513: Be Big in the Little Things. Lessons from a Hero. With Ryan Manion

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Ryan Manion joins to share stories from her brother Travis — Naval Academy graduate, Marine officer, Silver Star recipient — and how his character and choices live on through her new children’s book and the Travis Manion Foundation. 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 513 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  One day before Travis was set to head back out with the Marines to serve in Iraq, he went with his friends to a football game to watch his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, play and create fun memories. The Eagles won and Travis and his friends were pumped. But they were also sad because he would soon be leaving the country. One of them jokingly grabbed Travis, "How about we keep you from going back to Iraq? So you can stay here and have fun with all of us instead."

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  Travis knew his friend was just kidding around and wanted him to stay in Philadelphia, where it was safe. But Travis also knew that he had to face the dangers of war because protecting America's freedom was the most important thing he believed he could do to help his country. Travis became very serious. He knew that staying behind would leave his team without his experience. And if another Marine replaced him, that Marine might not have the same level of training that he had. Travis took his duty very seriously. He turned to his friend and said five simple words.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  "If not me, then who?"

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a new book, a kid's book. And the book is called Things My Brother Used to Say, and it is written by Travis's sister, Ryan Manion. And the book shares the wisdom of Travis Manion, who was a wrestler, a graduate from the Naval Academy, a Marine Corps officer, a recipient of the Silver Star, a man who sacrificed his life for his friends and for his nation. And the author, Ryan Manion, as I said, it's Travis Manion's sister. She is also the daughter of Marine Corps Colonel Tom Manion, who was on this podcast many years ago, episode number 72.

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  And we discussed the book that he wrote, which was entitled Brothers Forever. And it was about his son Travis and his son's best friend, Brendan Looney, another individual from the Naval Academy, who was a SEAL, who was also killed in combat.

• 2:29Jocko Willink?

  And Ryan has also been on this podcast before, episode number 201, and we discussed her first book, which is called The Knock at the Door. And so if you haven't listened to Podcast 72 and you haven't listened to Podcast 201, go, go listen to them to kind of hear the full backstory of Travis, hear about the hero that he was, the inspiration that he was and is, and how he left such an amazing, an immense impact on the people around him.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  And Ryan has carried on that impact. And that's not only with her books, but she has a podcast called The Resilient Life Podcast. And of course,

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  and perhaps most impactfully, she is the CEO of an organization called The Travis Manion Foundation, which has the goal of empowering veterans and families of fallen heroes to develop character in future generations. And it is an honor to have Ryan with us once again here tonight to discuss this new book, this new kid's book, a kid's book that I learned a lot from. It's called Things My Brother Used to Say. And she can help explain how we can all continue to follow Travis Manion's incredible lead. Ryan, thanks for joining us once again.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's great to see you. And, you know, we're going to get into this book. I'm sure a lot of kids are going to get to this book and I bet a lot of parents are going to learn a lot from this book as well. Let's talk a little bit just to, just to introduce the Travis Manion Foundation. What, tell us about when it started and where it's at right now.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  So the foundation started really after, right after Travis was killed. You know, that was 2007 and there was no GoFundMe back then or anything. And, and in the newspaper and Travis's obituary.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  You know, we had put in lieu of flowers, please donate to the First Lieutenant Travis Manion Memorial Fund. And my parents' friends had set up a bank account at a local bank outside of Philadelphia. And a couple of weeks after his funeral, we had several hundred thousand dollars in this bank account. And we were like, oh crap, like, what are we doing with this? You know? Travis wasn't married, he had no children. And so, really, at first, we were like, okay, well, what's the natural thing to do? We're going to support initiatives at his high school and at his college. So, we did some stuff at the Naval Academy, we did some stuff at LaSalle College High School outside of Philadelphia, where he went to high school.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And then, it was really my mom, she was like, you know, I want to, I want to, I want to become a foundation, I want to, I want to do stuff. And my dad and I, I always say, because people all the time are, will say to my dad and I, like, what you've done, what you've created, and we are very quick to say, we created nothing. Like, we looked at this, I remember, it was actually in, I believe it might have been in San Diego, it was at a Marine Corps Ball that we went to the year after Travis died. We went with his recon unit, they had invited us. And my dad was sitting out on the deck, he was smoking a cigar, it was after the Marine Corps Ball, and he's like, you know, I think we should let your mom run with this, this

• 5:54Speaker 01

  is a really good way for her to, like, put her energy into something. And so, we saw it as this great way for her to channel her grief. And we thought it would operate locally in Philadelphia, she'd give out scholarships. And, I'll tell you what, you know, there was this moment where all of a sudden, we kind of looked at each other, maybe 18 months, 24 months down the line, and we were like, oh shit, like, she's, like, she's really doing something here. And so, I'm always very quick to say, like, I jumped on the bandwagon. I waited until there was, like, proof of concept, and then I was like, I want to be a part of this, you know? So, so, we opened our second office here in San Diego.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  We were located in Philadelphia, opened in San Diego, and I joined the foundation. And I was working underneath my mom. Like, I was just like her protege. I was following her around. And it was so awesome to see my mom as a military spouse who never had a career herself. Because we moved so many times. So she just showed up and she was a teacher's aide, or she worked at the dentist's office as a receptionist. She did whatever she could just to find something wherever we were living. And to see, all of a sudden, her have this like incredible business acumen, and I'm like, she's running stuff. Like, this is incredible.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And I only worked with her briefly, just a little over a year before she was diagnosed with cancer. And she died eight months after the day she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And two weeks later, our board of directors held a emergency board meeting, and they said, Ryan, you're in charge. And it was probably the scariest moment of my life, because I had no idea what I was doing. Because really, I was just kind of my mom's task rabbit. It was like, I can get that done. I can do that. And now I felt like I had these incredible shoes I had to fill. It was this organization named after my brother that my mom had founded and had gotten at that point.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Like, people were talking about us, like, in the VSO space, you knew of the Travis Manion Foundation. So there was a lot of pressure. And a lot of times, people will say, well, like, how did you take TMF from where it was after your mom passed to where it is today? And I got some really great advice. And it came from Alex Gorski, who serves as our vice chair at the Travis Manion Foundation. He's a West Point grad. He was the chairman and CEO of Johnson &amp; Johnson. And I remember having a conversation with him, and I said, I don't know what I'm doing. And he said to me, hire smart people then. And that's what I did. And I went out and I

• 8:45Speaker 01

  found the smartest people I could find that knew how to do this. And that's how the Travis Manning Foundation grew. And, you know, here we are today. We are one of the largest veteran service organizations in the country with over 300,000 members of veterans and families of the fallen. And, you know, for us, our, our work is very different than a traditional VSO. Our model is flipped. We cannot function as an organization if we don't have veterans leading our programs. So it's a very different model than you see in other veteran service organizations across the country.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting. So a lot of times people ask me questions about like, oh, they got a problem with one of their leaders, or they got a problem with one of their students, or they got a problem with one of their team members. And I always say that for me, leadership itself is a really good tool for leadership. In other words, if I've got problems with you, Ryan, like you're, you're, you're not stepping up and making things happen, I'll put you in charge of something where you will step up and make things happen, or you're gonna learn, and you're gonna learn a lot while you're doing that. And so that's kind of the model that you guys have, which is taking veterans and saying, hey, we, we need you to lead.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Jocko Willink?

  Talk me through some of the, because you really have like an area that's focused on kids, and then an area that's focused on adults.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, so the work we do with youth is, is, it's funny, because it's kind of secondary to, originally to what our, our mission was. But when my mom put our 501(c)(3) paperwork in, it was this blanket mission. And it said, the Travis Manning Foundation's mission is to provide support and resources to our nation's returning veterans and families of the fallen, and to also play a part in helping to create the next generation of leaders. And I was like, how the heck are you gonna do that? And I was like, Mom, that is way too broad. We gotta focus down. And she would always, and when I would say, okay, how are you gonna help create the next generation of leaders? She didn't know, like, she, she

• 10:53Speaker 01

  actually did not know how we were going to do that, or how she wanted to do that. But she kept talking about

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Who Travis was as an individual and the mentorship that he had along the way. And it was great coaches, it was great teachers, it was great parents. And, and she said, this, this is really important and, and we're going to figure it out. And we did, and we did that by creating a program that over a million youth have gone through, where we're teaching kids about character, about how to live lives of character. They, listen, a million kids have seen your face, Jocko, talking about leadership, because you're in the video that we show to these kids. But it's an entire curriculum built on this idea of you need to live a life of character. You need to understand regardless of whether you join the military or not,

• 11:45Speaker 01

  how you become a servant leader in your own backyard, in your own community. And who better to teach these principles than our nation's veterans, who have taken off the uniform, but still have a desire to serve. So, um, yeah, it's two parts, but it's, it's one, right? It's all one, one mission at this point.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  Explain to me, or explain to the people, if I've got a school or I've got a kid and I want to get my kids into this program, how does that work?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  I mean, we're, we're regionally set up across the country. We have over 70 chapters, you contact us. And I will say, this is my call out right now. Our biggest issue as an organization is we can't fulfill the number of schools, sports teams, youth groups that want to bring this program. We need more veterans. So if you're a veteran out there listening, join our mission and become a Character Does Matter mentor, like activate in your community. But that's how you do it. You get in touch with us and, and we work with you to, to set it up.

