458: Things Will Not Go As Planned. W US Navy SEAL, Sean Murphy.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Sean Murphy served in special operations for 22 years where he tested himself physically and mentally. During his career he gained incredible insight into how elite teams are established, operate, and perform in austere environments. Through these experiences his dedication remains to being the best at what he does. This is the mindset and commitment he brings to you. 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 458 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  They treated us like animals.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  You're laying in the fetal position on the ground. And they don't even, they don't care.

• 0:16Jocko Willink?

  Their duty was to keep me from dying because then I wasn't worth anything. And I thought, please tell God that I need some help. We need to get out of here. Later, all of a sudden, it's just this eruption of gunfire. And I think, okay, well, this is it. This really is truly the end. And I cover up with my blanket again, and I just start saying, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. And I just remember thinking, or maybe I'm saying out live, out loud, I cannot survive this.

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  And then all of a sudden, I feel these hands on me, roughly grabbing at me. Then I try to protect myself and I pull the blanket closer on top of me.

• 0:59Jocko Willink?

  And then I hear my name.

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  But it's not a Somali accent. It's an American accent. And I can't compute, like I can't understand that somebody with an American accent knows my name.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  And they say, Jessica, we're with the American military. We're here to take you home and you're safe.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  I pull the blanket down from my face and I, all I see is black. Black masks, black sky. And all I can say over and over is, you're American? You're Americans? I don't understand. You're American? Thinking, how did you get here? And I'm still alive. And they asked me where my shoes are and I don't know. And one of them picked me up and starts running. He runs for several minutes and puts me down on the ground. And I'm still asking who these Americans are. I don't understand who they are and I don't understand what they've done. And then they identify themselves. And that they knew I was very sick. And they have medicine and they have water and they have food. And they've come to take me home.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  At one point, I think they thought they heard something. I don't know this group of men who's risked their lives for me already, asked me to lie down on the ground because they're concerned that there might be someone out there. And then they make a circle around me. And then they lie down on top of me to protect me.

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  And we lay like that until the helicopters come in. And they are so kind and so gentle. And they are trying to assist me to get to the helicopter, but I think I've been out here for months. I can run to this helicopter myself. And so I just break away and I just take off running through the scrub, through the brush, and I throw myself onto that helicopter and push myself up against the wall.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  And I don't start breathing until we actually lift up off the ground.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  And they hand me an American flag that's folded.

• 3:07Jocko Willink?

  I just started to cry.

• 3:11Jocko Willink?

  At that point in time, I've never in my life been so proud and so very happy

• 3:18Jocko Willink?

  to be an American.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  And those are some quotes from Jessica Buchanan, who was working on a demining project in Somalia when she was kidnapped kidnapped and held captive for 93 days until being rescued along with one other person, Paul Hagan,

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  who were both rescued by SEALs from the Joint Special Operations Command. And it's an honor to have one of those SEALs, Sean Murphy, here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and lessons learned from his.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  22 years of active duty service and the other experiences in his life. Sean, thanks for joining us.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jocko.

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  Good to see you, man.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Likewise.

• 4:18Jocko Willink?

  It's been awhile.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  It has.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  Man, you got so much stuff I want to get into. Your whole life has been, I mean,

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  it's just been awhile. You've had a pretty wild ride.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  So let's get into it. So, uh, what, what year were you born?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  1981.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  And where?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  And what was going on with your, what was your mom and dad doing at the time? Jobs and whatnot?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Um, my mom was a stay at home mom. My dad, this is as early as I can remember his job. He was working in a furniture store from what I remember.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  He bounced around a couple of jobs.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  And they end up getting divorced, right?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56Jocko Willink?

  And so what happens? How did that, how did that affect you? What age were you?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Uh, I was probably around eight or nine. I was really young. I don't really remember exactly why they got divorced. Uh, but I remember my dad losing his job at one point. Um, and we had, I had four brothers at the time and we just didn't.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  What number were you in the, in the stack?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Second.

• 5:16Jocko Willink?

  Number two. Check.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Number two.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  And so you, you're all living together. When they get divorced, what happens to the family unit?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Man, that was, uh, so we went and lived with my aunt, um, for awhile while my mom was trying to figure things out. My dad was trying to figure things out. Um, I could sense that there was like tension and we didn't quite understand. We thought it was, um, cool that we got to go stay with my aunt. All of us there and she had kids at the time. So there was a house full of maniacs, uh, five boys and her two kids and, um, yeah, it was cool. Cause this was the time that, man, I'm going to date myself pretty good here. They had cable and it was the cable box that you press the button.

• 5:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Chink. Yeah. That was, uh, that was cool to us that we got to go stay with our aunt, but at the same time, like we didn't understand what was happening with the family. We didn't, where was dad? You know, we're just kind of living our lives as kids, real young kids, just fighting and, you know, beating each other up and playing politics within the family of who, who we picking on today and what's your strategy to avoid getting picked on and. So we had that going on and it broke us up pretty good as far as like what we anticipated was going to happen. We just didn't quite understand.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  So then where did it all shake out? Like how, where did you end up living permanently?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Um, so we went back to a little town called Claremore, Oklahoma. Um, and there I think the only reason why we did that was because the church that we were going to at the time, opened up a place for us. It was just a one bedroom apartment and we didn't have anything, you know, because the divorce and I think, I don't know where everything went at the time, but I remember staying like we had, there's five of us. There's five days in a week. So we got to choose a special day of the week. My day was Tuesday, second in line, day number two. And, uh, that was the night I would get to share them one mattress that we had with my mom because she was trying to figure things out. She was going back to school to be a nurse. And just trying to make some sort of like, I guess, path for us, for us. And

• 7:17Speaker 01

  we were all living in this one bedroom apartment, um, having the time of our lives because as kids you make the best of what you have. And that's what we did. And the same thing that if it was your night to sleep on mom's mattress, the rest of us would sleep on the floor. But you also got to choose what dinner you had, like whatever government cheese that you had, like what kind of concoction you're gonna have. And I always chose macaroni and cheese. And so Tuesday night used to be pretty special for me.

• 7:41Jocko Willink?

  And, and how long were you living in that kind of, uh, one bedroom apartment scenario?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Man, it's hard to remember, but it seems like it was about six to seven months, maybe to a year. And then we finally got an actual house that, um, was down this old country road. It was, it was pretty old and pretty bad shape, but it was a home. And so we loved it. And we're like, we're not in a one bedroom apartment, sleeping on the living room floor and a mattress. We started getting things. We had a couch, um, and, uh, beds, we had beds. That was a luxury that we, we embraced and enjoyed. And we had a little bit of land too, which was good for us as five boys.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  So what are the, how far apart are all the boys? Pretty tight group as far as ages go?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was, uh, two years apart. Actually, my older brother's about a year and a half. No, he's right at two. My younger brother's at two. The one beneath that is two. And my youngest is right about a year and a half. And I remember when the youngest was born, but I don't remember the other. They were just always my brother. I remember my little one being born, being in the hospital, like, what's going on with mom? She's having another kid. Oh, another brother. Cool. So it was, it was pretty interesting. Five of us.

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  So now, now what's going on as far as like, did your mom eventually get a job that she finished nursing school? Like, how are you putting, how's she putting it all together?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I don't know how she held herself all together, to be honest with you. She was going to school to get a nursing license and she was working, trying to find some way to provide income. And we're on food stamps at the time. And that was like, very embarrassing. You know, I could, from where I am today, going back in that time to have, being a parent, being on food stamps, not being able to provide for your family. As a kid, you don't know. You're like, oh, what are these cool things? They buy you food? Cool. Well, still, we were actually stealing from her purse to go down to the gas station. And this is where we learned that if you've got a food stamp that's worth one dollar, you're going to buy the cheapest thing in there and buy as much of it as you can. And we buy little Jolly Ranchers. And so we had like, a plethora of Jolly Ranchers. We're

• 9:43Speaker 01

  like, Eureka, this is awesome. But for her, like, it was just chaos. And five boys, you know, trying to, one, get a good head count. You know, where, where are these kids at all the time? And then, two, like, how do I provide, how do I feed them? And there's a lot of government cheese, government powdered milk, and whatever, whatever we could get from like, our friends' house. Like, hey, let's go over to so and so's house and see if they got leftovers.

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  Where was your dad this whole time?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  He had moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, and was trying to, you know, find his life now, too, trying to get a job. However, that's, I didn't realize it at the time, but he would, that was two hours away from us. And so every time he got to see us, he would spend two hours driving. And that, it taught me a lot. Now, on the effort you put in matters. And he would drive two hours one way, and then two hours back. And then, for us on the weekends, we'd go see him on the weekends, and he would do that same drive, two hours. And made the best of it, in this big, blue Astro van, throwing all the kids in there and saying, all right, buckle in, we got two hours. And he was like, it was like, you know, in the SEAL teams, you have van fights.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Oh, no, we were doing that as kids.

• 10:56Jocko Willink?

  Well experienced in van fights by the time you got to the team.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  It was familiar to me. I was like, oh, van fight, I know this very well.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  So where'd you end up going to high school?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Uh, Claremore Sequoia. It was a little, very small school. Everybody knew everybody.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was such a small school that you, you kind of knew where you were and everything like you had, you had small little cliques of groups. You had the preppies, you had the jocks, you had the,

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I don't even know what they're called. I think they're called goth now, but you know, they're dressing all black. Yeah. So you had different cliques. You had the, I mean, it's Oklahoma. So you had the Cowboys. You know, we had a lot of Indians. Um, we had a reservation that we passed every day on the way to school. And that was actually very, very cool. Getting to see, cause they would come into our school and we'd get out of class to go see, um, like demonstrations that they do. So you learn about their culture and I thought that was awesome. Learn how to build a TP, got to see, you know, the headdress and what it means. And then you got to go to school, these kids that know all about it. And you're like, man, that's so cool. Like, tell me more. And it was, it was neat. It was a small school, but you got to see a lot of like diversity and culture in it.

• 12:07Jocko Willink?

  And what were you, were you playing sports?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always played something. Uh, well, that was daycare for us. Is, uh, you either had track and you had football. Cause Oklahoma, you had to play football. You had baseball and that was about it. They had wrestling, but the school I went to didn't have wrestling. And I'd, I would always wrestle with the guys that went to the other school.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Just get my butt kicked and

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  That's such a bummer. They should have, I didn't have wrestling in my high school either growing up. So it's just a, a terrible loss. And were you, what were you thinking? I mean, so now you get your freshman year or sophomore, you're like, what are you into? What does life look like? Do you have any kind of grand plan for life?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  No. So the only reason why I even left my hometown was because my best friend, Chris, he, he was going to college and so throughout this whole time of my childhood, um, you know, I had some, some good instances that, that shaped me. And my mom, she was working, she was never around. Um, not because she didn't want to, my dad, not because they didn't want to, just because they were trying to make something of themselves. And so I was always over at his house. And so their parents, I spent more time with them than I did my own parents. And I had the greatest influence was his mom, like his mom and dad, they would take us to the lake and stuff like that. And so when high school was kind of winding down, I had some buddies that went to the Marines. Um, and I was like, man, what am I going to do?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Like I have no plan and my buddy Chris was like, hey, I'm going to Missouri Western to go play football. Why don't you come with me? I was just like, okay, like, how do I do that? And uh, he was like, well, you know, we figured out my dad and mom kind of came together. My dad uh, got me um, because we were such poor kids. There's all kinds of programs you could uh, get some, some of your funding paid for. And he took on a lot of that and uh, got me to where I could go and uh, went to, to college football just because of my buddy was like, why don't you come with me? I was like, okay. Now, did you actually play college football? I did. Well, I walked on and uh, I mean, so at this point in my life, I had to do something.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  I'm a fighter, you know, I was always made fun of, picked on, you know, there was always some sort of adversity that was hitting me in the face. And so I was just naturally stubborn and I wanted to fight. Hitting back. Yeah. When life's hitting you in the face, you hit back. Yeah, I wasn't gonna get pummeled. That's not who I am. That's not, I just had to like, okay, let me go give it my all until I am a bloody pulp, no matter what. It's a mentality that I had. And so I walked on to the football team and man, that was a wake up call. I got my butt kicked so much, but I freaking loved it because the guys I was with, there's this other um, running back that was a walk on as well, Nick Richardson. And we became really good friends. He was a black dude from Springfield.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  And so me and him like buddies, but he was a lot more talented than I was, but I had a lot of heart. That's what I call it. Um, I would get just pummeled for the scout team and I, I think I did my part for letting uh, building the confidence of the first team, the starters, but. Making the first team feel confident. Jack. And so that was, that was my uh, that was my experience and I knew that I wasn't, I had this small dream of like, oh, I'm playing college football. Like this is my ticket to get to the NFL. I could be, so I, I loved Barry Sanders at the time. I grew up like Barry Sanders is the man. Hell yeah. And uh, that quickly faded when I realized like, oh, like the best I could be is a third down back to go and like throw my body into like a

• 15:42Speaker 01

  defensive end that's just going to destroy me just so the quarterback gets a few more seconds to throw that ball. And uh, it, there was a call and said, you need to make a change. You need to find a purpose. You need to find something. What were you studying in college? Criminal justice.

• 15:58Jocko Willink?

  So were you thinking maybe being a police officer was in the cards?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I, you know, so growing up, I was always in trouble. Um, police, my older brother was always getting arrested for something. And so I was always near policemen. At one point in time, like me and my best friend, Chris, we had, we were in my house. And there was a group that went out and like tore down a gazebo or something. And like our house was surrounded. I was asleep on the couch. I had no idea. And a bunch of guys come flying through my door. They're all my friends and like, they're like sweating and they're just panicked and they sit down like, hey, what's up? And I'm just like waking up and like, what's up guys? They're like, oh, nothing. What are you doing? I'm just like, what are you, wait, what's happening? And they're like, oh, nothing. And then my mom comes out and she's like freaking out like, why are there cops everywhere?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  And I was like, there's cops here? I was like, well, let's go. I had a Jerry Rice jersey on and old, uh, one breaker Adidas pants. I remember because it was a very unique experience. And so I was like, well, let's just go out and talk to them. Like their cops are cool. And I walk out and, um, it was, they had like the, the end of the road blocked off. So they're all down there and

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  dang dude, what kind of gazebo got wrecked?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Right. Well, there was another car that came flying through and was, and my older brother comes out of his room with, uh, an SKS and just shoots in the air and was just like, because he, he wasn't part of it. Like he has this chaos going down too. And he walks out and he shoots in the air. And so we, we had no idea. Like we just have this vehicle driving around our yard that is not a police car. It's just a truck. And I think he was chasing the guys that did it. And they're like, go to Murph's house. They're always in trouble. You can go to his house and that's our safe zone or whatever. He'll know what to do. No, that was not the case. So I walked out and, uh, it was that big line of cars. There's probably about 10 cop cars there. And they just split and then it was like, there was a cop car that came flying, flying up to our house.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And I'm like, cool. Someone's coming to talk to us. You know, it's like two in the morning. I'm walking out and it was like guns in our face. Get on the ground, get on the ground. And, uh, so I'm like, oh, face down? Yes, sir. I'm gonna obey what you say. And, uh, they, they got the full story and it was, it was funny because as we're sitting on the cop car and our hands are on the car. Uh, there's another buddy of mine that was, that was with, I can't remember if he was, no, he was with the gazebo gang is what they're known as around our hometown. But this guy is like, he's one of our best friends and, and he's a pastor now in Kansas and uh, really good kid. And he's like freaking out and he was like, guys, we gotta come up with a story. We gotta come up with a story. Like we're at the movies. We're coming back from the movies. And I'm like,

• 18:38Speaker 01

  I don't think they're gonna buy it. And so we, we talked to the cops already and he doesn't know this. We've already told him the story. Like, yeah, there's some guys, I wasn't part of it. Like I can vouch, you know, these guys can bust in then. And so we just told him the truth. And he doesn't know it. And he's like trying to say, sir, we were just at the movies and, and he's kind of looking at him like,

• 18:58Speaker 01

  uh, we already know what happened. And so they end up, uh, then my best friend's parents show up and you could tell they were pissed. Like, hey, this isn't, this isn't okay. Like, look at all this. This is not a good spot. And they yanked us out and you know, the, the dad and the parent look of like, yeah, you're in trouble. You know, like, ooh, okay, okay.

• 19:20Jocko Willink?

  So that was your experience with police or one of your experiences?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  One of many.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  When you're going to college, is being a policeman like something that you're considering at this point?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I respected the uniform. That was something that I always admired that, you know, cause they, they're very professional. They always had like, everything was dressed right, dressed. Very to a T meticulous detail. They looked professional. And some of them would come up and they were like good mentors and they would say, you know, you gotta think about things and there's consequences. We see the worst in everything. And so I, I took that on as like, man, that's great. You know, that um, somebody has that awareness that a troubled kid like myself, they could impart some wisdom and knowledge on, and it could change the trajectory of their life. And that's exactly what was going on. It's like, I love that. The uniform, I respected, I respected those guys. And so maybe that's what I want to do. Maybe want to be like them.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Cause I didn't have anybody in my life at the time to, to say, I want to be like them. My dad was awesome. He gave me some very good uh, wisdom and lessons learned. I still apply today in life and my mom, I saw the hard work ethic, but I didn't want to be a nurse. You know, that wasn't something as a 19 year old punk wants to say to his friends, like, I want to go be a nurse. And they're like, okay, float off, like go ahead.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  That's whatever you want to do, man. Being a nurse was not, it was not one of the things. And so that was one of the things that really impacted me really. And so I was like, let's do it.

• 20:46Jocko Willink?

  So at what point you realized that the NFL probably not going to happen? At what point did you start looking at the military as an option?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  When I was on campus and I saw Army ROTC and they were running around. And at that point, you know, I did my internship in practicum with the Kansas City Police Department and I saw some really messed up stuff with, you know, just how bad it was. And I saw some of the guys there that didn't project the same professionalism that the cops did in my hometown. And so I was like, man, I don't want to be a part of this. They're not a team. Like, that's not something that they're together. But these guys, they're all in Army uniforms.

• 21:26Jocko Willink?

  ROTC guys, yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yep. And they were sharp. They were professional and they were the same age as me. And the look that I was giving them, and keep in mind, I was on the football team. We got a lot of good looks of like, oh, these guys are awesome, right? But me looking at them was like, ooh, that's cool. Like, I liked that. I used to play Army in the ditch all the time growing up and now I get to see it and have the opportunity. And so I went and signed up for Army ROTC. And we did these, uh, have you ever heard of the Ranger Challenge?

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  That was so cool. I love that.

• 21:57Jocko Willink?

  It's like a ROTC thing. They get together, different groups, and they go and do these challenges. They're like three day weekends and you'll have to do foot patrols and bridge building and just kind of little tactical missions and stuff like that for the cadets.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yep. Marchsmanship. That was the first time I got to shoot a, uh, an M4 or an AR-15. That was awesome. And so it really like, it started this little fire inside of me of like, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. Until we're at an event, it might've been.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  God, what college do we go to? Well, I saw this battalion commander, they had all their NCOs and all the ROTC guys lined up. And this guy was just, I saw the way he was talking to his guys. And it was like, accepted. And it pissed me off. Like, I was like, hey, man, like, you don't, why are you talking to them that way? There was no point. There's one thing if like you're in the wrong, but he was just like, kind of belittling them. And I was like, that's not cool. I was like, I gotta find a different path. But that fire was lit. Like, I was like, alright, I want to do something in uniform. This is cool. Like, I love the guys that were in the Ranger Challenges with, they were really good dudes. Um, that, you know, I learned a lot about leadership, a lot about, um, you know, thinking things through.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  It was a big one of like, you've got to think things through. You can't just, you know, use your emotion in things. And that started there, um, and added on to some of the things that, that were already ingrained in me as a kid. So I was like, alright, cool. Let me explore this a little bit more. Let me get a little bit more deeper in this.

• 23:33Jocko Willink?

  And so where'd that take you?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Right down to the Marine Corps recruiting depot. My friends went into the Marines and, you know, I, at the time, I didn't know anything about the military other than what I saw, because we didn't have technology. What I watched growing up was like maybe one or two cartoons as a kid and the rest of the time was outside. You know, we were poor. We didn't have TV. We didn't have cable. And so we were, whatever trouble we'd get into, go build a bike, go rebuild that motorcycle. Like, ask for things that people wanted to give you. And so that was like my childhood of like, experience that and pretending to be in the military. But when my friends went to the Marines, you knew about the Marines. Everybody knows about the Marines. Marines are awesome. And so I walked down the Marine Corps office and clunk, clunk, that door was closed.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  I was like, that's not cool. That's probably the only time they were closed. But then there was two like E5s in the Navy's office that were like, the two doors, you could reach them with one hand. So I just opened it up and walked in and I said, hey, I'm looking for something. What do you got? And what they did is they sat me down. I kind of gave them my background a little bit of like, you know, play football, teams, and I want some team dynamics. And so they popped in. I still think I would love to get find this video. I have, I've tried to search for, I can't find it. But it was the, it's like probably the JFK original, like recruiting video for SEALs. It was the old like cheesy music and they were running on the beach in Coronado. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one guy comes out of a submarine and I was just like, that looks awesome. Yep. Sign me up.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I want to do that. And they kind of, this is where like the fire was set ablaze. Uh, because they, they kind of laughed at me. And so in my childhood, when you laughed at me, I'm kind of like, okay. You kind of, you, you judge me for something that I'm not. And, uh, like, oh, nobody makes it through there. And I was like, what are they? Like other Navy SEALs? And so in my mind, I, I said this to him, I think out loud. Is it, don't they grow Navy SEALs in like some sort of government facility, like these special people? Don't they like have like this special place for them? And they laughed at me and said, no, but don't worry. You, you can't make it like, nobody makes it through SEAL training. And I was like, hmm.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Okay. You can't tell me what to do. It's like, sign me up. And he was, uh, the two of them like, ah, okay. You know, so I ended up going into the delayed entry program. And at that time you had to do the screener and they had a, a chief SEAL up in Kansas City at the time that was, uh, his name was Chief Roger Roberts. I'll never forget his name. And they brought him down. He was like a dive motivator. And he spent some time with me, explained to me what a SEAL was. Hey, this is what a SEAL is. Cause I never read a book, didn't know anything. I just know that that cool video and they're saying, I can't go do that. And I was like, you can't tell me what to do, man. Like you don't laugh at me and say, you can't. Roger that. Okay. Let's see what I got. And, um,

• 26:27Speaker 01

  After that, like he trained with me for a little bit. I worked my tail off, man. I, I, I wasn't already in pretty good shape because of football, but then like he taught me the side stroke, which I could, didn't quite grasp, but at the time I'm like, okay, I'll do it. I tried to muscle through it and it was just exhausting. So I exhausted myself time and time again. And somehow gritted through the PRT and passed and got a contract saying you can go to um, the Navy and try out for, for BUDs. You can actually try and get a chance to be a SEAL. And that was the first time in my life. I'm like, I see a path. You know, I never had anything before is,

• 27:08Speaker 01

  it was typical and you know, society puts pressure on people to be something that in a situation like being a poor kid, it was common for the poor kids in my upbringing, in my area, my community to go along with, oh, you're not going to make anything yourself. You'd come right back here, working a gas station, working something. And, and I didn't, I didn't want to accept that. And it was the first time I broke that. I'm not going back home. I made a choice, you know, home is not where I want to be right now. I want to be out making Sean Murphy. And that's where I found the SEAL teams is like, all right, I see a path. I see something I can try and do and make something myself. And six months later,

• 27:48Speaker 01

  had to finish out the semester in college. Six months later, I'm on that bus, head to the Navy recruiting depot in Chicago.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  And how was the shock to the system going to boot camp? Were you good with it? If you did ROTC, I imagine you kind of knew some of the games that were going to be played and all that. So probably not that big of a deal.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Well, Jocko, I have to put you in where my frame of mindset was. I grew up with hand-me-downs. I didn't have like, I had LA Lights for like years. I had, and I still love, I have a love for these, this pair of Jordans that I got given to me from like a, I'm sure somebody probably felt sorry for me or something. They gave me a pair of like 93 Jordans. It was like the blackness, because I watched Jordan all the time. I loved watching him play. And so I got a pair of his shoes and I, I had them for so long. And so I didn't have anything of like, that was cool. I could ooh and ah at.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Well, when I get to boot camp, they're like, you know, you remember going through the line, they're like handing you underwear, handing you socks. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is better than Christmas. You got the sweatpants that's got the navy blue on it and stuff. And so it was, it was awesome to me. It was like, this is cool. Guys, we get free stuff, man. Like, it's awesome.

