549: Everyone is Judging—and Being Judged. Breaking Down Self-Awareness, Humility, and Respect

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content Everyone is judging—and being judged. Breaking down how self-awareness, humility, and respect determine your effectiveness as a leader, why perception matters, and how ego quietly destroys influence 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 549 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  Judgment.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  This is something that I, I talked about it, we just got done with a muster for Echelon Front and I talked about judgment. And I think it's worth going into some detail and sharing a little more broadly with people. So this dates back to a conversation I had with Jimmy May, who's been on this podcast before. He was a SEAL. He was, he's retired now as a SEAL officer and he was, I forget what his actual position was at BUDS.

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  But he was a BUDS, he was overseeing some portion of BUDS. And at BUDS, of course, they're always trying to figure out who's going to make it through and who's not going to make it through. They give all kinds of testing and they've been doing this for years. Psychological testing, personality traits, physical tests, obviously they do physical tests, but the physical tests.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  There aren't an exact translation, like just because someone's really good at running or pull-ups or whatever, doesn't mean they're going to pass. And just because someone, you know, was, uh, has broke out some way in a psychological profile, doesn't mean they're going to pass. So they've always been trying to tell, trying to figure out who's going to make it through, just like any other corporation. Because if you have to recruit a hundred people and bring them into your system and pay them. And you only get 20 people that make it, which is the way it works, that's not good. It's not cost effective, so they don't like doing that. So they want to figure out who's going to make it through. So they do all these tests. And they never really find out much.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  They never really find out much. At one point, they said that wrestlers had a, had a better chance of making it through. But by better chance, it was like barely, it was like a, like statistically irrelevant. And same, same thing, I heard people from New England, if they, they made it through more often. But again, it was like a, like a, like a single digit higher percentage of making it.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  So they're not really doing a great job. It's really hard to tell who's going to make it through. And, but one of the, one of the things that he told me about was this psychological aspect that did again, show a very slight indication. Cause trust me, just because you're a wrestler, don't make it, don't mean you're making it through. Just because you're from New England, don't make you're making it through. There's been plenty of wrestlers, D1 wrestlers from wrestling states that quit. So is there maybe a slightly better chance? Yes. New England, okay, because you're used to the cold or whatever. Okay, slightly better chance. But again, it's, it's like almost statistically irrelevant. But this one, again, same thing, it's not a huge, not a huge impact. But

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  the way he explained it to me is how it's how you see yourself versus how other people see you. And the way, the closer you see yourself to the way everyone else sees you. The better chance that you have of making it through. And they got this from, and again, don't quote me on this, but they did some kind of survey. And then peer review. So you did a self-assessment of how you viewed yourself in these various categories. And then you got, the class said how they viewed you on these certain categories. And the closer that things lined up, the better chance that someone had of making it through.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  BUDS, basic SEAL training. So if you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as a stud, and again, I'm simplifying this. If you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as a stud, you have an improved chance. I'm only saying improved, not you're going to make it, but you have an improved chance. Interestingly, if you see yourself as weak and the class sees you as weak, you have an improved chance.

• 4:01Jocko Willink?

  And I think it would be if you saw yourself as weak, well, what are you going to do? You're going to work hard. The class sees you as weak. You're, okay, you're weak. You're going to work harder. You're going to put out. You're going to try and get better. You're going to stay focused. Okay, that makes sense. If you're a stud, the class sees you as, it's not, yeah, yeah, I trained hard to get here. I'm ready to rock and roll. The class is looking at you like, oh yeah, this kid's ready to rock and roll. Now, if you see yourself as a stud and the class sees you as weak, you have a diminished chance of making it through. Again, can you still make it through? Sure. But a diminished chance. And you could see how that would work, right? I see myself as being like, oh, I'm ready to kick this training in the ass. And everyone else is looking at you going, oh, I don't really think so.

• 4:43Jocko Willink?

  So that's a delta, obviously, that you have a diminished chance of making it through. Or for instance, you don't see yourself as a stud, but you still see yourself as weak. But the class thinks you're a stud.

• 4:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, guess what? Diminished chance, because even if you are a stud, which it sounds like your peers are thinking you're a stud, they're thinking you're a stud because you, you're doing awesome on the runs. You're getting through the O course, you're, you're doing a good job. So they're doing a realistic assessment of you, but your self-assessment is that you're weak. Why are you thinking that? And you have a diminished chance of making it through. And I can certainly cite examples like that, that I knew. You know, I had a, I had a guy that I thought was a stud. And again, you know, I'm young and so anyone that was like 24, 25, 26 years old. Like they're just more developed, they're more mature, physically developed, right? Physically developed. And I had a guy that was physically developed, looked like a stud.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  Bro, he quit the first or second night of hell week. And it was a little bit of a shocker to the class. It's like, oh damn, that dude just quit.

• 5:55Jocko Willink?

  And everyone thought he was a stud. Clearly he didn't. And then of course, there was people that you could tell they didn't have confidence, like they thought they were weak. And then we all thought they were weak, but dude, they were still there at the end of hell week. You're like, damn, okay. All right. And it goes both directions. So it does make sense. What it, what it, what it indicates is that you don't have very good self-awareness. And if you don't have really good self-awareness, that's going to be problematic.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I always thought, and I remember hearing some of this at the muster and I'm trying to figure out, I wonder why that is. And all of it made sense. I was kind of going to the line, except for the one that I was trying to kind of square the circle where if you think you're a stud, but other people don't, right? Unless there's some behavioral thing that you're putting out that people are just rejecting. Cause if you're, if you think you're weak and everyone else thinks you're weak, your expectations and their expectations kind of line up, you know? So if you like, if you're, whether it be putting out or whatever, but you're kind of like behind. No one's going to like be mad at you. No one's going to lash out at you, whatever. They're just kind of like, okay.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  He's trying, but hey, man, you know, our expectations aren't that high and your expectations aren't that high. So you know, basically what you're putting out, you're kind of getting back. So it's kind of confirming and hey, one, one foot in front of the other. It's going to end at some point, you know, kind of a thing and we're all good. You know, like the, you know, if you're, if you're running a race, someone's going to come in last. We all know that, you know? So it's like one of those deals.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  And then if, uh, if you're a stud and they think you're a stud, you're behaving accordingly as well, you know? So what you're putting out, you're getting back, same thing. Someone's going to come in first. Like no one's mad at this guy bragging for coming in first. He's not bragging, but no one's, you know, like his performance is not intimidating because we expect that out of him, you know, kind of a thing.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  And then the discrepancy part, of course, that make, that makes sense, you know? If you're weak, but you think you're a stud, you're behaving like us in whatever way, you know? If, if that's coming out overtly, even in a small way, and it's like, bro, what's this guy even opening his mouth for, you know, like shut up. So that makes sense. But if you think you're weak, but you really are a stud, of course, the expectations don't match up. But I wonder how that, like, it's hard to imagine how that looks.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, because now when it comes to do something hard, you think you're weak and you don't have the ability to do it.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So the expert, it was like, oh, bro, I thought you'd kill that. Like, what are you slacking? What are you like, what? You're not down for the cause or something?

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  I can't, I can't take anymore. You, if you think you're weak, then you can't take anymore. And I would go so far as to hypothesize that the class, generally speaking, is probably going to have a pretty good, a pretty good reflective of reality, a pretty good assessment reflective of reality. So sure, there might be some guy that's like, you know, he doesn't look like much, but he was a, you know, he was a 142 pound wrestler. And went to state in California and he surfed and you can't really tell by looking at him and he's kind of quiet. And you'd be like, oh, that guy seems a little bit weak. But even, even that guy, like as the class is doing things, runs, he's doing good.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  Swims, he's doing good. Like, so, so that's why I think that class is going to have a, a fairly accurate assessment of reality. Is this person really a stud or a dud? They'll have a pretty good assessment of that. But if you go in there believing that you're a dud, it's like, just like in sports when someone, they don't believe they can win. If you don't believe you can win, and when people do believe they can win. That has such a huge impact. Just think about what it does to your confidence in the moment.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:44Jocko Willink?

  It's a game changer.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you explaining that right there just really clarified the whole thing because I remember one time when I was at University of Hawaii, every Monday we'd have conditioning and the conditioning was, um, part of it was one tens, right? Hundred ten yard sprints and we do sixteen.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  A hundred ten yard sprints.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yes, across the whole football field in one end zone. So.