• 12:48Jocko Willink?

  And then if my kids, or how does it, how does it enter a school? Like, is it, okay, there's videos, there's curriculum, is it books? Is it like workbooks? How are we teaching the kids?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  It's a caveat of different things. So we have schools that do, you know, 12 week, um, 12 week courses with cohorts of veterans, where they're meeting once a week after school. Every, all the way down to the most kind of basic is a veteran comes in and gives like a student wide assembly. And, and. Everything in between. The other thing that we do and which has been um an offset of this program, which is so cool, is that we now have over 50 um student-led clubs. So th- these kids are, there are 50 Travis Manion Foundation service clubs across the country. So if your kid that like, and we have, and she's sitting right here, she's the one that works with all these kids

• 13:42Speaker 01

  across the country and gives them the resources and the tool book, but it's not like, oh, go do a service club. It's you want to do a service club with us? Here's the guidebook. Here's our expectations of what we need you to accomplish if you want to run what we deem to be a Travis Manion Foundation Service Club. Um but seeing the kids get back out there, it's it's awesome.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  That is awesome. And then you guys do a bunch of uh like events, right? A lot of running events? So you have what the?

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, we ju- well, we have the Jogging for Frogman. I know you've you've come to that for us. So we have the Jogman for Frogman Race Series, and then we have our 9/11 Heroes Run Race Series. And so we just closed out the 9/11 Heroes Run Race Series. We had over 100 events worldwide, um over 60,000 participants. Um I was at our last one, which was last Sunday in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where it all began. And you know, there were 3,000 people out there. And it was, it's just like, i- it was incredible, you know? So.

• 14:41Jocko Willink?

  Do they do Jogging for Frogman in other places besides San Diego?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we, yeah, we have one, we, I know we have Virginia Beach. I think we have like, maybe close to 10 locations, and then we do a virtual extortion run with that too. Yeah.

• 14:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those are, those are really good events. Like I s- like you mentioned, I've been to those uh quite a, quite a few times. It's really good to see the community come out. And it's not like uh some big pressure situation where, you know, it's just everyone in the community that's out there having a good time.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Well, and that's what I always say, like, our, our race series, they're not, it's not about the run, right? It's like galvanizing communities to come together, right? So that's, you know, people will be like, well, I don't run. I'm like, then come out and stand on the sidewalk, you know, and cheer for the runners that are going by. Like, it's not about the run or the race. Nothing drives me crazier than when you get these like, you know, these 5K pros and they come out and they're like, uh, this, this lonely logged is 3 point, you know, not 3.09. And I'm like, dude, that's not the point. You're, you're missing the whole point of what we're trying to do here.

• 15:43Jocko Willink?

  Now is your favorite event of the year, the Army Navy tailgate?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  It is.

• 15:49Jocko Willink?

  Is it far and away?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Far and away.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  Not even close?

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 15:52Jocko Willink?

  So you guys do this massive, so in America, we have the Army Navy game, West Point against the Naval Academy. It's a huge deal. It's a huge tradition. It's epic. I'd never been to one until.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Was that the, I was, I was actually wondering, was the first one you came to with us?

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was the first one I ever went to. So it was very cool to see it up close and personal. And I had a friend of mine who was a quarterback and he was in the SEAL teams with me and his name was Almid Gresard and he, he got killed. And, uh, but so we, I kind of heard, you know, I heard about it, but man, it was awesome to go out to, you see, it's gotta be, it's gotta be like the epicenter of American patriotism.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  It is.

• 16:32Jocko Willink?

  Ever.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Well, do you remember the first, it was that, the first game, the first Army Navy game, cause you've now been to a few. We were walking around Philadelphia afterwards and you know, it's all the midshipmen and cadets and everyone's out there. And you couldn't walk, you could not walk six inches without getting stopped. Like it, it was wild. And we're just trying to get to a place to get like a burger and we ended up back at the hotel. Cause we're like, there's nowhere to go. Like this is not gonna, this is not gonna work, but like it is, that's what I always say, like the, the feeling of patriotism you have when you're at this event, there's nothing like it. Nothing like it.

• 17:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's crazy. Cause I've, I've spoken at the Naval Academy and I've spoken at West Point and you know, I hear from people at the West Point, at people at West Point and the Naval Academy all the time. So when I go out there and, and see all these cadets and midshipmen, it, it's nuts. It's, it's epic. It's awesome. And so you guys do a tailgate or the TMF does a tailgate party and.

• 17:38Jocko Willink?

  Is that the main party that exists there besides like individual human beings having parties?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  There's other tailgates, but none of them compared to what we do. But I'm going to tell you the backstory on this tailgate, which is, which is interesting. So this tailgate started when my brother was a midshipman at the Naval Academy. And my dad would do a tailgate with Alex Gorski, our, our vice chairman of TMF, West Point grad. So Alex went to West Point. My dad, you know, he didn't go to Navy, but Marine who's got a son at, at Navy. So they started doing these, these tailgates and they would, I mean, and when I say tailgate, it was like 20 of us wherever we parked the car. But we would joke like, we're a true Army Navy tailgate because we have Army fans and West Point fan or Army and Navy fans here.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  And so after Travis was killed, we continued on and Travis was at the Army Navy game in 2006. He was there the year before, right before he left. Um, in December of 2006, he left the day after Christmas in 2006 for Iraq. So he was at that last tailgate with, you know, where we're drinking Basil Hayden and we're just having fun. And after he was killed, we continued on with that tradition. And as the Travis Manning Foundation started to grow, we would like invite people that were part of the foundation. And I remember the one year Alex's wife, she was like, you know, cause we just used to have like coolers and stuff. And she said, I hired a bartender and I was like, really?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  And it was this woman named Ivy and she came with a fold out table and she was making Bloody Marys. And I was like, this is big time. I mean, literally we took up four parking spots and it just continued to grow and grow and grow. And I remember the one year in Philly. We had gotten pretty large. There were several hundred people there. We weren't charging for tickets. You could just walk up. There wasn't any barricades or anything. And Rob Riggle came upon our tailgate. And we had a pickup truck with a microphone and, and he got up on the back of the pickup truck. He grabbed the microphone and he was like, this is better than any Catalina wine mixer I've ever been to.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  And the crowd like went crazy, you know? And again, and then there was that other moment where I was like, this is insane. Oh my gosh. And then fast forward to last year. I'm sitting there with a reporter from the Baltimore Sun. And he says to me, this isn't a tailgate. This is like a goddamn festival. And I'm like, it is, you know, it's, it was wild. Like there's thousands of people there and they're waiting. You saw them last year. There were people waiting just to get in. Like we're there early and I'm like, look at all those people just waiting for it to open like, and they've all bought tickets to this event.

• 20:36Jocko Willink?

  No, it's, it's, it's truly an epic event. And yeah, it's like Travis Palooza, you know? It's like a full on festival because there's bands and there's like games and all the kinds of sponsors. It's, it's awesome. And people, you, you buy tickets to go. And interestingly, you don't need tickets to go to the game to go to the tailgate.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:55Jocko Willink?

  You can just go to the tailgate.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  There's a lot of people in that, at that tailgate that don't have tickets to the game.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  So people, if people want to come to that, like there's a bunch of people there. I'm, I'm there hanging out all day. Uh, then I, I do have a ticket to the game.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  You do.

• 21:10Jocko Willink?

  So I'm going to the game, but I'm hanging out there all day. Are you going this year, Echo?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  I just said that to him. I said, I'm like, Echo, you gotta come.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. How many hours before the game does it start?

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Starts at 10.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  10 AM?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  And then the game is what?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  The game's at like three or four.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So we're there.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  And it's, it's all you can eat and drink, you know?

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, it's a little bit of mayhem, you know?

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Cause tailgating is a thing.

• 21:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Even in Hawaii, bro, we tailgate all, but I think yours.

• 21:36Jocko Willink?

  Wait, who would you tailgate for in Hawaii?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  In Hawaii for the UH football games.

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  When you were on the team?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Like before or after.