• 28:57Jocko Willink?

  And a bunch of food to go with it.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Food. Yes, that was a big one.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  So you, you go through Navy boot camp and then what'd you go? Weren't you a GM? Do you go to Gunners made school?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  How long is that school?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  It's about six months.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  I still use some of the stuff I learned in that school today. Like they, that's a great school because they had, I learned about guns, right? That's satisfying. Any young kid that has a passion for, you know, guns or anything like that and wants to learn, you get to learn to dismantle them, all of the different nomenclatures, what their capabilities are and not just the, the, the small arms, but you also get big guns and seeing how these Navy, big Navy ships, the, um, how those giant guns and everything works and the hydraulics. Like I use that on my tractor day. Like I understand what an accumulator is. I understand that you gotta do all these things. And at least it gives me a starting point to, you know, problem solve them. Like what's going on? Like what did I push my tractor too hard to do and where did it break? And so I learned it all through, uh, Gunners made a school.

• 29:54Jocko Willink?

  And are you still prepping hardcore with other guys going to BUDs that you were with at the time? And you guys were training your ass off?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that, that ignorance is bliss, Jocko. We didn't know. We didn't have any idea what we should be training. I was running in the Navy boots, the like clodhopper.

• 30:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. The, uh, the boondockers.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Boondockers. Yeah. Those things. I was running around in those things, tearing up my feet, doing pushups, pullups, not really swimming that much. I should have been. And, uh, yeah, there was a, a big group of us that, um, kind of stuck together, you know, everybody's like, oh, we're gonna go do it. Every single one of us is like, we're all gonna make it. And everybody's, uh, very confident in training, but it wasn't, uh, yeah, it wasn't the right path, the right thing to do and that working out the way that we did.

• 30:45Jocko Willink?

  So you show up to BUDs. How's your first impression of BUDs?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I remember the smell, that seawater, that kelp.

• 30:54Jocko Willink?

  You ever seen the ocean before?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Never.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Never. I was like, this is amazing. This is the coolest thing. Cause I remember landing in San Diego and it's a short runway and I could see the Cordonal Bridge. I didn't know where BUDS was, but I remember seeing the bridge. And um, I land there and I got my little, um, the, the van driver that picks you up, it takes you over to the compound. And BUDS and I remember showing up and like, this is BUDS. This is awesome. Like I had goosebumps and everything was. And this is, uh, so this group of dudes that we had, they were going to be in class two, three, two, three, eight. We're, I don't know how many of these, I don't think any of these guys made it through, but, um, we had this genius idea. We get into six, eighteen, we drop our stuff and we're like, let's go surf torture ourselves.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  And in hindsight, that was so dumb. It's like, we're trying to now like prep ourselves to be ready because we're going to be the best SEALs ever that came through BUDS. You know, everybody thinks that. And we went out and surf tortured ourselves for a little bit and we're just like, yeah, so cool. And it was just, I think back, it's the dumbest thing. Like there was plenty of that to come.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna get plenty of that.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:02Jocko Willink?

  So, and how, how, so you form up in class two, thirty eight?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:06Jocko Willink?

  And how'd that work out for you?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Oh, that was a disaster. Um, what, so I was sitting in, it was actually when nine eleven happened. Nine eleven happened when I was sitting there eating breakfast and I didn't realize it was real. I thought it was a bad movie and.

• 32:21Jocko Willink?

  Was, was you, were you in first phase at this time?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  No, we were right about.

• 32:25Jocko Willink?

  Getting ready to class up?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're in indock or PTRR. I don't know what they call it now or what it was back then. It was, um, I remember I had my blouse, my little canteen belt and canteen and stuff. And I remember sitting there eating. I looked up at the, uh, the TV that was in the galley and I saw the plane hit. I was like, that's weird, man. That's a messed up movie. Like, why would somebody make a movie about that? Where's like, where are we going in society? And got got up and had my buddy, swim buddy, and we started running back. And I remember seeing, what dawned on me is like, this is real, is when I saw the SEAL teams, like people up on the roofs and like cop cars and everything, like things locked down. I was like, oh, maybe that's real. And then Master Chief Gild, he was the CMC at the time.

• 33:09Jocko Willink?

  Big Will.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, he he got everybody to get on the grinder and was, and he gave us a great speech of like, war.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  War is here. This changes everything. And it was like that feel good and you're like getting goosebumps and you're like, this is it, man. Like, we get to go do something, but we're still like, we haven't even proven ourselves yet. We haven't even stepped into, you know, the actual training. It's just like getting you prepped. It's like, it's kind of like a babysitting club like Ken Doc is, is what I look at is.

• 33:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I bet Big Will. So when I was like an E5, he was my senior chief at Team One in the training training cell at Team One. Yeah. And he was one of those guys where I bet you he gave you one hell of a speech.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  It was.

• 33:52Jocko Willink?

  Fired up.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  It was awesome. It was, it was the one that touched your soul.

• 33:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:56Jocko Willink?

  Cause he's a really smart, really articulate, just awesome guy. He's, he is an awesome guy. Um, but yeah, I can imagine him coming out there and as a master chief and you're a freaking.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:07Jocko Willink?

  He nothing. Not even kicking off into buds yet, just getting ready to start.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, as a Navy SEAL like this guy, and he had that tone and just like.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  And he's like six, five or something. That's why his nickname is Big Will.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:20Jocko Willink?

  That's freaking epic. Uh, so you kick off, you get into first phase and how'd it go?

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Well, so first phase, um, you know, there's so many dudes. The first time I ever did an ocean swim was in first phase and uh, they sent us out, you know, the little fins and all that stuff. And I had done pretty well. Like I was figuring my groove out, figuring out how things worked. Um, realize that you'll never pass a room inspection. You're always going to be wet and sandy.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  That it doesn't matter how many perfect pushups you do, the who ya isn't going to make it better. And um, got all the way to hell week. And this is where I now I'm starting to figure out, oh, you got to make it through hell week before they you get this brown shirt, this coveted brown shirt. And um, I was at, I can't remember exactly which night it was. I think it was Tuesday. I think it was Tuesday night. It was right before like you could get rolled forward if you make it another night. And we had come back for med checks and there was this other guy Noel Suns, which we, um, I just talked to him the other day and we reminisced about this. We hadn't talked since then.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  He is like a six foot two, probably taller than that dude. And I'm, you know, I'm a smurf crew, you know, the best group of guys. And somehow they, whoever was the instructor that decided to do this, thought it was funny to put us in the same boat while we're take seats in the surf and try and eat our MREs. And I remember Noel just having this like, ah, this pain screaming, falling forward. Well, I'm in the middle of the boat in, in between the, the two back guys and I'm in the middle and they're taller than me and they kind of fall forward and this whole way the boat boom, right on top of me. And I remember my spine just feeling like the bolt of lightning. I was like, oh my gosh. And so it like stiffened me up, like my, everything kind of like tensed up.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  And so, uh, I go through, which this is clever. Team guys are so clever. When you're out there and you're cold, they turn on the hot showers to rinse you off before you go in and talk to the docs. And so I'm like, hot showers in hell week? Piece of cake, right? That was terrible because the second you step out of that nice hot shower, I was just, I remember being so cold and my back being tight. And then walking into the med checks, just jackhammering and trying to tell the doctors, my back is hurt. And he was like, you hurt your back? And I explained to him what happened. He was like, well, we got to get you x-rays, especially if you had a bolt of lightning and it's stiff. And so they sent me over to get x-rays. And at this time,

• 36:46Speaker 01

  the group that I was with, they said, hey, you guys all get rolled. And I was just like, what is rolled? Like, I want to get back in there. Like, no, they're too far away. You've been out for too long. You get rolled to two, three, nine.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Okay, I can do this. I know I can do it once. Yeah, it sucked, but I can do this.

• 37:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you get rolled. Just so Echo Charles, if you're in hell week, so you went through, I don't know, three or four weeks of really a bunch of crap. And then you start hell week. If you get rolled in hell week, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. And it makes sense because otherwise you'd have someone that was like, I'm just gonna get purposely kind of get rolled in hell week and it'd be totally fresh going into it, which gives you a huge advantage. Cause all of first phase beats you up. So it's simulating combat. Like you're, you don't get a fresh start. You don't get like the weekend to recover or a week to recover. So when you get rolled back in hell week, you're going back to the first day of first phase. So that's what happened to you.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, day one, week one.

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Guess what? You're on the same playing level as everybody else next to you. You know better than anybody else that has a white shirt. You're, you gotta pass every single run. Nobody's gonna have any sympathy or anything for it. And I was like, all right, I do remember, don't be in the goon squad. You don't want that. And when they tell you to get wet and sandy, don't be emotionally hurt. Go get wet and sandy.

• 38:09Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, just embrace it. And so I did a little better in two, three, nine. And then I get all the way back up to hell week and get rolled again for the same thing. Not the same scenario, but same thing. I had an injury and they're like, hey, you can't, man. Like that, they were rolling people left and right. And so I got into two, four, zero. And so at this point in time, man, it hurt. That was like, I don't know if I can do this. And I was in two, four, zero and I was happy. And there was a point where I had so many miles on my body that, cause I didn't recover. If you think back to buds, once the guy, classmates through hell week, they're like, another one's starting. So you don't have much of a break. And so I jumped in two, four, zero.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  And going through it, awesome dudes, making some good friends. I'm like, I see it. I can do this. You know, getting back in that confidence and then run a four mile time or no is.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Can't remember if it was a four mile time run or if it was just a run, but there was uh, one of the guys that used to be in SWIC, he was coming through and he ended up, we're on a beach run and also this dude collapses, boom thud. And I was like, what was that? And um, we all circle around him and then all, all hell breaks loose. They're like, hey, you guys take it back to the beach, um, or back to the, the podium. And they end up swooping this dude up and he ended up, he died on the spot. He had something go on with his heart and he just collapsed and died. And so I was like, oh, that's crazy. Well, the next week, right before we're going into hell week, he had that four mile time run right before hell week. And so I'm on that four mile time run. I remember coming back around. I was right at the rocks, coming back to the podium and I couldn't walk. Like

• 39:47Speaker 01

  it just, it locked up. I couldn't do anything. I was like, the, the weirdest feeling of like you try so hard, but your body's like, no, like you can't move and my legs wouldn't move. And I was just like sitting, I was like, walking at a very slow pace and they put me in the, the ambulance. And so now the medical, as you know, anything that happens in BUDS that like a student dies or a major injury, there's gonna be a lot of scrutiny. And so I'm in the back of this ambulance and I'm telling them what's going on. They sent me to get x-rays and I had bilateral hip stress fractures. And so where there's like in your, where your hips are, there is um, a little hairline fracture on both sides that uh, if you've never had a hairline fracture, it's the same thing as feeling

• 40:29Speaker 01

  like it's broken. It was, it was rough, man. It was hard uh, to understand like, why can't I walk? Well, now I know why. It's because I had two cracks in my hip. And I remember sitting down there with the medical guy and I've had this conversation multiple times now. And he's like, hey, bro, you can't, you can't get rolled. We can't keep you here. I was like, what are my options? And he told me, he's like, well, here's what we can do. You know, you're, you're very well liked here. It's like you, you definitely put out. You're not like one of these guys that are, because I never went into medical. You're not a medical commando. You just seem to have like some, a series of bad things happen to you. He's like, we've got a billet that uh, you can fill in Puerto Rico, but you gotta go to Texas. It's about a year and a half, two years, depending on how

• 41:13Speaker 01

  you, you do there, you can come back. I said,

• 41:18Speaker 01

  All right, man, you're telling me that this is not the end of my chance. He said, yeah. I was like, all right, I'm in. I did it. And so I signed the paperwork, said I voluntarily remove myself from training to go do this. And so I got the orders and left and man, that was looking back on it now, like as sad as I was, like, you know, my feelings were hurt because I didn't make it through, but that that vision was still there. It was a blessing because now going into it and I was ignorant, which is also a blessing. But now I knew how to prepare. I knew exactly why I needed to get tight. I had actually Mark Lee was in that class that got, I think he was in two, three, nine and got rolled and he went to yeah, where did he go?

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  He went to, he went to like

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Rota? Something. He went somewhere.

• 42:07Jocko Willink?

  Maybe it was Rota. I don't know. But he went to the fleet, but he was also like a did some kind of like quick excursion back to the fleet.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  So did um

• 42:16Jocko Willink?

  Mikey Monsor.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mikey did too. I think he was in Rota.

• 42:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yes, he wasn't. He was because I remember his dad was telling a bunch of stories about him driving fast cars and rented fast cars over there. But yeah, but it's always, you know, when I talk to guys that quit, if I talk to a young person that quits, you know, first of all, going into hell week or go start, I'm like, don't quit. And then if they happen to quit, which happens, I always, I always tell them about Mikey and Mark because both those guys quit and both of them came back and are freaking heroic. You know, iconic frogmen for all time.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 42:51Jocko Willink?

  And so

• 42:54Jocko Willink?

  that's, you know, you can, you can get back to it. I think that I also know that the highest percentage of quitters that they have are previous quitters. So if you're a quitter, chances are, if you go back, chances are you're going to quit again. It's not a guarantee, right? But it's a low percentage of people that make it if they've quit before. I had a guy that was my roommate who was a quitter from pre from like from the from the fleet. So he quit, went to the fleet and came back and he was now in my class. And he was, you know, I was young. I was like eighteen, nineteen. And he was probably twenty five, which is a pretty like seems like an old knowledgeable person, right?

• 43:37Jocko Willink?

  And he was kind of a physical stud and everything. And yeah, sure enough, he quit again during hell week. So chances are. You've developed a habit of quitting. You're probably going to quit again, but you have control. And if you're Mikey Monsour or Mark Lee, you go, cool. I'm not going to make that mistake again. So, um, and that's, so you end up going down to Puerto Rico?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:02Jocko Willink?

  And are you training your ass off down there?

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, do you remember the book, uh, Stu Smith had the, um, it was like the thirty six weeks to buds or something?

• 44:12Jocko Willink?

  I, I don't remember, but I know it's been a guide for a lot of dudes trying to go.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  There was a, I'm not gonna say his name because he's still active, but another buddy of mine that was down there in Puerto Rico with me and he had it.

• 44:22Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  And he's a tall, lanky dude that, you know, he was in two, three, nine also and, and, uh, quit. And so there's a group of us that were like, hey, let's train. And we did, we trained so freaking hard. There was three of us. Um, another kid was, uh, really like he was a triathlete, super stud at everything, good swimmer, good runner, everything, like could do pull ups and pushups for days. Um, but me and the other guy-

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  Was he a previous quitter as well?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:48Jocko Willink?

  Dang dude.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  So it was, it was quitter land down there.

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  But it was fun because we, you know, we had, we had our vision of getting back through and making it back. And, uh, yeah, I trained, man, I trained so hard. I actually swam in the ocean this time, um, learned the side stroke and, uh, just got in really good shape. And I could run for days. It just mattered. I just had to learn how to control my breathing. And after I did that, I was running so far, so fast. I could, it wasn't about, I would just run for like, I remember on Puerto Rico, cause it was a, you know, down in the Caribbean, you could run any day. And so I remember, uh, running just until like, uh, for time. I would start with a time and say, I'm gonna run for thirty minutes. I didn't run for distance. I would just run for time. I want to do thirty minute run today. And that thirty minute would

• 45:36Speaker 01

  keep getting longer and longer. And the better I control my breath, like, what I was doing is heart rate training. I didn't know it. And so as I'm controlling my heart rate and breathing, I could run as fast as I wanted, as far as I wanted, as long as I maintained that and controlled my pace, my heart rate and breathing, the, the trifecta, if I could maintain that, I could run forever. And I was doing that almost every day and living, you know, being, I think it was twenty one at the time, being a twenty one year old, like just getting the best that you can, getting the best physical shape you can, learn as much you can, doing some really cool stuff and-

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Down there in Puerto Rico, they had a SEAL, um, like, I don't know what they did in there. It was like a dive locker or something. And, uh, those, there was a

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  There, there used to be a unit down there in Puerto Rico. Yeah. So.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  I got in tight with those guys. Um, there was two bars. There was Dawn's Lighthouse right outside.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Dawn's Fight House.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Dawn's Fight House, yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  And then there was, um, Papa Joe's, which was like, uh, I guess you could call it a strip club. It was like, it was more of a bar than anything. And so you could tell like, those are the two places. And I was in security at the time as a gunner's mate. And every once in a while I had to go do patrols in the cop car and stay in the gate. And I started, um, and there was a group of us that like, if we ever heard about SEALs getting in trouble, we'd try and help them out. And so I started like, give them my number. I was like, hey, guys, if you go down these bars, like, call me. I'll come pick you up. And I don't know how many team guys I picked up at the gate in the cop car and would drive them back to their barracks. And there was a, golly, I would love to talk to these guys again, but

• 47:11Speaker 01

  there's one night that, uh, there's this back road on, uh, the north side of the base that with nobody, nothing was back there. And so I have a car full of team guys, like doing a van fight in a little Impala. And, um, they're like, hey, turn on the lights. I was like, like the cop car lights? Like to me, I'm like, okay, boop. Like these guys are a bunch of big kids. And so where I let them on the PA, which was the worst thing for me to do. I gave them that. Yeah. And so I'm doing like 80 miles an hour with these guys on the back with the lights on. They're just like yelling at people. And I actually come up on a car and I can't get it back from them. And so I'm trying to get back away from the car because they're just screaming and that guy pulls over.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  And so I just have to blow past them so that I don't like, I'm not going to sit, get behind them. And I don't know who that person was, but it was a that was like, don't give team guys things that you can't answer for.

• 48:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  So I would drop them off and had a good time.

• 48:07Jocko Willink?

  Check. So, uh, when, when you're getting, uh, you show, you go back at the buds.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:12Jocko Willink?

  And you must feel like you're prepared.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  But are you still like, also realize that there's a chance of you can't make it?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yep. I knew that it's not a hundred percent guaranteed. Nothing is ever a hundred percent guaranteed. But I had confidence. I had.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  I had a little bit of, I know what's behind the curtain. I know what's coming. So I can be more calibrated, not be so shocked. I can stay focused, determined on where I need to be and what I need to do. Knowing that, and this is truly when I realized, nothing lasts forever. Nothing. And man, two, five, zero was awesome. I got, I ran into Mark again. Mike, he was there, like all these, like we're having a good time. Now we're like, oh, we're back. And we're telling stories about what we did and where we were and uh, we start going through training and um, this is so funny. Mark was the supply guy. And so Mark always had everything. I'm sure he did.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  I'm like, how are you passing all these room inspections? Like my knife, my K bar is like destroyed. He's like, I'll get them. And so I had this brand new knife that became my inspection knife that once after inspection, I put that thing up and it never saw the light of day again. Cause it was in pristine condition. And so I was like, oh, there's tricks you can do. Cool. Let's, so there's a group of us that like, right. Hey, we've got to band bond together and stick together and like overcome what we can. Yeah. And just try and survive. Like, let's do this. And um, yeah, that was a, that was, I had, I had the confidence I was going to make it through. Cause you know, the community, the, the brotherhood that was there was just so strong this time. And we're like, we got this.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Whatever they throw at us, we're, we're going to make it. And it was not the case. I got all the way to hell week. And uh, oh man, the entire class had VGE, the, I forgot the acronym, gastroenditis, something. And uh, so there was a brown shirt and a big dude came over to me and he's like, hey Murph, here's some Skittles. Cause you remember they took all the good stuff out of the MREs and we're sitting on the, the beach.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Savages. Right. That's so crazy. To this day, this is why I do not like Skittles is I, so I'm like, oh, open package, insert and swallow. Ate the whole thing of Skittles. Instantaneously. I was like, sugar. Like that's, that's awesome. And we're doing med checks and there was an admiral touring hell week and uh, I'm sitting on the podium. And all of a sudden, I got it. I got BGE and it comes up just the rainbow came out. And I'm pretty sure it hit the Admiral because he's walking out, talking, hey, man, how are you doing? You know, doing the Admiral thing, shaking hands and looking at us. And I was just like, I'm doing great. And he's just like, you don't look so great. I remember he turned to his aide and was like, get that man to medical now.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  And uh, so I walk in. What year was this? Two thousand two, two thousand three. Okay, check. And so I go into medical and the doctor, now I'm friends with everybody because I'm, I'm not afraid to talk to people and

• 51:24Speaker 01

  I'm in there and he's like, hey, they're watching you. I was like, okay. He's like, so here's the deal. You've got to hold down something or else they're not gonna let you go back in because you can't go back in. And uh, I was like, all right. And he kept feeding me insurers, like I need you to keep one of these down, just one and you'll be good. Because you, you pass all your other med checks, but you got BGE. Everybody's got it right now, but for some reason, like they're watching you. You're like the little test case for him. I was like, all right. And so I drank the insurer and couldn't hold it down. So after he, he gave me three and the last one, he said, hey, Murph, I know you want this and you will go back out there if I let you, but you have to hold this down.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I said, okay, I drank it and there was nothing that was gonna hold it back. So I was like, hey, can I at least go take a leak or something? He was like, yeah, the bathroom's right there. So I go in the bathroom, I shut the door and I lock it out. Just like let loose and let it out. And I was just like, he'll never know. And then walked back out and they're just standing there looking at me. I'm like, I'm good. They're like, no, Murph, we heard you. Sorry, buddy. And that crushed me and I was just like, not again. I have to start over. So this was during hell week? During hell week. Oh, yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah. And then, then it was, it was kind of like questioning, do I have what it takes? Is this like God's sign of saying, hey, bro, I got something else for you in store. You're just being stubborn. Go follow the other path that I've been laying out for you. And I was like, you know what? No.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  We, I got something here. Like there's a reason why all this is happening. Got rolled to two, five, one. And uh, at this point in time, like. Nothing was gonna faze me. I knew, don't be in the goon squad, pass inspections, and don't let the hype of what's happening deter you from your focus. And that's where I found my happy place was in a log PT. There's a big SEAL instructor that was notorious for crushing souls in log PT. And it's actually, this is a good thing, because one of the officers, he's still on, so I won't say his name,