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  So would you just sprint the ten and then go walk back to it?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. And basically it goes like this, the whole football field, right? We all line up and there's three groups. There's skilled position, which is wide receivers, running backs, uh, defensive back, like the faster guys. And then there's like linebackers and I want to say maybe kickers, maybe, or I forget the exact group, but it was that middle group who weren't as fast, but they're and then there's the lineman, right? They're the third. So they'd be like,

• 10:34Speaker 01

  the heavy hitters. So they, um, so it's like, you know, they, it'd just be real repetitive. They'd be like hand on the line, right? First group, you blow the whistle, you run. At a certain point, they say hand on the line for the next group. So by the time the third group gets there, brother, first group is ready to go. It was very little rest in between. It was just the most, it was all, it was a mental thing more than even physical. So we'd do eight rests for like two minutes, I think, something like this, and then do another eight. Okay. So, and I.

• 11:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm just trying to, I'm sorry, I apologize for going in the weeds like this. Would you literally go from the, the, the end zone and then you do the like to the ten and then to the twenty and then to.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  No, no, no, that was different. That was actually on Tuesday. That was, they're called ladders. So anyway, on Monday was way more of a freaking gut check because it's like you start in the back of the end zone and you sprint all the way to the far side goal line. So you run across the whole field. Oh, hundred ten meter sprint.

• 11:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, got it.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you do eight of those, rest eight more.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  I thought you meant a hundred ten meter sprint.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, no.

• 11:38Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, how did you do that?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  No, no, one tens.

• 11:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So how many one tens would you do?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Sixteen.

• 11:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn, okay.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, at about twelve, you're like, bro, I don't think I can do this every single week. That's what I'm thinking. You get through it and at the end it's, you know, and I was like, I guess kind of one of the faster guys or whatever. So you can kind of gauge where like one time for some reason I was gassing and everyone was just like beating me. That was only one time that I can ever remember. But the rest was just right with everybody else. And this all wide receivers, running backs and DBs, all the fast guys. And I was just right with everyone else. But I remember thinking

• 12:12Speaker 01

  almost every week, like looking around and everyone's like locked in and just doing it. I'm like, bro, I'm dying. I don't know if I can even do one more. And then I do one more and then you're like, okay, that was probably my last one that I could really do functioning. You know, I could walk it, but of course, but, but you end up getting through it. It's all mental, you know? So physically you end up getting through, but my mind was like, I can't do this. And I'm looking around at everyone else and their faces just like regular, like they, it seemed a lot harder for me than it was for them.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  But then if you talk to like, you know, okay, cool, Jeremy, these guys are like, no, no, that was the worst.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  So you just never know, you know, it's kind of like, oh.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  Do you think you were outwardly showing it more than they were?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  I have no idea. I don't think so because I would never do that. I would never be like, oh, I'm dying.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  So as much as they're dying inside, they're looking at you going, man, Echo looks like he's all right.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  And so imagine this, now imagine it's hell week. You know what I'm saying? And you're dying inside, you're trying not to show it, but you're thinking, wait, it's only Monday night.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And these guys are not even phased.

• 13:11Jocko Willink?

  And everyone else is trying to do the same thing you're doing, which is not show it. And so you end up going, you know, I'm weak.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:18Jocko Willink?

  And I, there's, I can't do this.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:20Jocko Willink?

  So then you know what? You're done.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I know, bro. I understand enough.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  So it makes sense to me, and when I heard this, when I heard Jimmy explain this to me, it made sense to me that this would be a problem, how you perceive yourself versus how others see you. And when I started thinking about it from a leadership perspective, it, I, I see a very similar problem, very, a very similar problem and a very similar pattern. When people have a significant delta between how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them,

• 14:01Jocko Willink?

  it can be, it can cause problems in leadership. It can cause problems, not just in leadership, in human interaction. How you perceive yourself versus how other people perceive you. And you don't need to, and here's the thing, in this case, in the Bud's case, they do like a self-assessment, they do a three hundred and sixty degree survey and whatever peer, peer evaluations and all this stuff. But that's how they're judging themselves and that's how they are being judged by others. But you don't need that in real life, because this is the thing, judgment is taking place all the time. There is, there is always judging. We are both judging other people and we are being judged all the time.

• 14:45Jocko Willink?

  And as I think about my personal experience in the SEAL teams, when I was a junior guy, man, I was always judging, judging my leaders for sure, for sure. You know, they show up five minutes late for something, noted. They forget a piece of gear, noted. They mess up during an immediate action drill, noted. Like I was always judging.

• 15:09Jocko Willink?

  And when I was in a leadership position, I was

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  straight up, I was gonna say, say like, well, it wasn't really judging. No, you're judging, you're judging your, I was judging my subordinates, right? Hey, are they going to make the right call? Uh, how good are they at this? Are they ready? Do they care more about themselves or do they care about the teams? Do they care more about the mission? I'm judging them. I'm watching, literally I've told stories. I'm like standing over Seth Stone's shoulder, like watching him. I'm completely judging.

• 15:40Jocko Willink?

  So

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  here's the thing, as a leader, we, we need to make sure that the way we judge ourselves

• 15:51Jocko Willink?

  is approximate to the way other people judge us. The way we see ourselves is at least somewhat approximate to the way other people see us.

• 16:03Jocko Willink?

  And I think, I think where this boils down to,

• 16:10Jocko Willink?

  and I don't know another way to describe this because this is a word that I think is, there's, there's a different ways to take this word, but I can't really think of a better word to use. I think it's a matter of respect. It's a matter of respect. The, the definition of respect is, is valuing someone else's abilities or their achievements or their opinions or their rights or their ideas. That's what respect is. Right? I value your idea. That means I respect you. Or I value the right that you have. That means I respect you. Or I value what you've done, what you've achieved. That, that means I respect those things.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  And, and that means that you understand someone else, right? Like, okay, I, I see what you're saying. So when we judge things about a person in a positive way, our respect for them goes up, the way we value them goes up. When we judge things about a person and we judge them negatively, our respect for them goes down. So we value them less. We value their opinions less. We value their achievements less. We value their rights left, less.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  And these are very important. We, and we need to be, we need to be self-aware and make sure that our perception of ourselves and how we're being judged is close to other people's perception of us as well.

• 17:39Jocko Willink?

  So then the big question becomes, how are you being judged? What are you being judged on? And this, this is tricky because, because this can vary, at least parts of this can vary a lot. So I think you have to start off by thinking a little bit about the ecosystem that you're, that you're in as far as how you're being judged. So at the muster, I mentioned bikers, boy scouts, bankers and bowlers, right? I used a little alliteration there, um, to talk through these things, but

• 18:15Jocko Willink?

  any, those, those systems or those, those ecosystems, right? Bikers, boy scouts, bankers and bowlers.

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  What does that look like? If you are, if you're in a biker, if you're in a biker gang, right? You're in a motorcycle club, what are you getting judged on? Well, what's your commitment to the club, right? Loyalty? What is your loyalty to the club?

• 18:41Jocko Willink?

  You're being judged on silence, right? No rats. If you're a rat, you're completely rejected. There's a hierarchy within motorcycle clubs, right? There's, they have a chain of command and they respect that and that's the way it goes. And then they have their, their, um, respect for, you know, the, the, the patches and the cuts and the colors and all those kinds of things. And those symbols have a lot of meaning. But part of being a biker, right? It's just like, how tough are you? How tough are you? Can you drink hard? Can you fight? Are you strong? Did you have military service? Did you have combat experience? Have you been to prison? Like those are kind of things like, oh, okay, gonna get judged on that.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  Compare that to the boy scouts.

• 19:30Jocko Willink?

  What are the boy scouts getting judged on? Well, their scout law has 12 points and not to go through every detail, but the boy scout is getting judged on trustworthiness, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, reverent. Right? These are the things that they're getting judged on.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  Now bankers bankers they have there's like a um I found some various codes but from the banking world that they're supposed to live by acting with integrity acting with due skill diligence being open cooperative with regulators pay due regard to the interest of customers and treating them fairly observing standards of market conduct at all time being alert to conflict of interest treating information with appropriate confidentiality and sensitivity right there you go and let's face it also if you're a banker you're getting judged on putting together good deals and making money

• 20:31Jocko Willink?

  and a good example of if you're if you were a banker if you if we were bankers

• 20:38Jocko Willink?

  if we were bankers and you found out that I went to prison would your respect for me go up or down down if we were bikers and you found out that I did time would your respect for me go up or down probably up so the ecosystems can diff can differ in how people are being judged inside those ecosystems and ecosystems do have their own way of judging and there's going to be some overlap right um and there's some you gotta remember this too like there's some ecosystems this is why I have to talk about bowling because there's some ecosystems where outside that ecosystem

• 21:19Jocko Willink?

  no one cares right you know have you ever had somebody you know you got into verbal argument with someone and they're like what's your best bowling score like like no one says that right that's not that's not a thing they don't cares now in the bowling world if you competed in some thing or you won something you know you could flex with that in that ecosystem outside that ecosystem doesn't hold much water some people would kind of laugh at it as a matter of fact right depending on you know I bet the biker would laugh at the bowler if he was trying to flex his tournament results you know what I'm saying and the funny thing is you and I were talking about

