.

• 1:22:45Jocko Willink?

  Alright.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  For the record, I come from Kauai, but sorry to say I don't surf.

• 1:22:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  But, bruh, I used to shred body boarding.

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  And body surf.

• 1:22:54Jocko Willink?

  Sponger.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, total sponger. Oh, and by the way, um, it's Waimea, not Waimea.

• 1:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  I'd, I'm not, I'm correcting you because you're my friend. But I don't want to be a corrector.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  That's no correct.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Correct?

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Correct me.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:23:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  It could be Waimea, I guess, right? It's just pronunciation.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  It's spelled Waimea, but it's.

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  I'm a gringo, what can I say?

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Waimea, Waimea Bay, Hawaiian.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  If you be a corrector too much, you become the guy that people are tolerating.

• 1:23:29Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  So you don't want to be the guy at the party that people are tolerating.

• 1:23:33Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to be that guy.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  No matter how smart you want them to think you are.

• 1:23:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, you just proved your, your intelligence there.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  You gave me permission.

• 1:23:42Jocko Willink?

  Alright.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Next question. Hmm, started jujitsu this week and love it. I'm a former boxer and was thrilled that they let me spar on my first day. Is sparring on the first day too soon, in your opinion? I was repeatedly told to tone it down by the higher belts. I thought I was toning it down. Is jujitsu more like a dance or a street tussle? Am I supposed to relax and let these green and blue belts destroy me? I'm confused.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  This is such a great question. Because you see this all the time in jujitsu. And, and I know from the, from the podcast and from Twitter that there's so many people that are starting jujitsu.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:22Jocko Willink?

  Because of the podcast, and that's definitely why I wanted to answer this one. Because this is how everybody feels when they start.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  And you're always gonna get the senior belts or the more experienced people telling you, hey, man, you gotta relax.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  By the way, if he's rolling with green belts, that means he's rolling with people under the age of 16 years old.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, I actually had a little discussion, I've heard. That there's some academies that give out green belts as an intermediate belt between white and blue, that there's adults.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  I have never heard of it, but I was told that the other day, so that might be the situation here.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Yep, I dig it.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, I'll just go on record as saying, I disagree with it.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:07Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and you don't have a green belt as an adult. You should be white belt and then blue belt. That's the way it was, and that's the way it should remain.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I were an instructor, that's how I would do, but to me, hey, man, do what you dig. And he's doing jujitsu and this green belt, if in fact he's an adult, he's doing jujitsu. Apparently long enough to get a green belt, so I say.

• 1:25:29Jocko Willink?

  No, no, he's not a green belt yet.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Right, right, but.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, you're talking about some guy.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  In the event of this green belt that he's mentioned being an adult.

• 1:25:35Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Either way, I say, I say, go do it.

• 1:25:37Jocko Willink?

  So. So, yeah, the now, now the reason that people are telling you to relax, they're trying to be helpful. Because you're gonna learn more if you relax and you actually concentrate on the techniques that you've been told. The couple techniques that you've learned, try them.

• 1:25:56Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying don't fight it because you, you, you don't know what else to do. So you just use your horrible instincts to try and just muscle out of stuff and you get beat anyways. And that's why it's, you're just beating your head against the wall. So they're trying to get you to relax and use the technique that you learned and pay attention to what the other person's doing. And think about

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  where they're positioning their body and what they're doing and how that's working. So you can actually ask them and say, hey, when you were holding me here, I couldn't move my arm. How were you holding that? So you can learn. If all you're trying to do is muscle out of it, you're not thinking about what's happening and that's, that's not a good sign.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. I think it's funny because relax, you know, when you hear relax as a, as a way, I don't know if you even remember when you were a white belt, but

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  when they say relax.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  More accurately put, they should say, not they should say, but they're saying, try to relax.

• 1:26:55Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  We know, everyone knows, the guy's not gonna relax.

• 1:26:58Jocko Willink?

  Good point.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  He's over here rolling with a guy, doesn't know anything, of course, guy's in mount, which is like, you know, super uncomfortable to be in, of course, he's gonna be trying to flip out, try to get out of there. He doesn't know the moves, so he can't be like, you know, hey, I'm gonna relax and do all the moves I know. He knows two moves, he's, it's his first day or whatever, so. The, so yeah, try to relax, and I think you, that's a good point, where, don't be going so hard and spazzing out so hard that nothing's going through your mind as far as, what position is this guy on me, you know? I, I remember, not my first first day, but early on, where, side control, I barely even realized the difference between a side control and a, you know, half-guard situation.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  And that's one of the things that as time went on, I wish I would have known, you know, like, okay, this is side control.

• 1:27:47Jocko Willink?

  And if you would have been more aware and less fighting.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:51Jocko Willink?

  You would have said, oh wait, he's got my leg trapped, that's what feels different right now.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Exactly right, that's a game, you gotta, you gotta switch your game to this side control game, you know?

• 1:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and what's telling someone, am I supposed to let these green and blue belts destroy you? No, but you gotta remember, you can't look at it like a fight.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:11Jocko Willink?

  It's not a fight.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Jocko Willink?

  It's not a fight, you know what it is? Don't let them destroy you, let them educate you.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:18Jocko Willink?

  That's what, when you're rolling with a higher belt, especially when you don't know very much at all, they're educating you.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  You should be trying to pay attention, and let's just take this off the mats and into life.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:30Jocko Willink?

  Because when you get into a situation, an unknown situation, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna fight and struggle against when someone's, has more knowledge than you about some topic? Are you gonna fight against them? No, just be quiet and listen and learn.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:47Jocko Willink?

  When you're in a new scenario, you, something you've never done before, are you gonna try and compete and win at this thing you've never done before? Are you gonna try and learn and be educated? My recommendation is to learn to be educated, because you're not gonna win.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:01Jocko Willink?