• 21:44Jocko Willink?

  Before you were on the team and after you were on the team, you were tailgating.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  I guarantee it's not, you've never seen it.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  No, I believe that 100%.

• 21:52Jocko Willink?

  This, this thing is epic. Um, so if people can, if you want to come to that, get a ticket. Where's the game this year?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  It's in Baltimore.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  Sick. So yeah, if you want to, you can go to travismannion.org and get a, get a ticket, come out and hang out. You also have the gala, which uh, is you could recognize people from the community, recognize the veterans that are doing things, recognize business that have been uh, big supporters and whatnot. So that, that's a really nice event, elegant event. Like I, that's a lot, I think that might be, I had to put my uniform on for that event.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  You did.

• 22:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause I spoke at one of those things.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  You did. You were our guest, guest of honor a few years ago and you, you uh, you came up and you were the intensity of your, and you know, it's funny because you got up there and you started talking at first and I, I was like, where's he going with this? And the way you brought it all back around, I was like, oh wow. I'm like, that was pretty awesome. Yeah.

• 22:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, appreciate it. And I think Brian Stan's going to be there this year. Was he the presenter?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  He's a presenting sponsor. Yeah. Yeah. Brian's always there. Yeah. So yeah. Great.

• 23:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's wild how all these little things cross over. I mean, Brian Stan having Travis Manion as his corner man in his first fight.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Well, you know, Brian, yeah, like Brian said, when he got into MMA, like he was like, my ground game sucked. And I think they were in Quantico and he says to Travis, like dude, you gotta help me. Travis is a wrestler. He's like, uh, cause the thing about Brian, it was like, you know, if Brian got you, it was one punch and you were done. But if you got Brian down on, on the ground, he struggled. And so Travis was working with him on like grappling, being down, what to do. And yeah, it was his, in fact, it was, he was his corner man in his, for his first uh, MMA fight. And then he was also Travis was there with him. I think they were out in Vegas. Um, and that's when Travis got a

• 23:52Speaker 01

  call. Um, they were in the hotel room and Brian's, Brian shared the story publicly and obviously with our family and they were in the hotel room and. My brother got a call on his phone and Brian said, you know, we're 20 minutes from walking out and it was his first like big, big fight. And um, he's like, I could just see looking at your brother's face. I was like, what, what? And he was like, nothing, nothing. Let's go. And he's like, tell me. He's like, I'm not walking out till you tell me. And Travis was like JP Blacksmith was killed. And JP was a Marine Corps officer, football player at Navy. And Brian's like, I went out to that fight, like, just hearing that, you know, one of my good friends had been killed. He's like, I'll never forget that moment. So, yeah.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's again, that's one of the coolest things about the Army Navy football game. And it's, you know, cliche to say it, but like, these guys are going to be out there playing hard against each other. But this is literally the, the leaders of our military, you know, that are going to be out fighting together on the battlefield. So it's a, it's a really epic event. And yeah, the gala is a really cool thing. Um, to, what do people buy tickets to that as well?

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Uh, we don't sell individual tickets to that. So it's all, I mean, if you're, if you're a company out there and you want to sponsor a table, yeah. Um, but yeah, that's just a great night, like thanking the, the big groups and organizations that support us. Jocko Fuel's getting a nice award this year.

• 25:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's good to hear.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:18Jocko Willink?

  That's good to hear. Yeah, we did a epic, um, Cookies and Cream protein in honor of Travis. Cause apparently he ate quite a few Oreos back in the day. Echo Charles, you know, you gotta cut weight. Sometimes you gotta get a little, you gotta take a little pleasure sometimes when you're cutting weight all the time in high school. Yeah, that's, yeah, Jocko Fuel's been a, obviously a huge supporter of what you guys do. It's, it's epic. So I just listed, like, all these crazy things that you've got going on from the gala to these programs and all this other stuff. At what point do you like, say to yourself, you know what? I need to write a book. I need to write a kid's book too.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Well, I honestly, I'd like to say that I came up with this idea to write a kids book. I didn't. It was, um, some people on my team said, you know, I think there are, I think there are, we were really trying to find a way that we could hit a younger demographic for the work that we do with, with our youth. You know, right now, our program is designed for kind of high school, um, junior high, high school. And we had a lot of veterans that were like, I want to talk to my kids, third grade class or fourth grade class. And, and it was like, well, how do you walk in and talk to kids about character? Young kids. I've got an 11 year old, you know? I mean, and what did, what did I do? I gave him Way

• 26:39Speaker 01

  of the Warrior Kid books. I gave him Mikey the Dragon, you know? And I was like, read this. So then it was like, well, maybe if we have this, like we have this tangible piece that a veteran can walk in and say, sit down, I'm going to read you a story. And with that story comes some important messages that, that can help them as they grow.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  How did you grab on to the, you know, the, the, the things my brother used to say? Cause I want to say, and I'd have to go back and listen to it, but it seemed like those were always kind of just, I mean, clearly the driving motto of the organization is what your brother said and used to say. And so as you were putting the book together, you were thinking about it like, well, I'll just talk about the things that he used to say.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause I just, I started to think about all these things that everything in here is stuff that I say all the time. And I'm like, God, we could break this down. There's so many. It's like, you know, be big in the little things. Uh, if not me, then who? Like, find a friend in everyone. Kindness matters more than you know. Like all of these things are, there was nothing where honestly, we had to cut down.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Cause we were like, all right, what, what are the five most important ones that we want in this book?

• 27:48Jocko Willink?

  You didn't have to brainstorm and try and figure stuff out. You're just like, these are the things that he used to say. Here's the kind of most impactful for, for book one anyways.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Love that.

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  And then you sat down and wrote it?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  And we sat down and wrote it. Yeah, yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Which I tell you, you've written children's books. It's super hard.

• 28:11Jocko Willink?

  I

• 28:12Speaker 01

  It's really hard.

• 28:14Jocko Willink?

  It was not hard for me.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  So I think, here's what I'm going to tell you.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  This is why I think it was hard. When, when I did the first iteration of this, it wasn't a children's book.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  So that when I say it was hard, that was the hard part for me.

• 28:31Jocko Willink?

  And that's why it wasn't as hard for me because I have the mind of like a 12 year old. You know what I mean? For me to like break stuff down and you know, just be like, oh yeah, this is what a 12 year old's thinking. It's not, it's a much

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Well, it was

• 28:44Jocko Willink?

  shorter distance for me to get to 12 than it is for

• 28:47Speaker 01

  It was actually funny because I'd have words in it and John from Jocko Publishing would come back and he's like, yeah, a kid's not going to understand that. Like, no. So

• 28:55Jocko Willink?

  See, he didn't have to do that with me.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, that's why would I say it was hard. That's what I bet.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  10 year old.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:01Jocko Willink?

  The funny thing is about the kids books for me is when, when people ask me about the kids books, I will be like, dude, these books are awesome. Which I normally, like if you ask me about Extreme Ownership, they, you know, they say, oh, you know, I really liked your book. And I go, thanks. It's appreciate it. But when someone, when someone says, oh, I read the Warrior Kid books. They're awesome. I go, yeah, dude, they are awesome. And the reason I do that is because when I read them, it feels like I didn't write them. You know, because I was like writing them from the mind of a 12 year old, 10 year old.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:35Jocko Willink?

  And so when I'm writing them, like dude, this is such a cool book that this kid wrote. And it's like, I a hundred percent wrote it. Like I've never had a ghost write or anything like that. And but, but it's like such a good little character that I put my mind into that it seems like this kid wrote it, you know? And so, so that's why I say it wasn't hard for me because it was like, oh yeah, I just have to like act like a kid. And I've always been, I've always had a mind that related to kids. Like, you know, when, when I was a kid, I worked at like summer camps and taught stuff to kids and I taught jujitsu to all my kids. And I had, you know, wild kid. Well, Echo Charles has seen me in action with kids. Like, I don't know why I relate to kids because they're, because I have an immature brain, I guess, is the reason. Yeah, correct.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  So that's why when I'm writing kids books, it's just like I get to be that that 10, 12 year old kid. So maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. Um, well, regardless of how hard it was for you, I'm glad you put the work in because it came out really, really awesome. There's some, I have some commentary. We'll talk a little bit about the writing of the book, but um, let's get into it a little bit here. So one thing that I loved about is it like, it opens up with these pictures of Travis and your family, like as a kid. And, and to me, it's just so important to do that because hopefully, look, we see a picture of a marine of a 22 year old, a 23 year old, a 24 year old marine. And it's

• 31:07Jocko Willink?

  really easy because they're all look the same. They all have the same uniform on there. It's very easy to forget that that's a person, that that's a kid, that that's a son, that that's a brother. It's, it's easy for people to forget that until you see, you know, these, these just awesome pictures that really just, I mean, they're just great pictures of, you know, a kid, a young kid who's wearing a camouflage uniform. Okay. But he's also like kissing his sister, you know, hugging his mom, like all these pictures that I love that the book opens with this. This is, this is a person. This is a brother. This is a

• 31:48Jocko Willink?

  son. This is a, you know, someone that wanted to, that had hopes and dreams in life and was pursuing them and having a good time. So it's, it's just an amazing way to start off the book.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I can't take credit for that. I think that was John that, that put that up in the front. And, you know, we knew we wanted pictures and, and there's a whole other picture collage in the back too. And that's kind of how I thought it would be, but I'd love that he put them right up front. So like before you even start reading it, you're like, okay, this is, this is, this is a kid. This is who I'm going to learn about.