• 22:02Jocko Willink?

  this last time is um like grown people or people that aren't inside the jujitsu ecosystem they just think we do karate they just think we do karate like a like a nine year old like getting hiya hiya and breaking boards that's what they think of we you say oh yeah what do you do for fun I do jujitsu and in their mind they're like see you like Rex Kwon do you know breaking a board so they don't care outside that ecosystem but inside that ecosystem there's all kinds of credibility or lack of credibility and judgment that happens and respect that goes up or down depending on what you've achieved inside that ecosystem and when you get very specific ecosystems

• 22:47Jocko Willink?

  there's little ancillary things that you will definitely get judged on like skills like in the seal teams in the seal teams if you're a really good shooter like people kind of know that someone that's really good at skydiving people kind of know that um people are really good at rucking just any one of those things those skills will elevate you respect for you in at some level if you're a terrible shot people kind of know that too if you if you fall out of a ruck march like people will know that they'll remember that these little things um as a biker like when bikers have when they know about bikes when they can fix motorcycles when they build motorcycles that's

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  elevation the boy scouts like what knots do you know what what merit badges do you have like those are things that are gonna gonna help you so generally in your particular in a particular domain

• 23:42Jocko Willink?

  your skill level your experience level your accomplishments your qualifications your accolades your historical success all of these things elevate people's respect for you on some level now listen you can be you know a world champion in some sport and be a dirtbag for sure you can be you can have graduated with the highest honors from some university and be a dirtbag

• 24:15Jocko Willink?

  it you can still be judged in a negative way but they are generally speaking these these skills in a particular domain they will elevate you they will at least give you the opportunity they'll give you they'll give you positive up marks on the respect level so so you got to remember that you're being judged on those things inside your ecosystem that you're in and then there are some things that are almost universally respected values and again I have to say almost universally because there's certain cultures and ecosystems where this stuff isn't respected but if you

• 24:59Jocko Willink?

  display these types of things generally speaking they will earn you respect so integrity meaning you say what you do and you do what you say that is that is a great way to earn respect the opposite of that being a hypocrite which is a super derogatory oh that guy's a hypocrite right honesty being honest that's why you know calling someone a liar is such a offensive word because people really value honesty humility being humble this is a quality that people generally respect and listen what does it mean when an athlete is confident to the point that they're arrogant

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  right sometimes that gets people hyped up right you get some fighters that are they're they're super arrogant but if you look at the broad the broad cannon of people that are athletes the humble ones are the most respected now look can you get a Muhammad Ali when he's back in the day just talking mad shit and you know no no humility whatsoever here's the thing and I found this to be why that works sometimes why that works sometimes is because that person those people

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  that seem arrogant what they do is they go out and they bully the bullies and when you bully the bullies you can get away with it because other people you're projecting or you're you're living vicariously through that Muhammad Ali when he goes out and bullies the bully he goes out and beats George Foreman a big monster of a guy that's knocking everyone out like people go who's this arrogant yeah but I root for that guy you have to be bullying bullies in order to get away with that but most of the time in sports you get here a post a post-game interview and someone says hey you know they say oh you scored the winning touchdown he says you know what I wouldn't be able to do without the team everyone goes oh yeah and they retweet it and they share it with me

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  or they go you know I can't believe the defense let us down like that and everyone goes oh this guy needs to learn some ownership so this is relatively universal universal to earn respect is be humble what um this might be a whole nother thing but I've always thought that you can violate all these kind of rules for lack of a better term if it's entertaining especially in the sports and the entertainment kind of world so like Muhammad Ali Conor McGregor like these kind of guys were overtly arrogant um as long as they say something funny or witty or entertaining at the end of the day combined with their performance now because that's all part of the entertainment um formula

• 27:54Jocko Willink?

  it's we accept it because we like to be entertained but that's I always thought that that was the one way to sidestep these these sort of guidelines you have to be you have to be beating up a bully so if you look at if you look at like WWF the person that plays a heel right the bad guy that's what that they're set up that way and only when a bigger bully comes along does stone cold Steve Austin become the hero for beating up the bigger bullies and like the rock you know back then he was super arrogant all these guys a lot well not all of them but some of them they flip the script

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  where they're the bad guy until a batter guy comes along and then they become the hero because they're they're arrogance they beat up the bully so again this isn't like um I agree with you there's some level of entertainment people want to see that and by the way also also people want to see you know that guy get knocked out too right you know you'll hear someone say hey love me or hate me you're watching the fight right so that brings it out too but Jen why do people hate him people hate him because they're arrogant people I can't wait to see that guy get knocked out so humility is is a pretty universally respected trait and again there's outliers for all these

• 29:20Jocko Willink?

  things another one family and relationships so when someone or relationships when someone has a good family you know they they stick together with their family they've got a strong family all that stuff people respect that or they've got a great friend group and you see that group and it's like oh yeah that's that's strong it's positive

• 29:42Jocko Willink?

  Discipline.

• 29:44Jocko Willink?

  Kind of universally respected. Discipline, kind of universally respected, because

• 29:53Jocko Willink?

  the way, when I think about this one, when you're up early in the morning, for whatever reason, let's say you gotta go to the airport, and you're driving to the airport at five o'clock in the morning, and as you're driving to the airport, you see someone out on a run. At five in the morning.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

• 30:08Jocko Willink?

  Right? You just said, "Hell yeah." You know what I mean? Because we all go, "Hell yeah." You know, or you see someone in some situation, it's late at night, you're coming home late, for whatever reason, and you got somebody out there with their little headlamp on, putting in roadwork.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Jocko Willink?

  Don't you respect that person?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:24Jocko Willink?

  Early in the morning, you see him doing something. Discipline is kind of a universally respected trait.

• 30:35Jocko Willink?

  Another one is reliability. You know, can you rely on that person? Everyone, no one likes it when someone's not reliable. It's actually terrible. Um, perseverance, when you see some, another thing I mentioned at the muster, they make movies about all this stuff, right? They make movies about all this stuff. They make movies about discipline, they make movies about family and, and relationship and sticking together. They make movies about humility, Rudy, right? They make movies about honesty and integrity and what that looks like. We make movies about this stuff. We make movies about perseverance, because it's universally respected. That guy got beat down, he got back up again. Courage, we obviously make movies about courage. Gonna make things happen. Self-control.

• 31:21Jocko Willink?

  Does that fall under discipline? Maybe, but we make movies about that. Scenes in movies where people have to show that, that self-control. Like all those revenge movies. There's usually some kind of self-control scene, right?

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:35Jocko Willink?

  Where they wanna do something, but they know if they do it too early, they'll get found out or whatever, so they have to just bite their teeth and just carry on.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 31:46Jocko Willink?

  Accumulation of resources.

• 31:50Jocko Willink?

  Do we respect that? Yeah, generally speaking, yep. Now, can you become a hoarder where people now hate you because you're a trillionaire? Sure, that can happen. But generally speaking, we meet someone, they've got a lot of, accumulated a lot of resources, there's a level of respect that goes there.

• 32:06Jocko Willink?

  So then we get into physical health and fitness. These are just kinda universally respected. When someone is healthy, it's universally respected. When someone is strong, it's universally respected. It's just the way it is.

• 32:25Jocko Willink?

  That's a good reason to be in good shape. Universally respected. Another one, creativity.

• 32:35Jocko Willink?

  And I'll say two types of creativity. One of them is kinda what you think when you think of creativity, artistic creativity. Someone that's really good at guitar. Someone that's really good at drawing, someone that's really good at painting, someone that's really good at making videos. You okay? You okay? I'll throw that in there for you.

• 32:52Jocko Willink?

  Throw the dog a bone. Someone that's really good at making videos, they get respect for that. How many times has someone said, come up to you and said, "You know that video you made?" Props, right? It's a real thing.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:02Jocko Willink?

  They respect that. But creativity, so creativity is respected, and it's also artistic, but as well as problem solving. Someone that can kinda creatively come up with ways to solve problems. It's respected, universally respected.

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  Humor. "That guy's funny." "She cracks me up." Universally respected, someone that can bring some humor into a situation.

• 33:29Jocko Willink?