• 53:39Speaker 01

  was in the smurf crew. And as you know, like, everybody can pretend when you're going through hard times, until eventually, your true colors will come out. We're on the log, and it's, we're losing race after race. You know, the Jolly Green Giants, screw those guys, man. They were winning races, and we always wanted to win, because you got the two boat crews that, you cannot miss these guys, the taller guys and the shorter guys. So you got a bullseye on you, all the way through buds. And we're losing races, and it started to get to us. And guys started arguing, complaining, bitching, moaning, whining. He's not putting out. I need a break. You're not, your hands don't even touch the logs. Like, it was just arguing. I remember him seeing like,

• 54:18Speaker 01

  "Hey, listen, this isn't working. We've gotta figure something out." And it dawned on us, we're like, "All right, who's tired?" And we're all like, "Well, I'm all tired." Like, no, seriously. I'm like, "I'm on the end. I'm like, I could use a break." Because the end of the logs is usually the heaviest, because you're, if one guy on this end, now it tilts on the other side, and so you're taking a lot of weight. So we switched out. Well, that worked. Just that one little thing of us coming together and saying, "Hey, switch out." You know, speak up, and let's figure this thing out. Because right now, what we're doing, complaining, isn't getting us better. And it actually, we got, we weren't in last place. We didn't make the goon squad in this chaos of going up and over the beach, or up and over the berms.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And we came back, and that kind of gave us some energy. We're like, "Coming together works. This is crazy." And

• 55:11Speaker 01

  We sat down and said, all right, now let's start seeing what other people are doing and what's working for them. Like little things that we started recognizing like this is our competition. What are they doing well? What are we not doing well? What are our advantages and what are our disadvantages? Our disadvantages were our little bitty legs just doing a thousand miles an hour, coming up over the berm. And so we would get over the other side and before we got down, we would start lifting the log up to use our momentum to get underneath and get our little legs turned around and going back up the other way. Well, eventually we kept doing little things like that coming together and communicating, telling each other, hey, try this, try this. And we, hey, I need to switch out. And so everybody was eager to help instead of like blaming, everybody was blaming each other. And so we kind of holstered our blame guns and kind of got on

• 55:53Speaker 01

  the same page of let's find a way. Let's do this and end up winning. And I remember that that same timeframe, we're sitting in the, we're sitting in the ocean and I had to find a place to go because it was hot and it sucked. Like you're just exhausted. And they sat us with the logs, which is terrible. Logs were facing the surf and you took seats. And so you had to like do the craziest sit up to hold this log up. And then I remember go to a happy place and I went to like, I was on the beach, but I thought of the beach, but in a different way. The water was nice and

• 56:34Speaker 01

  cool. It was cooling me off. So I had to gravitate towards something positive. And I found this happy place of embrace, feel the things, do a mental check, feel the things that feel good. And so I started feeling the waves and I was like, oh, this feels nice. And so it reset me. I was like instantaneously in a better place. And from that, like I started finding those things this time around in class of like communication, teamwork, you know, finding your, your grounding point. I call them touch points now, but finding that, that grounding point to keep you focused in, in what you need to do. Cause it, they started getting me past all these little things that would, you know, be a lot, you know, you're going through and now I started getting that confidence back of,

• 57:15Speaker 01

  I'm gonna make it. And sure enough, I did. I ended up making it all the way through the 251. Like I, man, yes, I still get excited about this. I remember.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  And I, I had this story with, um, another guy that was in our BUDs class with us. I, I did, I forgot about this, but I remember because when I made it past that, you know, that hump of Wednesday, when I made it through Wednesday, I remember one step at a time. Don't think about it. Don't look at Tuesday. Don't look at Wednesday. Look at right now. And then I realized like, oh, it's Wednesday. And it was like that turning point. And so I can't remember when they do the, the nap that you get like a 30 minute.

• 57:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's probably Wednesday or Thursday or something like that.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  And they reminded me I did this. And now I'm, I'm in like happy mode. Like you can't, there's nothing you can do to me. And he reminded me, he was like, you know, I don't remember a lot, but I do remember this in Hell Week. Like you were so happy that when you woke up, like everybody was miserable, but you like woke up and you beelined to the surf and were like, pretending to be a dolphin, like, look, guys, the water's great. Like you're out there like making dolphin sounds. And he was like, as much pain as I was in, I laughed. And he remembered it. I was like, I do remember that. I remember, cause I was like, I guess that's kind of where I was wired is, you know, going in my childhood, growing up in like, the best thing is laughter. Like if you can joke around, like defeat them before they come and make fun of you about something. And so,

• 58:43Speaker 01

  I was like, hey, let's brighten things up. Let's have a good time. I'm having a blast. Like we're going to make it, guys. Like it's, it's right in front of us. And he told me that story. And I was like, dude, I remember that. I remember being so happy that now that, that thing that was so foreign to me is a reality. I'm making it. And it's funny. I was in, uh, so I do team building now. And I was with a NASCAR pit crew. And a good buddy of mine, Paul Swan, he, uh, he wanted to hear my story. And this is the first time I ever put it all together. And I started lining out the amount of days I spent in BUDs and Hell Week. I had it up on this whiteboard and I was like scratching my head. I was like, my gosh. Like that was a lot. Like I didn't realize at the time because I was so focused on my dream.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  And when I lined it out, it was like, it was so rewarding that this, this thing that I wanted so bad was now a reality. This is, Sean Murphy didn't know who he was. And then he's joined the Navy and still didn't quite know because he hadn't made it through. And now I'm like, yep, got it.

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can imagine. It's so much more rewarding because you went through five, like first phases. And that's practically, that's basically five months worth of training that like, I made it through my first shot, man. I just did one of those. But all my buzz was altogether was five months. You did five months before even getting through hell week. So that's a lot of, you must have, you must have been super freaking stoked.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I was happy. Like that was, it changed, uh, it changed me. I was, I was super stoked to be there.

• 1:00:20Jocko Willink?

  So any other, like you go through SQT, any challenges there? Pretty straightforward?

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  No, it was, and you know, after you get through that, now it's a kind of a, not necessarily a gentleman's course, but you start learning things. And you know, I didn't, I was never very good at, um, like school, but now this is a school that I'm passionate about. I'm learning all about diving, Charles Gay-Lucick's law, you know, the Boyle's law, things that I would have never given it any effort because it wasn't valuable to me. And now I've got these things that I'm like, this is going to keep you alive. And it's also going to make you who you need to be in the SEAL teams. You gotta learn to dive and understand the, the dangers of it. So you can mitigate that. And, um, I put myself, uh, it was the first chance I think that I really had to apply myself. And so I'm going

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  through there, applying myself and learning and no issues. It was like, okay, I got something here. And just went right through and.

• 1:01:13Jocko Willink?

  SQT, same thing?

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a chance, actually I got a scar on my finger here. It was in third phase. And we're doing an inspection. I thought this was going to roll me.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Actually, no, there's two. There's one right after Hell Week. I got a, I got a scar right here. I had a cellulitis during Hydro Hell Week. You remember those little charts? And my hand was the size of like Mickey Mouse's hand. It looked enormous. And one of the corpsmen came up and was like, Murph, we gotta take you to the hospital. And I was like, why? It was streaking. They took me in, they drained it. I was like, no. But they were cool. They're like, no, as long as you finish your charts. So I wasn't sleeping. I was like coffee and just doing my charts with like this. I had surgery on it. And then in third phase, I had one of those K bars. And we did an inspection.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  And I remember pulling it out and somehow I nicked my finger really good. And there's still a scar from it. It opened it up. And I'm like, at first I was like, oh, cool. No blood. I can hide this and get through the inspection. Well, then all of a sudden, I'm standing at attention and I, I can feel the, the little warm sensation. I was like, don't look. It's one of the things. You don't look, it doesn't exist. Well, then I remember one of the instructors came up, came up to me and was like, Murph, what is going on?

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  I was like, nothing. I'm good. What's up? You know, like trying like, don't look at the knife. Don't look at the knife. And he's like, give me your knife. I handed it to him and he looked at my finger. He's like, go to medical. And I was like, no, not medical. And they're like, hey, we're gonna stitch it up and you can't get it wet. So I'm thinking, no. But again, I just, you know, did the duct tape Band-Aid. And when I would hit the surf, I'd hold my finger out. It just didn't do anything. And I was fine after that. Came through and SQT was a blast. That's when, you know, guys really think come together and

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  you get to know each other. You go, you do in BUDS. At this time, like we, right after BUDS, you graduated and I, I moved into an apartment with Mark and a couple of other guys that were at Team Three.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  And we were in La Mirage.

• 1:03:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  That was up by the, uh, the Charger Stadium at the time. That was, that was interesting. That was not, I mean, yeah, it was cool because you're out on your own and you made it through BUDs and you're going through SQT, but when you come back and it's, it was interesting because you had a lot of freedom and you're in an apartment. It was like worse than a frat house.

• 1:03:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  You can go out and do anything and everything, but once we got through SQT and yeah, we stayed there and had, uh, had some adventures, say the least. Cause you're going, I remember you guys at team three, you guys were going through schools and Mark would come back and tell us about it. And we were just like little kids like, oh, cool. What's like, what's land warfare like, or what's this like? And he's just, Mark's a little smug and he's like, oh, it's no big deal. You know, I was doing this, you know, BTF and this, that and the other. And I was like, so we're like in awe, just like, oh, that's so cool, man. That's so freaking cool. And, uh, I think you guys went through ITI. Did you guys do ITI?

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  We did. Well, we sent a bunch of guys to ITI. Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Mark was one of them.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  He had this little Volkswagen Jetta. It was diesel. And I remember, uh, we'd gone out and, uh, he'd just gotten back from that trip. And so he's like showing me on the San Diego freeways about how to do high speed, tactical maneuvers, which was scaring the living crap. And I was like, dude, it's like, we can't be doing this, bro. And like, but you had to practice, right? You had to stay relevant and current and, uh, we tried. I don't know how we didn't get pulled over. That was, that was, uh, that was an interesting choice that we made.

• 1:05:04Jocko Willink?

  And was that just random that you got, so you get, you get stationed at team five? Is that just like, how many guys went to team three? How many guys went to team five? Did you, did you pick west coast?

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I didn't care, you know, because again, I didn't know anything about the east coast, west coast. Um, and I was like, I'm just happy to go to a team.

• 1:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Like we're all, we have our little cliques that formed in SQT and stuff like that. Um, we had our core group of guys that we all wanted, the guys that lived together, we all wanted to be on the same team. And um, I just happened to draw orders to SEAL Team Five, which um, one of my buddies had a brother at SEAL Team Five and um, he came and talked to us and I was like, yeah, I'll go to Team Five. I love Team Five because I don't know anything other than I want to be a SEAL.

• 1:05:50Jocko Willink?

  You just put me on a team. Give me orders.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:05:52Jocko Willink?

  I'm happy. And so you were living with Mark in SQT.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  And then when he showed up at Team Three, you guys were still living together?

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but, but they were a little, we at SEAL Team Three were a little head on the cycle. Cause you were Team Five, they might have still been on deployment at that point, but anyways, they were just a little, yeah. So that's, that's good times and you're getting that insight from him because he's now.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He was, he was the cool guy now. He loved it. He loved every minute of, he'd come back from a trip, you know, walking out the door, hey guys, what's up? We're like, come on, tell us the details. Like, what's it like being over there doing the, the workup and stuff like that? And he was like, oh, it was good, man. You know, and he's building everybody up and it's like, this is awesome and this, that and the other. And we, we learned a lot, you know, and it was a, it was a good time. It was good insight for us because at Team Five, the, the platoon I was going to was still on deployment and they had just disbanded another one.

• 1:06:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. That's right.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  And uh, so I got kind of the mix of that. And so it was interesting, like I'm learning what Team Five's culture is and I'm actually learning what Team Three's culture is from Mark. And um, ignorance was bliss. And I just didn't know. And Mark was feeding us with some good insight and I had some stuff come from him.

• 1:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Like if so occasionally, I would say probably once every two or three, maybe even five years, like a platoon just, for whatever reason.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Jocko Willink?

  Just isn't going to work.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Jocko Willink?

  And it gets disbanded. I mean, they just echo Charles. They just take everyone. They go, nope, this platoon doesn't exist anymore. And they just break and they send everyone in different directions and divide them up as much as they possibly can. Cause it's usually some personnel. Sometimes they get disbanded because like there's infighting. Meaning the chief has like a group of guys and they hate the officer who has a group of guys and it's just this big disaster. Uh, the one, I think the one in team five that you're talking about is they were just filled with maniacs.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Like, and you can have, you can have maniacs in your platoon and you kind of want to have a couple maniacs in your platoon. But if you have a whole, if everyone's a maniac, there's no like all gas, no brakes scenario. And that was that platoon and they just ended up getting disbanded, which was, yeah, that's a little shocking, right?

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Well, it was, yeah, because I didn't understand it.

• 1:08:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  There, there are the guys that got disbanded. I know a lot of them still today, or a few of them still today. They're great dudes in the right environment.

• 1:08:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh, totally. That's what I said. You, I, I like, I know a lot of those guys and I would want all of them in my platoon. Would I want all of them in my platoon at the same time? You know, honestly, for me, yes, I, I like guys like, and, and plus I can tighten guys up and I could tighten guys up and be like, dude, you cannot do that. Stop what you're doing. But if you don't have that, like if you don't have someone that can kind of put the brakes on, it's just going to ignite and it's going to be a problem.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  And there's two sides that you've got to have the, if you're going to do that, you, they have to be able to respond to that.

• 1:08:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  And that's, that's, I think they didn't have that in the previous one.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. So you get to team five, you get to put in a platoon, work up. How was work up?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  It was good. It was, uh, I remember every part of my first, you know, impression of these guys, the, I thought, you know, we'd been through buds, SQT, top of the world, you're invincible. And you're like, walking in like, guys, I made, I got my trident. And everybody's like, nobody cares. We all did the same thing, but guess what? We've deployed, we're coming back. We got to get ready, like get up on step, bro. And so it was like humble pie for me. It was like, oh, I've got a lot to learn. It was like, you don't have the knowledge that we have. We need you to be where we are. And so I had some awesome mentors. Um, one of the guys, he's still in over at Dev Group.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  And man, learning from him was awesome. He was the guy that, um, was always quiet, working on his gear, big time grappler. And would basically say, hey, if you want to learn something, read the manual.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Read the manual, figure it out, understand its capabilities and why are you using it? And that's when I started learning, oh, okay, it's not just you get a gun, go shoot it, sight it in. Understand the optics on it, what are its capabilities, understand the lasers, what are its capabilities? What is it used for? Understand like the battery life, you gotta understand the equipment, not just, you know, you've got cool equipment. Understand it, put in the time and effort so that when you are starting to go into these, these cycles in training, that you're, you're more knowledgeable about what you're employing and why. And it was a great experience learning from those guys to have them take me under their wing. Cause I see, as you know, SEALs, when they go through, you have different places that you're going to be in. New, you're going to be a little bit more impressionable.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  And so if you don't have good guys that are guiding you in the right way, then you will end up probably not ahead of where you need to be. You'll be right behind because if these guys, you're going to have an attitude first. Like we were growing, growing out beards and stuff like that. And so that was the cool thing, growing your hair out long. And, but if you didn't have somebody that guided you into, hey, there's a reason why we're doing this and you also can, you need to clean it up just as quick as you can grow it out. So if there's a reason behind growing out your beard and your hair, because we're going on deployment, you're calling it blending in. But there's also going to be a time you need to present yourself to be professional. And so if you can delineate those two, at first you're going to be like the younger guy, been like, who am I going to do?

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  This is stupid, you know? If you don't have somebody that explains the why, then you could develop a bad, bad attitude. And that's your reputation, that's who you are. And so you kind of evolve and mature as a SEAL, not just as an individual, but as a SEAL. And I had a bunch of good guys that ended up going to Dev Group, I think because of that. They were the top 1% of the platoon that were always, you know, they're stellar performers, they're mature. They took everything serious, they knew how to relax, but they didn't go off and just party and, you know, put everything they just went through to the side and said, oh, I'm going to go out and make an ass of myself. They were actually locked on, look at Liberty.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  And um, operational is like, are you, do you have character? Do you have like a maturity level? And that's you kind of mature through the SEAL teams. When you do that, I'm gonna have good guys that can pick you up along the way.

• 1:12:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, to me, that is the SEAL teams. And if you don't have, like, that's the, that's what a guy, even starting with you get done and you're, you get done with your first platoon, now you're, you're a one cruise wonder. Even that guy has a responsibility to teach and educate the new guys that just showed up. Cause he knows infinitely more than them. The two platoon guy, absolutely. He's passing on knowledge. The three platoon guy, absolutely. And passing on the, the attitude that you're supposed to have in the teams, which is, you know, there's like the simplest things. Uh, team gear first, then platoon gear, then op gear, then personal gear, then yourself. Like that religion, for when I was at SEAL Team One as a young guy, that was religion. You didn't do anything.

• 1:12:58Jocko Willink?

  Until the team gear was taken care of. Once those big boats were taken care of, then we take care of platoon boats. Once the platoon boats were taken care of, platoon radios, then it was like, oh, now it's our radios. Now it's our weapon. And then finally, at the end of that whole chain, you get to take a shower. Like you get to take care of yourself. And not setting that example, if someone doesn't set that example, it's gonna be terrible. Same thing with like, if the platoon, I remember we were on an ARG platoons, we're on a ship and my squad one was out doing an op. And we get back from this whatever operation, training operation, it's four or five o'clock in the morning. It's miserable. And as we're pulling our boats to the stern of the ship, I look up and I see,

• 1:13:41Jocko Willink?

  I was in squad one, I see squad two, all squad twos there. They all woke up, they all came down, put their warmies on. And freaking were standing on the deck of the ship to help us recover the boats, march them upstairs, you know, run the engines, do all that stuff that we had to do. But we, it was all the platoon was doing it. And that was the way I always operated, always. Like if there's a platoon guy working, we're all working. If there's one platoon guy that has work, we all have work. And we're not done with work until every platoon guy is done. And that's how we roll. And if you don't get that impression as a young SEAL, you really missed out. And if older SEALs don't pass that, that on to the boys, like, oh, we're gonna do a fam shoot with the sixties.

• 1:14:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, or the the Mark 48s. Oh, so the whole platoon is going to shoot the Mark 48s? And now we're just going to stick them with the new guys to clean? Like, no, it doesn't work like that. If we're doing a fam shoot with what, if we're using platoon gear, we're all helping. If we use the vehicles, we're all cleaning the vehicles. We're all doing the maintenance on the vehicles. Everything that we do, we do together. And that is the way, that's the way I was raised in the teams. I would, I couldn't conceive of walking past you, like, if you were putting dive gear away, I can't conceive as being in your platoon, walking by you and not stopping what I'm undoing and helping you put dive gear away. It was not part of the program. So you get such a, you get a lot of your DNA from your first platoon.

• 1:15:09Jocko Willink?

  And it sounds like you got a good set of DNA from that first platoon.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  I did. You know what the, I learned, kind of a deeper part of that is the most valuable resource that you can never get back is time. And they would always say, hey, the longer you put it off, now's the time. Nobody wants to do it at this point in time. It's at the end. It's like late at night. Everybody's tired. You know, the adrenaline of training is worn off and you're just exhausted. And all you want is like a warm shower, but you're like, it's gotta get done. If we don't do it now, it's just gonna get put off. And that's not the way we do things because it's gonna rust. It's gonna make it 10 times worse. Make the most of it right now. Don't waste your time and give it up just because you're, you're being lazy or you're feeling sorry for yourself. You know, you learn, don't feel sorry for yourself in the teams. You're the only one that's gonna feel sorry for yourself. No one else is feeling sorry for you.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  It's just, it's just the way it is. Like, okay, but are we gonna get work done? Like, I don't feel sorry for you. Are you gonna get work done or what? And so that was like, one thing I took away is like, take your time and maximize what you can do in that time because you don't get it back. Once it's gone, I, that's one of the things I teach some of these professional athletes is, if you're not training, if you're not working right now, every second that you waste, you gave it to your opponent. So you gave it to them and just, it's gonna mount up and mount up. So make the most of it. Give it to yourself before you give it to them because you can't get it back. It's not about the moment of performing. It's about the time that comes up to that moment that you're gonna go perform. And that's what I learned in the SEAL teams is, it's not just about that Super Bowl moment.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  What work did you put into that got you to the day one to being at, you know, season one first game or? The first race or whatever, like, what did you do up to that point? That's going to make you perform? How much time did you give yourself? Are you performing based on the effort that you gave to yourself? That time that you had? Or did you waste it? And you can have nobody to blame. You can say, oh, it's bad luck. It's the way things goes. Well, part of that goes into like what you put in. That time, that valuable resource that you can't get back. You can't just say, oh, I'll go buy it. Nope. Money can't buy it. Everybody's got a clock. It's winding.

• 1:17:20Jocko Willink?

  As you're going through workup and now we're on deployment, meaning Mark's on deployment. Are you tracking what's going on? On or how do you hear and ARs, reading ARs and stuff like that?

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, uh, yeah. Yeah, so we, everybody was so engaged with what was going on. They heard about the gunfights. And it was like such a high of like, awesome. We're going to go get some, you know, there was, there was this thought of like, what are we going to be doing? And we started hearing these stories and these after action reports like, that's awesome. You know, that's just amazing. It was like, kind of made us feel a little bit more confident of like SEALs. Cause I think at the time, I can't remember the number, but there was like a story going around, like the ratio of SEALs that died in Vietnam to how many enemies we killed or something like that. And it was like some crazy number, like 201 or something like that. So we started hearing about this, like awesome. This is, this is the way it goes. This is cool. This is where we are.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  And it was so interesting to hear and then hear how the older guys are like, taking a look at it and telling us what's happening. And I remember snipers were always, you know, that was a cool school. That was the thing, like you wanted to be a sniper. Everybody wanted to be a sniper or breacher. And as a new guy, he don't get that. My first school is hazmat school. And I'm here to listen into these war stories and like, I went to hazmat school. Okay, I can put a label on a truck and get the gear there. It matters, but I wanted, I wanted more because what was coming out of what you guys were doing over there in Ramadi. And so when did you hear that Mark got killed? I was sleeping in Ocean Beach in an apartment that I had.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  And I got a phone call from one of the intel ladies and it was as it happened. She's like, hey, did you hear about Mark? And the first thing that went through my mind was, no, what did Mark do? Like Mark's always doing something. She's like, well, where are you at? And I was like, man, I'm at home. Why? What's up? Just woke up and she's like, hey, I need to tell you something. And I was like, what is it? She's like, hey, Mark, Mark was killed. I was like, Mark Lee. And so my mind at that time didn't want to grasp it. Like, no, that didn't happen. What do you know? Like, I started fighting. I was like, no, that ain't right. And so I remember hanging up and it was just like, whoosh, like out of my body. It was just like the reality of everything. I was like, how? Why?