  Lest it's a miracle, but most situations don't allow for miracles.

• 1:29:09Jocko Willink?

  So when you're in life, relax, try and learn. When you're on the mat, relax, try and learn.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  Try to relax.

• 1:29:17Jocko Willink?

  Try to relax. Gotta try to relax.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  It's true. And when, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but when I think of the whole spectrum when I first started versus just even right now, and of course, I don't have it all figured out, but when I kind of reflect on that whole learning process, I like the fact that I couldn't really relax at the beginning. Because I could, you start to realize, oh, I see how I learned that right there. You know, I see how, I see the difference now in the time where I didn't really know how to relax versus even like the time where I thought I knew how to relax, but after, you know, eight, 10 minutes, you're like, oh, dying. Versus, you know, now where you can go 10, 20, hard, you know, and find places where you can relax and be able to

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  basically control the scenarios where you can't relax. I, I like that. I like that the beginning, you can't relax. Just like in the beginning, you didn't know certain moves. Relaxing is yet another move. Yeah, there you go.

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  I rolled with Dean tonight, Dean Lester, and he was all fired up because he'd been on a trip. And so he's like, hey, let's roll. So we rolled and, and he, he got the mount position. And I just was down there relaxing. Speaking of relaxing, I was just down there relaxing and, and I'm relaxing, but I'm just doing a little bit of, um, uh, off balancing of him. So he can't really relax a hundred percent. And it took me a few minutes, like about five, but I got out of the mount and got back to another position, got back to guard. So it's, you're right. Relaxing is actually a technique in jiu-jitsu.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. So, and, and a big part of it, um, not the whole thing, but a big part of it is just. Being conscious of it, you know, maybe I'm spazzing too much or something. Of course, with everything is gonna come with reps, it's gonna come with experience and stuff like that, but yeah.

• 1:31:15Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, Dean would tell you, and I would tend to agree with him, not only is relaxing a a technique, spazzing is also a technique. And sometimes, you know, Dean will get some position on me and I will spaz to get out of it. Now, I'm not encouraging the person that wrote this question to start working on their spaz technique. Don't start working on that till later. Save that right now, start with your relax technique.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:40Jocko Willink?

  Alright.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  In regards to podcast number 23, in the art of war, many of the rules seem very simplistic in black and white. Take this one for example. When the enemy occupies high ground, do not confront him. If he attacks downhill, do not oppose him. Where does that leave us with battles like Normandy, where troops had to get up those cliffs? What about the IDF conquering the Golan, Golan?

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Golan Heights.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Golan Heights. In the Six Day War.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  There are many other examples I could give. It's obviously not ideal to do such things as fighting a well entrenched enemy uphill, but dealing with less than ideal situations is a part of war.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  We should all be so lucky as to only be able to choose battles that fit the art of war. But from my experience, it's often not an option in real life. And you have to somehow get it done anyway.

• 1:32:44Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, this is a pretty simple question with a pretty simple answer to. Don't forget that the laws, or the, the, the art of war and the, and the laws in the art of war, the rules, the simplistic black and white rules in the, in the art of war are governed by other rules that say to break the rules themselves.

• 1:33:05Jocko Willink?

  So, so just to pull out a couple quotes, I went and pulled these out. Sun Tzu says, "He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning may be called a heaven-born captain." So if you can adapt to the situation, and adapt your tactics and modify your tactics, so attacking uphill is a modification of a tactic, right? Yes. The next one I pulled out. Sun Tzu says, "Do not repeat tactics that have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances."

• 1:33:50Jocko Willink?

  That answers the question in its own right. "Let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances."

• 1:34:01Jocko Willink?

  And the last little quote I pulled up from Sun Tzu, "According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans." So there's three rules from the art of war that tell you to change the rules of the art of war when you have to. So, um, yeah, you're told to avoid these situations, but sometimes you have to. Now, it's also important to remember that the philosophy of the art of war generally espouses an indirect methodology of combat, where oftentimes you're trying to

• 1:34:45Jocko Willink?

  keep yourself safe and inflict damage when you can. That implies that maybe I have less physical strength or size than my opponent. So I have less soldiers or less equipment than my opponent. And from that perspective, let me ask you, would it be smart to attack Normandy? If you actually didn't have the, the numbers to carry out the attack? And you didn't have the overwhelming force that we had amassed on England to go and assault France?

• 1:35:21Jocko Willink?

  It wouldn't make sense. Then it would make sense to continue to obey the, the, the, the principles and the art of war. Which is, you know what, we're not gonna attack head on. We're gonna figure out another way to do it.

• 1:35:34Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:35:37Jocko Willink?

  Like I said, these are rules, but these are rules like all rules. That are meant to be broken when the time calls for it. So, good question, but it's a, it's a, the, the art of war answers that question in itself.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Jocko. How do the SEALs reconcile themselves with the fact they face death on every operation they undertake? More so than the conventional forces? Is this something that is learned?

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Well, first of all, let me make it perfectly clear that this is not true.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 1:36:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, first of all, the part that you face death on every operation, there's always a chance. But furthermore, and more importantly, this idea that the SEALs or Special Operations Unit face death more so than conventional forces, not true. In fact, in many cases, SEALs are safer than the conventional forces. The conventional forces are out there doing very difficult operations that are oftentimes more dangerous. I mean, even just something as simple as going on a logistics convoy.

• 1:36:55Jocko Willink?