  Another one, judgment. How, how good is someone's judgment? You know, we're talking about judgment, but when someone makes good judgment in decisions, decides to do things a certain way, this falls into leadership as well. Like, there are people that when they step up and start to lead, they do a good job, people respect that. Kindness. Someone that's kind. You know, it's, yeah, I talked about, uh, movies, we make movies about this stuff. There's a whole category out, there's a whole algorithmic category for each one of these things as well. You know what I mean? You can watch a four-minute clip from some movie or some, you know, uh, event that happened.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  But whenever I, when I hear kindness, there's a lot of algorithmic clips, you know, someone like rescues the dog, revives the dog. They help the, the, the chickadee in a nest, and they bring it, they feed it with a little tear, or an eyedropper, they give it milk or whatever, you know what I mean? It's kindness, because people respect that.

• 34:32Jocko Willink?

  And then another one I would say is people that understand other people's perspective. These are, this is a respected thing. So these are kinda just some universally respected characteristics or values, and, and listen, are there exceptions? Of course. Especially in fringe elements. Are you getting into some fringe element?

• 34:54Jocko Willink?

  Some cult or some criminal organization, they might not view some of these universal traits as good, in fact, they might value some opposing traits. Like, instead of kindness, maybe they respect brutality. Right? If you're a gang member, you go, "Oh, they crossed me, so I'm gonna go cut their limbs off or whatever." Like, that's, oh, that brutally, brutally respected.

• 35:18Jocko Willink?

  But even then, I'd say, even, even fringe elements, you know, they respect this kinda stuff. They have their own code, and what is important, reliability is important, integrity is important. Being honest is important. Unless you're talking to the cops, you know what I'm saying? But being honest with each other, so these things are are used universally. So I think that, that, now we're looking at, you know, so this is the way we're being judged, right? You're getting judged, what, what are your skills? What are your characteristics from this universal?

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  What are the characteristics from your ecosystem? What are the skills that you have in your particular little domain? And that is how you're being judged. So, universal skills, your particular domain, and inside your ecosystem. That's how you're being judged, and it is important that you pay attention to that. So, how does this, how does this connect back to leadership?

• 36:26Jocko Willink?

  It's the fact that since we're all judging each other, and as we judge each other, we place ourselves and each other into a hierarchy. We place ourselves and each other into a, a pecking order based on these characteristics. And thi- this hierarchy

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  exists in all different teams, all different organizations. I call it, I, I don't, I'm not sure this is the best name, but I call it the primal order, right? There's like a primal order. That's probably a little bit leaning too much into the animal side of it. But I don't know what else to call it right now. So we'll call it the primal order. This is the, this is not based on the rank or the corporate assignment, or the line diagram that, that spells out who's in charge of who. This is, this is beneath the surface of that organizational chart that's up on the wall, in the or, in the, in the company, right? And I think what it's based on

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  is respect, true respect. And what, the respect is based on how we judge each other, based on these various judging criteria. And here's where this can get a little bit sketchy, as you might imagine. It looks a little bit different for each person.

• 37:55Jocko Willink?

  And another important thing to note is that when we judge each other, everyone judges other people against themselves. They hold themselves as the standard. And they're looking at other people and judging, "This person's either above me or below me in the primal order." So, when you meet someone, it's funny, we used to joke about, like, when you meet another person, when you start jiu-jitsu, after a little while, everyone you meet, you're like, judging if you could beat them in jiu-jitsu or not, right? "Oh, I could take that guy, oh, that guy, wait, did you wrestle?" "Oh, yeah," you know, you're, you're, you're constantly figuring out, "Well, I wonder if I could take that guy in jiu-jitsu." But there's, there's a reality to that, that we do, we size each other up.

• 38:40Jocko Willink?

  And we, we place ourselves in this, in this hierarchy, in this primal order. And, and we do this consciously or unconsciously. But unconsciously or consciously, we place other people either above us, equal to us, or below us in that hierarchy.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  And this is where, to tie back with the way we started this whole topic off, this is where things become critical, because what is the difference between where you see yourself and where you see others, and specifically another person in that pecking order? And if it's not accurate, if it's not reflective,

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  then that's where we can see some significant problems. So, for instance, if they see you as a superior, but you see them as a subordinate, let's say, let's say you and me. If, if I see you as a superior, but you see me as a subordinate?

• 39:47Jocko Willink?

  That's actually gonna be okay, right? So if I see you as a superior and you see me as a subordinate, then I look at you like, okay, Echo is the boss, that's cool. You look at me like, okay, Jocko's works for me. And the way I treat you is, you know, I treat you with a little bit of reverence and respect because I see you as the boss and you treat me, you know, a little bit, you can kind of step on me, you can cut me off, it's okay. Because you know, you're the boss. And so actually, that's gonna work out okay. You cut me off when I'm talking, I'm like, hey, you know, he's the boss. That'll work out okay, we're okay, we're in the clear. If you see me as a peer and I see you as a peer, that's okay too, because we treat each other, you know, you treat me as a peer,

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  I listen to what you have to say, you cut me off, but you know, I'll jump right back in there and we'll be okay. When we see each other as peers, we'll be okay. And then if I see you as a subordinate and you see me as a superior, again, it'll work out, it's okay. You know, I see you, it's like, oh, Echo works for me, so that's where you're at. So all those ones are fine. All those things work out okay. Because the way we treat each other, again, consciously or unconsciously, you know, you go into a room with someone that you, I mean, just imagine this, you go into a room and there's someone that you highly respect and they're talking. Are you gonna cut them off?

• 41:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  Of course not. But if there's someone in there that you're like, oh, this person's, if you don't respect them, will you cut them off when they're talking?

• 41:21Speaker 01

  It's more likely.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  More likely, for sure. If they're peer, if you view them as a peer, you'll kind of keep it in between.

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  So all those things kind of line up and we'll be okay. We'll be okay in those scenarios.

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  But check this out.

• 41:37Jocko Willink?

  If they see you as a peer and you see them as a subordinate, so they see you like, oh, we're bros, but you see them as like, oh, you work for me. Now again, unconsciously or consciously, how do you talk to them? Do you listen to them? Do you treat them with respect? And it's a problem because you don't. You see them as a peer.

• 42:05Jocko Willink?

  Or sorry, they see you as a peer, but you see them as a subordinate. So when you start talking to me, I'm like, hey, hey, maybe later, let me push through this, you see what I'm saying? It's a huge deal.

• 42:15Jocko Willink?

  If they see you as a subordinate and you see them as a peer, it's a problem. You see them like, oh, Echo's on my level, but you see me as like, I'm below your level. So I'm like, hey, I don't think we should do it that way, you're like,

• 42:28Jocko Willink?

  I'll ask you when I need your opinion. It's a problem. And here's another one that is a problem. You see me as a subordinate and I see you as a subordinate. We both think each other are subordinate. And again, this isn't having nothing to do with the line diagram. Has nothing to do with, I'm the CEO and you're the COO, it doesn't have anything to do with it. It has to do with how you truly feel.

• 42:56Jocko Willink?

  Which again, you may or may not be in touch with. It may be some subconscious, you know, idea that you have when you talk to me and you're like, I can't believe this guy's in charge. But you know, you couldn't even verbalize those words, but it's there. And I'm gonna feel it. So if you view me as a subordinate and I view you as a subordinate, this is gonna be a problem because we're both gonna treat each other, we're both gonna disrespect each other. It can even in a minor way. And one of the problems here is that, you know, you've heard me say intent has a smell? You're gonna smell it. When I treat you with that little bit of whatever, I scoff you off just a little bit, you're gonna feel that. I cut you off when you're talking, you get done presenting your idea and I immediately just,

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  oh, thanks Jocko, and boom, boom, you know, like we carry on with what I want to do.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, even if you're a, kind of imagining this whole, and imagining real scenarios, by the way, but even if you're polite, even if both people are polite, it's still, you can still feel it because, and I think it comes down to telling people what to do.

• 44:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  So that's like a huge part of it, right? Because that's what a subordinate, superior kind of relationship kind is when you distill it, all of this, all this stuff for sure. But a big part of it is like, let's say, if you're my boss, you can adjust my schedule. Like you can say, oh, hey, tomorrow at two o'clock, come here. You can tell me that, like that's part of the gig, you know? And it's just normal. But if we have a little discrepancy, like I said, if I don't see you as a superior, I see you as a peer or a subordinate and you see me as a subordinate and you're telling me what to do, I'd be like, I'm not gonna do that. Or like, oh, at the very least, get mad at you thinking you can tell me what to do, even if I was gonna do it anyway, by the way.

• 44:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, at a minimum, that's, the feeling is there. Yeah, the feeling is there. And now all of a sudden, you're looking for me to make a mistake. You're looking for that opportunity.

• 44:56Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting in the teams, bro. When you, one thing that's really kind of cool is it's no big deal in the teams, regardless of where you are in the chain of command, to go, you know, hey, grab that ammo over there. Right? This is no big deal. Hey, grab that ammo over there. No, please, no, thank you. We all know that this is part of the, hey, grab that ammo over there. You wouldn't be like, can I get a please? You know what I mean? Like that doesn't happen. But I have definitely seen, seen team guys interact with normal people, you know? Hey, grab me the milk. It's the same exact sentence, grab me the ammo, grab me the milk.