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  You know, just it felt like something was ripped out of me because he was my best friend in the SEAL teams. Like, living together, like the, there was a moment where like, I had a deep, profound respect for Mark. Cause it was Christmas time and I wasn't going home. You know, because I came from like a broken family and it was, ah, going home, like no big deal. And so I was just going to sit at home and Mark's like, no, you're coming with me, bro. And like, he took me in, like, kind of like what my best friend's mom and dad did. Took me in, took me to a home to spend time with them, to have like, like a family feeling. And once he passed away, I was like, man, what now? Like, what is this? I just felt empty. Like it, it changed the way that I was looking at deployment. It was just like, so it's not a game.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  This is real. This is, uh, people die. Close friends of yours, you have a chance of dying as well. And so I had to stop and kind of real, really take a look at. What am I doing? Like, am I, am I going to be sacrificing myself in the same way that Mark did? And I didn't know the full story about how he died or anything like that. And so we went through the funeral and everything. And I mean, I, I must have cried like a baby for like a week, like, cause you know, I did my sunglasses, tough team guy. At the funeral, I'm not going to shed tears, but I was just like, I couldn't hold it back. And I just let it go. Cause I had, I had friends that passed away through my childhood, but nothing like this close to me. And so it was the first time that it was a gut punch.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  And it was close to you guys were about to, you know, come and switch out. And then it wasn't that much longer that I heard about Biggles and Mikey. And that's when it hit me even harder. I was like, man, where are we going? What are we doing? Everybody was jockeying, like, who's going to go really Jocko? Who's going to go relieve that platoon? Cause everybody wanted to go and like get in the fight. Now, this is where I want to go back to my childhood. It's about what my dad taught me about, you know, people, seeing the core people.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  And when that had happened, I had hate. I'd felt hate. I wanted to hate somebody that took my best friend, another good friend of mine, that are killing people that are close to me. I went back to, I was about three or four years old and my dad would work on vehicles. And he had an old El Camino. And one day me and my older brother got in the car with him. He had to go to a shop and pick up some parts. And he walked into the store and my little brother, you know, at this time it was in the early eighties. Racism was around, you know, it wasn't in our household. We didn't know much about it. But my brother had heard of racial slur. And he, he peeked out the window and there's these two black guys walking up and he yelled racial slur out.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  And I didn't know what it was, but my dad was walking out at the same time. And it stopped my dad dead in his tracks. And he looks over at us and I remember him looking in, I'm not, I'm sure he was apologizing to those guys and let him in the store and I remember seeing the look on my dad's face of like, you guys are in trouble. Like this is not right. And so we got in, he didn't say anything to us. We sat down, everything was quiet. I remember the ride being like so tense of like dad's getting us dad's something's wrong. My brother was like, he had no idea either. And we get home and there's this iron rocking chair that was in our backyard. And usually when we got in trouble, we had the Murphy belt. And my dad would take it off the wall and had our last name on it. And he would, he'd spank us with

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  it. Well, we didn't go inside the house. He said, go put your hands on that rocking chair and walked over the rocking chair. And I'm a little kid now, I'm already crying. Like I'm like scared, like, what did I do? Like, where am I at with these things? Like, why is he being so mean to us? And so we're crying, we know the drill, I cry and you can probably get out of it. And so I'm holding on this chair and I'm like, like shaking, like, oh, my God, what's happening? And he comes back and he doesn't have the belt, he's got a bull whip. And that's when I realized like, man, we messed up big time. Like, he's about to beat us. Like, he didn't beat us, but what he did is he took this whip and he started explaining to us, he's like, let me explain to you what you just did to

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  those two men. He said, they, they are people just like you and me. But what you did is they've got something with that word that means a lot more than a word, it hurts them. And he spanked us. And so we're crying. And he said, they, when there were people in the United States a long time ago, they were called slaves. And they use that word to hurt them. It's something that you could hurt somebody without ever touching them. And it was demeaning. It was putting them beneath you, it's putting them to subhuman status. And I'm like, we're like pleading with like, Dad, that's not what we were trying to do. We didn't want to do that. And he's like, he leaned down to us and I remember looking at me in the eye. He was like, Hey, do you love your brother? I looked over my brother,

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  I was like, yes. I'm so intent, like, I couldn't be more deliberate. Yes, I love my brother. He's like, do you love me? I was like, yes, Dad, I do love you. He goes, well, those two men, they have somebody that loves them too. And when you hurt somebody like that, you take that away from them being those people. You need to see people as you see me, and you see your brother, because they have a father and they have a brother that they love, somebody loves them. And so from that moment on, I realized.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  If I look at people with whatever stereotype, whatever adjective, whatever label get placed on people, it takes away from who they are. And that's what essentially was happening to me throughout my childhood. And having that lesson that he taught me, value somebody for who they are as a person, not for anything else that somebody says they are, you get to know them. And about five years later, we were at the ballpark and there was another instance where there was a kid that had a bloody nose and we were always fighting. And so they came up and grabbed me and said, hey Sean, uh, there's a kid that he's fighting this other kid. There's a little black kid in there. And so I ran in and I looked at, I remember seeing the same fear in that kid's eyes, little black kid's eyes that I had in my eyes.

• 1:25:55Speaker 01

  I looked at him and said, hey, man, what happened? He's like, he called me that name. I looked over at him and he had a bloody nose and I was just like, took his side and I was like, all right, bro, I got you. I was like, hey, you deserve that. Everybody kind of looked at me and was like, Sean, like, what are you doing? I was like, no. I was like, he didn't do anything wrong. It was all, the actual, the fight started over like who could be in the batting cage. And, and so I stood up for him. And it was my opportunity to say, make a change, you know, if you, you have that lesson, instill it. Don't hold on to it. You gotta instill it, enact it. Make a practical application to use that lesson that you learned. And so I go back to when Mark died. You know, nine 11, the day after, America was filled with flags.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  I didn't know what a Muslim was. I didn't know what an Iraqi was, but I knew that I was supposed to hate them because what the media was telling me. And so that was the enemy. Didn't, didn't quite understand it. Didn't understand who it was. And um, so when Mark died, I had to reshape kind of what my mindset was, is all right, I'm feeling hate. That's not right. I gotta find a way to not let my emotions take me over and be just as bad as the people that I'm supposed to go and fight. And I carried that with me and I, I went on my very first op. And that was my time to like, have every single bit of emotion come together.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  You know, the first time that you get to step out, it's real. You get to go be, I mean, I was excited, but I was also kind of scared. I had all these emotions going on and. You know, being a Navy SEAL, going on a Navy SEAL mission was, you know, that was what I wanted to do. But at the same time, I had all this hate, I had all this emotion inside of me. And I don't know if you pray, Jocko, but I pray. And this day, I remember this all happened in the span of 100 yards. As I weighed myself, I had 185 pounds of gear on, I only weighed 185 pounds. I was an A-Dub gunner, just had my Mark 48, had my loadout. I knew that guys depended on me, I was the, I was the big gun that came and brought the noise.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  And I'm patrolling and all these emotions were going through me and I was so ineffective. Because I couldn't see, right in front of me, I had one nod on my helmet. And I'm walking through this village and I was just so overwhelmed. I was like, what if I get hit? You know, I started thinking about Mark, it's like, how did he die? What was he feeling? Did he, what happened to him and what happened to Mikey? You know, what's going to happen to me? Am I going to be able to fight when the gunfight breaks out? And I had all these things going through my head. And I just like felt this hate and this like, I wanted to go kill everything that I could. And so I recognized that I was not in a good mindset. And so I stopped and I remember just taking a deep breath and being like, all right, God.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  You know, I wasn't always that good of a Christian or I didn't pray a lot to you, but I'm coming to you now. Like, I need some help. I need something that I want to give my life to you. It's in your hands, where are you going to take me? And please let me perform the way that I need to, so my brothers can rely on me. And that's when I felt like this big weight lift off my shoulders and I could breathe again. And everything, like my vision was starting to get tunnel and I, it opened back up. And from that point on, like I had so many more times that I prayed, but that was the single point where I took the, the hate and had to let it go. I said, you know what?

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  If I'm going to be an effective SEAL that honors those that came before me and the mini SEALs are going to come after me, I need to be in the right frame of mind. If I don't do that, I'm going to probably do something stupid. And luckily, I changed my way after that, thinking, okay, I can't go in and just hate these people. Let me figure this out. Let me see what the battlefield is. Let me learn from the guys in front of me. They've got to rely on me. And if I'm not effective, I'm actually taking away from the effectiveness of the team. And I thought, what would, if I was to look at myself, how am I going to be in those moments, even if it is my last moments? Like, this is where I looked. Every step could be your last step.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  How are you going to be if you could see yourself in those final moments? Are you going to live up to the honor and integrity that the SEAL teams have, that you have? This is your time. Are you going to be weak? Are you going to cower down? What decisions are you going to make? And how are you going to apply yourself in these moments? And that's when I said, you know what? I'm going to have courage. I'm going to have the integrity. I'm going to have the honor. I'm going to listen to all the things that I have had throughout my life facing adversity. I'm going to fight through. Because that's what it takes for me to be effective. And that's what is expected of me. So I'm going to come through and not be the weak-minded person that has, let's emotion, let's hate, let's all the things that are negative control you. Because then you're ineffective.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  You're not coming through. You're not going to be that teammate. And that's what I needed to be. And it taught me so much about how I saw people. Like, you could be the greatest celebrity in the world that does all the great things, but who are you as a person? I don't care what your accolades. Who are you as a person? Like, how are you? Because that's what I look at. I wanted people to see me like that as a kid. And now I want, I want to see people like that. I don't care if you're my enemy or not. Like, we've got a limited amount of time on this rock. Like, the places that I've been, like, let me get to know people so I can be, do the right thing. And that's where

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  The big picture with the immediate impacts is I gotta make choices. If I was to pull a trigger, the government and myself are making choices. The government gave me the ability to make that choice, to take a life, to do these things that not many people have the ability to go do or the opportunity. So now it's my time. That's a big responsibility. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. And how do I want to do that? Do I want to have it be hate fueled to where it comes back to bite me later on? Or do I want to take a look at things and make a choice that I can live with? And those are the things that changed me. When I would sit down and talk to the, the Terp and the, get to know the families of the houses that we were in.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  I was like, man, cause I saw a little bit of myself there. I saw a little bit of the struggles that some of these people were going through. They're just poor, waking up early just to make ends meet, taking what they had and making the best of it. And I was like, I can relate to this. So how do I view them? And then how do I find the enemy that's within? Cause they were blended in, you know, it was all over the place. You didn't, you couldn't just look and see as easy as society is divided. Well, I could say, oh, Jocko, you've got short hair. We don't like people with short hair now because some sort of divisive narrative. You couldn't just see that. You couldn't see a visual difference or something that you could apply. It was like, or surrounded you. So I had to be a little bit more deliberate and think things through a lot more.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Even though I was a new guy, I was trying to learn from those guys like, hey, why are we going to engage this guy? And they, they taught me the right thing, the right steps to think of what rules and engagement truly are. And why it's important to, to think very deliberately, not let that hate, those things that can sneak up and bite you, make you a bad, bad operator, bad person, um, control you. And that's, that changed me after Mark died. That really kind of fueled something that set a series of things and motions that I could draw from my childhood and apply. I still to this day think of, you know, how do I, how do I present myself? If I could look back and see, what have you done? And what choices did you make?

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, you made some stupid mistakes at times, but. What did you do that was honorable? That time that you can't get back? How'd you make the most of it? And that was, it changed my whole mindset. That first deployment, that first instance where I felt overwhelmed of like, I can make a choice, but is it going to be the right one? I put a lot of thought into it in a span of a hundred meters. Changed my life. Changed my life.

• 1:34:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's like, everything you just said is so important for people to think about and think through and understand. And you're right, like, there's guys like the frontline, whether it's, whether it's a frontline SEAL, whether it's a sniper, whether it's a machine gunner, whether it's a Marine, whether it's an Army guy, they're going to have someone in their sights. They're going to enter a building. They're going to be looking down a street. And they're going to have to make that decision. And if they make the wrong decision, or if they make the decision from the wrong place, everything's going to fall apart. It really is. And, you know, we, we had situations on deployment, not only for, for us, but the Army, the Marine Corps,

• 1:34:57Jocko Willink?

  where they, sometimes it would be something that, that was called a good shot, bad result. Meaning, a machine gunner or a sniper or a rifleman sees something, sees an, sees a person doing something that is completely an enemy TTP engages. And the investigation happened, it's like, oh, that person didn't, you know, they weren't, they didn't have an IED. They had this, or they, they, they weren't carrying a weapon. They were carrying a tire iron for their car or something like that. Those, if those things happen, it's like devastating. Number one is devastating for the war effort. Because especially, well, for us in Ramadi, it was like, there was locals everywhere.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  And if you shot of an innocent person, everyone was going to know about it and there was going to be massive amounts of backlash. So that's number one, number one. And then number two, from, like you said, from, from a human perspective, now you gotta live with that for the rest of your life. And you, you, you, you gotta live with the decision that you made. So yeah, those things are, I mean, there's nothing more important in combat than those things. So the fact that you were able to reconcile those things in the first hundred meters of your first patrol on your first operation, that says a lot as to where your headspace was at. And also, I, I can only imagine that knowing

• 1:36:21Jocko Willink?

  Mark and knowing the type of person that Mark was, which was obviously a man of great faith. Also, a guy that always, you know, always took care of other people, always was empathetic, funny. And even, you know, there was a whole, there was a whole kind of, uh, uh, uh, like a, like a scenario that was happening with Mark was Mark, I forget what, you know, his, I forget what his actual nationality is, but he ain't white. Like he's not a hundred percent of white dude. He's got some brown person in him. Like he's

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Oh, we gave him a lot of crap about that. We call him whatever. Oh, you're Spanish today? Okay.

• 1:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So whatever he was, but now when he, he grew a thick mustache and he got tan, you know, obviously being in Ramadi, he got tan. So all of a sudden he looked, he could easily pass for an Iraqi, like he could pass for an Iraqi. And the Iraqis, they, you know, cause he was a fun loving guy and he was open to him. And so he had this, you know, the scenario that I'm talking about is he basically bonded with a bunch of Iraqi soldiers. And so that all played into this, you know, and I'm sure as you're talking through, you know, you can just imagine, even though you weren't there with Mark, you can imagine what kind of human being he is. And he's looking around going, oh, like, I understand these people. I understand. And you look at the background that

• 1:37:44Jocko Willink?

  Mark came from, you know, Mark came, you know, his mom, single mom, growing up, really tough conditions, not, not a lot of money. And he's doing the same thing that you're talking about. So that connection that you made between him and going out on patrol and making sure that you're doing the right things, the right reasons. Yeah, that's like, that's how it has to be.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  He, he wrote, so we probably weren't supposed to do this, but he was writing me on Facebook and he told me about that. He told me about like, uh, he, cause he had a sense of him, he was, he would start off with like, hey, in camp today, we made ashtrays. And then go into like, yeah, you know, these people are actually human. And I remember him talking about that, like, yeah, I became friends with any of this, that and the other and. I saw the mustache, the mustache was just ridiculous. He looked like Saddam Hussein.

• 1:38:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he did, dude. Oh, yeah. The other thing is like, he's such a good soccer player and like, they played like soccer games against the Iraqi soldiers. So, yeah, he had these big, you know, bonds with the, with the Iraqi soldiers, which therefore you go out in town and even in Ramadi, like you go into a house in Ramadi, these, they look like just normal people. I mean, they'd be in there, the little kids are dressed up like little kids and the kids are kicking a soccer ball around and the dad's working on his car or whatever. And like, it was very distinct of, oh, I see what's going on here. These people are being, are being abused and terrorized by the insurgents, which actually, talk about fuel, it's fuel to like, oh, they, they raped

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  this woman in this, in this house. They, they killed the dad. Like, there was times where they killed, they, they'd murder the dad, cut his head off and put it on like the front porch or not the front porch, but put it in the compound, skin people alive, like they're doing this horrible stuff. And that, that was great fuel to say, oh, we need to protect these people. And Mark, that was Mark's, that was what was in Mark's soul. It was like, oh, I see what's happening here. I understand these people. I relate to these people and they're being, they're being tortured, murdered, raped, mutilated by these insurgents and we can help them.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of, one of the things that, um, I started to say to people is, as you know, like when you come back from deployment and people want to know, hey, how many people have you killed? I was like, man, like, oh, I'm sorry if I don't need to ask that question. It's like, no, but I can tell you how many people I've saved. Like, that's why I had to rationalize things. I'm not here to kill people. I'm here to save people. Like, that was something to me is if I'm just there to kill people, that's a slippery slope, slippery slope. Cause if you're drunken with that number, it's dangerous, very dangerous. And I, and that's a lot of the situations I was in is you were saving, whether it's an American life or the Iraqis' lives. Just like you said, they're, they're going through some rough stuff that you're like, Man, these are humans. They're going through, like you said, they they're kids.

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  Um, I got a picture of this kid. I'm sure you've seen it. They had like, it was just a hoop and they had a stick. They would just play with it and that was like their toy. And so I'm like, man, I kind of want to play with you because I remember my child, I didn't have anything and that looks really fun. You know, so I was relating to him in a way. It's like, I get it, man. Like, I see where you are. Like, you're just, you were born, you're two feet planted on this soil here. And you're just in this situation, doing the best that you can. I get it. And that was, uh, that's why I say I can tell you how many people I saved because that's what I enjoy doing is saving those people that deserved saving. And the Americans that were over there, just as you remember the convoys and stuff like that unsuspecting and

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  there's somebody that, like my dad said, somebody loves them. And somebody who wanted to take that away, doesn't matter, all these little things that make us different. Do you wear that American uniform or you're in a bad spot? Somebody loves them. Let's go protect it. And so it was like, I can get behind that. That's a, that's the way I like to think about it. So that's what I did and it helped me out a lot.

• 1:41:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. So that was your, your, what was your, where were you on that first deployment?

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Hobonia.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Hobby, check. And what, what kind of missions were you guys doing?

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  We were do, oh, there was a, all kinds. We had, um, we're doing a lot of river stuff that would go in and do a capture kill mission. We had some that were going out providing aid, um, you know, we do the med caps, you know, provide medical stuff to them. Um, there, there's actually one that, uh, um, I saw a lot of good things and bad things. Um, it was, do you remember Kidney Bean Lake? Maybe you can call something different, past 611 Bridge, you know, nevermind's land. Well, when you guys went through Ramadi, you pushed all the insurgents out into that one territory where there's this kidney bean looking lake. And, um,

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  We were gonna go in and we had two mutually supporting uh OPs and uh cause we were just basically gonna clear out that area and say, hey, this is where they're bedding down and we we got into this area and we're gonna stay there for a couple of days and we had the Iraqis with us and um they were down the first floor. We're always on the roof and when we got there, we patrolled through some places and the house that we're in just looked like somebody was there five minutes before and got up and left. There were still warm things. There was an AK laying up against the wall. There was food that was still warm or like, what happened? Like, this is weird. And um

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  as you know, you get into a cycle, you you learn call to prayers, you can kind of time things, you know, throughout the day, one most likely somebody's gonna attack you and

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  we had these three snipers that were in the area that were, you know, putting a whooping on the Marines. And so we're like, hey, let's go get this, let's clear out this area. They're supposed to be in this area. And uh sure enough, we saw this mosque, these three dudes came bebopping, got in the mosque and they came out and I remember yeah, I wish I could say his name, but it was so funny, like he's sitting there raw, like it's in the hottest part of the day in Iraq. Tar's all over, we're melting, like you're just sprawled out and you're just like, man, this is miserable, like something happened and we're all sitting there kind of looking around. I had my responsibility was behind us on the the route coming in. And uh I remember he looked up and he's like, oh, I was like, that's weird. I've never seen that on an operation. Oh, and he gets up and he was just like,

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  drop these dudes and um it was from that point, it was just kind of like, oh, something's happening, like get us out of this this midday funk. And uh some of the guys um got together while there was nothing that came from that, like I think they were premature to go and like start an attack on the other OP. And uh so we went out and did some SSC on it, but while we were out there. Um, we went through a couple of other homes. They were in the same kind of thing that we had is they were empty. And uh, cause we didn't see anybody coming out and about and we're like, this is weird. This is not normal. Usually you see people out and so as we're coming back, all of a sudden we started getting mortared.