• 32:17Jocko Willink?

  And I know that kid, you know, like we all, like these, these school pictures, like I have a son as well. I'm like, yeah, you look at my son's picture, but it's like this is, we all know this kid, you know? And so it just makes it so relatable. You start off by saying this in the book, Travis was a person of character. That means that he always tried to do the right thing, even when it was hard.

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  And it's, you know, you kind of mentioned as we were talking earlier, but you know, you talked about his coaches, you talked about his parents, you talked about, you know, people that were in his life, but man, he really had a sense of character from an early age.

• 33:01Jocko Willink?

  Where do you, where do you track that to? And, you know, we talked about this when you were on the podcast, like you were, you were a little bit more of a wild child, right?

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Okay, I was wondering where you were going with that.

• 33:12Jocko Willink?

  I couldn't say you weren't a person of character.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I even kind of put that in this book in some ways. Like there's a little piece of that where he's down lifting weights and I'm like, come hang out, you know? It's great outside. Yeah. I, we, I, we talked about this the last time I was on your show and I talk about it a lot. Like it's very easy to find a way when someone you love passes, especially someone in the military who you can point back to all these like incredible things. And, and I'm always very quick to say that like Travis was a real human and he had flaws, but he was different. Like I'm not putting my brother up on any sort of pedestal post death. Like I talked about my brother while living the same way I talk

• 33:58Speaker 01

  about him not being here. I was in awe of my brother from the moment I could understand that he was different than I was and that many people his age were. Like I saw something and I don't know what I attribute that to. I attribute that to, a lot of times I look at, um, you know, being raised by a Marine Corps Colonel and, um, and he just, he, he was so attracted to this idea of discipline and setting goals and everything my dad taught him. I was quite the, I just rebelled against all of that. I was like, anything you're going to tell me to do, I'm going to do the opposite, you know? So, you know, part of it was just

• 34:42Speaker 01

  maybe something inside his DNA. And, and it's cool because I see other examples of kids like that these days when I'm out and when I'm speaking and I, and there will be a kid that I'm talking to and I'm like, oh my God, you're just like Travis. Like I see it and there's some, you, you can't put your finger on it, but you just know they're a little bit different, you know? So.

• 35:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's I remember when I was teaching jujitsu, teaching kids jujitsu like you'd get, you know, out of every 50 kids, there'd be a kid and this is like jujitsu specific. You'd be like, oh, this kid is going to be really good at jujitsu. And and you'd and you'd be right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they're right. And so you can, you know, it's like, well, you see someone that's like, see a kid that's, oh, this kid's gonna be really good wrestler. This kid's gonna be really good at basketball, whatever. And then you get these kids where it's like, oh, they've got they've got like a leadership potential. Yeah, they're gonna be they're gonna have some inherent qualities that are going to be good for leadership. And like for Travis, like, there's an inherent

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  and we'll get into it, but like an inherent humanity in him. Yes, you're like, oh, this kid is different.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  That's such a good way to put it. And and frankly, you know, I talk about the wild child in me growing up. Now I am I parent exactly like my dad did, which is, I mean, sometimes I catch myself and I'm like, oh, my God, I am my father's daughter and it's wild. And I ended up getting a kid just like her, just like my brother, you know, I mean, my oldest is a spitting image, not physically, but of who he was and how he his work ethic and all of that. So, yeah.

• 36:30Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit in the book here. One day Travis and his fellow Marines were on patrol in Iraq while driving around to see if anyone needed their help. They were attacked by the enemy. As the enemy attacked, the Marines fought back. With his team under fire, Travis bravely ran into the middle of the chaos to help those injured in the fight. One by one, he pulled them away from danger. In the end, each one of them escaped to safety. Except for Travis. He had been shot while saving his teammates and died because of his injury.

• 37:04Jocko Willink?

  So now this is, this is a section where, you know, going back to what you said earlier, it was hard to write this book, right? Here we, here we take this heroic and courageous actions of your brother and we put them into, what is it, like seven sentences?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  This was a hard part to write. Yeah.

• 37:29Jocko Willink?

  This, so speaking of, you know, things being hard to do, I did a TED Talk one time. And for the TED Talk, you have, I think it's 12 minutes, right? And so part of the TED Talk, I wanted to explain how I had been in charge of an operation and there was, an Iraqi soldier was killed, one of my guys was wounded, several more Iraqi soldiers wounded, there was, it was chaos and mayhem. And so the first like draft I did of this, just to explain what happened was like a 15 minute talk.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  And I had to take all that and put it down into like three sentences of what had happened. And, you know, actually in your dad's book, it's, it's like

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Chapters.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, chapters. It's like a long, detailed explanation. And when you listen to it, man, and what's really good about that, in that book, is you start to recognize like, oh, Travis knew what was going on. Travis was consciously making decisions beyond like, oh, my friend needs help right now, I'm gonna go get him. No, it's like, oh, my friend needs help right now, I'm gonna go get him. I understand the threat that wonder, oh, now I'm gonna go and, and maneuver again, go out into fire again, like he had to consciously, so it's really good to hear all that detail. Just like when I had this, uh, because the thing I talked about in the TED Talk was a, was a fratricide, it was a blue and blue, it was a friendly fire situation.

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  And so it's good to understand all those details. And here you have to write this kid's book and you're gonna take all those heroic details and you put them into, um, one by one, he pulled them away from danger. That's, that's, that's what he did heroic and that's what we put into. And I realized as I was reading the book.

• 39:27Jocko Willink?

  Is that's part of the story, but it's not the most important part of the story.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:33Jocko Willink?

  And so for you to explain what happened to kids and go, oh, okay, I get it. But truly his heroic actions that day, obviously incredible and courageous and heroic in every sense of the word. But that's one little moment in his life where his, you know, his personality and his character was displayed.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that was the culmination of everything he did in his life. Like I always say that the decisions Travis made that day were because of a series of small decisions that he made over the course of his life.

• 40:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  You, then you end up saying this Travis may not be with us today, but I will always remember the example he set for me and his fellow Marines. He understood the importance of character, the value of leadership and the power of bravery. And you got the little measuring wall here.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  My dad used to.

• 40:42Jocko Willink?

  You still got that?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Well, I'm in a different house. I have it with my kids, but yeah, that was like, have you grown? You know, Ryan, you're a runt. Forget it. Travis, you know, get over here. Let's keep measuring.

• 40:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I used to have that too.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Jocko Willink?

  And it was, it's cool. And I have a new house, you know, so we don't have that wall anymore, except for my, my youngest daughter still has some marks. You know, because when we got the new house, she was still growing.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, it's, um, it's very cool to have that, to have those things. If you have a house, man, measure your kids on the wall, mess up the paint, leave those marks there.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  The way Travis lived his life has taught me so much. Here are the five most important lessons I've learned from him. So again, this is, you know, you broke down these, these lessons that you learned. You picked the top five, at least the top five fitting for this first book. The first one is my brother used to say, find your Brendan and.

• 41:42Jocko Willink?

  This is a, you know, a reference to Brendan Looney, who I mentioned earlier. And again, the Brothers Forever book that your dad wrote is, you know, explains this incredible story about your brother and Brendan Looney, who both went to Naval Academy, were incredible friends at the Naval Academy. And they were both killed in combat, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. And they're buried together in Arlington Cemetery. Um, which is, which is a touching story and a sad story, but this isn't meant in a sad way at all. This is like, find your friends.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  Talk to me about it.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  So find your Brendan, you know, and, and again, my dad tells a lot of the stories in here, most specifically the bike ride story. That's a real story through the streets of Annapolis where they raced on bikes and it was this hardcore competition and, um, but it was this idea that, you know, when Travis used to think about friendship, friendship was more than just finding someone that was fun to hang out with. Friendship was about finding people that pushed you to be the best version of yourself. Right? And so the, the, the message here is a little bit about the healthy competition they shared and, and, but again, it was like Travis looked for people in his life that weren't going to bring him down, but were going to make him rise.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  And, you know, Brendan was a real big part of that and a big person for him in that way. And so, um, you know, you, you want, again, if we get back to my wild child days, I never thought about friends like that. I thought about friends in terms of like, who threw the best parties, who could get the beer the quickest, you know? It was like, you don't, sometimes you don't think about when you're building relationships and how important relationships matter and how important the people we surround ourselves with matter in terms of who we're going to become. And that was something Travis knew very early on.