• 45:38Jocko Willink?

  But when you say that to someone, hey, grab me the milk, and it seems rude. It's kind of the same thing where subconsciously, if I subconsciously think I kind of deserve to be able to tell you to give me the milk, give me the, hey, give me the milk, not even pass me, hey, give me the milk. It's not even, it's a statement. And if I, if I have that feeling like I can do that, I'll do it without even really noticing it. And if you have the feeling that, hey, you know what? Hey, Jocko's kind of a badass, like, cool, hey, no problem, here it is. But if you have like, wait, wait a second, Jocko's not no badass, he's just another guy, he's the same as me. Or even worse, why is he telling me to do this? I'm better than he is. It's a problem.

• 46:22Jocko Willink?

  It's a real, true problem. So the question becomes, well, how am I supposed to treat people then? Right? How am I supposed to treat people? How am I supposed to know how to treat people when I can't know for sure how they really see me in the hierarchy, which is a good point that you just made. You can be polite to me, you can be nice to me, and inside, either, again, either consciously or subconsciously, you could be thinking, screw Jocko, I can't believe he thinks he can tell me when to show up here. Even if you show up here with a smile on your face, there's still something going on. So how am I supposed to know

• 47:04Jocko Willink?

  how I should treat you so that I can interact with you and we don't have these underlying issues?

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  What am I supposed to do? Because I can't read, can I read your mind? Can you read anyone's mind? I've asked this question to people before, well, you can tell by their body language? Nope, nope, nope, nope. You can tell by their tone? Nope, nope, nope, nope. Maybe you can, but maybe you can't, you don't know.

• 47:31Jocko Willink?

  So what do you have to do? And the answer is pretty straightforward. What you have to do is regardless of where you think you are and where they think you, where they think you are in this hierarchy, regardless of that, what you do is you subordinate your ego and you treat people as if they're above you in the hierarchy. That's how you treat people.

• 47:59Jocko Willink?

  You treat them with respect, you listen to what they have to say, you allow them to influence you, you put some trust in them, you show them that you care about them. And if you do that, you, all these different scenarios that I talked about, they're all gonna be okay. You subordinate your ego. So instead of having in the back of your mind, you know what? I'm a little bit better than Echo. I make a little bit more money than him, I'm a little bit older than him, I've been doing jujitsu longer than him, I have more kids than him, I have more hair than him. Whatever little things are in your brain that are telling you you're a little bit better than that other person, don't listen to them. Instead, say, you know what?

• 48:42Jocko Willink?

  Echo's got a lot to offer, Echo sees some things I don't see. Echo's got a perspective that I need. Echo's been, he hasn't been doing this as long as me, his outcome's probably gonna be better. You've gotta, again, I'm trying to make clear that I'm not just pretending. I'm not like, oh, I need to act like Echo's better. I need to say, you know, we were talking earlier, I forget if we're recording or not, but when you and I look at someone that does jujitsu, when we're better than them at jujitsu and we tap them out, we don't think I'm a better person than him. I don't even think I'm better at jujitsu. I might say, if I say I'm better than jujitsu than them, I'm better at jujitsu than them right now. Because I've been training for longer than them and at some point, they're gonna train more than me,

• 49:27Jocko Willink?

  whether it's in 10 years or 15 years or three years, at some point, they can overpass me, that's just the way it is. I don't think you're a lesser person because you're not as good at jujitsu as me. I truly, and you know, I don't really view anyone as a subordinate.

• 49:48Jocko Willink?

  And I think this is a, a huge help for this whole idea is when, when I interact with people, I don't view the, I truly, I, I truly, give me a lie detector, give me a soul detector test. Cause there's a difference, right? People can overcome, give me a soul detector, I truly don't look at someone and go, oh, you know what? I'm, I'm better than this person. I don't think that, I think, oh yeah, they haven't, you know, they might not have as much experience as me, but they, they're probably got this and they got that. And I, and I will admit that, sure, I might look at like a very small number of people like, oh yeah, this person's not making good moves. I can see that.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:27Jocko Willink?

  But when I interact with people, I think, oh, I got something to learn from them. They, they're on a different journey, they might not be as far ahead, but they're gonna get further ahead than me. So I don't have anybody that I view as an inferior or as a subordinate on the primal hierarchy. I think they've all got some skills that I don't have. I think they've all can do things better than me.

• 50:51Jocko Willink?

  And if you can keep that in mind, it's going to create better relationships across the board. Remembering that you don't, you, you don't have any subordinates, there are other people and they have different things to offer. And just because in this particular moment, I might be better at, you know, reading aloud than Echo is.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Debatably.

• 51:17Jocko Willink?

  Debatably, I don't know who's debating on your side.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  I might be better at that one skillset than you are, but there's a plethora of things that you're better than me at. And by the way, I also look at it as like, oh, in this momentary ecosystem where reading aloud matters. I win. But there's a whole bunch of other arenas where reading aloud doesn't mean a damn thing. No one cares. No one cares on the football field, how well you read aloud, no one, literally no one, zero people care. Zero people care that you can read aloud well when you're on the football field. Does it, does it matter when you're making a video? How well you can read aloud, doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter at all. So I always look, oh yeah, I'm, I'm ahead in this little tiny ecosystem, I gotta win.

• 52:04Jocko Willink?

  But there's all these other arenas where I'm not better in any way. In fact, there's most arenas where I'm a little bit worse. So the protocol that we have to go with is to subordinate our ego.

• 52:21Jocko Willink?

  Listen to what people have to say, treat them with respect, allow them to influence you, put trust in them and care about them.

• 52:28Jocko Willink?

  That's part one, okay? Part one is to do that subordinate ego. Part two is remember that you are being judged. And then pay attention to the areas where you are getting judged. And this is where that, that idea of a low level of paranoia comes in. You know, I liked, I've gone through my life with a low level of paranoia. Meaning looking around going, you know what, I'm actually not, I, I better do a good job here, I better work a little extra hard. You know, we wrote the book, uh, the code, the evaluation, the protocol. What's good about that book is it gives you a way to grade yourself, right? Grade yourself on things that you're going to be judged in.

• 53:12Jocko Willink?

  And I didn't make this connection until I was thinking about this, I was like, oh, we actually wrote a book about how you get judged. Cause we all get judged on this.

• 53:23Jocko Willink?

  We all get judged on health, on personal development, on professional development, on character, on, on relationships and preparedness. We get judged on those things.

• 53:35Jocko Willink?

  So if you write down what you're getting judged on, you can start to then pay attention to it and measure how you're doing. And that's the point of the, the book, the code, the evaluation, the protocol. We broke down the health portion, like physical fitness, sleep and rest, diet and nutrition. How did you do on those things today? We broke down personal development, intellectual fitness, time management, financial management, personal goals. How, you know, are you wasting money? Did you waste time today? Did you do something to get smarter today? Are there personal goals that you have that you have moved towards? Professional development, how you doing at work? What's your performance at work? What advancement are you looking at? What qualifications have you racked up?

• 54:21Jocko Willink?

  Character and leadership, did you stay humble today? Did you, did you keep control over your emotions today?

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  As a leader, did you help someone else? Did you mentor, did you provide resources to people?

• 54:36Jocko Willink?

  From a relationship perspective, how's the, how's the time that you spent with your family today? How's the time that you spent with your friends today, coworkers today?

• 54:45Jocko Willink?

  From a preparedness thing. And again, this is something else I should have put in the, um, list of things people respect. How, how prepared are you for what's gonna, what's coming?

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  Did you do some martial arts training today? Did you, did you do weapons training today? Did you, did you run through some fire safety drills today? Did you make contact with your community and make sure that they have what they need in some, case something happens? These are things that people universally respect. These are some of the things that we are getting judged on.

• 55:18Jocko Willink?

  And then you have to keep this in mind. The things that you're working on, the things that you strive to get better at.

• 55:28Jocko Willink?

  Just become, just because you are striving to do well at them, and in some cases you might become exceptional at them. You might garner ex- exuberant wealth. You might be, you might get an incredible physical fitness, you might become a high level black belt in jujitsu. There's all kinds of things that you can do that should command respect on this primal order.

• 55:57Jocko Willink?

  But none of that means anything if you're not staying humble.

• 56:03Jocko Willink?