  You are, I mean, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're extremely exposed in those situations. You're on the defensive. Because you're in a convoy, you're just waiting to get blown up.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  And so that situation is, you're, you're facing, you're much.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  You're much more exposed in that situation doing a daytime convoy run down IED roads than you would be if you were doing a night patrol through the same area. There's just, that's just the way it is. I mean, there's other operations too. I mean, presence patrols and census operations. There's all kinds of operations that the conventional units do that are extremely dangerous. They also oftentimes have less support. So, for instance, there's, there's a aircraft called an AC-130 that is just a miraculous piece of equipment, just an incredible

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  weapon system. And it's a airplane that flies around at 10,000 feet and it can see everything because it has these incredible, incredible imagery systems on it. So they can see everything that's happening. They can track, they can, and then they can shoot and destroy anything they want. So, a lot of times, the, the special operations unit will have, for instance, something like an AC-130 supporting them. You know, eh, on top of that, special operations, they get really good training. So, you've got this, this outstanding, now the, the conventional forces often have great training as well, but sometimes they don't have the best training in the world. Then you're in a, you're in a SEAL platoon, or you're in a special operations,

• 1:38:38Jocko Willink?

  you know, in a, in a special forces ODA, you're gonna have some good training under your belt that you've been going through for many, many years. So that training makes you safer as well. And, and, you know, you're gonna get, oftentimes, again, you're gonna get better gear in special operations because they have a big budget for a smaller number of people. The logistical support, the, the flexibility that you have in special operations is usually, it's usually better. And I, I mean, like, the logistics in the army or the Marine Corps is awesome. And, and it definitely is better than special operations, but special operations is usually, is, is always supporting a much smaller unit. So even though the logistics

• 1:39:22Jocko Willink?

  people or systems might not be as good, they're overwhelmingly good for the small number of people that are in special operations. So.

• 1:39:32Jocko Willink?

  Um, you know, I'll just go one step further. A lot of times, you know, in Ramadi, the conventional guys, they were living out in the city. They were living out in the city of Ramadi after we put combat outpost in place, you know, we SEALs would return to base after a few days out in the field. These guys stayed out there. So we'd return back and, you know, get a shower and get some good food and relax. And we had permanent guards that kind of guarded our base with a really big perimeter. So we, we were in a good spot to stand down for the most part. Whereas the conventional guys, they're out there in Ramadi. They're standing, watch, you know, oh, you know, we go back and can take a break and go on the internet. When they take a break, they're going into a watchtower.

• 1:40:18Jocko Willink?

  So I just don't, I just want to make sure I make it perfectly clear that, you know, the, the conventionals are by no means doing anything less risky than the special operations. In fact, most of the time, they're doing things that are more risky, tougher missions, higher risk, you know. That's just the way it is. So that's why, you know, we have just the utmost respect and admiration for the conventional units that we work with in Ramadi and, and I'll tell you the guys, that's how we feel. So now the question becomes, how do we, any service member,

• 1:41:01Jocko Willink?

  face death is the question? And again, it's any service member, anybody that's going to war has to realize that there's a possibility that they could get killed. And so what do you, how do you get over that? For me, it was acceptance. And saying to myself, you know what? Okay, I could get killed. And it could happen tonight, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen in a week. I don't know when it's gonna happen, but it could happen. And you know what? I'm not afraid of it.

• 1:41:35Jocko Willink?

  So if I'm afraid of it, that's gonna be hard to deal with every single day. The other piece of it is...

• 1:41:42Jocko Willink?

  You deal with it by mitigating as much risk as you possibly can. Okay, what can we do? How can I make sure that I'm safe? You know how I make sure I'm, I can stay as safe as possible? I train hard. I make sure my guys are training hard. I make sure my guys are dialed, dialed in. I make sure that they know what the plan is when we go out on the battlefield. That's, that's what you do. You mitigate as much risk as you can and then there's areas where you can't mitigate risk.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Jocko Willink?

  There's areas where you could catch a, you could, you could find an IED, you could find a bullet, you could find a bomb and that's it. And you can't, in my mind, you can't worry about things that you can't control. So the things that you can't control, accept them and let's focus on mitigating what we can control. And I think that's probably, that's what I, that's what I did when I was in those situations and I would tell you that that's what most of the guys that I was with had something along those lines in their, in their brains.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. That, um, acceptance is such a like powerful thing. Like if you just accept something like, okay, I'm at risk of this or I'm, um, like, this can be a terrible crude example comparatively speaking.

• 1:43:10Jocko Willink?

  Compared to what?

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Compared to accepting

• 1:43:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  the risk of death.

• 1:43:14Jocko Willink?

  Let's hear it.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Let's say you messed up.

• 1:43:16Jocko Willink?

  Is it a long example?

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Let's say, let's say you go to work.

• 1:43:20Jocko Willink?

  The fans wanted me to say that.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:23Jocko Willink?

  Alright, let's say you go to work.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  You go to work and right when you walk in, one of your coworkers say, hey man, uh, John, your boss is looking for you. He's gonna, and you know you did something, you messed it up, you blew up some meeting, I don't know, whatever. Messed up with the client. You're like, hey man, the boss is looking for you. And you're like, nah. So you're gonna avoid the boss at all costs.

• 1:43:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's gonna make for a long day.

• 1:43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's say you avoid him one day, the whole day, boom, you clocked out, you're out. Next day, same thing. Oh shoot, he's looking for you even more, even more, even more. After a while, it's gonna weigh on you.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  And once you just feel like, ah, I'm gonna get chewed out, let me just accept it. And then, you know, you can go through with it. Stress is gone.

• 1:44:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:44:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, um, analogy accepted.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or like for example, just kidding. Well, if like a bully is looking for you.

• 1:44:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, go up and get him.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you, you know, I don't know if you've ever been bullied in school, but um, like if someone's looking for you, they're mad at you or whatever. And you know, they're looking for you, the bully.