• 43:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you ever you ever heard the the the advice that like the person you marry like your spouse is like the most important decision you're gonna make in your life? But that's to your point, it's not just about like your spouse.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  Who who are you hanging out on with? And the other thing I was thinking of is if you're if you're looking for friends that are gonna push you to make you better, you'll find them.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  100%.

• 44:24Jocko Willink?

  And if you're looking for friends that are gonna drag you down and have a negative impact on your life, you'll find them too. And by the way, both those groups are looking for you.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:36Jocko Willink?

  You know, both of those groups are looking for you, both groups, anyone that is like trying to step up and trying to do good things with their life, they're looking for other people to come with them.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  And help them and push them. And people that are looking to do negative things, they're looking for companions as well, misery loves company, right? And they're looking to make those things happen as well. So the kind of friends that you're looking for, you will find.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and isn't there the I I'm gonna misquote it, but there's like, you know, you are the sum of the like, the five people you hang out with the most. So choose wisely, you know?

• 45:14Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed. Yeah, awesome. So that's the first one is find your your Brendan. The second one is kindness matters more than you know. And and you kind of go through the story. Yeah, there's a guy called Sam in the book. And actually, that's that's his real name, right? Because

• 45:33Speaker 01

  It's not his real name.

• 45:33Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:35Jocko Willink?

  There's a guy named Sam who's called Sam in the book and he's, you know, the way you describe is the opposite of Travis in every way. So Travis is confident, outgoing, Sam is quiet and reserved, Travis is tall and athletic, Sam was short and awkward, Travis is well known and popular, Sam wasn't even noticed by many of his classmates. But despite all this, Travis, you know, becomes friends with him and includes him with things and is is freaking nice to him.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  And then after Travis died, your parents got a letter from this Sam character that's explained like how he was a good human being and was his friend.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and how much Travis's friendship like helped him through high school. And fun fact, on Sunday at the Doylestown Heroes Run, I was walking to the start line and there was Sam and he was standing there with his two kids. And I was along the, I ran the race with my dad and again, his name is not Sam. But I said to my dad, I said, Dad, you'll never guess who I saw. And I told him and he was like, oh, that's so great. And he was there with his two kids running the nine 11 Heroes Run. But you know, it's this idea, you don't

• 46:48Speaker 01

  thinking about who you hang out with and who you choose, it's not about choosing like all the alphas or like the top of class, right? It's like, who are you going to, Travis recognized something in this guy that he recognized that he was, I mean, and he wasn't getting necessarily bullied, but he just wasn't part of it, like he wasn't brought in and Travis was, you said the word, like the humanity in him. My dad and I, I had my dad on for Memorial Day

• 47:23Speaker 01

  last year to talk about Memorial Day on the Resilient Life. And we were talking about just the compassionate side of Travis. And he just possessed so much compassion. And I told the story of one day we came out, we were living in Virginia and came outside and a bird's nest had fallen out of a tree. And the birds had already hatched and they were dead. And the mother bird kept flying around and there were these like four dead little baby birds. And he was so affected by these birds. And I mean, he was like eight, nine years old. And he had a funeral for the birds and he invited all the kids in the neighborhood.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  And he was crying at the funeral that he had for these birds. And so he just had this really compassionate side to him. And, you know, and I think he, he, he saw something in like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be friends with this kid and I'm gonna make sure that he is invited to everything and, you know, because no one else was doing it. And it's very easy to overlook that kid that doesn't get included, you know, not necessarily getting picked on, but just like not part of the group, right?

• 48:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it also speaks to like being a leader and just being a very confident in who you are type of individual. Cause you know, when kids are in, whether they're in high school or whether in middle school, right? Like being popular and being cool. You don't want to be seen doing things that are uncool. So the last thing I'm gonna do is like, oh, everyone's, you know, maybe they're not making fun of Sam, but you know, I'm not gonna go out of my way to go and get with the kid that's kind of awkward and weird. It's like, no.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Physically, Sam and Travis looked very different in high school. I'll put it that way, you know? So.

• 49:09Jocko Willink?

  And Travis just was like, you know, I don't care what you guys say about me. I'm gonna go hang out with Sam. It's all good.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:15Jocko Willink?

  Like supreme confidence and knowing who you are.

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  And just the, the importance of

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  being nice to other human beings.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's, that's basically it. Just be nice, you know?

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  Be nice to other human beings. Yeah, I know you always, there was an advertisement that was on a, I forget what it was for a long, a few years ago, but it was like people walking through the world and, you know, the other, you know, someone's walking, they're looking as they're looking at other people like their, their problems were above their head. You know, it's kind of like saying like, oh, you know, husband's cheating on her. Kid is sick with, you know, this disease and you, you know, maybe if you can try and picture what's going on in other people's worlds a little bit and recognize how hard people have it in the world. I mean, everyone is going through something.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, you don't really need to add to that.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:15Jocko Willink?

  By being a jerk to them. And if you can. You know, treat people with a little kindness, be nice to them, it's gonna go a long way.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and, and just to, to finish up on that, you know, we knew Sam in high school, we knew Travis. We had no idea until Sam sent that letter after Travis died, what that friendship meant to him, you know? And, and I, I, I'll never, and we received thousands of cards and letters. Like that one, like hit hard, it hit hard.

• 50:47Jocko Willink?

  Number three, dream big and work hard to get there. So again, this is, this is a wild thing to see in a young person.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  Travis had goals.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:03Jocko Willink?

  And he literally wrote those goals down, wrote them on a beam in the, in the basement.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:09Jocko Willink?

  This is what I'm gonna do, this is what I'm gonna make happen.

• 51:14Jocko Willink?

  And then like focused on those goals and made them happen.

• 51:19Jocko Willink?

  And you saw that.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  I saw it. I saw, I saw the words on the beam. I knew what he was trying to do. Yeah.

• 51:25Jocko Willink?

  What was it going to, becoming a national champion in wrestling in high school or something like that? What was his goals?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  It was, it was, uh, it was a GPA, I think he wanted like a three, five or three, six GPA.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  Who does that?

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was be an all-American wrestler. It was all-American wrestler. And, and then he had other things that were like more mundane, you know, bench press X amount, like, you know? I mean, there was a bunch of stuff. He just wrote them down. We had an un-

• 51:52Jocko Willink?

  Probably three wheels. Echo, three wheels? Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  I mean, we had an unfinished basement and we had, you know, my dad had like a, a bench press. Um, that, and you know, and he just went down there. There was, there was nothing special about what he was doing in that basement and the equipment he had or anything like that.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, really good. It's actually good advice, you know, to kids. Like when your kids, when kids see this and they go, oh, maybe I'll write down my goals as well. Because when you write things down and you put them in front of you, it's like, it's real, it becomes real.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny because, you know, I just had Dave Burke on. And when I read his book, and, and the first thing I like highlighted, underlined, was when he said to his mom, I want to be a Top Gun pilot. And she goes, well, why can't it be you? You know, and I was like, that's like,

• 52:50Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, listen, I think adults do it too, but even kids, like you look at things as unachievable. Right? As unachievable. When Travis wrote down, he wanted to be an All-American wrestler. He was a freshman in high school and he weighed 145 pounds. When he became an All-American wrestler, he was wrestling 189, you know, like, you, if, and if you would have said, hey, you're going to be an All-American wrestler, wrestling 189 and have an undefeated season. That seems unachievable, right? But why couldn't it be him? Somebody could do it. Anybody, somebody had to do it, right?

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's interesting too, because Dave Burke, in his book, he kind of lines out the methodical approach that he took to become a Marine Corps fighter pilot.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  We had this long conversation. I'm like, I get it. Like, I watched someone do everything you said. Like, it was like, you got to do this. And once you accomplish this, then you do the next thing and you keep working through those wickets. And I'm like, that's exactly what Travis did throughout his entire lifetime. He just knocked down wickets. It was like, check, all right, what's next? Because this is where I got to go to get to this next goal.

• 54:02Jocko Willink?

  That must have been bizarre when you, when your brother left the Naval Academy after, what, his freshman semester? Was it the first semester?