  If you're not staying humble. A while back, a kid asked me, it was on the underground podcast and a kid asked me something along the lines of, and don't quote me. It was something along the lines of if being, becoming an Eagle Scout would be beneficial for service in the military. And I, my answer started with, that depends.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  And the reason that depends is being an Eagle Scout, there's all kinds of awesome things that you learn. And it's difficult to achieve. You learn all these basic skillsets for life, for survivability, for being in the field, for interacting with other people. Like you learn some really quality skills that are all things that, well, not all, but a lot of them could fit right into this, this matrix of being judged and how you're being judged. So if you take and you learn all these skills from becoming an Eagle Scout and it increases your discipline and increases your capability. Man, that's awesome. And it will be beneficial if you join the military.

• 57:14Jocko Willink?

  As long as at some place in the back of your mind, your ego doesn't take those skills that you have and make you think that you're just a little bit better than everyone else. Have you ever seen a program called The Boys?

• 57:33Jocko Willink?

  I haven't watched all of it, but it's a show about superheroes.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 57:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And so the one guy, Homelander.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:41Jocko Willink?

  And he's, he's, he's a superhero, but he's an asshole, right? And

• 57:47Speaker 01

  The blonde dude, right?

• 57:48Jocko Willink?

  The blonde dude, yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Okay, that's the one.

• 57:50Jocko Willink?

  I have known, like, leaders in the military, officers in the military that were basically Homelander because, and you could see it stemming from the fact that they were an Eagle Scout. You know what I mean? Like, good, good, it's funny, people that were Eagle Scouts that are good, you don't know that they're an Eagle Scout until you've known them for like a year and a half. And you know, one day you're like out somewhere and you're trying to rig something and they like, oh, hey, try this knot. And you're like, dude, where'd you know that knot from? He's like, oh, I was an Eagle Scout. And you go, oh damn, okay. And you put, and you do like a, a sixth sense assessment of everything that you've seen this person do over the years. You're like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  Guy was always, you know, working hard, has good character, okay, that makes sense, Eagle Scout, oh yeah, all day. But then there's the other end of the spectrum. The person that's like, well, you know, before I went to the naval academy, I was an Eagle Scout. And you're like, oh no, here it comes. This person thinks he's better than me because he is an Eagle Scout, you know, was the captain of the football team, went to the naval academy, all these things. Every one of those things is unfortunately for him, giving him the impression that he is higher on the primal order than he actually is. And that is a significant problem. So when you work hard to improve yourself, you've got to remember that

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  you still need to be humble. Well, the worst mistake that you can make is overestimating how much people respect you and where you are on the, on the, on the primal order, where you are on this primal hierarchy. The worst mistake you can make, when I look at leaders throughout my career, military and non-military, the guys that were hated, the guys that were hated, again, if you were to ask them to assess their leadership and how much the team respected and admired them, it would be off the charts. Off the charts.

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  And if you take someone that really was revered and admired and the way that they would grade themselves would be low. And this is the classic case on the, on podcast number five that we did.

• 1:00:14Jocko Willink?

  I read a counseling, ch, counseling, uh, verbal counseling that I went through, that I wrote down for a SEAL officer that was gonna get fired. He wasn't getting fired yet, but I was trying to give him the final escalation of counseling of like, you are going to get fired. And I, just as direct, no holds barred.

• 1:00:35Jocko Willink?

  You are arrogant, people do not like you, your team doesn't want to listen to you, the whole nine yards, just direct. And I had created a self-assessment for the SEAL leaders that were going to start their workup, pre-deployment workup. And I'd only done it, this is probably the second SEAL team that I'd done it for. Hey, just assess how you are in these categories, you know, tactical, leadership, you know, uh, physical, just rate yourself, where you're at. And I hadn't actually utilized them. I thought it was a good idea, but I hadn't actually utilized them. And as I'm getting ready to counsel this guy, I go, hey, you know what? I want to pull out that self-assessment I made for this guy and see what he thinks of himself.

• 1:01:19Jocko Willink?

  And I shit you not, the highest grade you could get for each category was a 5.0.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Jocko Willink?

  And this dude ranked himself in whatever it was, nine different categories and subcategories of leadership. He ranked himself as a 5.0 across the board.

• 1:01:41Jocko Willink?

  So, and as I looked at that, I go, dude, this is crazy. And I said to myself, you know what? I wonder if, I wonder what, one of the good guys, how one of the good, and I, you know, currently I was putting a SEAL team through the pre-deployment training and this guy was part of that SEAL team. And I said, who's the best guy I got going through right now, this, this training? And I said, oh yeah, I know who it is. It was really obvious, real standout guy, humble guy, hardworking. Actually, crazy thing, this guy had been through some significant combat experiences with some significant combat disasters. Like he'd been, he'd been tested on the battlefield, the other guy hadn't.

• 1:02:22Jocko Willink?

  I, so I go, I wonder how that guy graded himself. So I reach in the file, I pull out this guy's thing, and he's giving himself a two and a 2.5 and a three, and his average score was like a 2.6.

• 1:02:37Jocko Willink?

  And that guy was respected and, and admired by his platoon. And this other knucklehead was hated and the knucklehead ended up getting fired. And that's a classic example of exactly what I'm talking about. The way this guy viewed himself as a 5.0 across the board, he was hated.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  And the guy that viewed himself as, you know, average to below average was admired and revered by his troops.

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  So, keep that in mind. You don't, just like you, you know, you don't have as much leadership capital as you think you do. You don't have all this respect and you're not as high on that pri- primal order as you think you are. And the only way to defend against having a problem is to rank yourself at the bottom. Be humble. That's what we have to do. So, remember, I would say that you are being judged. You're being judged all the time. By the way, if you think people don't notice stuff, that should be your red flag that you're an idiot and that you're arrogant and that you're egotistical and that people don't like you.

• 1:03:47Jocko Willink?

  When you think people don't notice things, you are so wrong. And right now, if you're listening to me going, yeah, but he's not, yeah, I don't really agree with that because I'm a little bit smarter than the rest of people. That's, I'm telling you, that is a red flag. That is a red flag. When you think people don't see what you do, when you think they don't see your little maneuvers, that is a red flag. So you have to remember that you're being judged all the time.

• 1:04:11Jocko Willink?

  I would specifically detach and think about and think about what you're being judged on and write those things down. Maybe even formulate a code, maybe even formulate a, a, an evaluation system. So you can check yourself and you can try and improve your capabilities in these categories that you write down. So whatever job you're in, write down how you think you're being judged for that job and how can you get better on those things? And yes, you should think about the, the, the primal things, you should think about the ancillary things, you should think about the universal things. Think about how you're being judged and write them down. And you, you might have some faux pas in some of those categories, right?

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  You might've really screwed some stuff up. Okay. Well, you better over-index on some other things to straighten yourself out. You know, if you're one of these people that's been unreliable in the past, how are you going to earn back that reliability? It takes, it's not, it, this does not happen overnight.

• 1:05:12Jocko Willink?

  You have to, and you have to overcompensate for it sometimes. And you might have areas that are just weak. You know, you might have some areas that you're just weak in. You know, we'd get guys in the SEAL teams that would just like, they wouldn't be a good shot. They just wouldn't be a good shot. And they'd, they'd work their ass off to be really good at some other stuff. Or you have somebody that's not really good at diving. Okay. Well, they'd work really hard. I mean, there's like a certain level of natural ability. And with shooting, you know, with shooting, you know,

• 1:05:44Jocko Willink?

  there, there's, there's probably one out of every hundred guys that is just not going to be that good with a pistol. They're just, they just don't have whatever little thing it is, some hand-eye coordination. It's one out of every hundred guys, they barely, barely make it through SEAL training. Some of them make up for it and they just train their ass off until they get good. But some of those guys even, they're just never going to have that really, and they're just going to get good at some other stuff. And they make up for the, for their shortfalls. So as you look at your life and where you're at and what you're doing and you look at how you're being judged, there's probably going to be some categories where you go, yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty bad in that category. Definitely try and improve it. Some of it is hard to improve.

• 1:06:28Jocko Willink?

  Some of it, you know, if you're getting judged, if you play basketball, part of the judgment of how good you are is like how tall you are, can't change that. Can't change that. So maybe you become a really good shooter. Maybe you become a hardcore defender. Maybe you get really good at rebounds, Dennis Rodman.

• 1:06:48Jocko Willink?

  Did you see The Last Dance?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  The Last Dance documentary?

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Dude, you should watch it. But Dennis Rodman would watch and like where his opponents would miss, generally speaking. He just, he just went so hard into becoming a good rebounder that it didn't matter that he wasn't putting up big numbers on the offense. Cause he was, he made up for it. So you should do that. Write some things down, how are you being judged? And then figure out where your shortfalls are, try and improve those. Remember that people are watching you and remember that if you think they're not watching you, you're wrong. And if you think they're watching you, they don't see what you're doing, you're the most wrong. Lack of self-awareness, real problem.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  And then try and do better and try and be better.