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  And you're like, man, you're avoiding them, you're avoiding them. After a while you just, alright, I accept it, you know, it's something's gonna have to go down. I'm gonna have to experience this confrontation.

• 1:44:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and really the acceptance point would be to say, you know what, what's the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing that happened, he beats me up, I get a bloody nose, I don't care anymore.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go get it.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause what you're talking about really is facing the problem, which I also support. You know what, you got a problem, whether it's meeting with your boss or what, you're gonna get bullied, I'm gonna face that problem. So that's one piece, but one thing that will help you to face the problem is saying, okay, what's the worst thing that happens? You know what, I go into my boss, he might fire me. Okay, if he fires me, I'm gonna have to go get a new job, but that's the worst thing that's gonna happen.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:05Jocko Willink?

  What's the worst thing that happens if I get in a fight with a bully? Worst thing that happens, I'm gonna get a bloody nose, I'm gonna get beat up.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:11Jocko Willink?

  But you know what? I can handle that, so I'm gonna go face this issue. And it's the same thing in combat, what's the worst thing that happens? Worst thing that happens, I'm gonna get killed, okay? That happens, it's over, I'm good with it, let's go out and face it. And you know, honestly, I, I said it's the worst thing, but honestly, the, the thing that guys are usually most afraid of is having their friends get hurt.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Jocko Willink?

  Or their guys get hurt, that's, that's the worst thing, so.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  Fully, and then even how you said that the training helps, and that seems obvious, you know, but I think even that is, is, that's like it kind of an understated, I think, underappreciated thing. Because you know, like remember when USC came out?

• 1:45:52Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  And I, I remember looking and being like, these guys are nuts to go in there, to do that. But once you learn even just some jujitsu, just some jujitsu, you that what you see like them fighting in the UFC and stuff like that's.

• 1:46:06Jocko Willink?

  I could do that.

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, you are. Yeah. And actually, that's one of the reasons why I started. I started jujitsu. I didn't start jujitsu. I wanted to be a fighter. So I trained in MMA first. And before training that, I would have thought you're completely insane to do that. Like, you gotta be like, kind of crazy person. But once you have the training, you see, okay, you know, it kind of just turns on the lights. You see like, okay, I see all this stuff. You have just a, just a vast understanding, rather than all you see is knuckles and blood and arms breaking and stuff. All right, next question. Jocko, good evening.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  In a leadership position, is it okay to take or ask for suggestions on solving a task? Or is it okay to take suggestions that stray from my initial plan?

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:47:02Jocko Willink?

  Yes. And I hope that this, that would made you decide to ask this question is because you just like, found out about the podcast or the book or whatever, because this is, this is something that absolutely anybody that kind of listens will, would say, yes, absolutely. In a leadership position, you should definitely ask for suggestions, take suggestions, share the planning, let other people, let many brains be smarter than your one brain. That's what you want. You want to utilize the brain power of your team.

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, the reason you're asking this question, little bit scary, a little bit of a red flag. The reason you're asking this question is because you're afraid of what it'll look like if you have to ask, hey, guys, I'm not sure how to do this. Or you're afraid of, of what it means that you're gonna look, that you're gonna look weak. You're gonna look like a weak leader.

• 1:48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, or inexperienced or something.

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  That's, yeah, you're inexperienced. That's your insecurity that's making that happen. Don't be insecure. Don't be insecure. Because the open mind and the asking for suggestions and the taking suggestions, it actually makes you look like a better leader. I know that sounds crazy. It actually makes you look like a better leader when you say, hey, you know what? Echo, we got this problem solved. Not a hundred percent sure how to tackle this one. Can you give me a hand? Can you give me some suggestions here? That doesn't make you say, oh, Jocko doesn't know his game. He's an idiot. No, it goes, oh, man, Jocko's humble. He's looking for input. He wants to work together as a team.

• 1:48:44Jocko Willink?

  So, yes, absolutely. Ask for suggestions, take suggestions, have an open mind. Disregard your plan if your plan wasn't good. I'm not just gonna hold fast to a plan because I'm the one that thought of it. That's not good leadership at all. Don't do that.

• 1:49:08Jocko Willink?

  Open your mind.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and asking for, um, asking for suggestions, and this is kind of, kind of what you said already, is, um, it, it helps with making everyone feel even more involved.

• 1:49:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean it spreads the ownership throughout the team?

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:49:27Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, that improves. I know as like, if, if, you know, you're the leader, whatever, and the leader was asking me for my input? And I gave it to him, and you know, and he, man, I would feel just that much more valuable and part of the team. I'd be more enthusiastic now.

• 1:49:44Jocko Willink?

  Right. Now, who's gonna work harder on a project? You, when I come in and say, hey, can you give me a hand? How do you think we should do this? And then you come up with a suggestion and you start working on that plan? You're gonna go a lot harder than if I come in and say, hey, here's what I want you to do.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:56Jocko Willink?

  Follow my instructions.

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Jocko Willink?

  As soon as you come up to an obstacle, and I've, all I've told you to do is follow my instructions, as soon as you come to an obstacle, you're gonna be like, ah, you know what? Hey, I need, this isn't working.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if it was your plan, you come up to an obstacle, you tackle that thing. You get after it. That's what happens.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Yep. And you know, you're saying like, sometimes where, you know, as, as a leader, you might be reluctant to ask for suggestions because you might come off like inexperienced or something like that.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  If you need a suggestion and you're like, oh, I don't want to sound like that or whatever. And you say, you know, whatever, I'm just gonna go ahead and move forward anyway. You know, and not know the best way to do it. Man, you're gonna look dumb. And you know how like, we talked about this before where if you don't know what you're doing, but you're acting like you know what you're doing, bro, that's transparent, man. You're way more transparent than you think. And that goes pretty much with everything you do. It's like name droppers, you know, when people like drop names. They don't really think that people are gonna pick up on it, but oh my gosh, you smell that thing from a mile away.