• 1:44:38Speaker 01

  And we're like, oh, somebody knows that we're here now. So we ran into our, our house and that's when all hell breaks loose. You hear just, it was like as much gunfire as you could possibly hear, but it wasn't coming at us. It was coming at our other OP. And it, it took about a minute and all of a sudden with the radio, it was just pure chaos. Like, ah, like you hear yelling and we hear seal down, seal down. And we're just like, oh, and it, we've been shot at a lot, but none of us have been hit. And so that jacked us up again. Everybody was like on, well, I can only speak for me, but my heart rate went through the roof and it was just like overwhelm, that overwhelming feeling again. I was like, uh oh, like here we are. And um,

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  so I didn't really get a clear picture of what was going on. So I immediately go back to my responsibility. I'm like, okay, panic mode, just do what you're supposed to do. Get your responsibility. So I went back and I'm watching and I start seeing as, as you remember what their, their TTP was, their, their tactics at the time was they would attack us and then they would go and uh, hit our exfil route. They wanted to kind of see how we're going to respond. And so I saw some guys going out there and they started laying down IEDs and I got to engage one and that was the first time that I actually got to see a guy fall. And uh, that kind of paused for it made me take pause for a moment. I was like, oh, that's a life. And I didn't have much time to think about that because there's chaos going around. Like I'm overwhelmed. I'm like, all right, just

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  do what you gotta do, do what you gotta do. I kept saying, hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta do what you gotta do. And so I'm scanning the, the whole route and um, Finally got to a point where this chaos is going on. You just hear just an incredible amount of gunfire. And I hear over the radio, hey, everybody come down here to the first floor. And I could hear it clear as day. So I'm like, Roger that. Came downstairs and the chief, he was my sister platoon chief. And this is where I learned about emotional intelligence and how powerful it is. He had the awareness at the time, he saw the chaos that was going on

• 1:46:46Speaker 01

  and he knew that we needed some sort of direction and guidance. He had a plan together. And we're in this circle on the first floor and we're all just like sweating, like, you know, team guys, let's go get some. And each one of us looked at us in the eye. I was like, hey, I need you. Go get your pack, pack it up. I want you be in the rear and we're going to go help these guys. We're going to have you lead it out. So everybody meet back down here three minutes. And so we went and packed up my stuff. And after he did that, when he engaged with me, I could breathe. Like, it was like, I just needed that connection with that emotional intelligence to set me where I needed to be so I could understand what my job and where we're going. Because at the time, like, we didn't know, like, hey, we're gonna go help these guys. Like, there were so many

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  questions that left unanswered. And he answered them all. And in a very good way that connected with everybody to calm everybody down, like, this is what we're gonna go do. And so we did, we ran through and got to about 100 meters away. And so they didn't know exactly where we were. So it was like that deconfliction of, hey, we're coming in, they're still, it reminded me of like, the only way I can explain is like the Mogadishu Mile and Black Hawk Down. And I can still see the guy's eyes, you know, that I'm, you're doing that rolling, that bounding thing. I remember, I love seeing him, like, seeing him, like, it was like, you knew, like, yep, go. And so you're going back and forth. But that first time that I exposed my back, I'm like,

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  I trust you, man. And so I probably the fastest my little legs to go with an A dub just come across the uh the road and we got there and we're popping smoke to let them know and they finally said, hey, we see you. We're we're coming from that direction is what we told them and we got in there and that's when um the guy Mark Robbins, he was shot in the eye. Well, we everybody thought he was dead and there were supposed to be a medevac kilo coming in, but um one of the chiefs at the time like waved him off and said, no, get out of here. It's too hot. It's a hot LZ. I didn't understand at the time. I was like, why did he do that? And um, so we called in the QRF, the Marines. They came in with their uh their Humvees and we are

• 1:48:51Speaker 01

  like we're all converging at the same time. And um, I remember seeing Mark come down and one of the officers um had blood all over him and Mark, his head just it didn't look real. He got hit in the eye and that side of his head was so swollen that seeing him like he was out of it like he he was walking. I was just like, what? Like he, how is this alive? Like, is this like he looked like a cartoon character almost? And got in the Humvee and went off. And so that kind of like spun me up again a little bit. I was like, oh, man. Like, I don't want to see what I would look like if I got shot. I just want to go lights out. Like, I just don't want to suffer. I don't want him to suffer. I don't want anybody to suffer.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  And uh, we got all all together and um, I remember going in and seeing the look on the guys faces that they were hunkered down. There's bullet holes all along the wall and they're like, get down, do not. I'm like, listen, okay, thanks. Roger that. Yeah. And so then I come in, I'm I'm like trying to control my breath because somebody just did that for me and I'm like belly breathing like, I say, hey, what do you got? And I remember talking to a friend of mine and he's he's sitting, he's like, all right, there's these guys right over here in this uh right next to the lake and there's this road. They've been coming down this road. They've been hitting us from this. Like you can see where the rounds are. You can see where they're they're shooting from. And so we kind of devised a plan and we we were effective, but then um

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  the hard part about that whole operation was our QRF, it just came in. And now there they took Mark to go get medical attention. We don't have a QRF now. And so we're like, okay, when are they coming back to get us? And I'm up on the roof now. Things have kind of died down a little bit. We're still getting like, they're using kids to come out and like spot for us and then guys would come and shoot at us. And so, um, we would be getting a lot, a lot of pop shots and stuff like that to keep our heads down as well. And they're very effective rounds. And, um, I remember, uh, the same chief that calmed us down, he goes, hey, guys, listen up. Uh, I need you to take a quick pause for a second.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  So the QRF can't come get us. We have nobody that's gonna come get us. So I want you to get comfortable, come up with a plan and sit tight. He's like, I'm gonna be working on something to try and get us to come out. And that feeling was like, nobody's coming to get us? It was hard. It was like alone. Like I just felt so distant. Like the world became so big and I became so small. Like I'm stuck here. And so I, a couple of us were like, hey, this, if this is how we're gonna go, let's go out fighting. And so I remember one of the guys, he's still in, he looked at me and said, and this is when it got really raw. And he was like, hey, count your rounds. I'm like, why? Cause you need to know, you have enough for us to fight. Don't waste them. Make them

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  count. And I was like, oh, got it. And so that's, that's when, uh, it sank in. Like nobody's coming to get us. We're all alone. Hey, if we're gonna die, let's fight. Like let's stick together. I got your back. You got mine. Let's do this. And it, it was, we sat there for a while. It seemed like an eternity. Well, this comes to play later on in my career. I learned that when you go out on satcom, everybody here is in theater. And, uh, nobody was coming to get us because we were in a bad gunfight and we just had a guy hit and the Marines came in and said, no, we're not going back in there. Not right now. It's IED alley. You know, you got all kinds of gunfire. It's way too hot. It's too big of a risk to have all these resources come in for bigger risk. And, uh,

• 1:52:26Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, that's not cold blooded. That's like, that's like risk assessment and evaluation. And sometimes like, hey, we just came in there. You have no one else wounded. We don't want to come back in right now because they're putting IDs in the roads and that stuff happens like there's, there was a lot of situations in Ramadi was like, oh, if you like the casualty evacuation plan was, wait.

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:52:48Jocko Willink?

  And, yep, and wait, and then hopefully we can get a minesweeper to come in and we can clear the route and get up there. You know, we, there would be other situations, well, urgent surgical, maybe we can push, but if you have a kind of a somewhat stable casualty, you're going to sit there. So yeah, this stuff happens.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, for me, I didn't know all this stuff was going on behind the scenes. I'm like, gosh, I guess we're going to die here. This is how we're going to fight. And it kind of, you kind of get that dump of adrenaline, like, all right, let's do this. Like, now I want to see how I'm going to be in these situations. Now's my time. And

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  the, this is what was the most profound thing for me in that moment was when we'd been sitting there for a while, and then that same chief came over and said, hey, guys, somebody's answering the call. I was like, what does that mean? TF160th was listening to the radio and it listened to everybody like, hey, we don't have any resources, can't come get you. You guys are on your own. And so we're still out there just sitting there and they were probing us. They would send all the women and children come probe us and stuff like that. And finally, 160 said, we can come get you, but you got to wait for three hours for nightfall. Set up the LZ. Well, we're coming. And that was a long

• 1:54:04Speaker 01

  three hours. It was the longest three hours. But I think of, they rogered up. Like, that's what we needed to hear. We needed to have something that somebody was coming. Three hours or 12 hours. Somebody was coming to get us. And that's what we needed at the time because at the time you felt like, all right, I guess we're going to die in this crappy little hole that we're dug in right now with all these bullet holes. And, but you, you develop a bond with people when you go through that. There's nothing quite like it. So we, I left with a lot of, a lot of good and bad things. The, the bad thing that I thought was just the.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  It's not necessarily bad. I look at, you know, you grow as a leader too. We didn't have the information at the time. And the, the way that information came across when Mark got hit, I thought that was bad. Like being clear and direct and concise. People could have processed it, but when it's just screaming and yelling and trying to like, it was like overwhelming. Everybody was like, ooh, that's not good. I can't do that. And so here on the other side of it, the good, being like, being, you know, emotionally intelligent and deliberate with people, and that's how people listen.

• 1:55:12Jocko Willink?

  It is indeed.

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  You come back from that deployment and it's just re-rack into another platoon, right?

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. Right back into. Now I'm that one platoon wonder guy. Had some great mentors. AJ, you know AJ James?

• 1:55:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:55:29Speaker 01

  Awesome dude. So I love AJ. We became brothers because I started to become a point man. Now I got to go to sniper school. And AJ's my bro. He, he taught me how to do Muay Thai. And my other buddy was, I was doing Jiu-Jitsu. Do you, do you remember Eddie Bravo, the book? He had a book. So I would do like, I would read Eddie Bravo's book and like, and stuff like that. And I was like, I want to learn Muay Thai. And AJ, everyone was like, AJ's this world champion Muay Thai fighter.

• 1:55:58Jocko Willink?

  AJ's a stud dude.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  He's got a story. Like the guy, his whole story is just incredible. But now he's my right-hand man. He's my A-Dub Gunner. I'm the point man.

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  And I got a real funny story about learning not to follow stars. So it's my first time being a point man and I had my GPSs and everything. And we came in the 53s, you know, covered in hydraulic fluid.

• 1:56:22Jocko Willink?

  So we're back in Iraq now?

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, check.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we came in and oh man, we're going on this target. It's like a Bedouin camp out in the middle of the desert. And so there's nothing like, usually I use terrain association and, and this is my first time to like, get my bearing, you know, use my GPS and I'm putting it in there. But when I land, I looked at my GPS. And I'm like, that's weird. It's not working. But I have, I know what my bearing is and how, what the distance is. We can just straight line it there. We're going through the desert.

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  But I need something to reference. And in the horizon, there was like this mountain range and there was like a star off this tip. So I was like, okay, if I keep those things lined up, I'll be, I'll be good to go. And we're walking along and you know, you got the dog, the dog was going out, come back and hit me and I'm just like counting my steps and you know, doing a little Ranger B and I kept checking my GPS, it's not working, but I was like, all right, have I stayed on this bearing? Stars are aligned, like we're good.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  And it was a while, I remember people, hey Murph, where are we at? I'm like, ah, we should be coming up on it shortly and AJ's there with me and AJ's, you know, guy, he's such a good dude. He's like, hey, everything good, man? I was like, yeah, I was like, but let's take, let's uh, let's circle it up and let's, let's take a knee for a minute. I need to check some stuff. And I was like, AJ, hey, is your GPS working? He's like, I don't have a GPS, man. This is like, only a few of us had GPSs and then um, another guy that's still in funny, watch your eyes, that's what we used to call him, um, would come up. And he was the LPO at the time and uh, he was like, hey Murph, what's going on? I was like, hey,

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  I gotta come clean. I've been following stars and when I said that, I could see the look on their faces of like, what? I was like, well, yeah, I took a bearing. It made sense to me. Like, yeah, I took a bearing. I lined up the stars, been following it, but I, my GPS isn't working. He's like, he pulls out his GPS and he's like, fix it. And so I looked and luckily, you know, cause the moon, it curves. And so we just kind of went off to the right about 500 meters and the target was about 500. If I went 500 meters left, I'd be back on track and that's what I did. And I learned, um, trust your instruments, have a backup and don't wait so long to say, hey, I got a problem. Cause I, I went, I thought, no, this is why we learn, you know, two is one, one is none, or redundancy, have a backup plan.

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  I knew my bearing and went off and man, it, that I felt, I still am embarrassed about that.

• 1:58:46Jocko Willink?

  We also learned that stars move in the night sky, Echo Charles.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:50Jocko Willink?

  Yes, they do.

• 1:58:53Jocko Willink?

  Uh, how was the rest of that deployment?

• 1:58:57Speaker 01

  Uh, that, that deployment, deployment was, um, it was good. We, we got called up to Mosul, um, to do some sniper ops and I

• 1:59:08Speaker 01

  those deployments, I when we did that, like I, I worked a lot with um, some of the other East Coast teams. We started merging together and it was so great to see some of the guys who went through BUDsWIT and it was like meshing instantaneously and um,

• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  learning a lot about the the dynamics between.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  How other people view things. We had Terps that uh I just told a story the other day. Um we had a Terp that quit on us. Because I don't think he'd ever been in combat. And uh we were up there and he saw the harsh reality of like Mosul was a bad place. And we had, at the time, the reason why we got called up was there was a uh I can't remember if he was a Marine Colonel or who he was, but um was killed by a roadside bomb. And so they called us up and was like, hey, we need to fix this problem. Like, he was loved by everybody, great leader, great guy. And I remember when they came in and briefed us, there was this empty whiteboard. And uh he said, guys, he put a tick mark on there. He's like, I want this thing filled.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  When you guys leave here, there's a problem and we need to solve it. I was like, okay, like, we're pretty good. And that's when I started

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  looking at, actually, that's when I, a lot of my new guys, you know, you've been on deployments and the whole like, get your kill on and all that stuff. And some people were a little bit too eager and had to tell them like, hey, man, don't chase the kill. It'll find you before you find it. Because it was, you know, when you've got freedom to go do whatever you need to do, be careful, man. Like, don't chase it. And luckily, we had, like I said, good group of guys that were very deliberate, very intentional that we could kind of uh bring those guys up. But when that Terp quit, we were up in this uh big like um hotel building and he was like, why did they shoot that guy? And he kept questioning everything. I'm like, you realize that these are bad people. They just slaughtered a bunch of Christians and

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  they're over here killing and raping people. Like, all these dudes that are coming around here that are engaging us, they're not, they're not just protecting their families, man. This is something different. And um we had a dishka up on the rooftop, or it was there, and they were using that to um attack the coalition forces. And we ended up dismantling that. Um putting, I can't remember if we blew the breach or something happened, they dismantled it. And then we sat him there until we got back and was like,

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  All right, you quit, man. That means no more. Cause we did take him out on side by sides. We uh, we did those type of movements. That was the old Kawasaki mules. I don't know if you remember those. We were going out in those things and we would take him with us and he was great because you know, we weren't getting into many gunfights. We were doing a lot of reconnaissance and running around, uh, trying to figure these things out. And we had taken these Kawasaki mules and painted them tan and just started outfitting them. We, one of the marine logistics units was there and master guns, uh, opened up his doors and said, whatever you guys need.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  Started fabricating mounts for guns on these side by sides and going out and doing patrols. And um, there was, there was one, one particular operation we were going and running up to this other base up north. And um, we uh, we're going through, there's two towns on either side of us. And there's this one road that went between them and we came up and I was the lead nav and AJ was my driver. And AJ's best, I trust him. There's no one else that can drive than AJ. And AJ's, he's super serious. He's knuckling, white knuckling the, the side by side and he's very, um, very good at what he does.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  And I see these towns and I, we see on the right side, there's this bongo truck that's coming down and say, hey, I'll stop, you know, get in our formation. We, we hold tight. And um, as the truck is coming down, I, we earn like a Mexican stare off with these guys. They're driving. We're like, and me and AJ at the same time, like, hey, you seeing this? And we're like, yeah, he's slowing down. He's driving real slow and I key up on my mic is like, hey,

• 2:03:26Speaker 01

  be prepared. Like there's something going on with this guy and uh, sure enough, right as soon as he gets right in front of us, these two dudes in the back pop up with PKMs and just start lighting us up. And man, I don't know how we survived it. Like rounds, I mean, rounds were hitting right next to me and I felt. In these side by sides that have no armor, no protection and I'm strapped in. I had an M79 in my, in my lap that I could use. I brought that thing up. It was like thump and it hit right in front. And I went to go, this is my adrenaline's going so much. I went to go and like reload and I broke it in half. Like I was like, oh caveman. So I grabbed my rifle.

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  You mean you literally broke it in half?

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  So there's that, there's that pen.

• 2:04:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  That pen came up and was like bent up because I was like crunch. And I was like, no, I was like, this is such a good weapon. And so AJ being the good operator he is, he broke contact and everyone followed suit. We're the first ones. So we had speed over security. And so we had to move and we broke contact and we're flying, we're hauling and as everybody's like, I'm just praying like, I hope nobody got hit. You know, it was such chaos that two PKMs come up and they're like all around us and we ended up circling back and I saw where those guys had went and we happened to just, we broke contact. And so we started circling back. We ended up starting heading back towards them. I was like, right before we crested this little sand dune, I was like, hey, all stop, all stop.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  I was like, hey, I need to get my bearings before we head down there. And sure enough, like if we had crested that hill, they were right down at the bottom of the hill. Then we just would have compounded the problem. So we, we sat tight and

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  ended up making a plan, had to wait. It was two hours before Cass could be on station and then it just turned into this whole ordeal. We end up calling in some other units and they cleared through the town, didn't find the guys. And it was just way too late. It was kind of like, if you don't take action, those few minutes that you have, it's going to be, it's not worth it. It was nighttime. This is during the middle of the day. It was nighttime by the time that we actually got to move through the town, but we were out there and it's a good chance for me as sniper school, I went through and learned to take pictures. And I actually was like, hey, let me see if I can send them pictures back in the talk. And so I did it. I went and used the comm and cooked everything up and I started sending them pictures through the old school way of the, the tough book. And I was like, yeah, this is cool, man. I get to do something.

• 2:05:43Jocko Willink?

  And then you're coming home from that deployment.

• 2:05:46Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:05:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. How'd that go?

• 2:05:49Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:05:51Jocko Willink?

  Cause now we'd started doing the decompression stop. Cause we, like, I came home, my last deployment in 2006, came home, we just got on a plane in Ramadi and flew home to America.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  But then people felt like maybe that wasn't the best thing. And I, I kind of agree, it wasn't the best thing. But what we went to may have not been the best thing either.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:06:09Jocko Willink?

  So you did a little decompression stop in Germany?

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I had orders to a green team.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:06:14Speaker 01

  And, um,

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  we, we had turned over the SEAL Team Seven and we had literally like, within 24 hours, we did our turnover op. And we got into a good, really good gunfight. And we kind of told them, like, hey, right on this time, they're gonna hit you and blah, blah, blah, like the, the standard routine. And so they, we turned over with them and then I get on a plane. And I say this, um, because I can understand, I was peeing in a bottle within 24 hours ago. Now I'm landing in civilization. I was living as a caveman for six, seven months. And now I'm in civilization. Well, when we land the C, or the C-17, the ramps open up. They've got this bus and it's got a cooler full of beer.

• 2:06:57Speaker 01

  And so they're handing out beers. Hey, congratulations. Welcome back. Heroes welcome, I think. And, um,

• 2:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Or big setup. If you think about it, it's kind of a big setup, you know?

• 2:07:07Speaker 01

  Well, we're just pounding beers.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  You know, and so we haven't drank the entire deployment. Now you get introduced to alcohol. Young kids that were just out like in a different mindset and you get to stay in this nice hotel and you get to go out into bars where other people are around and having a good time. Well, I go out and, uh, our new guys, they're not new guys anymore. After a while, he's like, you're not new guys, man. And so we're like, hey, let's go get them and bring them out. Like, they have a new responsibility now. They're no longer can be called new guys. They're one between wonders. And we go into these, I love these guys. They were awesome, great new guys. And I go into their room with, um, another guy, I can't say his name, he's still in. Um, he was an officer, a little rough around the edges, uh,

• 2:07:52Speaker 01

  hung out with a list of guys, too much, I think. But, uh, so we had the bright idea, let's go in and tell them that they're coming out with us. We're in their room. They're like, no, we're just gonna sit and chill. And we're like, no, you're not, you're coming with us. And so.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  We decide, well, uh, he starts peeing in the corner and I was like, all right, I'm gonna pee on your duvet if you're not coming out. It was such a stupid thing. I don't know. I was so childish to think this and it's not like I, I peed a lot on there, but I, you know, I peed in the corner, kind of like, oh, you gotta come out now. Like, I don't know why that would entice somebody, but it was such a stupid decision.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  And I'm close to being like really drunk and, uh, and so I pull the duvet cover off. It's like that little strip that doesn't serve a purpose. I pulled it off and I was like, all right, and I went and finished going to bathroom, the bathroom. I was like, no, seriously, guys, come on out. And I kind of had to talk like, hey, man, like you're one of us. Like you're not a new guy. Like we don't want you to be in that mentality. Like you've got a responsibility now, blah, blah, blah. You're like, no, I just want to sit and talk to my wife. All right. I can, I can respect that. And so, um, I left and so did the other guy. And we go out and come back from going out and there's a master chief that you probably know pretty well. Like, I don't know if he's still in or not. And he's sitting there and he's like, hey Murph, come here. He sits me down on this bench and I was like, yeah, what's up?

• 2:09:10Speaker 01

  He's like, hey, I need your help. I was like, what do you need? Like I'm a little tipsy, but I'll do whatever you need. And he's like, uh, I need to find a guy that's been rock star in rooms. I was like, what's rock star in rooms? He's like, you know, tossing mattresses and all that stuff. And I was like, one of our guys did that? And I was like, check, got it. He's like, yeah, can you help me find out who it is? And I was like, sure. And he's like, you sure you don't know anything about it? And I was like, no. He's like, you're not even like a little bit like somebody peeing on stuff. And then it clicked and I was just like,

• 2:09:41Speaker 01

  I was like, hey, man, are you talking about me? And he was just like, yeah. And he just like went off on me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean rock stars? Like we didn't do that much. It was like literally like it was just a tiny little like a, a cap full of pee on the side of a, a thing that I, we threw down. Like it's not even going to cause an issue. And he's like, that's not it. Like the Commodore, blah, blah, blah. Everybody's wanting your ass. Your name came up. And I was like, thinking about those new guys, like, man, I want to get them. And like, what did they say to these guys? And, um, The uh, the Commodore had said, hey, put this guy on the next flight home. He's coming to Commodore's mass. Gosh. And I still didn't know what had happened, like what the story came out. And so I flew back and then

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  some good leaders um, at that point showed up. And they said, hey, let's talk about what happened. And so they gave me the story that had been put out. And I was like, that ain't what happened. And so it turned out that the two guys that the new guys that were in there didn't tell the story. They, another guy came in that nobody like, we all have that one guy. And he had bounced, he'd been kicked out of a platoon and put in our platoon. Nobody liked him. And so he didn't like me because I didn't put up with BS on deployments. He was a sniper, didn't even break open his sniper guns. And I'm like, you're not a sniper. Like a sniper, when they hit the ground, they go dope in their guns, get acclimated and they find, and he never wants during that deployment. And so he went in. And the Commodore and the group Mashief was downstairs at the bar eating and he went and told them the whole story.

• 2:11:08Speaker 01

  Like an elaborate story that we tossed the thing and that they had to call up room service and get new rooms and that we broke lamps and all kinds of wild stuff. And I, I was like, how do I defend myself from a story that cats been out of the bag? And now I'm defending myself on a story that is outrageous. And um. So I sat down and heard what all happened. I told the guys, no, that's not what happened. And so same thing with the other guys and we're all in our platoon space. And this guy hadn't showed up yet. We're, everybody's back from deployment now. We're, you know, doing our inventories and one of the good leaders, the same guy that watch your eyes was uh, he got to the bottom of it. He was like, all right, we're all in here. We're going to get to the bottom of this. Before he gets out of here, we're going to have like an internal meeting. And uh.

• 2:11:54Speaker 01

  So the two new guys come in and we're like, hey, what happened? And immediately they knew like, oh no, we didn't say anything, wasn't us. And they're like, well, tell us what happened. He told us who did it. And it was that guy that nobody liked and he hadn't showed up yet. Always late, always first one to leave. So he walks in and he doesn't know that everybody knows the story. And so he puts up front sitting and I'm standing behind, you know, just sitting there kind of like in trouble. You know, everybody knew that I was in trouble. I was in my dress whites, you know, and um. I'm sitting there and he's like, hey, you want to tell us a little story about, we heard some stuff that went down in Germany?

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  And he was like, I don't know what you're talking about integrity. I had no idea. Did you say anything? No, it wasn't me. Wasn't me. And he told lie after lie. And then he was finally like, we know the truth. They told us. And I remember he looked over those two new guys. He's like, we told them, we had to tell them. And he was just like, oh, well, you know, and then like his personality came out and said, oh, this guy is a piece of crap. He doesn't deserve to be here, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, get out. We'll deal with you later. Get out. And so, I saw, I saw some people that had made mistakes that were came down on me pretty hard. And they wanted me to basically, they, they took away my orders right away. And there was an argument. I was sitting in the chief's board.