• 54:10Speaker 01

  First semester. And it was, it was Christmas. Um, he did not go back after Christmas. And, you know, I, I used to

• 54:22Speaker 01

  take, have a lot of guilt on that because, listen, I played a large, large role. As I, as I talk about, you know, Travis and how I looked up to him, Travis also looked up to me. Like Travis, I think, envied a little bit of my laissez faire approach to life and how I was just in it for the fun like and I think in some ways like he would be like God like you know there were there would be times and then you get into this environment at the naval academy and it's so rigid and it's so structured and frankly you know there was a little bit of like he wasn't necessarily seeing everyone there all of the the midshipmen like in the same mindset that he was you know

• 55:07Speaker 01

  and there were there were there were things that he would say to me about like he didn't love every midshipman there it's just a fact you know and he would have conversations with me about kind of I I remember what it was was a night where there was a bunch of midshipmen that bought went to the drugstore and bought Robitussin and they bought multiple bottles of Robitussin

• 55:29Jocko Willink?

  what is that like to get drunk or something?

• 55:31Speaker 01

  yeah and they did these things called robo trips where they just chugged the whole bottle of Robitussin so they could get a high and he was he called me and he was like this is crazy like this is crazy that I'm sitting here watching kids in a dorm room just drinking bottles of Robitussin he's like I don't know if this is where I want to be and you know it wasn't that he wasn't like I don't want to start he's like I can go I can go anywhere and be a marine right I can go do ROTC somewhere and I was like hell yeah you can and so I would talk to him every night for weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'd be like dude just leave I'm in Philadelphia you go to school in Philadelphia we'll have the best

• 56:13Speaker 01

  time ever the best time of our lives in college you know

• 56:17Jocko Willink?

  did you say anything to your dad?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  no I told him after the words that you know that I know and and you know and then he he kind of just stunned my dad and was like I I don't want to be here and my dad said like you can't and I know it now having a child at Navy like if they don't want to be there it's you can't force it you can't force a kid to be at a service academy and so my dad said you want to leave then figure it out get a job find a place to go to school I'm not helping you figure it out and so So he went and he talked to, uh, went to Drexel, um, walked on, cause he was like, oh, spring semester, wrestling season's over, walked onto the men's lacrosse team, started as a freshman on the men's lacrosse

• 57:02Speaker 01

  team at Drexel. And, um, yeah, so he's got, he's a two-time, you know, played two sports, dual sport. And, um, and he had, uh, my guitar at Drexel. He was at a party. I think I've talked to you that he liked to play the guitar a little bit, like very unaccomplished, but he liked it. And his guitar, my guitar was stolen at a party. And so, cause I always, like Travis was very analytical. It was like, there was this one thing that like opened up everything for him. And he said, your guitar was stolen. I'm really sorry. I'm going to buy you a new one, da, da, da. And he goes, but these aren't my people. Like, these were all my friends at this party and one of them stole your guitar. And he was like,

• 57:48Speaker 01

  I made the wrong decision. And I'm like, you're screwed.

• 57:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I'm like, you're screwed. And he went back to my dad and said, I screwed up. Like, I want to go back to Navy. And my dad's like, I'm not helping you. And he said, I'm not helping you. And my dad did drive him back to Navy. And he sat down with the senior marine who we just recently saw. And he said, you know, the reason that I even considered letting your son back into Navy is because you didn't walk in that door with him because you made him go in by himself. And, um, he got back in, uh, redid plebe year.

• 58:24Jocko Willink?

  How has, how many times has that happened in the history of the Navy?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I don't know, but not a lot.

• 58:28Jocko Willink?

  I can't, it cannot be a lot.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Not a lot.

• 58:31Jocko Willink?

  Your brother leaves and then gets let back in.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:34Jocko Willink?

  That's amazing. So, but awesome. Okay. Sorry.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. So he got back in, had to redo plebe year, but I think it was the best thing that could have ever happened for him because it left no question that he was where he was supposed to be. And once he got back there, he was so locked in, like ridiculous. Yeah.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  It's, I did not recognize until today, cause even talking to you last time, talking to your dad, I never made the connection, which it makes sense now of, of him, like this is my first time hearing the Robitussin story, right? But I could see someone with high ideals like Travis.

• 59:18Jocko Willink?

  This is the connection I didn't make. You know, I thought, oh, well, it was like a little bit, you know, like, okay, don't get to wrestling off. People yelling at me like this is stupid. It's kind of like, but it was more a, there's an ideal that I have that Travis has in his head of what these people should be like. They don't meet that ideal. And he's like, what am I even doing here?

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:37Jocko Willink?

  Which I did not make that connection until today. So now that now it makes more sense to me. And it also makes more sense to me that once he left and he gets out into the civilian world was like, wait a second, I thought the robot was this bad.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 59:48Jocko Willink?

  These people are liars and thieves.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:51Jocko Willink?

  And then, and now you could see his dedication is through the roof because when he goes back to Naval Academy, understands what he had walked away from, understand the miracle that it took to get back there. And he obviously continues on and does incredible things.

• 1:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that's a little bit of a, of like a, a vector off of the idea of dream big and work hard that didn't, didn't make sense to me until now. Now I understand it.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So that's number three. Dream, dream big and work hard to get there. Man, if you can teach your kids that, you will be in a really, really good spot.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Uh, next one, number four.

• 1:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Be big in the little things. So you hear that and, uh, or you don't hear it. You say, one day I walked past Travis's room and saw him painting, be big in the little things in green paint on his wall. What does it mean? I asked, what little things? Big how? I'll tell you what he said, stick with me this week. We're gonna do a lot of little things together. When we're done, this will make sense. Did you ever Google this expression and see where it came from?

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  I haven't. Did you?

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  No, I didn't. I didn't think of Googling it until right now. Cause I wonder if he heard of it or like where it came from.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  No, I, I never have. That's, that's, we'll have to do that.

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause it's of, you know, it's kind of a, it's a, it's a artistic little statement, right? Be big in the little things. That's a kind of a cool way of saying it's a catchy little phrase.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Jocko Willink?

  So again, for him to have made this up. And then what's he just painting shit on his wall? That's just what's happening?

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, rode on beams, painted on walls. Like, that's what you do, right?

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  In green paint.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  In green paint. Because of the eagles. Come on. That's why it was green.

• 1:01:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, now, now everything comes together.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  So how old are you when this is happening?

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Um, like junior high-ish. Yeah.

• 1:01:53Jocko Willink?

  So now you kind of hang with him for a week. Starts off, you know, he wakes up early in the morning. You wake up with him. You make breakfast for your parents. Next thing you do is, you know, a couple, you know, you go to the library after school. You get all your homework done and study hard and all that stuff. You guys go to a basketball game and instead of like celebrating when everyone's done and leaving and high fiving, you guys clean up. Again, this is in junior high.

• 1:02:19Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and then, you know, he gathers up some stuff that he doesn't really need and takes him to a veterans home and donates these things. And this is the things that he's doing.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was always trying to teach me little lessons like there I can. When I think about like Travis in my head, I think about him being like, come on, Ryan. Like, that's kind of how he was with me. Like, why don't you try this? Like, why don't you, why don't you try and do this for a week? Or why don't you, why don't you think about it this way? You know? I can hear him like, come on, Ryan. So, yeah. So that was his, uh, that was him teaching me how to be big in the little things.

• 1:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, you know, you've, you, obviously you figured out and there's a saying in this, in, I first heard it in the SEAL teams. I don't know if it's from the SEAL teams, but it's similar. It's a how you do anything is how you do everything. Have you ever heard that before?

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  No, but yeah, very similar. I love that.

• 1:03:17Jocko Willink?

  And it's because, you know, oh, the way that I fold my clothes is kind of the way I'm going to take care of my gear is kind of the way I'm going to behave.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, and that was the thing. So after Travis died, it was my uncle who actually said, he said, you know, Travis was all about being big in the little things. And because he was big in the little things, it made him even bigger in the big things, in the big moments when it counted. I E. April 29, 2007, you know?

• 1:03:48Jocko Willink?

  All right. The last thing, and clearly this is the, the driving force. My brother used to say, if not me, then who? And this is what I started the podcast with. This is the story that you tell in your book. It's in this book, it's in your dad's book.

• 1:04:07Jocko Willink?