• 1:07:39Jocko Willink?

  And then as much as you can, try not to judge people. And I, I recognize that that is a very difficult thing to do. It's very difficult to look at someone else and not, on some level, judge other people. But here's what you can control, is when you judge them, then try and explain to yourself why you are actually their subordinate. You are actually, you should be listening to what they have to say. You should be treating them with respect. You have to stay humble because you don't know where you are on that category in their head.

• 1:08:19Jocko Willink?

  So, that's what we need to do. To close this out, subordinate your ego while you simultaneously try and become the best that you can.

• 1:08:32Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I got.

• 1:08:36Jocko Willink?

  With that, to get better.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're getting better.

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  Look, we're going to get better mentally. We need to try and be more earnest. We're going to try and take care of people. We're going to be humble, but we're also going to have to be strong.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Healthy. We're getting judged on that. That means we're getting after it. It means we're doing jiu-jitsu, we're lifting, we're running, we're sprinting. And when we do that, guess what? Guess what?

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  What, we're going to need some fuel or what?

• 1:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, all right, Jocko Fuel. Check out Jocko Fuel. Check out Jacofuel.com. We have protein. We have energy drinks, we have hydration, we have super krill oil, we have protein powder, we have ready to drink protein. Which we might as well call protein powder, just protein desserts.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:21Jocko Willink?

  Cause they taste so good. The ready to drink protein. We're, we're kind of, we're kind of crushing. Look, do, are, is the vanilla and the chocolate great? Yes, they are. They're phenomenal. But the fruity cereal?

• 1:09:38Jocko Willink?

  It's it's kind of amazing. It's kind of amazing, kind of nostalgic. And now we have this raspberry gelato ready to drink, bro. Breakfast glory.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Agree.

• 1:09:52Jocko Willink?

  You can get this stuff at jockofuel.com. You can get the the supplementation that you need. The time war, the joint warfare, the things that you need. You can get it there, or you can get it in the retailer, the store where you shop. Generally speaking, we're probably gonna be in there. If we're not in there, ask and we'll get in there.

• 1:10:12Jocko Willink?

  jockofuel.com. Be strong, stay strong. Also, originusa.com. We make American made clothing. We make jujitsu gear, all hundred percent made in America, which is a miracle. It's awesome. And we've been doing this for years. We've been doing this before. It was cool to make and make stuff in America. We were making stuff in America. And not only that, we are supporting other people that produce things in America, like the people that grow the cotton, the people that make the zippers, the people that make the thread, all hundred percent American. So don't buy a communist T-shirt. Or a communist hoodie.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Or God forbid, a communist jujitsu gi. Or rash guard. Buy an American one. Buy American made. Help America. Help our security, help our economy, help our communities. And help yourself, by the way, by getting awesome gear. Jeans, boots. They're just epic across the board. It's what we do. Check out originusa.com. Where everything is built by freedom.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  It's true. Are you gonna cap this year, by the way?

• 1:11:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:11:31Jocko Willink?

  We are.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  We are. Yeah, August. Yeah, I'm already I'm already registered, etc., etc. Oh, yeah. Don't forget about Jock Store, representing on this path of improvement, regardless of where you are on the hierarchy, primal order of things, pecking order, all of the above. I actually had a thought, though, rewind just a little bit. So you know, like, um, these some, some of these universal qualities that are that are appreciated, whatever, respected, like integrity. I noticed that it has a lot to do with consistency over time. For sure. Like integrity, right? Like, let's say Jock was integrity, and you can trust him, you can trust him in the safe, you know, in the till, the whole thing, whatever you work at a store.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  You have to show integrity. Like, if you, let's say, you don't have integrity, right? And you're like, you know what? I'm gonna make a change. You know, I got caught stealing. I don't know, some, something like this. And I'm gonna make a change. You can't just sort of make a change and it's changed. You gotta do it consistently over time, because that's like, by its own nature, is that like trustworthy integrity, um, kind of everything, though. When you think about it, like, I was, as you know, I was part of a, I'm part of a long line of late people, you know? Let's just say I may or may not struggle with showing up on time.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  So if I'm like, okay, I changed, I turn over a new leaf, I'm coming, I'm I'm no longer a tardy person. I can't just show up next week and everyone be like, oh, my gosh, you're not late anymore. Congratulations, you're different. No, no, no. I can be on time for two months, every single day, forty hours a week. When I come in late on that second month, the end of that second month, everyone's be like, oh, yeah, that's you. You're a tardy person, like, you know, no, no surprise, no change. You had to do it consistently over time. So basically, my by my calculations, I forget if I told you this before, my calculations is, as long as as it took for you to establish that reputation of being a tardy person

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  or a whatever person, you need that much time to get back to baseline to start a new reputation. Give or take.

• 1:13:38Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I think you're wrong.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Okay. Longer or not as long, way longer.

• 1:13:43Jocko Willink?

  Way longer.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Because you ever heard that thing, one aw shit erases a hundred atta boys?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:52Jocko Willink?

  That's a hundred.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  A hundred, do you think?

• 1:13:54Jocko Willink?

  A hundred to one. Now, is that completely accurate? No, because I don't think it would take a hundred years to make up for if you were late for, like, let's say, let's say, for a year, you were, you and I started working together. And for a year, you were like intermittently late.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Jocko Willink?

  And then you turned over a new leaf. So you're saying it would take one year to get back to baseline?

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Baseline, meaning you have an even reputation, you don't have a reputation either for or against. That's when you can start your new.

• 1:14:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, actually, if I think about that, if you were consistently on time for a year.

• 1:14:29Jocko Willink?

  And then you were late again. What would I think? Would I think, oh, yeah, he's late?

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that is the start of a new reputation, which is coincidentally, the old reputation.

• 1:14:41Jocko Willink?

  But I think I would immediately tie back into the the year that you were late all the time.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, after one year.

• 1:14:46Jocko Willink?

  So I think you gotta go two years. I think you gotta go double.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:50Jocko Willink?

  Double to get to baseline.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Baseline.

• 1:14:52Jocko Willink?

  Double to get to baseline.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  I think double to get to into the new reputation, I think. Okay, so this is the way I see it, too. Oh, you can take it with pretty much anything. I guess if it's a real detrimental thing, might take longer, because there's more to risk, I think psychologically, but let's say late. We work together for one year. I'm late like twice a week out of the five days a week, right? Three times a week. That's a late person right there. Three times a week is late. For one year. The one year I'm like, maybe I get counseled or I just turn over a new leaf, right? I hear this cool podcast saying African, you know, the whole late speech. And then for one whole year, I'm never late at all. In fact, I come in five minutes early on the dot every single time, right? For one more year. I would say, if I wasn't the late person, I was witnessing it, I would think, yeah, we're about back to baseline.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  I don't, I mean, I don't necessarily expect them to be on time every time at this point, but I'm kind of convinced that I'm not convinced he'll be late three times. See what I'm saying? So we're at baseline now. Add add one more year.

• 1:15:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  From that baseline, that one year, now one more year. So it's been two whole years total.

• 1:15:56Jocko Willink?

  That you've been on time.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  And you've been on time, same exact on the dot, five minutes before. Now, it's been two years since you turned over a new leaf. And you only had one year reputation of being, I think you'd be into a new reputation. You'd be an on time guy at that point.

• 1:16:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I agree. Here's the, I think one of the problems with that is I think people inherently know how difficult it is for people to change.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Jocko Willink?

  And so even when you are on time for a whole year straight, and you're late again, ah, there it is.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, oh, there it is. When you, we're so ready for people to just not be able to change, because people, it is very difficult for people to change. Usually people change because of either something traumatic, like, oh, yeah, Echo had a job, he got fired. And he had a really good job. By the way, a shitty job, if you got fired from being a freaking, when you were a bouncer, if you got fired, you'd have been like,

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  whatever.

• 1:16:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, whatever. But if you had some really good job and that you love doing and you got fired, then it'd be a wake up call.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Jocko Willink?

  But even then, even then, it's really hard for people to change. It's weird how hard it is for people to change their nature. You know, when people have a bad temper and it gets them in trouble over and over again. I mean, never mind, we get into like, talk about addiction. You start talking about addiction and it's like alcoholism. You know, on the one hand, the one choice, I'm not gonna drink, there you have health, you have prosperity, you have relationships. You have feeling good when you wake up in the morning. You have a clean house. Like, there's, there's all these things. On the other choice is you just drunk.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  And people consistently choose, I'm not gonna be healthy, I'm not gonna be prosperous, I'm not gonna be clean, I'm gonna feel like shit, and we'll just take, we'll take it. Because I just want to have alcohol. That's one example. Someone being late, it's very difficult to get people to change. They don't realize how much of a detriment it is.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  So it's like all those little things that we remember. So when you show up late, you were late for a year, and then you're good for a year. And all of a sudden, you're late. I'm like, oh, there it is.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:12Jocko Willink?