• 1:51:01Jocko Willink?

  Cause I was like, tonight, I was like, well, you know, Joe.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Dean Lister and me were kicking it. Exactly. Well, I see what you're doing.

• 1:51:07Jocko Willink?

  Hey, it's been twenty six podcasts and I haven't talked about, I haven't done much name dropping. J- JT, Joe, you're the first one, name dropping.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  You should say Joel Tudor, cause you could be talking about JT Torres.

• 1:51:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, I'm talking about Joel Tudor.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Jiu Jitsu guy.

• 1:51:23Jocko Willink?

  And I guess I dropped Jeffy Glover's name, but those guys, we dropped Greg Train's name too. You know what I mean? We drop, we drop everybody, like everybody that we train with, we, we drop their names, but just no one knows who they are.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  Right. Yes.

• 1:51:39Jocko Willink?

  Like Andy or Big Eric. I mean, we, we talk about these guys.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  Well, technically that wouldn't be name dropping though. Technically like name dropping, I get, well, then again.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  But what if I said, hey, I was training with Big Eric tonight and he did such and such.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, if it's.

• 1:51:52Jocko Willink?

  But I actually was training with Dean Lister tonight.

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it depends on the context you're trying to add. If you're trying to add into the story, the fact that I know this guy, that therefore makes me hip or cool like this guy, or on his level, whatever, or associated with him. So I'm cool, whatever. That's name dropping. But if you're just trying to paint a more accurate picture of your experience or your story or whatever.

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  But the fact of the matter is, like I was training with Dean tonight.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52:18Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, so it added context to the story, but you said Dean and then you went, you kind of reversed it. Came back to say, Dean Lister.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, the point is, if you start carrying on, you know, you don't know that.

• 1:52:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  You need suggestions and you say, you know, whatever, I'm just gonna move forward. But they're gonna smell that on you, that you're you're black like that.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm laughing some thinking of name dropping right now.

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  It's true that the point there is you're a lot more transparent than you think. Like a lot of people and some people.

• 1:52:52Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's funny, you keep using transparent in its in its the the way that the business community uses transparent right now. They use it in a positive way.

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, look, we're just gonna be completely transparent on how we're doing this. You're using it in a in a little bit of a negative way. Like, hey, I can see through your your crap here.

• 1:53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and and I tend to use it in both like.

• 1:53:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you use it in both.

• 1:53:15Speaker 01

  Bipartisan kind of kind of thing.

• 1:53:16Jocko Willink?

  Bipartisan, I like that.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  I read that, learned it. Actually, I got a book, Seinfeld, but nonetheless, yeah, they'll they'll see right through that if you need suggestions. And that's on top to add to the fact that all this other stuff that it makes the team feel more valuable. It's more, it's a better overall way to to be.

• 1:53:34Jocko Willink?

  There's no doubt about it. No doubt. And by the way, in case you're wondering, the best military planning units, whether it's the SEAL teams, or it's the army that I work with, or whether it's the Marine Corps. The more open they are in their planning, taking suggestions from throughout the chain of command, the better off they do. Period. End of story. I should have just answered with that and we could have moved on. That's the way it works.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  This is a question slash clarification. Could you elaborate on flanking?

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  My impression was that it meant to move around to attack from the side instead of head on. But as often as it comes up on your podcast, I get the impression there must be more to it. Or at least some interesting nuances.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  I guess there's not that much more to it. I mean, a little piece of it was you want to distract them a little bit to the front. And then you want to flank them. That's about the only additional information that's needed to understand what flank is. Flank is, yes, you you attack you. Instead of attacking head on, you attack from the side or sometimes the rear. And I'll tell you, just to point this out for anyone out there that's either in the military and law enforcement and you're going to flank. And you're going to go to the rear. Just remember that on a large scale, it works because you have distance. Where your weaponry won't impact friendly lines.

• 1:55:03Jocko Willink?

  But if you surround someone or you come from the rear of of a, let's say, a small target building. Or a situation in a with

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  open environment, but you're surrounding an enemy. Just don't forget that when you surround an enemy. Now you're cutting off your own fields of fire. So that's why you shouldn't do that. You should just stick with the flank. Where that way you can still keep shooting and keep your fields of fire as open as possible. I just wanted to throw that in there, but that's that's what it is. Military terms, it means, you know, you're attacking the side, you're attacking the weak point, which is generally the sides. Now, it's the same thing, obviously, in jujitsu, you don't attack what they're defending. You know, you attack their neck, attack their neck, attack their neck, they forget about their neck and boom, you flank them and get their arm. Greg Train said that to me tonight. He he was like, oh, that was a little flank, he says to me. Greg Train.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  So did I just name drop?

• 1:56:04Jocko Willink?

  What if I said Dean Lister said it, then it would be a name drop?

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  If you said Greg Train told me that while today while I was hanging out with Dean Dean Lister. That would have been a name.

• 1:56:13Jocko Willink?

  All right, I won't do that. So, uh, but then you get, so now you get flank. And we've talked about this before, when you, when you're talking about dealing with people. Then, yes, you you don't want to attack where people are dug in. You you don't want to attack what they are defending. When someone has a strong point of view that they're married to. Don't attack that.

• 1:56:38Jocko Willink?

  If someone has a big giant ego, don't attack that flank it.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  May maybe even just give a little bit of massage to that ego. To distract them and then sneak in from the flank with your idea and you put it in there. If if someone's got a plan that they're defending hardcore, don't attack the plan. Come up with a little way to augment the plan, a little twist on the plan that they already have. So you're accepting their plan, but you're putting your spin on it.