  And it really is just a, a way to position yourself in the world.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Where you will do

• 1:04:16Jocko Willink?

  the right thing, the good thing, when it's really easy to look around and say, well, you know, I'm not going to do the right thing. I'm not going to take action. And if you ask yourself, if not me, then who? It's going to change your attitude.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  100%. Yeah. And you know, it's like, when Travis said that, you know, I wasn't there when he actually said it. It was at a Philadelphia Eagles game and he, and he said those five words and, and then, you know, it's this like

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  moment of reflection where you look back over the course of his life and it's, and it's those five words, they, they, those were, that was the first time anybody heard him say it. But those five words were what he lived by every single day. And, you know, you can make them real big and profound in what they mean, or you can also, like you said, you can dumb it down to like, how am I going to have an if not me, then who moment today? No matter how small that is, right? And then those if not me, then who moments? They start to build up, you know?

• 1:05:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And this is something your dad pointed out a bunch with, with, you know, he was first, you know, thinking about writing about Travis. And then when Brendan died, he's added Brendan. But then it was also like, hey, this is, this is like what our servicemen and women do. Like this is what they're doing. They're all saying this, and this is like a universal.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. And, and I've said that all, I'm like, those were the five words Travis spoke, but those five words represent this entire generation of men and women who have volunteered to step up and serve. Like those five words are not unique to Travis Manion, you know?

• 1:05:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, he certainly took them to the next level in his life. So that's the, um, those words are the driving force, you know, behind the Travis Manion Foundation. They're, they're written everywhere. They're said all the time, which is just, just epic. So much of his life has become legacy, right? And I've, I've never really thought about the way that, what the way that he lived his life has translated into this legacy that he has left behind, which is now being transformed into, and, and transmuted into all these people and all these kids and all these veterans everywhere.

• 1:06:41Jocko Willink?

  Just so powerful to see.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  I had a conversation with someone recently and I was talking about just like missing my brother and like I would do anything to have him here. And I don't care about the legacy he's left and I don't care about the hundreds of thousands of people that have been helped as a result of it, like selfishly, he's my brother and I want him here with me in San Diego at his favorite burrito shop, you know, like that's, that's, and, and he said to me that your brother wouldn't want to be here, knowing the impact that his legacy has left. I can tell you right now, he's like, I didn't know your brother, but I knew your brother.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  And your brother would, would, would not trade coming back to, um, for the impact that, that his name and his story has, has created. And I thought about that, you know, and at the end of the day, it's probably true.

• 1:07:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's one of those harsh realities, you have to admit.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Like, yeah, he's had just such a massive impact.

• 1:07:48Jocko Willink?

  What else do we have going on right now?

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Well, we're, I mean, we're gearing up for Army Navy. We're, we're almost there. So, uh, you know, we, uh, we know our team is gonna win. Our team, Navy.

• 1:08:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Navy. That's right. Um, listen, you know,

• 1:08:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you're, you've got a funny look on your face. You're making like you busted me for something. So as if anyone's heard me talk about the Army Navy game, or the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy in general, like, I truly, I cannot say anything negative about the other armed services. You know, uh, first of all, because I worked so closely with the Army and the Marine Corps in my career, and in, in the Battle of Ramadi, like, it was one team, one fight. And those, the Army soldiers and Marines truly would risk their lives to rescue my guys. And they did that.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Over and over again. Um, you know, even, you know, you had Dave Burke on your podcast, like, Dave Burke, you know, he lost one of his Marines, Corporal Chris Leon, like, they were on a rooftop of a combat outpost that we had secured, like, uh, I don't know, for, you know,

• 1:09:08Jocko Willink?

  quite recently before that, like, it was my guys up there. And we left and, you know, Chris moves up in a position, they're doing what, doing their job, and he gets killed, like, this was such a unified fight. And so, I can't, I can't, I just can't bring myself to say anything negative about

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  I'm not saying anything negative.

• 1:09:31Jocko Willink?

  So, my point in saying all this is, my point in saying all this is that when people ask me, like, who I'm rooting for, I'm always very diplomatic. You know, and I'm like, hey, America's gonna win, right? But then, when we were talking beforehand, you and Echo busted me saying, like, well, how's our team looking this year? Meaning, like, the Navy team, because that's our team, because I was, I was in the Navy, like, we can't deny that fact. So. That's what I said. I said what I said. Do I view the Navy as my team? Well, I guess, yeah, of course I do. I was in the Navy for 20 years. So I do view it as my team, but I

• 1:10:12Jocko Willink?

  truly do, uh, I truly do support both teams and hope it's an awesome game.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  As do I.

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, so that's what we're gearing up for.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  That's where I mean, yeah, from a, from a fun and event perspective, but you know, the work of the Travis Manion Foundation is so much more than an Army Navy tailgate. And I think that's important to note out. Like, we are making sure, like, at the forefront of everything we do is making sure that we're giving veterans continued purpose when they're taking off the uniform, which in turn helps their mental health, which in turn, um, plays a role in the incredible suicide epidemic that we have facing our veterans. So like, we have real important work that we're doing at TMF. We have a lot of fun stuff, but at the end of the day, there is no veteran that is going to come to the Travis Manion Foundation

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  and not be positively impacted, um, by the programming and the opportunities that we provide.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's just outstanding. And what are you seeing in terms of like, the wars are over? You know what I mean? Like, now we have people that are getting out and, you know, they might not have served in combat. I was thinking about it today, you know, it's, it's been like, you could do a four, you could have done a four-year hitch right now and not get like the, you know, not be in a wartime scenario at all.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  I think those service members deal with their own set of challenges as a result of that, as crazy as it is, you know?

• 1:11:41Jocko Willink?

  So incredible work that you guys are doing across the front. Um, where can people find, where can people find you guys? So it's travismannion.org.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:11:49Jocko Willink?

  It is on Instagram, at Travis Manion Foundation, uh, Twitter, X, and YouTube is at TM Foundation.

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  And then dude, Facebook is Travis Manion Foundation. And then for you, you can be found at Ryan Manion dot com. And then you're on Instagram and Twitter X at R Manion.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Did I get everything right?

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 1:12:17Jocko Willink?

  This book, it, by the time this podcast comes out, this book will be available for order on Amazon.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  It'll be available for pre-sale and then, um, published date is November 24th.

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  November 24th.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  So it'll be out at the game when we're there.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  It'll be out at the game.

• 1:12:36Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna bring copies?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We'll be selling it at the game.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay, there we go. Rock and roll.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Awesome stuff. Awesome to see you. Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  Um, no questions, but I do have to mention that the, the shirts, I forget if you or your dad gave them to me. The TMF shirts.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  Those, I wear those shirts. Those are probably the highest frequency shirts in my rotation.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Well, if you're still have shirts that my dad or I gave you, I mean, the last time I was on this podcast was like years and years ago. So we need to get you some new gear because we've got some good gear.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  I respect it and I'm gonna accept it 100%, but I will say that these current shirts that I have are still 100% capability right now.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  And they're in the rotation. But more importantly, on the back, it says, if not me, then who? So my kids always like read it when I walk by or whatever, and they'll say that from time to time.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  Thanks for that influence there.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:13:29Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 1:13:30Speaker 02

  Good to see you again.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  You too.

• 1:13:32Jocko Willink?

  Brian, any closing thoughts?

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I think at the end of the day, um, I love that Jocko Publishing has given us this opportunity to put this children's book out. We didn't, we didn't really mention that. This, this book is a product of Jocko Publishing. So we're excited to be part of, uh, of the incredible leadership books for both adults and kids and, um,

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  I'm just excited for parents and educators and our youth to get their hands on a copy.

• 1:14:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you and me both. And it's, you know, it's going to be right up there and people are going to learn from it. People are going to read from it. And I'll tell you, from my personal experience, as awesome as it is to have, you know, an adult come up to me and say, hey, thanks for your book. It really helped me, you know, get promoted or save my marriage or whatever they went through. That's always awesome. But having a little kid come up to you and say, I did my first pull-up, or, you know, for this, for this, it's going to be, you know, I got an A in this class. And, you know, I wrote my goals down. There's, there's truly no better reward than knowing that your brother's going to have an impact on, on a whole nother generation. So thanks for writing the book. It's an honor to be able to publish it and honor to be able to help out as much as we can with what you guys are doing,

• 1:14:47Jocko Willink?

  because it's all just awesome. So thanks for joining us once again. Thanks for the service. Thanks for the sacrifice of your family. And truly thanks for what you're continuing to do today to help out our veterans, their families, and this next generation of Americans with your brother's principles. Thank you.

• 1:15:12Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Ryan Manion has left the building and left us with some awesome lessons learned, some awesome approaches to life. And, you know, going back and I was reviewing some of those old podcasts that I did with Ryan and her dad. And it's interesting and factual that your mental state is tied to your physical state. And Travis obviously knew that. And so if you want to have a good mental state, you gotta get a good physical state, which means you're training, which means you're lifting, working out, running, sprinting, training, the jujitsu.

• 1:15:55Jocko Willink?