  There it is. So I think people need a little bit more convincing. If you want to prove to someone that they've changed. And by the way, it's not on me to be open to the new you. It's on you. You know, when you've created yourself a bad reputation, and then you think everyone needs to, you know, accept the new you, it doesn't work that way. You have to earn it, and it might take years. When people have broken trust, trust, it really causes problems. You know, it takes a long time to recover that trust. And again, was it unintentional? Was it intentional? Did you like legitimately steal from me?

• 1:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Or did you just, hey, you're, you did wrong math, and now you ended up with a few thousand in your bank account? And we go through the numbers and you're like, oh, dude, I didn't realize, blah, blah, blah. Okay, you know, that's different. I'm still, my trust for you has gone down, but it's different when then when I'm like, oh, here's where you moved the money.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, there's, and actually, I mean, not to go too, it goes even deeper than that, because I've had someone, people like literally like steal from me. But in the spirit of understanding, I always like, you know, we do this as fun sometimes, where we'll be like, I don't agree with it, and I wouldn't do that, but I can see how he got there, you know, and that that path of. Opportunity all the way down to action, right? The stealing. If you can kind of mentally kind of understand each step, given the circumstances, that journey is going to determine whether or not, or how long it's going to take to build back trust.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  You know, because some people like they're kind of, it's like the difference between premeditated, I don't know, assault versus aggravated assault. It's like, oh, wait, like, I can see how we got there, given the circumstance, you know? So it kind of, you make the evaluation that way. But yeah, you're right, you're actually so right about. Cause there's, let's face it, it's pretty common, in my experience, it's pretty common where it's like, oh, I turned over a new leaf. You know, and it's like, but you're still getting treated like you're the old person. Where it's like, yeah, bro, you, you've been that way for like 10 years and it's been two weeks now. And now you're a whole new person. It's like, bro, it's gonna take some time to kind of prove that, you know?

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  It's kind of up to you to make your case. Through acts, through the behavior, you see what I'm saying?

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  It's really hard for people to change. There's gotta be a real reason for it. We had, I had a new guy in one of my platoons and he was just like a, like always a loud mouth, right? And we tried everything. We tried counseling, we tried talking to him, we tried beating him, we tried, we did everything. And again, we liked him. But like, bro, you gotta know when to shut the up, you know what I mean? And he never changed. Like I do him for, I think he stayed in for 10, 12, 15 years or something like that, maybe 12 years. And like the whole time I knew him, he was always like that. And he's like, oh yeah, he's not gonna change. So, and he probably, you know, it got him into some trouble. You know, his mouth would get him into some trouble.

• 1:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Once, you know, we kind of understood that. But we tried to beat it out of him, but he couldn't change him. Like imagine you, you know what you're doing is wrong, but you can't stop.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Jocko Willink?

  It's like that, like that was just his personality.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and so you think, well, it's very difficult for people to change. Very, very difficult for people to change.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  It's basically like, kind of how you said, where it's either to change, you gotta have big trauma, like one traumatic thing, but even traumatic thing is so subjective where you could quote unquote, beat it out of them, but getting beat up is not trauma. That's like, bro, I've been beat up before, fuck, whatever, you know, kind of thing. But some people, it's like, if they get embarrassed, they'll be like, oh, and they'll change, you know? Cause that's traumatic, you know, so trauma is very subjective in that way. Or so either one big traumatic thing and they change, or repetitive, like almost like a therapeutic level. Or like, you're hanging around the right people now, you know? And it slowly over time after one, you're just like them, especially if you're conscious of it, you know? So it's like either those two.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  But yeah, you can't just be like, hey, I think you should change and then, or you can't just see like a cool movie or video and be like, oh, I want to be like freaking the guy on A Few Good Men. Freaking the guy was honorable, so I want to be honorable, you know?

• 1:22:33Jocko Willink?

  Although there's people that, that that happens to, but it's gotta find them at the right time and they gotta, you got, you know, it's like, when they say you gotta want that change, you know what I mean? Like, I think the recidivism rate in like rehab is like 95%. Like you go to rehab, cool. You just don't drink for 22 days or whatever it is, 30 days, you come back out, 95, 98% chance or something like that. You're drinking again. Until someone, something happens, you know, they, they get in a car accident, they lose their license and they go, holy shit, I'm ruining my life.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  And then they can stop.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and obviously I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff, but it does seem like if it's deep into who they are, then you're in that scenario where either, either trauma or repetitive. But otherwise it's like, it's probably not, you know, if you, if you can watch a movie and be like, I want to be more like that guy. And then you're more like that guy, it's like, bro, your current identity isn't that established, you know? You see, and it kind of works like that across the board. Like even like if people are like you, if you quit drinking, right? You, you're not an alcoholic by any means. You're a kind of guy who's like, well, this isn't really service, like consciously just be like, it's not really serving me.

• 1:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  And then stop drinking and boom, that's kind of it, you know, that's like enough. But alcoholic person, that's like a deeper scenario, you know, where if it's like, if you have to go to quote unquote rehab, like an actual established professional rehab place, all right, we're talking therapy area at that point. We're talking repeated conscious, you know, kind of thing. It still doesn't work. It's like, bro, that's a deeper thing than Jocko's drinking with the boys sometimes, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  Anyway, a lot of us were on the path, we're represented on the path. Discipline equals freedom, which is true, by the way. I learned that about 10, 11 years ago. Discipline equals freedom, where this idea of good, you want to represent that, we got your shirts for you. Got some jackets for you, fall coming up in a few months, by the way.

• 1:24:35Jocko Willink?

  Sure is.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Got some hoodies for you, um, some shorts for you, a lot of good stuff on there, good designs. Um, I'm gonna, okay, there's another thing, the shirt locker, you already know, I know. Shirt locker, subscription scenario, new design every month. Think I'm gonna release one more design into the wild from old school shirt locker.

• 1:24:52Jocko Willink?

  What one?

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  All your excuses are lies.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's a good one.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Pretty solid, yeah. Written on the floor with chalk, by the way.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  But anyway, be on the lookout for that if you want the heads up on that one. And anything else, it's rare, but uh, sometimes I do give people the heads up when these new things come out. So you can get, get, get a jump on them. Sometimes, sometimes they sell out. When I say sometimes, all the time. It's my bad. I still gotta get a handle of how much to get, but uh, if you want, you want the heads up, sign up on the email list on jocko store.com at the bottom there. Put your email in there. I won't spam, I don't spam, but I do not believe in spamming as being a useful behavior.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  Me neither.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  I am all, but anyway, yes, it's all on jocko store.com.

• 1:25:36Jocko Willink?

  With that, we also got some books. I've written a bunch of books, written a bunch of kids books. You can check those out also. Check out Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones and Need to Lead by Dave Burke. Check out ColoradoCraftBeef.com if you need some steak. We have Echelon Front if you have problems inside of your organization, leadership problems. The problems are leadership problems. Maybe you're not quite, maybe there's a whole shadow organization and hierarchy in your team that you don't know about. That's what we do. We help you at echelonfront.com. Check that out for our events or to have us come into your business and help you out. We also have an online leadership training academy. Leadership is a skill. And if you want to learn the skills of leadership, check out extremeownership.com.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got an amazing charity organization, helping so many of our vets. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also check out HeroesAndHorses.org. Micah Fink taking veterans up into the mountains where they can lose themselves and find themselves. Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. Check out their swim they have coming up, August. Also WarriorsInNeed, WarriorsInNeed.org. Checking, taking a military aviation

• 1:27:05Jocko Willink?

  people and moving them into the civilian sector in a smooth transition. So check that out as well. If you want to connect with us, check out jocko.com. Also on social media.

• 1:27:16Jocko Willink?

  You can check out at Jocko Willink and Echo is at Echo Charles. But just be careful, cause it's a big freaking brainwashing

• 1:27:26Jocko Willink?

  cesspool that you don't want any part of. So maybe don't check us out. Maybe just stay away from it.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are currently deployed around the world right now in harm's way, out there to protect freedom and our way of life. We are thankful and grateful for you. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And everyone else out there, just, look, there's a lot of judging going on in the world. People are judging you. Which means you need to get better, you need to do better, you need to be better. But once again, warning, do not let it get to your head.

• 1:28:12Jocko Willink?

  Don't let your ego grow just because your skills grew, or just because your strength grew, or just because your intellect grows. Instead, stay humble. As you push yourself to get better. And you do that by getting up every day and getting after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.