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  And I'm just standing there and it, and an argument broke out in the chief's DRB. About, and they're like, you've done worse than this, man. Like this is an opportunity for him, not for you. Like if you're mad about something, don't take it out on him. And I remember one of the guys, you know, that went and worked for it, trade at, was like, I'll take them. You're coming to work for me. You're going to go back here and get your orders. Uh, maybe not now, but we're going to, we're going to fight for it. It was a blessing, man. Like after that,

• 2:13:48Speaker 01

  you know, I was bummed. I didn't get to go to green team with the, the rest of the guys that went, but um, it, uh, going to trade at was a, was a huge opportunity for me. I learned so much. Good leaders stepped up and took care of me. And I started to see like, that's truly what it takes, man, is, is uh, get to the bottom of things. Don't just react. Find out. Um, I, I learned this later on, you know, write the problem out in a statement. Write it out in one sentence. Can you? Sometimes you can answer the, the question that you need to ask when you write that out, when you figure out, how can you put it down in one statement? Cause you got to gather all the details. Don't just jump to a conclusion and. That's truly what they did for me is, all right, let's figure out like what the truth is.

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  Let him tell his side. Somebody's got to go back for him. He needs leadership that stands up for him because if you don't teach him that, he's not going to learn it. He's going to learn that you just crap on a guy whenever, you know, they get into trouble and went to trade it and man, God, what an awesome, awesome experience trade it was. It was the guys I worked with, you know, JP.

• 2:14:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  I love working with JP.

• 2:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. The trade at, at that time, you know, I was, I was at trade as well at that time. It was 2009 when you showed up there. But yeah, just had a great group of people that were all getting after it. Everyone just wanted to help the teams. Everyone wanted the guys to be ready to deploy. It was awesome.

• 2:15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, the shift. I remember going through assaults. That's where I went was assaults. And man, it was such a great, seeing how everything changed from, you remember it was the like, you just got beat down going through training. You didn't really learn as much. And then it shift is like, yeah, it can be tough, but we're teaching and training and opening up to the why. And for me, that was so deep and important to understand and to teach. Now I, you know, I, I learned my, I got my master trainer specialist. I learned about how to design, develop curriculum, how to review it, how to implement it and making sure everything's wired tight and understand

• 2:15:47Speaker 01

  what goes into training. There's so much that goes into training. I thought it was like, this is just a bunch of team guys hiding out. No, they worked their asses off.

• 2:15:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:57Speaker 01

  It was, it was a good experience to see, man, I'm, I'm telling you, Jocko, the, the platoons came through, every single one had a personality. And you got to see team guys, new guys, experienced guys, grow from like operators to leaders. Those leaders grow and face those challenges, work through them. And I got to work through it with them and I'm learning so much about like different good leadership styles, bad leadership styles, how you change, how you are effective with, um, how you perform and then how you handle it afterwards. You could be a terrible leader and have an effect on everybody in your platoon. I, I did see some of the guys that were like, hey, man, I remember, I'll never forget.

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  We're out there running assaults and, um, and we took it serious. You know, as you know, JP, it's strictly business and we're up on the rafters and it's hot. They're okay. They can go sit in the shade, but me and JP are upon the rafters just melting every single day. And this, uh, one of the platoon chiefs comes up to us and he, I can tell he's trying to stand up for his guys. He's like, hey, man, can we just like, take the rest of the day off?

• 2:17:04Jocko Willink?

  And JP like that?

• 2:17:07Speaker 01

  Uh, it'll look like, kind of like, like he was trying to solicit empathy or sympathy from us. And I was just like, no. What do you mean? Like, are you guys hot? Go drink some water. That's why we have the water jugs. Like, we have these things in place. Like, we can take a break if it really is that hot, but we're not taking the rest of the day off. And then we went right back into training because I was like, come stand up here with us. Like, we have no shade. Like, I, I had, uh, sunburns on my arms. I was constantly wearing sunscreen because we're just up there getting beat to death by the sun. And granted, we're not running around through the house. But I was like, hey, if you need to take a break, I get it, man. Give you guys a break.

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  It's hot in combat too, by the way. Just FYI, I'm gonna be tired. Yeah, that, a huge part of my life was when I was mentioning working for Big Will. Uh, senior chief turned master chief eventually, Big Will Gile, but he, that was in training cell, SEAL Team One. And we had such a great crew in there, but you know, same thing. I would go out with a platoon, watch them do, and I was a single guy, dude. I didn't care about anything. Like, every trip that we were going on, land warfare, CQC, mount, whatever we were doing, I, we'd, we'd get the chance to go. And it was awesome. And being able to learn and watch what worked for that platoon, who that, that, that leader, he did this and it didn't work.

• 2:18:24Jocko Willink?

  And just absorbing all that from a detached perspective, because when you're watching, when you're not part of it, you can learn a lot by watching it. And seeing how the brief goes and seeing how the leader interacts with the boys and seeing what this chief did versus what that chief did, what that LT did versus what that LT did. And you just learn so much. And I took so much away from those few years that I was in training cell at, at SEAL Team One, and it gave me, you know, then I became an ensign. So now I was like a new guy, a new officer, but I had been in for eight years and I had taught. What we were about to go and do like in Land Warfare and CQC. So it was very, very helpful. And I love when, uh, when guys would show up at Trade Ed and they'd either come there either pre

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  pre LPO or pre platoon chief. And it was just such a huge leg up because now when they come through workup, they were dialed most of the time. So awesome thing to be able to do. And you spent a couple of years there and then you, you finally do get to go to selection to go out to Dam Neck.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:24Jocko Willink?

  And did you go T A D out there?

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  I did.

• 2:19:26Jocko Willink?

  Is that the way it worked?

• 2:19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So at the time they, you got T A D order. So you had, all my stuff was still in San Diego in Trade Ed. So I have my locker, so everything because you, you weren't guaranteed. You go out there and really, um, screw things up day one and you're right back.

• 2:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 2:19:43Speaker 01

  It could have been a short stint or it could have been a long stint. Nobody knows. It's T A D. So go out there and give it your best shot and see what happens.

• 2:19:51Jocko Willink?

  And went pretty good for you out there?

• 2:19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. It was great. Um, made it through green team. Um, made it through all the way and, uh, that's during the assault portion, the, that's where I was so blessed have gone, going through Trade Ed is because you understood the why. You can yell all day long at somebody, go to this exact position. Go here, do this, be a robot. But if you don't teach them the why, they won't understand the process.

• 2:20:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:26Speaker 01

  And so

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Because eventually a robot's got to think for itself. You go into a room, there's going to be some stuff, stuff that never seen before and they're going to give it to you some stuff you've never seen before. And then two, three, four rooms in a building like that. And if you don't know how to think, if you don't understand why you're doing what you're doing, you're just going to fall apart. You can't just be a robot. You gotta be a, what we used to call a thinking shooter.

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that proved so valuable in, in, uh, that, that block of training because it's also where I learned it's not about the mistake, it's about how you handle it. And everyone makes mistakes. As fast as you go, like you want, they want you to be perfect. And so they'll give you the perfect instructions and you're going to screw it up. One little thing, eyes not on sights. Little things that even like they, their job is to put you through stress and they had heart rate monitors on it. So they could see, it was a game to them. I know it was. I, I know some of these guys that put us through it. I know it was a game to them because you'd be sitting outside waiting. And you knew when your turn was coming up and they knew when our turn was up because there's big screen on, they could see the heart rate spike right before we're about

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  to go and they would start banging on walls and yelling. So it's like heart rate spike. All right, cool. These two are up. You come in like, uh, Murphy reporting and all right, Murphy, get after it. And so it was, when you got jacked up, you made a mistake. You knew, especially when they start yelling, because you're yelling out your infractions as you're doing the house run. You can't stop. You cannot stop. You got to find what's next. Whether it's a good, you had the best run or the worst run, you, the house run continues. What's next? And so if you make a mistake and you snowball, you let it start to consume you, just like thinking about it. You can't let go and continue to focus forward and stay disciplined and be able to find what's next, you're going to fail. And that's kind

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  of what they did. It's not the mistake. You can get better. If, if mistake becomes a pattern, that's the problem. And so I learned that I made it all the way through and, and yeah, it was, it was a, it was a good time. It was a horrible time, but a good time. It was buds all over again.

• 2:22:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you got back to trade at now it's like, what is it? 2011 or something like this? And you come back to check, basically to check out and you get rolled into like a freaking legal scenario that was going on or you don't get rolled into it, but you're kind of adjacent from a guy that had done some dumb shit.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:48Jocko Willink?

  And there's some collateral freaking frag flying out and you caught one of those pieces of frag.

• 2:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I came to check out, I was going to my squadron and I had literally shipped off all my stuff and pods. My car just got put on the truck and left and I took a taxi to trade it, say goodbye to everybody. And, um,

• 2:23:12Speaker 01

  I walk in there and I'm in the assaults office like hanging out and you know, being like, all right, guys, man, you know, I'm not gonna be the guy that leaves here and never comes back. I'm gonna keep in touch with you. And then like, hey, Skipper wants to talk to you.

• 2:23:26Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay, cool. You know, and walked down to his office and I walk in and it was just awkward. You know, it was the same moment like when my dad, you can sense something, something is wrong. Something ain't good. I walk in, it's like, it's a little too quiet. And they're kind of looking at me weird. And there's another guy in there and they read me my rights. I was like, wait, what? It's like, is this a joke? Like, you guys know, I'm got a flight. I gotta get on going back over to the East Coast. And like, no, this is not like, we were directed to read you your rights. You're being placed under arrest. I was like, oh, okay, now it's it's raw and it's real. And I was like, trying to grasp, like, what did I do? Like, I don't, I didn't do anything. Like speeding ticket? And I was like, no, there's no way it could be a speeding ticket or something

• 2:24:11Speaker 01

  like, okay. And they started reading some stuff to me and it was a guy, the guy that I knew had been arrested. I didn't know all this. Well, I didn't know of it, but I didn't think anything like, yeah, what an idiot. Why would he do something stupid? And so during that whole thing, they had found some stuff that I was a part of that they tried to connect in it to develop, build this whole case. And they're reading the stuff to me and they're reading off some text messages that we were talking back and forth with. And I was like, that doesn't sound like me. And it didn't, it didn't sound like stuff that I was saying. I was like, I possibly could have said some stuff. And I was like, is that my number? And I remember the look on his face was like,

• 2:24:55Speaker 01

  I don't know. What's the last four year number? And I said it. And he was like, yep, this is you. And I was just like, oh, crap. And I didn't know what to do at that point, like, I it was the you know, you think like, okay, I've had this dream that I've been living. You know, I went from Sean Murphy, this poor kid that was disadvantaged and nobody expected to make anything of himself and neither did I. So now I'm at the SEAL teams, figured out what dev group was and was like, oh, I want a taste of that. And I go and I get it. And now it's like, it's all about to get flushed and you're going back to. You're not going to make anything. You're going to screw things up. And I was just like, this is all going through my head and. Man, it hit me hard. Like I was sitting there. I was waiting, waiting, waiting to figure it out and.

• 2:25:39Speaker 01

  I uh, there was this, uh, I remember I got called in for um, to be questioned by the NCIS. NCIS and I think ATF was there. And um, they had this file and they called me into this office. And it looked just like in the movies. They had a big glass, you know, window and had this, it was completely staged. And they had this chair that was like, there wasn't cameras in there, but I knew it was being recorded because it was like perfectly positioned. So I had to sit down in this chair and this other guy comes in, he slams his file down and is like, you're screwed. I'm just thinking like, well, tell me why. I still don't know the depth of what they're holding against me and um.

• 2:26:21Speaker 01

  They read through all this paperwork. He's like, this guy, you know, he was running guns and he's got ammo and blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:26:26Jocko Willink?

  So just real quick, this guy was a SEAL and he had taken guns out of Iraq.

• 2:26:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:26:34Jocko Willink?

  And sold them in America and like, probably like, I think the number that I read was like 80 AK-47s and then. A decent amount, but like not a, not a crazy amount, but you know, something like 50 pistols or something like that. And he'd taken these things illegally out of Iraq, brought them back to America. And he had connections through a guy that was a, like a felon.

• 2:26:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:26:59Jocko Willink?

  And the felon, in order to save himself, sort of started selling these things. These guns, these weapons that this team guy had brought back and. The, the felon guy was also working for as an informant and basically, and so this guy, this, this SEAL. Gets busted for, I mean, weapons tracking, he's selling automatic weapons in America illegally, like you can't do that and. I don't, you know, I don't know that guy.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  The guy in question, uh, you can Google it's bit, the guy's last name is Bickle. But it's all out there. So this is not like we're talking about some top secret information, but he got rolled up. And again, when I look back on it and it's really hard to get in people's heads and understand. Like you, a, a, a nine year old could figure out that this is dumb, right? A nine year old would go, hold on a second. You're gonna take a bunch of weapons from Iraq, you're gonna smuggle them back to America. And then you're gonna sell them on the black market. It doesn't take a genius to go, this isn't gonna work out well for you. Look, seriously, like a nine year old, 10 year old kid is not gonna think that this is a good idea. Yeah. Well, for whatever reason, this idiot did think it was a good idea and he did it.

• 2:28:13Jocko Willink?

  So he gets busted, he gets rolled up. And by the way, he's doing something like 20 years right now for these crimes. And, and so all this is happening. And of course they take his phone and they see who he's been texting and look, there's team guys, we're all, not we all, but you have groups, you know, people, you're friends with people. And so you're gonna be on text threads that. Yeah. And you're gonna respond to people and team guys are gonna, you know, send you, and there's also a lot of.

• 2:28:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, dark and freaking sick and twisted humor on some of these things. So it's like, all that's happening. But meanwhile, you, you've moved on, you've carried on and you don't even know about any of this other. You don't know this guy's been selling freaking weapons and smuggling stuff back and just being an idiot. And I guess the, the things that tied you into this whole gig was number one, text message. You guys, you had, there was a text message, group thread or whatever that you were on. And number two, and I think this is the file that you're talking about. You had. Signed for custody of ammunition. Yeah. A lot of ammunition, meaning a lot, not a lot, numbers, but a lot, meaning a lot number, every.

• 2:29:25Jocko Willink?

  Box of ammunition has a number where it came from. So they can track defective stuff. Well, they had, he, this criminal had possession of. Ammunition that you had signed for. At Trade Ed. And so they throw this thing at your face, the implication being you signed for this ammunition and gave it to this guy. Yeah. What they didn't realize is that there's. Tens and thousands of.

• 2:29:55Jocko Willink?

  Of of rounds of ammunition in each lot and it's all over the place like when it's not some it's not like hey there's there's serialized nine bullets that you signed for and you turned them over no it's like you and everyone else at trade at is signing for hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition and then they're going to a training site where they're being used

• 2:30:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:30:18Jocko Willink?

  And if someone is a nefarious criminal

• 2:30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:21Jocko Willink?

  They can theoretically take some of that steal it. And then it can get found later, which is what happened here.

• 2:30:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:30:30Jocko Willink?

  If I got this right.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's correct. So to kind of expand on so traded at the time, we had that big ammo depot. And so the way that they they linked the two is one they're they're trying to find a way to link us and and um so the the ammunition that he had that lot number and he was working at traded at the time and so the same training rounds that you pull from for all the different uh um training cycles that we go through was from the same place that lot is so huge is it's the way that the uh facility can track if there's defective rounds and they can say, hey, everybody's in that has this lot numbers affected pull this lot number. And

• 2:31:12Speaker 01

  when I saw that, I was like, oh, thank God. I went through gunners may school because this was our job. And I was running assaults. And so I was the one signing. It was an ammo expenditure report.

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  And so you have to have uh two people. You had to have a chief sign it. You had to have the LPO sign it and you had to have the civilian sign it. And uh the chief was actually sitting out in the hallway waiting on me and um so I'm sitting there and I was like, do you do you know what that is? And uh he said, yeah, it's the paperwork that's showing that you were running ammo with Nick. And I was like, no, no, no. Ammo expenditure. I witnessed that it was expended. We spent those rounds out at training. We have to sign those. I didn't sign to receive those. I was on site. I watched. It said that those rounds were there. Yes, that puts that lot there and explained in the whole thing what we just talked about is like that big thing. You could tell that they weren't.

• 2:32:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because you could expend 5,000 rounds from a lot and there'd still be 5,000 rounds left over. Yeah. So you're saying, oh, I'm signing that I expended some of these rounds.

• 2:32:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't mean you accounted for every round in the lot and which is kind of what they were thinking.

• 2:32:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I did. I, we did actually account for every single thing. We knew like with the, the GMs that would come out there, they took custody of the rounds. It wasn't us, you know, so the platoons that go get their rounds from that guy. And I had, since I was running assaults, they had to have somebody sign from assaults and I was the guy. And when I had that confidence of like, that's not that, no, I didn't actually, I was no way part of that. And that doesn't put me as part of that. When I had that level of confidence, I think it kind of like, ah, he's not going to come clean. He's like, oh, don't worry. We got other stuff we're going to get you for. And they kind of let me go after that. And I was like, what am I here for, man? Like, why am I not over there, you know, with my other guys that made it through screening? Why am I not with them? And I'm sitting here and

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  I did have some, some very, very rough times of sitting there being like, is my life over? Like I kept thinking, I was like, man, where am I, how am I going to get through this? I got to fight, but where's this going to take me? And I had some good leaders that said, hey, man, you won, need to get an attorney. And then another person told me, he's like, you need to go to court martial. And I didn't understand that process at the time. I learned, I'm glad that there was leaders that probably had been in trouble before too and learned like, this is the way the system works. Like, if you're young, you still need to get somebody that, it's mentorship, right? You need to find somebody that has more knowledge than you. Surround yourself with smarter people. So that's what I did. And he told me, he's like, hey,

• 2:33:50Speaker 01

  Request trial by court martial and have an attorney. And attorney told me, he's like, hey, I can't do anything until you say that. He's like, I'm gonna guide you through. He's like, I went and did all these things been like to prove like I didn't do anything wrong. I just knew the guy. I mean, I actually did like the guy until like I learned all these things. And then I went and actually tried to find him and talked to him. I was like, hey, what happened? And he had like, hey, this is crazy and blah, blah, and never could really get the, the truth of the matter. And we're all like trying to write character references for him because we all liked the guy, but he was doing these stupid things. And, um, and whenever it came down to like, where am I going to go next? When they said request trial by court martial, that was a, that was a good thing. And so he ended up, the attorney ended up pressing the, um,

• 2:34:33Speaker 01

  uh, the JAG because even after I got dismissed, my, I went to Captus Mass and they dismissed it. There's no evidence here. I was still on a legal hold to where they wouldn't let me go to my team. And even my team or my squadron was like, where are you at? And I became like, now I'm this troubled kid going over there and like, that's, you're starting off on the wrong foot. And so I'm like, man, all right, I can, I can work through this. And, uh, they finally pressed and said, hey, this is malicious prosecution. Unless you have something for this guy, he needs to carry on. Cause I was in like this purgatory. I just checked out a trade debt. So no one truly owned me and the squad just didn't help me. So I'm like in this middle, I'm like walking in. I do remember seeing guys that were like, I don't know what, why they, they don't like guys that go over there.

• 2:35:19Speaker 01

  But there are people who come up to me and he's like, you guys think you're so special just because you make it through. Do you think you're better than everybody else? And I was like, I don't think that at all.

• 2:35:29Speaker 01

  Who told you that? Like, who hurt you, man? Like, did you not get a hug or something like, why are you? I, I know that it was like probably egos or something and I was, I kind of blew it off. There were some good guys that took me and they, they didn't make it to, uh, the squadrons or they never even tried. And they were like, no, man, you're good, bro. Like, yeah, no, don't worry about those guys. There's guys, they probably didn't make it through and they're still buttered about it.

• 2:35:53Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so now you do end up getting out there, out there to the East Coast. Um, you know, I, I started off reading this whole thing or started off this whole podcast, reading that thing from Jessica Buchanan. Freaking epic operation. Holy shit. Was that your first mish with those guys?

• 2:36:10Speaker 01

  That was the first week. I so, God, this all happens.

• 2:36:17Speaker 01

  I remember showing up and you know, at first I had to wash the stink off. This is all within a week. The stink of what were you doing, man?

• 2:36:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:26Speaker 01

  Who are you?

• 2:36:26Jocko Willink?

  What kind of people are you hanging around with?

• 2:36:28Speaker 01

  Like they're very, yeah, they're very protective of like their culture and their brand and I understand like I get it. And so I'm trying to do this. I'm like, hey, yeah. And luckily for me, some of the guys that I was, that were my mentors over at Silting Five were in that same squadron. I had to talk to them. It's like, hey, bro, listen, and they knew the guy and they're like, no, you're good, bro. Just, just watch your Ps and Qs, man, and you'll be all right. And I get my loadout and they tell me, it's like, hey, we're about to blow out on something. And this is right before the President Obama was in office and the State of the Union was about to happen. And I'm getting all my gear tight and a lot of the new guys, you know, we just show up and now we're about to go do an HR.

• 2:37:11Speaker 01

  And some of these guys at the squadrons, you don't get to do an HR. It's kind of rare and here I am showing up week one and they're like, get your gear tight, go to the range, make sure you got everything. And there was good guys like this squad and like, there's a reason why they're the top 1%. They're all professionals and they're all like, hey, do this, do this, do this. And they got me up to speed and they're like, right, you know, here's what we're doing. And about a week later, and I was sitting at home and I get the little pager. There was no, no kidding pager at the time, beep, beep, beep. And then, you know, text chain came out, you know, everybody calling each other, all right, let's go to work. Getting in and it was so impressive watching the level of effort from every person in the organization

• 2:37:53Speaker 01

  that they put in to get, get out the door for another American. It was so impressive. I, I realized why that's the best is everyone knows, just like we talked about team gear, personal gear, what order, everybody knew where they placed in the function of, once that, that go call is, is established, everyone came together and worked extremely hard to get everything out the door. And it was the fastest the squadrons had been deployed in some time. And like they're planning, we get to, to Africa and we're planning in our little, uh, planning cell. And, um,

• 2:38:32Speaker 01

  It was like that surreal moment of like, man, we're about to go do hostage rescue. And for me, I'm a brand new guy. I'm just looking in all of these like warriors. Like these are the guys that, remember, I never knew what a seal was. And then now I, that's the way I looked at seals. And now I'm like, oh, these guys are like, the secret best of the best. Like you don't know about, they don't exist. They're the ghosts. And these were like guys I looked up to and

• 2:38:58Speaker 01

  the, we had the whole operation. It was really neat to see how it unfolded, how we got authorities approvals and we're sitting in this big high bay and all the different units, all the players came together. They did a, a rock drill and they talked through everything. And I was actually, there was the, the military free fall unit or, or task unit. And then we were a, the helicopter contingent. And um, I didn't get to do anything cool on it, but I got to be on it. I, uh, I didn't care. I was just happy to be there. I was like, one, I was not in trouble. And two, I was with the best of the best everywhere. And we're about to go save an American life.

• 2:39:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The best of the best doing the best operation that you can.

• 2:39:40Speaker 01

  Oh, man. And so we, as you know, like you've got to have in this, you've got to have contingencies. And so we had multiple avenues to go in and get her. And um, the, I was, it sounds bad, but I was kind of hoping that the free fall guys wouldn't get it so that we could go in and get it. You know, it was like,

• 2:39:58Jocko Willink?

  it sounds bad, but it's the reality. Of course you're like,

• 2:40:01Speaker 01

  come on, where's that, where's that cloud that's going to keep them from jumping? That's going to give them the no go. And we're going to get to go do it, but it didn't happen that way. And those guys, uh, they got to go launch on it. We, we were in the helo standing by and oh, so just so you know, I've never, I don't know if you've ever done this, but this is so sketchy. In the, the Black Hawk helicopters, we're in this thing for four hours, going to our, um, loiter zone or set down point and. It doesn't have enough fuel for four hours. So what do you do in the middle of the the flight? You have a C one thirty that comes in and that.