  If you're doing that, you're gonna need some, well, quite frankly, you're gonna need some fuel. We strongly recommend Jocko Fuel. Hey, check out Jocko Fuel dot com. Get yourself some creatine. Get your, you on the creatine? What do you want right now? How many grams a day?

• 1:16:08Speaker 02

  We just got the repa- restock.

• 1:16:10Jocko Willink?

  What do you want?

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Another resupply.

• 1:16:11Jocko Willink?

  Talk to me.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  Uh, ten.

• 1:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm now currently at this time at fifteen grams a day.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:16:18Jocko Willink?

  And I might be going twenty.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:16:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's not a big stretch for me to go two in the morning, two, two scoops in the morning, two scoops at night. Right now, I'm doing one scoop in the morning, two scoops at night.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  Not a big stretch for me to just add up, cause everyone's getting into the creatine. And let's face it, when you take extra creatine, you feel extra good. You feel stronger, your cognitive abilities increase, so good across the board. The other thing is, we have the collagen and colostrum combo out right now. And it's plain, it's a plain, no taste, right? But if you put in your greens, you're getting that double activity. It's like a streamlined activity, extra protein, you're getting the collagen, you're getting the colostrum, you're getting that joint health, and you're getting the green activity. So that's a good one to give a shot at. My, my oldest daughter came up with that.

• 1:17:12Jocko Willink?

  System, and it seems to be working quite well.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  I just added it to my current system. I hydrate creatine. Boom, collagen.

• 1:17:19Jocko Willink?

  Right in there.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:20Jocko Willink?

  No factor.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  Boom, yeah, it, it does not, it does affect the texture slightly, but that's not a factor at all.

• 1:17:25Jocko Willink?

  My wife is taking it with milk.

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  So she has, she's got her own, she's got her own little world worked out where she's doing some kind of coffee, tea, milk thing now with the collagen colostrum in it in the morning.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  So interestingly, my wife knew about the collagen.

• 1:17:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Knew about the whole collagen thing.

• 1:17:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  So

• 1:17:49Jocko Willink?

  She jumped right in the game.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  I, yes, which was weird. I was like, oh yeah, cool. There's this, this new thing, this new product collagen or whatever. She kind of lit up because let's face it. When I was like, yeah, Moke has RTDs now. She's like, cool. And just kept living her life, you know, but the collagen, what up? So she already knew it, uh, knew about it. You mentioned your wife. So I'm like, oh yeah, it, it was interesting because collagen is more of a universally like ex, not accepted, but a taken like thing. You don't have to be hardcore into lifting as I consider myself to be from time to time, not all the time.

• 1:18:19Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, if all this stuff, including hydrate, including milk protein, including cookies and cream milk protein, by the way, you can get it all, you know, at jocko fuel.com. You can also get it a bunch of different stores out there. You can check Hy-Vee, you can check Walmart, you can check.

• 1:18:37Jocko Willink?

  I mean, really, Wawa, HEB, Meyer, like they're just wearing so many Harris Teeter, Dash stores. Like there's so many places that we're at right now, military, GNC, like check these places out. And you can, you can get yourself some jocko fuel. Also check out originusa.com. And we got some products coming out right now. Bonded fleece jacket. It's like, it's like a hoodie that's wind and waterproof, water resistant. You can't say proof because we don't have taped seams on it, but it's really, really legit next level up. Like you're, you want to be next level, preparedness for life, get that next level up. Get yourself that bonded. It's like a jacket. And then also the mo, have you seen the moab jacket yet?

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  I've seen pictures of it.

• 1:19:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, I have the moab jacket and I just ordered another one. I have a gray one, but I'm getting like the kind of, what is it? Like a rust colored type one, brownish colored type one.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 1:19:35Jocko Willink?

  So these are good to go. And look, the good thing about them is like, there's so many times of year that you can wear that, like anytime it gets, I'm gonna use a word right now, brisk.

• 1:19:51Jocko Willink?

  Anytime it gets a little brisk, you know, you're good. And you're good for like from brisk all the way up to like it's really cold.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  Getting cold.

• 1:20:00Jocko Willink?

  Cold, you're good, but really cold, you'll be like, all right, you know, I need to get a hoodie underneath it or something like that. But it's solid. So Origin USA, 100% made in America, all of it from the, from the cotton.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  That's in the materials, the zippers, the buttons, all of it.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  Which, which is saying a lot though, because let's face it, sometimes you can kind of sidestep some of those elements and be like, oh wait, the cotton, the, the this, the that is not made in America, but since at this point of production, they started to make the rest of it in America. We can boom, we can, you know, out the gate.

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  Bro, taking, taking Chinese made pieces and sewing them together in America does not make something American made. It makes it a fugazi.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Fake. So don't buy into the fugazi stuff, the fugazi stuff. Get yourself some stuff from originusa.com, 100% made in America, American hands. Put, put your money back into our economy here in America. Help our communities rebuild. Help our nation remain free. Don't help the growth of communism and slave labor. Don't do it.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Also too, I know people are wondering about Jocko Store, like when is the, I realize a lot of this stuff is like 10 years.

• 1:21:22Jocko Willink?

  Old?

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  Old. Like this design was implemented 10 years ago. And so I get it. I get it. And some people that want to, hey, what about some new stuff? Don't worry, I got you. By the end of the year, we're going to have all new stuff on there.

• 1:21:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  And then.

• 1:21:36Jocko Willink?

  Look at that one.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  From time to time, or more often, we're going to have more and more new stuff all on Jocko Store, jacostore.com. Speaking of new stuff, often we have a thing called the shirt locker. If you don't know, I know some people know already. Some people are down for the cause already, but if you're not shirt locker, subscription scenario, new shirt, new design, all kinds of designs relevant to the path for sure. But new design every month. People seem to like that one. So check that one out. Go on the store, go on the, the website. Click shirt locker and see other designs. Just see what it's all about. Cause it's like I said, slightly different vibe. You want to look at that one. But anyway, yeah, it's all on there. Jocko store.com.

• 1:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Check. If you need a book, well, I've written a bunch of books, which is cool, but also Dave Burke, new book, Need to Lead, check that book out. And then obviously, we've got Things My Brother Used to Say, written by Ryan Manion, amazing book for, look, get it for your kids, get it for your neighbors, get it for the kids across the street, get it to the classroom, give it to the library, get this book out there to the world. It's going to help out so many people. Echelonfront.com, we have a leadership consulting company. We solve problems through leadership. So if you need help inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com. Also, we have events. The next big event that we have, I believe, is the muster. It is going to sell out. So if you want to come, go to echelonfront.com and register. And if you can't go to an event,

• 1:22:56Jocko Willink?

  but you want to learn the skills of leadership, check out extremeownership.com. It's where we teach the skills of leadership in an online environment. 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 a charity organization, which is amazing. If you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, check out HeroesAndHorses.org. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. If, by any chance, you fought in the Battle of Ramadi in 2006 with the Ready First Brigade Combat Team, check out RamadiReunion20.com. Big reunion down in Texas, January 16th and 17th.

• 1:23:36Jocko Willink?

  I hope to see you all there, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Let us know.

• 1:23:44Jocko Willink?

  Also, if you want to connect with the Travis Manion Foundation, go to travismannion.org, on Instagram, they're @TravisMannionFoundation, Facebook, Travis Manion Foundation, YouTube, and Twitter is TMF, TM Foundation, @TMFoundation. And then for Ryan Manion, RyanMannion.com. And she's also on Instagram and Twitter, @RMannion. And then if you want to check out us, you can check out Jaco.com. And then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink, Echoes@EchoCharles.

• 1:24:16Jocko Willink?

  Don't spend too much time on there. It should annoy you to be on there. That's the point that I've reached in my life. I'm annoyed by social media. Like, don't go on there and think that there's going to be anything that's going to help you out. No, it's not. Even the thing that you think helped you out in the moment, I got really motivated by this thing. So what'd you do? I scrolled to the next thing. Didn't help you at all. So let's get off there. Get off that social media. Once again, thanks to Ryan Manion for everything you've done, continue to do for our families, for our veterans and our, and their families. Thanks for capturing and sharing the legacy of your brother Travis.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  We will not forget him. Also, thanks to all of our military members, Army, Navy, Air Force, and of course, the United States Marine Corps. We live free because of your sacrifices.

• 1:25:09Jocko Willink?

  And we are grateful for this gift every day. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. We are safe at home because of your sacrifices. And we are thankful to you as well. And everyone else out there, remember all these lessons

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  from Travis Manion. And I think a good one to focus on every day, and they're all awesome, but be, be big in the little things. The little things. The little things matter. The little things count. Little things add up. And over time, the little things become big things. And that's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.