• 1:57:14Jocko Willink?

  And that way, they accept it. Cause it's part of what it's part of their plan. So it works. So, uh, once again, don't beat your head against the wall forty seven times. Just flank. Real simple. That's all it is.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and a lot of times it's a figurative thing.

• 1:57:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes, well, obviously, and and there's like all these little sayings, he who flanks first wins. And flank or be flanked. There's one more. There's a million of them, but. When in doubt, flank. Yeah, there's all these little things. But the but the great thing about it is also just mentally, okay? If we're trying to solve a problem and we're just thinking one way of the problem. When you get stuck in that way, flank. When you come up to a, when you come up to an obstacle, flank.

• 1:58:13Jocko Willink?

  When you get a resistance and you can't figure something out, flank. That's what I'm talking about. Just always have that in your head. I'm always doing that emotionally, dealing with relationship scenarios. You got your. Your relationship, your wife, she's dug in on something. Don't attack that thing. Flank.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  Is that kind of like, um, you wanna go to. Train jujitsu, but you'd gone like a bunch of, no, no, you wanna go to Taco Tuesday. Or something, I don't know, wherever you go. And you know it's her birthday.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  I go to Steak Saturday.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, Steak Saturday.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  So you buy your wife flowers the day or two days before, right?

• 1:59:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  Instead of being like, I'm gonna, I'm the man, I'm going. Cause I said so. You buy her the flowers.

• 1:59:06Jocko Willink?

  You flank them.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  And then when that day comes, you have the quote unquote opportunity to see some friends. Just a quick one, one night, she'll remember those flowers. Cause she's on the, on the, on the, you know, the distraction, so to speak.

• 1:59:18Jocko Willink?

  You distract her a little bit.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  You flank, you flank through it. Or like on Jurassic Park, you know, those, the raptors. You ever seen Jurassic Park?

• 1:59:25Jocko Willink?

  I have. It was quite some time ago.

• 1:59:27Speaker 01

  So, okay, so.

• 1:59:28Jocko Willink?

  It was about dinosaurs.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So the T-Rex, the T-Rex can't really see you that good. So you just remain still. If you remain real still, he can't really see you because he sees movement. But the raptors, they're, they're these like, they're little mini T-Rexes.

• 1:59:42Jocko Willink?

  They flank though, don't they?

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  They flank. So one of them's like messing with you, like engaging you. And you think, okay, I'm not gonna move or maybe I'll move or whatever. And then the other two get you. And then they enjoy you as their meal. That's a flank.

• 1:59:56Jocko Willink?

  When in doubt, flank. Get that mindset. It's a good mindset to have. The flank.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  Next question. At what point do you turn off the manipulation tactics with people that you work with? Or don't you?

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  So this picture, this, this question, I actually pulled this from a friend of mine. Not a good, not, not someone I've known for a long time, but someone that's a, a guy that I know. He doesn't know me well enough, but he knows well enough to ask me this question.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Right? And he actually sent me a text. He's like, you know, I've been thinking after listening to your podcast, are you just manipulating people all the time?

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:39Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's a legit question, right?

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  I have that question, sure.

• 2:00:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, even Echo has that question. So I obviously have talked about leadership and influence as manipulation. Cause that's what they are, right? If I'm trying to get you to do something,

• 2:00:58Jocko Willink?

  you could say I'm leading you, but you could also say I'm manipulating you, okay? And the difference to me, and I've pointed out this difference before, the difference to me is that if I'm trying to do something that's gonna benefit you or benefit the team, then that's leadership or that's influence. If I'm trying to get you to do something and it's gonna benefit me, then that's manipulation. I've talked about that before. So.

• 2:01:23Jocko Willink?

  That being said,

• 2:01:27Jocko Willink?

  I am not running around in full manipulation mode all the time. I'm not. I'm not constantly sitting there trying to, to plot and make people do things. I will say this, though, I am generally conscious or aware or detached enough that I can see my interactions with other people from a good enough distance to see how I'm affecting the situation.

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  So it's there. It's there. You know, I'm aware of it. I do have a couple friends, not many, where I'm just like completely unfiltered. Some of the times, some, maybe even most of the time, but with most people, like I said, I'm at least aware of what I'm saying and what I'm doing and how it's being received.

• 2:02:19Jocko Willink?

  It's modulated, though, and I'm not, like I said, I'm not sitting there manipulating everyone that I meet. And the fact of the matter is, the reason is, most of the time, I don't care. Not that I don't care about them, but I don't, I'm not, I'm not, I have no reason. I am not trying to do something with this person. I'm just interacting with the person and I like to interact with different people and I have, I get along well with a lot of different types of people from straight laced, like religious people to freaking outlaw bikers, to surfers, to, to alcoholics, to, to fitness freaks. I mean, I'm, I'm friends with a bunch of different people

• 2:03:02Jocko Willink?

  and I'm definitely not sitting around trying to manipulate them. I'm trying to enjoy and I, I enjoy the various personalities and sort of decisions and lives that people had. I learned from them. Not trying to manipulate them, I'm actually trying to learn from people most of the time, not manipulate.

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  But you know, when I do get in a team setting or a business setting or a relationship setting, where now what we're doing is an interaction of humans, then I definitely

• 2:03:43Jocko Willink?

  Will be thinking about how my actions and reactions are affecting the situation. And I will tell you this, I'm generally only doing it for good.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm not trying to get things from people. I think you would be one to say like, yeah, I'm pretty generous with what I'm trying to do with my life and and with helping people. Not that I find myself to be like some some healer or some benevolent person that's running around. I'm not trying to say that, but I'm generally when I'm inter- if I'm interacting with someone enough that I'm in this mode, I am trying to help them.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to help us. That's what I'm trying to do. So if

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  this is manipulation to try and help people and try and help whatever it is I'm doing with other people to move in the right direction, if that's manipulation, I'm guilty.