• 2:40:35Jocko Willink?

  You did the in-flight refuel.

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  Multiple times. That was scary. You're like up and tucking this. You got the wing and you're like tucked in here and like that's where these pilots are awesome. I'm sitting there like bug eyed looking out the window. It's like, where are those rotors? It was pretty wild. I sat there for four hours and then we went in and they went and did their thing and a new guy. One guy that went through training with was the guy that jumped on her. And there was a debate on whether or not we should be part of the assault, just because we're brand new. And they

• 2:41:13Speaker 01

  they said, you know what? These guys, they're good to go. You gotta go. They can do it. They proved and they've made it through. And I understand where the guys were like, hey, I've been here. I paid my dues. I deserve to be on this thing. It's like, well, we, we don't know who is actually going to be there and be the one. And he ended up coming through and jumping on her and some other really good guys that were experienced helped also jumped on her and got her out of there. But it was just such a cool moment to be able to see the amount of effort that goes into saving another American life that's in danger.

• 2:41:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's freaking epic. And, and you know, again, this is open source stuff that you can read. But the guys like, like you said, Ford Stages, Jabuti, and she wrote a book about it. So this is like I said, this is open source stuff. But parachute insert.

• 2:42:03Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-four seals rolled in on target. There was nine enemy. Twenty-four seals rolled off target, nine enemy killed, both hostages rescued, freaking legit.

• 2:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like a little kid hearing like, hey, how'd it go? What, what did you guys see? What'd you guys do? And so my buddies that were on and they did a fantastic job and they, yeah, it's, it's pretty stressful because then they like, nothing goes as planned.

• 2:42:26Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:42:26Speaker 01

  And they had some cool stories of like, well, we ran into this, like this happened and well, this was going down and just seeing how they adapted and overcame and executed and got her out of there.

• 2:42:37Jocko Willink?

  We did a, we did a hostage rescue in Ramadi of like this Iraqi kid and it was funny because, you know, I It just didn't seem like it could, you know, what are the chances, right?

• 2:42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:50Jocko Willink?

  We get this call like, hey, this guy's being this kid, this, uh, he was like a 16 year old kid. He was being kidnapped. His father was the police chief or something in Fallujah and he'd been kidnapped. And he was being held ransom and they took him to Ramadi and we're tracking all this through intel and I'm, and actually we got the word one night and I'm like, like, we don't have any confirmation that this is what's going down. And so we rolled it 24 hours to the next night and I'm kind of thinking like, oh, within the next 24 hours, we get, oh, it's actually not true, or actually it's this, or actually it's that, or, but no, we get started getting more confirmation, more intel, clearer intel. And so we're doing the brief, the whole nine yards and guys were all jocked up, ready to roll.

• 2:43:33Jocko Willink?

  And we get a intel guy comes running and like, they say there's IEDs in the yard and there's, they have machine guns mounted on the roof. They're going to kill anyone that tries to save. And I'm like, hey, Roger, I looked at Leif, who was, you know, the assault force commander. I was in ground floor. It's like, look, it's like, so you guys are going to get some, but you know, we had a good plan for it, you know, um, and we watched it for long enough. We saw that there was guys walking, the guys were walking around in there. We could tell there's most likely not IEDs in that front yard. But anyways, long story short, went in, hit it. And, you know, I'm, I'm now like just outside the building and, uh, I hear like Leif is like jackpot, you know, and I'm kind of like, for real?

• 2:44:14Jocko Willink?

  And he's like, yeah, we like, and I go, cool. And I went in like, sure enough, here's this kid. We had, cause we had pictures of him and like, hey, Roger, that freaking awesome. And, um, save the guy, but it was, yeah, it was, it was the, the amount of surprise of like jackpot. He's like jackpot. I'm like, for real? He's like, Roger. And, uh, sure enough.

• 2:44:34Speaker 01

  Such a good feeling.

• 2:44:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:35Speaker 01

  Such a good feeling.

• 2:44:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was so awesome. And, and the cool thing was the Iraqis, we had Iraqi soldiers and they were with us and we just like, like it hit the newspapers and stuff and didn't talk about us. It was just like the Iraqi sir, you know, unit, save this kid. So it was pretty awesome. But yeah, there's like you were mentioning earlier, there's like what's, what a great operation where you can actually save somebody instead of kill people. So that was, uh, that was good to go. Um. Things like are seem like they're moving in a pretty good direction at this time.

• 2:45:06Speaker 01

  You would think. And then right about that time, I got the call that

• 2:45:14Speaker 01

  man, it was, it was rough. Uh, my best friend's mom, and she was my non biological mother. She was the one, she was my guiding light and I spent more time, like when I was a kid, I would go and try and see my best friend and he wouldn't be home or he'd be out doing something and she'd be there. And so I would sit and talk with her and she was like always talking to me, you know, she's very religious and she had her Bible and you know, she was very like motherly and nurturing and a great lesson. Like she was, I would, I would talk to her for hours. I would call him even on the phone and she would answer. Next thing I'm talking to her.

• 2:45:48Jocko Willink?

  Is this Chris's mom? You mentioned a kid named Chris. Okay. So this is Chris's mom. That's what, just to tie it into the beginning of the podcast, you were talking about going to see your friend Chris and, and their family was influential. So, okay.

• 2:46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, she, uh, she had terminal cancer and they had told me that it, it was one of those things you're like, well, can she defeat it? And I remember hearing, uh, from Chris, he was like, man, I don't know. This is the second time and it's not looking good. And they spent a lot of time, um, trying to battle it, trying to fight it. And, um, she would do the health thing, uh, with trying to change her diets and stuff like that. And so I was going home as much as I could to see her. Um, and I just saw it, how it, man, cancer's a beast. It's horrible. I, I'd watch her just deteriorate.

• 2:46:39Speaker 01

  But she always had like, she was her and she could connect. And so I felt like I was losing my mom, in which I was, she was my non biological mother that I spent more time listening, being guided by her, like being comforted her. Like she was guiding me along. I didn't really truly realize it until like now. I'm like, man, she's going away. And, um, it's funny, but when I finally got the word that she had passed away, it was the, I went and saw her one last time. And I knew, like you knew, and I remember I wrote her a card about like, hey, you know, I loved you all the things you did for me in my life that, you know, I'm going to protect your, your daughter and your son and.

• 2:47:23Speaker 01

  She, I remember, um, they told me that she had, she cried when she read it. And so that was like my way of like, I go back to when Mark died. I didn't have a chance to say goodbye. And that was my way of saying goodbye to her. And so I say goodbye. Well, about.

• 2:47:40Speaker 01

  Uh, actually three days ago, maybe four days ago, I'm going to read something. So her daughter sent me this. So back, you remember when I was in, uh, my first, um, operation I prayed. So in her Bible, she had written down, um, like in, had my name next to it. And, um, she had a verse that, she prayed for me and had the same date timeframe that I was on that deployment. It was Psalms 91, nine to 16. It says, if you make the most high your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge, then no harm will befall you. No disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

• 2:48:25Speaker 01

  You will tread upon the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great lion and the serpent. Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation. And her daughter sent that to me and said, hey, she was praying for you. And so I think back to like, that moment of like, I needed something. And so during that same timeframe, the, the purest form of love. And when somebody doesn't know,

• 2:49:03Speaker 01

  like that you're taking care of them. And this was her praying for me, like showing that she loved you. And that's the person that she was. And so when I lost it, it was like, what do I have now? Like that, that's, it went back to, okay, like, where do I turn to for that reassurance, that guidance, that, that motherly thing, even though I still had my mother. But losing that and then seeing that connection she had throughout my life and that she was still praying for me, even though I wasn't there. That was, that was tough. That was, um, that was a rough one for me whenever she passed.

• 2:49:38Jocko Willink?

  So, and then what's, how are you doing with that at work? What's going on at work now?

• 2:49:43Speaker 01

  That timeframe, man, um, in 2012, we had gotten back from that HR.

• 2:49:53Speaker 01

  And now I'm doing a number two at an outstation. And, you know, I'm getting a lot more responsibility.

• 2:50:01Speaker 01

  Well, the, when I'm out in an outstation, the, the job that I had was training and building up these African soldiers, these Somalis and taking them to, to war and stuff like that. And so I had to focus, and this is something that I, I didn't deal with trauma very well at this point in time, and it comes to play later on in my career, but, um, I'm doing all these things to like, you know, try and find a way to focus my energy to, okay, keep, keep working, keep being, you know, the SEAL. Sean Murphy's a SEAL. What would a SEAL do? Get right back to work. And that actually did help for a while. It helped me, but I never actually sat down and

• 2:50:41Speaker 01

  like slowed down. Well, then I go to, um, my next, I can't remember which deployment was at the squadrons, but I ended up going to Afghanistan. And, uh, I end up blowing out my right knee because I had a left sprained ankle. And, uh, because I wasn't rehabbing it out there, you know, and you're an outstation, you don't have the kind of care that you needed, um, out there. So as a team guy, you're going to try and make do with what you got. You're not going to leave the fight just because you got a twisted ankle. And so I was out there with like these bands and stuff like that. And actually, um, patented a medical device because of this. Um, or I, my buddy patented it, but we own the company. And, uh, so I twisted my ankle or blew out my knee, came

• 2:51:23Speaker 01

  back and I had surgery on it. And that was, that was the first time I'd slowed down. You know, as a team guy, you're going, like, when I went to trade at first, I was like, no, I don't want to stop. I want to keep going. I want to go to points, but I was still turning and burning pretty good. So when you're, you're isolated, I had surgery and I sat down and I was all alone. I had this big house in Virginia Beach, but I was all alone. I was dating somebody at the time, but. I was all alone and I had, you know, I started thinking like, you know, where am I? What am I? Who am I? Like it started going down some pretty dark holes of like.

• 2:51:59Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, these are rough questions when you're sitting in your house alone in Palm Beach. What surgery did you get?

• 2:52:05Speaker 01

  Uh, I had my meniscus removed.

• 2:52:07Jocko Willink?

  Okay. What was the, how much time does it take to recover from that?

• 2:52:10Speaker 01

  So the fir-, I had had two surgeries. The first one, they tried to repair it. So that was a long one. That was about three or four months and that didn't hold. And then it flipped on that deployment that I had that sprained ankle and that's when it locked up. And so that's when they cleaned it out and that was only about three or four weeks, but man, well, when they took it out and then I'm sitting there, they had me laid up and I was like, I stopped. And I was like, much like when you go through a transition, you're stopped. You're at full, like that train's moving as fast as it can. Now you're stopped and your buddies are out there and you're just like, where are my bros? Who do I, and you used to be able to call, you know, my best friend's mom and I could talk to her and like,

• 2:52:52Speaker 01

  he'd be my energy, my lifeline and it didn't, didn't go so well. And actually what did save me were my puppy dogs. I had two dogs I rescued. One was, uh, um, his name is Vader.

• 2:53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not a star, well, I am a Star Wars fan now, but at the time it wasn't, but it just happened to, it was a black dog Darth Vader, Vader. Good name. And, uh, he, when I would be sitting there going through these tough times, he, uh, like he was like a cat. He would jump up on my shoulders and then like he would just go to town licking my face. And I was just like, get out of my face. What are you doing? But he recognized me when I'm like going through these emotional times. And what was wrong with me is I was depressed. I didn't realize I was depressed. It was like, team guys don't feel this way. What's wrong with me? I was depressed because I, you know, I'd been through so much and I hadn't slowed down and processed what I was going through. And so all the things I thought about, I, you know, think about every friend that I ever lost.

• 2:53:49Speaker 01

  Every little thing that I, it was a bad thing because I'm a true believer and you have like two choices, positive and negative, and where do you go? I was negative Nancy. Everything was like negative, but I had to process some of these things. And I was, I was sitting there and my dog would come up to me because I would be sitting there like questioning. It was like, man, Sean Murphy, who is Sean Murphy? You know, does this, you know, I'm breaking down. I'm getting older, starting to see my injuries and I'm laying there and. I don't take pain pills. I just refuse to take pain pills. I feel like that's, if your body's telling you, don't do something, don't do it. And if you're trying to recover, that's kind of an indicator. So I wasn't taking them. And uh, it,

• 2:54:31Speaker 01

  every time I started having like these depressed moments, the dog would come up and just be in my face and just like, my wife today hates it. She's like, cause the dog will still come up and like he will like start licking my leg or licking me. It's like, it's like a habit now. And I'm just like, oh, I love you too, buddy. Like being all like, you know, friendly with the dog. And she's just like, ah, that noise just drives me nuts. I'm sorry, babe, but this is a special bonding my dog have like, I'm gonna pet him. I love him. My other dog, her name is Ray, because I wanted him to have a companion. It was important for me, I think, not only the way I see life, like you need to have a companion, you have that community. And, and so I had her, adopted her from New Orleans on a, on one of our squadron trips. And you know, the military dogs.

• 2:55:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure you didn't go. Yeah.

• 2:55:16Speaker 01

  All right. So we had the military working dogs. And they had their crates and we're in New Orleans doing one of our big training exercises. And I asked them actually faster, but hey, there's this puppy that I want to save. And they're like, what are you doing? Murph, what? Did you just ask if you could bring home a puppy? And I'm like, yeah. And I told him, I was like, that's from a dog, you know, that rescued here. And they're like, I don't care. Just put it in a crate. You know, talk to the dog guys and let's talk to the dog guys. And like, wait, you want to put it next to one of our dogs? And I was like, yeah. Well, we're on the C seventeen that, this poor dog there, they said, just give it some Benadryl. Like, that's what people do when they fly their pets. Just give Benadryl and sleep through the flight. Gave it some Benadryl and fell asleep, put in the crate, put it next to, as soon as I brought it up to next to the military working dogs, it was like,

• 2:55:59Speaker 01

  those dogs are like, I'm now in go mode and I want to eat that thing. And it wakes the dog up and she starts throwing up and threw up the Benadryl. Now she's just like sitting next to these beasts. And I was just like, like, I felt so bad. I was like, oh my gosh, this poor dog. But she ended up making it through the flight and bringing her home. And those two became my, my little savior dogs that were always there for me, always there. I love dogs.

• 2:56:25Jocko Willink?

  So, at, is this when you started working with like NASCAR and stuff? Is this around the same time or did that come later?

• 2:56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um.

• 2:56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, this was right after, I worked with NASCAR after the deployment, I became like, I learned what a GFC was, Ground Force Commander, and how much goes into that, like hats off to the guys that do it. Um, I can tell you a little bit about, um, I can't remember if I wrote this down, but the update when able. Go ahead. Why that's so, so important. So it's my very first operation as a GFC and um, I had some really good guys that would help me out, that to help plan everything. And so you have all the, the quarterback roll up sleeve that I had, like everything, all the lines I need to give back to HQ and I had great leaders, the, the CEO at the time, he was a task force commander, uh,

• 2:57:17Speaker 01

  throughout the region, awesome guy, great mentor, awesome person that you want in charge that, encouraging you, like I had actually kanked the first operation because there's just, I have the rule of three, three things went bad. And so I was like, nope, rolling 24, called him and he's like, good call Murph. And so I was like, man, it's good to hear. Well, we go out on the operation, we go get this guy and um,

• 2:57:41Speaker 01

  this, like, I had everybody in position, we're target secure, we have our guys and I got a call back to HQ and that's the net that goes out to everybody. And so I had my comm guy next to me and um, I got, got ready to give him my, my little situation report keyed up. And as soon as I keyed up, this uh, Afghani next to me opens up fully auto, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, takes dude out and I was just like, ah, I said to my call sign, I was like, we'll update when able. Like, so I was like, what just happened? I came off and, and it went out over theater. And so immediately the comm guy's like, hey Murph, they're trying to get ahold of you. You need to get on the horn, they're saying right now. And I'm like, all right. And so I called the commander and he's like, status. And I

• 2:58:24Speaker 01

  was like, hey, just so you know, I'm not quite sure, we'll update when able, everything's good. We'll update when able. Like I just kept saying like, we'll update when able. Like I'm trying to figure this out. And so I, I look at my comm guy and I was like, dude, what just happened? Like, why did that guy shoot him? And it's because one of the guys had ran off towards an AK and the Afghani was doing his job and just blasted this guy right as I keyed up. And so now the entire theater hears, we're up in the uh, um, the mountains of Afghanistan and they just hear this gun go off, come over comms and.

• 2:58:56Speaker 01

  One guy, the first thing he says they hear from this outstation, this patrol is like a gunfire and then will update when it was like, what is going on? Like, hey, do we need to push your aircraft and all that stuff? And so I finally got things figured out and

• 2:59:09Speaker 01

  settled back down and I was finally able to give them the quarterback roll up and say, hey, no, we're good, man. It's just, okay, now we have one Tango, you know, KIA, and then the rest of us are good. We're heading back. And so as soon as I got back, the phone was ringing. It was like, Murph, what was going on? I was like, it wasn't that bad. No, it was good that it happened that way. It wasn't chaos because it it taught me a little bit about the process of making sure people are informed properly.

• 2:59:34Jocko Willink?

  How many people are listening? How many eyes are on what's tracking? How? Yeah. Check. That's good stuff to know. And so, so you got two things really. You got the ankle rehab device that you figured out a way to allow people to do rehab and you invented that, patented that, started that company. That's called Tri Vet LLC.

• 2:59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59:56Jocko Willink?

  And then the other thing that you started was Hit the Surf LLC, which is like you working with teams, getting them to perform better.

• 3:00:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I started that from a guy when I was a new guy at the squadrons. We were in Chicago and we had to go to an event that they needed some seal representation and I was a new guy. Of course, you always volunteer for everything because it opens up doors. And there's a Clint Black concert that we went to and it was like open bar. You know, you got VIP treatment, closed thing. It was a fundraiser for, I think, the Folds of Honor Foundation. And so I went and I sat down at this table and it was me and two other team guys. And then there was this other guy sitting next to me, looked like a young kid. And so it's, we're just being team guys, you know, drinking some Jack and, you know, having a good time, joking around and.

• 3:00:47Speaker 01

  Um, this guy, and we're used to it by now. You know, seals when we go places, the people are like, who are these guys? Like this group of guys are all in shape and like, they're just a bunch of fun. And he leans over and was like, hey, who are you guys? And I was like, oh, I'm Sean. Um, this is so and so, and uh, we're just seals here being, you know, representation for, you know, this event or whatever. And he was just like, oh, cool. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm a driver. And I was just like, in my back of my head, I'm thinking, great. They volunteer, or we got voluntold to go to this thing. And now I'm sitting next to the driver for the guys in the band. I was like, cool. Like who are you driving in the band? Like, why are you, are we into like the step kids? He's like, no, no, I drive for a living. So what I did is I said, oh, like a limo or something?

• 3:01:32Jocko Willink?

  Domino's or?

• 3:01:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cool, bro. You must be the best, you know, driving. He's like, no, I drive NASCAR. And I didn't, I didn't know anything about NASCAR at this time. Didn't follow. I knew who the three was. Um, he's like, no, I drive NASCAR. And I said, oh, the guys that drive around in circles. And uh, I was like, cool, bro. Like, that's awesome. And he was just like, no, what are you guys doing later? I was just like, I don't know. What are you doing? He's like, I know some club owners and um, he took me and he's like, hey, you guys all want to come to a race tomorrow? And I was like, let me ask the guys. I didn't know like if there were NASCAR fans in the squadron and I put it out and they're like, who is it? And I was like, it's Austin Dillon. And they're like, yeah, absolutely. And so he got us all like backstage passes and stuff like that. And um, so and I'm big on character. Like I'm not going to associate with you if you're into a ball.

• 3:02:17Speaker 01

  And this guy, um, good kid. Um, and I wanted to know like, well, who is this guy? If he's got attention on him, like what kind of person is he? And so I got to know his family, him, Mike Dillon, his dad, and then Richard Childress, who owns Richard Childress Racing. Still didn't know anything about him, but I wanted to know who they were as people. And great, great people. And he would call me all the time, invite me out to his house. I was going out there, um, meeting his best friend. I mentioned him earlier, Paul Swan, huge character. And so I noticed the community that they're involved in, and I, I just gravitated towards them. I was like, they're just like team guys. They're good dudes. They travel a lot. They, they rely on each other, depend on each other. It's a lot of things. And so I started learning more and more about NASCAR. And one day he called me after a race and he was like, hey,

• 3:02:58Speaker 01

  I want you to come in and do some team building for my team. And I was already doing that kind of in the squadrons and with non SEALs and stuff. And I was like, cool, man. Um, as a matter of fact, I called Leif. Oh, man, I just remembered this. I called Leif and I was like, hey, I need some advice. I was like, he wants me to come and do some consulting. I don't know what to charge. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to think. And he was like, listen, this world is, there's a plethora of work out there that you can do. There's no end to it, but you need to be uncomfortable with how much you charge. I was like, what does that mean? He's like, because you're used to running a trip where it's like, you know, you, you have the Navy paying for everything. So now you have to budget all that stuff out. And he kind of lined it out for me. He gives really good advice.

• 3:03:40Speaker 01

  He's like, and if they can't do it, if you really want to be serious about this business, do it for free. I was like, okay. So I went in, I talked to, uh, his, uh, at the time is his head of their aero engineering, super smart guy, Eric Warren. He works for like the GM. Like you want, he's got a doctorate in like how aerodynamics works. And the first call I had with him was all, and I had just gotten my degree, um, in organizational leadership and I was already doing case studies on people. And so I started doing analyzing like my squadron and like the command and how leadership and stuff worked. And we had a three hour conversation, the first thing. And he was like, dude, you're coming in, you're going to teach these guys. And and so from there he brought me in. I do, I did team building for him. Started off, I did both the eight car and the three car.

• 3:04:25Speaker 01

  Um, and man, those guys are awesome. Ray Wright, he's their pick coach there, former baseball player. Chuck, I'll tell you this guy, like, they do such a phenomenal job with, they take these athletes that are aspiring NFL people that, uh, someone did play in the NFL or sports and other kids. Um, they bring them in and they, they give them jobs. They give them structure. They give them guidance. They, they form a team so fast and they have to be high performers in a very, very high stress situation. And I noticed that it was very similar to the way that we structure things, like who's in charge, who's making the calls. Communication is important. And so I started breaking it down and I, I thought, you know what?

• 3:05:10Speaker 01

  This is a great way for one me to understand it because I'm still I'm in the later part of my career and you need to figure out what am I going to do next that whole mentality of what's next. All right. He gave me an opportunity and they they kind of talked me into it and they you know him and his dad was like, yeah, yeah, I think you should do this. And so I came up with hit the surf, which I have a love hate relationship with the cold because it was at the time I I was trying to figure out like, what am I going to call my company and I I was like, all right, hit the surf because I remember in BUDs, when you got told to hit the surf, you had an opportunity.