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, and you see, you kind of mentioned that too, where you're just, you're using the word manipulation, kind of.

• 2:04:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I use it where most people don't like to say it.

• 2:04:56Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Most people say, you know what, I really like to influence my friends and move them in the right direction.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, what is that doing?

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:05:03Jocko Willink?

  That's manipulating.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if you look at the definition, it's to handle cunningly, that's what manipulation is.

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, nice.

• 2:05:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's another definition in there too, but I think that's a more general, broad.

• 2:05:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I think the generally accepted meaning of the word manipulate is a, has a negative connotation, for sure. And and it it is rightfully so, because it generally, when you say it, you're talking about, oh, Jocko is really manipulating Echo. So what does that mean? Oh, Jocko's trying to get stuff from Echo. He's trying to, he's trying to do stuff for his own benefit.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if I were to say, you know, Jocko, he's been hanging out with Echo a lot, and he's really having a good influence on him. Well, guess what? That's cool. Oh, everyone's happy now, but what did I really do? I really manipulated you.

• 2:05:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:47Jocko Willink?

  I really made you act a certain way. I led you. I manipulated you.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:52Jocko Willink?

  So, again, I I mean, maybe I need to stop using the word manipulation, but I always, the reason I like to use it, because I know it. I know it makes people think.

• 2:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:00Jocko Willink?

  I know it makes people see leadership for what it is. With leadership, you're trying to get other human beings to do what you want them to do. That's what you're trying to do. Now, i- in the the best form of leadership, you're trying to get them to want to do what you want them to do. And in even in better form of leadership, you're trying to get them to do what they want to do, and it happens to be what you want them to be to, to do to.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  Collect, sure.

• 2:06:24Jocko Willink?

  That's the goal.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:06:27Jocko Willink?

  But all of those means I'm trying to get you to do something.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:33Jocko Willink?

  And whether we want to call it leadership, or we want to call it influence, or we want to call it inspiration, or we want to call it manipulation. It's the same thing. The only difference being, in my mind, when I manipulate something, I'm trying to help myself. And I don't do that.

• 2:06:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:06:51Jocko Willink?

  I'm not trying to help myself.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, manipulate.

• 2:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Through other people.

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds like that it's helping yourself at their expense.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  Manipulation. And influence is even more broad. I think even goes outside of manipu- just because influence, you can passively influence someone. You can just hang around.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  But you can passively manipulate people too.

• 2:07:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yes, you can. You can absolutely passively manipulate people.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  Like and not know you're doing it, can?

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, no. You can do it by not doing something.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like passive aggressive manipulation.

• 2:07:27Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  But like influence, let's say we're just cruising and we're hanging out. You're not telling me or asking me or whatever to do something. You're just being you and I'm like, fuck, Jocko's so cool, man. Let me, let me, let me roll up my sleeves like Jocko does, you know?

• 2:07:38Jocko Willink?

  That's influence.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  That's, I wouldn't call that manipu- but that wouldn't be manipulation.

• 2:07:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but what if I intentionally was like, you know what? I really need to get, I really need to get A- Echo to do X.

• 2:07:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:49Jocko Willink?

  And here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna show him. I'm gonna lead.

• 2:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:52Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:07:53Speaker 01

  So, and and really, isn't, so that being said, isn't?

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  Being polite, isn't that a low form of manipulation?

• 2:08:06Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  If I say, hey, would it be possible for you to grab that chair for me? What do you mean, would it be possible? We know that's possible.

• 2:08:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it is possible.

• 2:08:13Speaker 01

  We know it's possible, I know what possible means. Why did you say, if possible? Why did I say that? Because I want you to not be defensive. You want to feel good, you want to feel, you know.

• 2:08:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you don't want me to feel manipulated. Absolutely, it's interacting with other people.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  Right, so you have to show some form of, if we want to use the word manipulation, which we do, obviously. Yeah, you're always doing it. So in a way, it's pretty rare you're gonna turn it off.

• 2:08:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, really. And so I guess to answer the question once again, do I ever turn it off? Not really. Am I walking around trying to manipulate people and get them to fall under my spell of destruction? Hell, no. I'm just a normal guy that's interacting with people on a regular way. And when I'm dealing with people in an interactive situation, I'm aware of the way I'm acting and how it affects the situation. That's it.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  And you happen to be pretty affected.

• 2:09:12Jocko Willink?

  I, I.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  In a positive way, though, how you turn out, like if it's for the goal of the collective.

• 2:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  It's not a malevolent manipulation.

• 2:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it is not. All right.

• 2:09:22Speaker 01

  So really, the answer to the question is, not really. That's the question, the answer to the question, right?

• 2:09:29Jocko Willink?

  I like the way you put that.

• 2:09:31Speaker 01

  All right. We got what, one more?

• 2:09:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we got time for one more.

• 2:09:36Speaker 01

  Jocko, how do you stay motivated? And how do you motivate people when they start to slack?

• 2:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Now, motivation is, it's kind of a strange word, because it doesn't really mean what we think it means. We think it means that we're fired up to do something. We think that it means we're eager and passionate to make something happen. And we think that somehow we should just be able to turn on that eagerness and turn on that passion.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  But we can't.

• 2:10:27Jocko Willink?

  Because you just can't turn on passion. You can't just turn on the desire to execute a task.

• 2:10:38Jocko Willink?

  It just doesn't work that way. And honestly, that isn't even what motivate means.

• 2:10:46Jocko Willink?

  Motivate doesn't mean to yell and scream and encourage.

• 2:10:54Jocko Willink?

  No. To motivate actually means to provide a motive. A reason why.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  So to motivate someone is to explain to them why they're doing what they're doing. How it will help them. Where it'll take them. Why they should continue to work and to struggle and to fight.

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  And when you need motivation yourself, don't look for someone to scream and yell. Don't look for someone else to give you motivation.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  Look at yourself.

• 2:11:40Jocko Willink?

  Look at yourself and remind yourself why. Why you are doing what you are doing. Remind yourself that this struggle, this temporary pain, this fight, this fight that you're in, this is what will make you stronger and faster and smarter

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  and better.

• 2:12:16Jocko Willink?

  And then,

• 2:12:19Jocko Willink?

  with that motivation, go forward into the fray, into the storm, into the heat of the battle,

• 2:12:36Jocko Willink?

  where victory is forged.

• 2:12:48Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  So, thanks to everyone for listening and supporting. And if you want to continue this conversation, or ask questions, or give us feedback, you can find us out on the interwebs. On Twitter, @EchoCharles is Echo Charles. And I am @JockoWilling. We're also out there on the Facebook. And even Instagram.

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 2:13:23Jocko Willink?

  And, thanks to everybody that makes this podcast happen. And who is that Echo?

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  Aside from you.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  Onnit, of course, and if you've been living under a rock, as they say, and don't know what Onnit is, it's where we get AlphaBrain, which helps you think and memorize stuff and whatnot. It's nutrients for your brain. Anyway, was it Jody saying that he takes Shroom Tech?

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I think it was.

• 2:13:58Speaker 01

  It was the Cake Nuts. I think I already said this. He was texting me, he said, "I want that Shroom Tech."

• 2:14:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:14:03Speaker 01

  Back, I guess he used it, it was dope.

• 2:14:05Jocko Willink?

  Cake Nuts, getting a Shroom Tech on.

• 2:14:07Speaker 01

  High-intensity stuff for a long period of time. Anyway, Onnit is the supplement company, so go to Onnit.com/Jocko and you get 10% off all supplements. That's the only ones I would recommend, really.

• 2:14:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  And I've tried some other ones before. Anyway, and then, before you do Amazon shopping, if you want to click through the link on jockopodcast.com, you can support that way.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  Or jockostore.com.

• 2:14:36Speaker 01

  Right, or jockostore.com.

• 2:14:37Jocko Willink?

  And speaking of jockostore.

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  Before you shop on Amazon, if you go through Jaco's store, you can shop on Jaco's store. If you like the shirt, we have shirts. We have a new one out too. Um, but yeah, if you think those are cool shirts, get one of those.

• 2:14:51Jocko Willink?

  The new one out's Know the Darkness.

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  Know the Darkness.

• 2:14:53Jocko Willink?

  See, no one's even gonna know what these things mean unless you're one of us.

• 2:14:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:14:58Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna know. People are just gonna be asking you, what are you doing? Why are you wearing that? I can barely read it. You say, don't worry about it.

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'll, I'll say this, where, where, I don't know if I told you this before, but,

• 2:15:10Speaker 01

  like the ideas behind the shirts, they're not just like random, ooh, that looks cool on a shirt or whatever. They do have like inside meaning, you know, like discipline equals freedom, right? So that, that was your thing, like originally before you even started podcasts, you were like, when you said that, I was like, ah, that doesn't make any sense. And that's what you said. You said, at first it doesn't make any sense. And I was like, yeah, it doesn't make, thinking in my head, but then when you explained it, I was like, dang, that's, that's kinda, that's, that's deep.

• 2:15:35Jocko Willink?

  It does make sense.

• 2:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does make sense. It makes perfect sense, actually.

• 2:15:39Jocko Willink?

  Indeed.

• 2:15:39Speaker 01

  But it is one of those things, you know, that's kinda where, so, okay, so that makes sense. If you don't know what it means, all it is, is yet another shirt with a little saying on it. That's all it is, if you don't know what it means. Same thing, um, with your head that says good, and the good is backwards.

• 2:15:54Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  All these shirts are for you. They're not for like, hey, everyone, look at my cool shirt, even though there, it can have that effect, but that's not what they're made for you.

• 2:16:04Jocko Willink?

  Pretty cool.

• 2:16:04Speaker 01

  You know? Yeah, yeah. So when you're looking in the mirror, it says good, then you can see, you can read it, it's backwards, you know? So the darkness shirt, if you look at it, it's black on, on a black shirt. You can barely see it. But it's, that's what darkness is, man. You can barely see it, but you know that that darkness is there.

• 2:16:19Jocko Willink?

  But it's there.

• 2:16:20Speaker 01

  Look at the design on the back.

• 2:16:20Jocko Willink?

  You gotta know it.

• 2:16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you look at the design of the back, it's a, we'll just say it's a dark scene. I'm just gonna say that, but it's black on black, so you can't, unless you kinda know and you really look at it, you know? If the shirt means something to you, you know, then it's gonna mean something.

• 2:16:33Jocko Willink?

  So you're making shirts that actually, you gotta be one of us.

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta be on the inside, you know? It'll have that extra layer.

• 2:16:40Jocko Willink?

  Know what's up.

• 2:16:42Speaker 01

  But hey, man, if you just think it just looks cool, hey, do you, man, do it. Anyway, there you go. That's how you can support if you want.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. So that's everyone that makes the podcast happen and the actual people that make the podcast happen is you all. Listening to this podcast, you're the ones that make it happen, that ask the questions, that write reviews, that give us feedback and let us know that you're getting something out of it.

• 2:17:13Jocko Willink?

  So, thank you for listening. And for going out into your part of the world and motivating yourself and those around you to get up.

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  And get after it.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Jocko and Echo.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Out.