• 3:05:48Speaker 01

  What are you laughing at, man?

• 3:05:50Speaker 02

  I like I like how you put that. Yeah.

• 3:05:52Speaker 01

  Let me explain this thing. So when you're getting your your butt kicked and you're hot and you're exhausted, you can't do any more pushups and it's they take you to failure. They tell you, go hit the surf. And you're like, man, another thing and you run out there and you're just going to be miserable. But when that cold water hit and I was rushing over my head, it was like, you ever have that hot feeling of like, just when you're just going through and you got that hot air and you hit that cold water and you come up and you breathe out and it's just like refreshing. And that was my opportunity because I I reset myself in that moment. I recalibrated, okay, I got to be the first one back. It's a new race. It's a new opportunity. Every time you get told to hit the surf, if you're the first one back, it shows that you care. It shows that

• 3:06:35Speaker 01

  you're putting out and that's kind of way I wanted to like, that's what I want to do in team building is like, how can I change mindsets? How can I take them and hit the surf with them? And be able to re show them the opportunity they have before them. And that's, that's how it was formed. And I could bring in seals that I worked with and give them the opportunity to have ways, talk about communication and why it's important. The tacit knowledge that they have, they could bring in, I could pay them well, and be able to give them the opportunity to not just tell team guys stories, but tell the value in what they went through and what they've learned to share it with these organizations that are looking to improve performance and.

• 3:07:16Speaker 01

  And the first one, it was really successful. I remember the, when I sat down and talked to the guys afterwards, the feedback I got was like, you know what? We brought in so many people and spent thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars on all these courses, all these presentations of guys coming in, talking about this and that and the other. And we got more out of your week than we did to them. And I was like, why is that? And it's something that I, I think that you could talk all day long. You could read every book. You could do all these things and put it in your thought process, but you got to put it into practical application. And that's what I was doing with them. All these little drills that I had, I would go out and

• 3:07:59Speaker 01

  put him through some training and explain going back to trade at the why. And it was like, they were able to, to not only learn it, but then they were having these small moments of like application. And so they could take away like the things I was talking to them about. And after that, it was all right. And then he called me back again. And then, um, he does, uh, PBR, he owns a PBR team. Man, those dudes, those bull riders. Oh, man, I love those guys. As a matter of fact, next weekend, I'm going to their home event. They, have you been near a bull? Have you ever been?

• 3:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I have. Yep. And the look you're giving me right now is yes, I understand. I've gone back there and like stood next to them when they're in their little cage freaking rattling around and you're like, yo, this thing is going to murder somebody.

• 3:08:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:08:44Jocko Willink?

  And there's not amount of money that you could give me to get on this thing right now.

• 3:08:48Speaker 01

  Well, they don't make a lot of money. That's a sad thing.

• 3:08:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I get it. I get it.

• 3:08:52Speaker 01

  Talking about brave souls and they go get, they get hurt and then guess where they get up and they're like, let's do it again. I'm like, I love it. I love you guys so much. Like.

• 3:08:59Jocko Willink?

  I would have to see what it would be like if I was 23. Cause if I was 23, I'd probably be jumping on that thing.

• 3:09:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. At this age, it's like every time I see those guys at the ground, I'm like, oh, that's an injury.

• 3:09:11Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah.

• 3:09:14Jocko Willink?

  And then meanwhile at work, you, you moved into where you're doing recce, right?

• 3:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:18Jocko Willink?

  And you're working with, with Chad?

• 3:09:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Chad, man, that's out of all the mentors that I've had, I spent a lot of time with him. He guided me in so many ways that.

• 3:09:30Speaker 01

  He was the guy that was soft spoken, that didn't say much, but when he spoke, people listened. And he had his little quirks. Um, you know, everybody's got their little quirks and stuff. And he was my team leader. I was his ATL. And he brought me up, um, teaching me all about the planning, the nuances of what you need to think about, all the details that goes into being recce of being a real point man and not chasing stars. And yeah, the, the crazy thing about Chad is, you know, people would come to him and he just had a plethora of knowledge and just a really good, really good man. He was a good man.

• 3:10:11Speaker 01

  And, uh, there was one day that we're in a recce hooch and, um, me and him were sitting there planning. He's, we're going over things and there was a guy that came in that he's like, hey, I need somebody to talk to. Me and Chad are like, we looked at each other. We're like, this dude don't look well. And that it was just, you didn't need to say anything. We're like, okay. And we just sat and listened. What's going on? And the way, the things he was describing, he was going through and we're like, man, this is rough. Like we're about to go into deployment and you've got a lot of things going on. Like you need some help and no team guy wants to be that vulnerable. You know, I think we put up a shield at times and he was opening up and this was an opportunity.

• 3:10:53Speaker 01

  I didn't quite see it the way Chad saw it. Chad, I believe, saw some of himself, what he was going through and he wanted to be the savior and fix it. I was kind of like, you okay, man? Like, just need a break? Like I just thought, oh, he's just burnt out. And Chad was like, no, I need to get him some help. And he took the lead and there was some pushback on some other guys, but Chad, you know, champion getting him what he needed. And, um, he got sat down and got the help he needed. Now he's, you know, he was a family man. And so now he's back with his family doing, um, He's doing really well. He's out making a great life for himself and I love that guy. He was such an awesome dude and seeing him like hurting like that was kind of scary. Like dude, are you okay, man? Like what happened?

• 3:11:39Speaker 01

  And it was just, you know, he was at a point that was vulnerable and needed somebody to reach out to. And you know, thank God he found Chad in that capacity to be able to recognize him and talk him off the ledge and realign him to get him focused back to where he needed to be, which and he came back and went back to another squadron and was an awesome team guy.

• 3:12:01Jocko Willink?

  And but Chad, you know, like didn't figure out, I guess, how to get that help for himself, you know? I'm friends with his wife and she's been on this podcast and kind of talked through the whole thing. If you haven't heard that yet, Chad Wilkinson killed himself. And yeah, it was really interesting and what really kind of left the biggest impression on me talking to Sarah. His wife was like, she explained so clearly that the guy that she married,

• 3:12:39Jocko Willink?

  like that person that she married had changed dramatically and was kind of a different person by the time he killed himself. And her main

• 3:12:54Jocko Willink?

  point in saying that was that there was something going on besides like just, hey, I've, this is a different phase of my life. There's some, whether it's TBI, whether it's PTSD, what it does to your brain. It was something, it had created like a different personality and.

• 3:13:17Jocko Willink?

  Like she was so um distraught by that, you know, by the end uh and and yet she was still surprised. She wasn't like, wait, she wasn't expecting it or anything. Uh so just totally devastating.

• 3:13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I actually talked to him the day before. It was so surreal that, you know, I'm sitting there. We're going through like a different training cycle and this this is like, you know, you doing like surveillance and counter surveillance stuff. And he was learning some of that stuff and it can be a little sketchy at times. It's a lot of pressure and stress. And I saw him at the chow hall with a couple other guys and everyone else saw him and it was just like, you could see like he was committed to something, you know, he didn't like he seemed a little off, but you know, uh sometimes Chad would get that way, just kind of quiet and be like, yep, nope, like one word answers. And it's just like, okay. Um, game a hug. Good to see you, buddy. Took off and then um one of the guys that I worked for gave me the call the next day and I was just like,

• 3:14:16Speaker 01

  it was again going back to like what I went through with Mark is like, I don't believe this. Are you sure? Like, is this like one of them team guy rumors or is this real? He's like, no, man, it's real. And so he told me everything that happened and I was like, oh, man, like I, I had taken Chad to some of the NASCAR races too. And so I'm thinking, and that was one of the things that, what I thought was, why? What did I miss? And the worst thing was, is this something that can get me? Is this something that is out there that we're not recognizing that's this invisible monster that can get one of us? And it was, you know, there was a lot of emotion that came through with that on being mad at the guy or,

• 3:15:01Speaker 01

  you know, being upset at the situation or or you didn't know, you didn't have anything to control. You're just out of control and does this thing come for you next?

• 3:15:13Speaker 01

  It was hard. It was hard, real hard to, to grasp. And I, you know, I can't, can't imagine what the family goes through. And it's funny that, um, you know, we, we do, uh, every year Austin will call me and say, Hey, I need a fall on seal to put on a Memorial Day race. And, um, he won his first, uh, cup series race with a team guy on his, on his car and he's, it's in his museum. And so I,

• 3:15:39Speaker 01

  you know, I, I get to escort some of the spouses around because I always volunteers, like, I want to be there. I want to be there for the community and for the family, let them know they're not forgotten, that there's still somebody there for them. And when I walk them around the tracks and, and hear their stories, they, they're the first ones that can see what we don't. They get to hear more about what's going on than what we do. And I think they're, you know, what they go through, they're in such a hard spot. Like, you know, they're the ones that, uh, they get to see more of the change than we do. Cause we can, team guys are good at coming into work. That's our safe zone. And we can put up a shield and put up, uh, you know, we can be our team guys at work, but they're

• 3:16:23Speaker 01

  the ones that see the other side.

• 3:16:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Plus we see each other every day. Whereas like, you know, if, if Echo puts on seven pounds in three weeks, he might not notice it. But if I saw him again, like, and I didn't see him for three weeks, I'd be like, dude, dude, you're getting fat or you're getting jacked, depending on which one. Hopefully it's jacked. But, you know, it's just like one of those things where you don't notice the little changes over time. But someone goes away on a four month deployment and then another four month deployment and you're not seeing them for four months and then you're seeing them. You're, yeah, that's a good point where the families are going to notice some of those changes more than the, than the, than the boys will.

• 3:16:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:17:03Jocko Willink?

  So then what, what's next? Uh, you get married at some point?

• 3:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:11Jocko Willink?

  That wasn't a trick question, dude.

• 3:17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got married. This is what I was after, you know, a big part of my life. You know, I wanted a family. I was pushing it off, or so I thought I was to be a part of the family, the brotherhood and the SEAL teams. And I destroyed so many relationships because I was, you know, SEAL first, SEAL 24/7, you know, go, go, go. I'm, you know, the country needs me. I always had that in the back of my head. You know, you come second, if that, you know, my puppy dogs are number two, you're maybe number three or four. Boys are number one, the mission's number one. Then I, I, I met my wife on a training trip. I didn't know she's gonna be my wife, but we actually had a long distance relationship. But the first time I

• 3:17:52Speaker 01

  met her, she had a son. She had a two-year-old boy. And so this two-year-old boy, Jack, he, I didn't know what to think of it, right? So at first you're like, okay, what does this mean? Is the father still in the picture? And the father was. Father's a good dude. They just didn't, it didn't work out. And, and so I go out and we have our date at the winery in Seattle. She was in, I rescued her from Seattle is the way I like to think of it. So we talked long distance for a while. And it was funny because I loved talking to her, like she was awesome. Like, in my way, like my way of thinking, I'm always like, what's wrong with her?

• 3:18:34Speaker 01

  Where's that red flag? I'm trying to find something wrong, right? And, because I want to commit, but I'm like, okay, what's wrong with this girl? She seems pretty cool. Like, I get her and she's got a son. Like, where's the red flag? And I would spend so much time, like, wanting to get to know her. And then I find myself planning the trips around her son. Like, I want to go hang out with him. Like, I'm building, it was around Halloween, I had this whole elaborate setup for him that we spent time, like, just hanging out, like, playing games. And it was like, I'm a kid now. Like, I'm the SEAL at Dev Group, that I'm supposed to be a hostage rescue. And I'm over here playing Legos with a little two-year-old, just having a great time. And she's like, I don't know what she was thinking.

• 3:19:16Speaker 01

  I'm sure she would have a great story about this. But when I'm over there, like, hanging out, like, being the gentleman to her, I always put her first, like, very respectful, like, you know, I make sure that, you know, she got treated like a lady. But I'm also like, I want to have fun with Jack. And I remember, like, we were in a hotel room. And uh, that one of the chairs in there, I was like spinning around like we're bouncing bouncy balls up and off the ceiling. I'm laughing like a little kid and I don't know what she's thinking, but this is what a Navy SEAL is. Like is that we're acting like a kid?

• 3:19:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Or is it? Yes. It is maturity level. Yeah, about a two-year-old. That's what we can relate to you.

• 3:19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was a blessing, man. I tell you what, like that's, you know, I'm telling you when I say God has a plan, he has a plan because that's, that's when it taught me to be a man, be a dad. And it had to be very fast. I was an instant family now. And had to learn that, you know, my emotions, my behavior, I'm still trying to figure it out. Like I know what a SEAL is, but what's a dad, a father and a husband? And I'm learning all this with, you know, the dynamics that my upbringing kind of blessed me with being able to have that same understanding of what a broken home is, what a dad is, what a dad isn't in the picture, what he is in the picture and all these things. So I could tap into my dad and ask him like, hey, how do I handle a situation, you know? And um, Jack

• 3:20:35Speaker 01

  was there and he's such a good kid, such, this kid, so emotionally intelligent at such a young age, it's impressive. He knows like, as a three-year-old, I remember him being a three-year-old, he know like, if you're not feeling well, he's like, hey, everything's gonna be okay. I'm just like, I'm being comforted by a three-year-old. I'm looking like, how does this kid do? Like, I'm not that good at this. And he's a super smart kid, which I can, it's a funny story of when my daughter is born with this kid. Once we finally get married, um, they move into Virginia Beach and uh, we wanted to have a child, another kid. I finally talked her into it. I'm like, hey, I'm not that bad of a guy. You married

• 3:21:14Speaker 01

  me. Let's have some kids of our own. And um, she got pregnant and uh, we're about two months out from uh, giving birth, like her due date, 40 weeks. And um, at this time, we had the baby registry and nobody was buying it. Something was telling me like, you need to hurry up and stop dragging your feet on this baby registry, get the nursery ready. And I, it was the night before I went and bought everything on Amazon. I hadn't painted the nursery yet and. At the time she was, as we all know, you got kids echo? Yes, sir, I do. Okay, so you know that when women are pregnant, sometimes they snore. They need their sleep. And so she was, I let her have the room in the bed. I would go sleep on the couch,

• 3:21:56Speaker 01

  you know, because we both needed sleep and I get woken up around three in the morning to my wife and she's shaking me. She's like, hey, I just need somebody to be with me. And I'm like, okay, what's wrong? She's like, I've been throwing up for about an hour. And I was like, why? She's like, I'm in so much pain. And she's a nurse, so she's very smart, smarter than me. And she's like, I think it's trapped gas. And I'm like, no, no, trapped gas doesn't cause you to throw up. And she's avoiding going to the hospital because I'm like, hey, let's go to the hospital. She's like, no. I was like, listen, I'm in the military. We can go to Portsmouth and it's free. I'll drive you there. What about Jack? And I was like, I'll call the neighbors. I had such great neighbors. I called my neighbor, Brian. I was like, hey, Brian, are you awake?

• 3:22:40Speaker 01

  And he's like, well, yeah, I answered the phone. I was like, hey, Annalise is going through something. Do you mind watching Jack while I take her to the hospital? And he's like, no problem. Came in, Jack loved it. He loved it because he'd go watch cartoons or whatever they did. And rushed her into the hospital before that. So we're all standing there. I'm making the phone calls and Jack comes in. This is how intelligent this kid is. And he sees that mom's in pain. He comes in and starts playing Queen. That's her favorite band. He's like playing the radio and like playing her favorite song, trying to comfort her. And I was like, in the moment, I'm like, hey, buddy, I love it that you're trying to help. It's like, that's not helping. Let's just turn that off. And so we took him to my neighbors and I rushed her to the hospital. And we went into the OBGYN or whatever the room is called.

• 3:23:23Speaker 01

  And they're like, okay, what's going on? And they're like, hey, just protocol, like, I want to tell you what happens. Like if something happens to the baby or the mother and we have to deliver the baby, we're going to try an epidural first. And if we can't get that, we got to put her under if it's an emergency and you can't be in there for that. You can be in there for the epidural. I was like, okay, why are you telling me this? Like, she's not due for another two months. And she said, okay, we'll pull off all the jewelry. She's like, we're just going to check the baby's heart rate and mama's heart rate and make sure everything's going fine.

• 3:23:55Speaker 01

  The, I remember the, the nurse, her demeanor changed the second they're like, oh, we got the baby's heart rate. Now, yep, we can hear it. And all of a sudden she goes, oh, the baby's heart rate's dropping. She's like, hey, mom, your heart rate's dropping too. Like, the worst case scenario was happening and the nurse told him, it's like, hey, this isn't good. Cause if mom's bleeding internally, she could die and the baby could die. We gotta make some decisions right now. And so I was like, do what you gotta do. Like, just make it happen. Like, and now I'm freaking out, like, okay, my wife is laying here, like, her heart rate is off the walls and so is the baby. And um, they rush her out of there and they say, sir, you gotta stay here. We gotta put her under, we can't get

• 3:24:36Speaker 01

  the epidural, so you can't, you can't be there. And so they put me in this room, and that's the last I see. And I'm sitting in this room for about two hours. And I'm pacing, I'm texting everybody. Every single person I know is like, somebody talk to me because I'm freaking out right now. Like, I don't know if my wife has died. I don't know if my baby's dead or what. And uh, so I finally I had enough and I walked out of the room and went up to, saw this poor, this poor little nurse. I'm like, you get over here now. And she's like, whoa, what's happening? I was like, you tell me. It's like, my wife just got wheeled off of here. The, her heart rate was dropping, the baby's heart, tried to give her the whole story and she's like, what's her name? I was like, Annalise. And so they went and tracked down Annalise and uh, like, so nobody's

• 3:25:19Speaker 01

  came and talked to you? And I was like, no. She's like, okay, sir, calm down. Go back in this room. I was like, I'm not going back in that room without some answers. Like, this is human life. Like, this love my life and my daughter that just got whisked away, that I don't know if she's gonna be alive. She's like, no, your, your wife is in surgery right now. And I was like, well, is she gonna be okay? He's like, we don't know, but we'll send the doctor in as soon as we know anything. And so, that just made things worse. And, and I'm thinking, you know, I was set, and my mind went negative, don't go negative. And I'm like, great, um, my wife is gone, my baby's gone. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna be that guy that's in the teams forever and just gonna take all my anger and hate on the enemy that comes forth. You know, I was just going through this,

• 3:26:03Speaker 01

  this scenario. And uh, finally a doctor comes in and I'm just like, you need to tell me something. He's like, hey, okay, listen, listen, um, Mom's recovering, um, baby's in NICU. And the way he said it, I was like, well, what's wrong with the baby? And he's like, we don't know if anything happened, but uh, we weren't sure if she was breathing when she came out, but we innovated her and got her in the NICU and they're, they're doing, doing some tests on her to make sure that we, you know, see if she's going to be okay. And um, right about that time, uh, they start willing Annalise in and she's still all drugged up and I'm in, I'm in not the right frame of mind. So I take a picture of her and I was like, she's all lupine. I was like, I was like, hey, this is what you look like and I don't know what to do. I'm like, hey, are you okay?

• 3:26:45Speaker 01

  And she's just all still anesthetized up and cause the doctor told me, he's like, yeah, your wife's going to be fine. Didn't give me any, any fidelity on the baby. And uh, so I didn't want to tell her that yet. She kept asking like, where's Amelia? We named our daughter Amelia. So where's Amelia? Where's Amelia? And I was like, she's in NICU. They haven't given me any answers. She's like, I want to see her. And I was like, I do too. They said we can't go back there. So it was about eight hours from the time that we got there to when we actually got to go in and see my daughter. And they still told me like, hey, she had all these tubes in her and, and all these things and um, but I was happy that I could go see her. Like that was all I wanted. It's like next to this baby that my wife just, you know, went through a traumatic experience that we can now see.

• 3:27:29Speaker 01

  She's going to be okay. She's got a few days of recovery. They, they had to cut her out and she was two months early. And I didn't know the whole process of what's a premature baby. And so they're explaining to me, it's like, oh, she's got to stay in here and you know, you guys are going to have to come back and forth. Well, what happened? This is March 19th. Covid. Country locks down.

• 3:27:47Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 3:27:48Speaker 01

  And uh, I'd tell you what, Jocko, that, that was um, that was a test, but it brought us closer together, me and my wife. She, I feel really bad for her because you know, pregnancy, you go, they go through hormone changes and stuff like that. And so she kept thinking she did something wrong and they came in and it's like, no, it was a placental abruption, which it can happen. You know, if you weren't in a car accident, usually they sometimes happen like you didn't have anything, but sometimes that happens and you're lucky because people die. Like you were bleeding internally. We had to come, come in and, and take care of everything. And um, so then we got to spend some good quality time, like seeing NICU nurses. Have you guys ever been in the NICU?

• 3:28:27Jocko Willink?

  I've only been NICU adjacent because I've got four kids and I was around for, I was around when they were born. So like I'd see the, you know, and thank God all my kids were kind of normal, uh, healthy babies. But you know, I'd be seeing the adjacent rooms, you know, where, and seeing the, you know, even when you're, even when you have a healthy baby, they, they sometimes they spend like an hour and we're near the NICU or there's, you know, whatever little adjustments when they're monitoring them. So yeah, I kind of like NICU adjacent. And, and know that that, that's just a rough place to be.

• 3:29:00Speaker 01

  It really is. And the, and the people that work there, there, you want to see an angel on earth, those people, like the nurses, the, the effort that they put in, the doctors. They got all these babies and there were babies that are younger than Amelia that were in there, smaller little, little baby and they brought them, they, they gave them life. Like some of them, there were some very sad stories, like they didn't have parents or parents didn't want anything to do with them. And we were in there every day and you saw some parents that come in and you know, it was sad when you saw the firemen because that meant that there was a baby that didn't make it. They would lifelike it, but really they were just taking the baby away and seeing them day in and day out, have to deal with these little beady babies and a lot of them would make it through and

• 3:29:43Speaker 01

  some of them not so much. And we saw that and that was emotional on us, the babies next to us, not having a mother. So we'd bring in, come in and I would sing songs to Amelia. Um, as a dad, I was a terrible singer.

• 3:29:55Jocko Willink?

  Hopefully she's not traumatized from that, dude.

• 3:29:57Speaker 01

  Well, I do have a picture on my phone. That's my screensaver of her smiling. It was the first smile. And so that was probably her laughing at dad's singing, dad's being silly.

• 3:30:05Jocko Willink?

  And was there any incident, uh, issues with you getting this in and out of the hospital with, once COVID was in, like, were they like, no, you can't come in here anymore?

• 3:30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we, we started off with, um, we could both be in there and then they were like, nope, only one parent could be in there. So I was, and keep in mind, like, I'm also essential personnel at work. And they, they do a great job of giving us that time, but when COVID happened, nobody knew what to do. And.

• 3:30:32Speaker 01

  Now, only one of us could go in and out. It was nice because there was no traffic, but when we got there was like a decon station. You had to wash head to toe and like then you had to only be in there for a certain amount of time period. And I wanted to be there 24 hours a day for my daughter. I don't care. I don't need to sleep. I want to see my daughter. I want to be there with her. And she was, she was doing well. She had like ups and downs. And every little beep was like stress for me. But she ended up pulling through, but there were times that me and her, like we were getting so close. And then now it was like I didn't get to see my wife other than to high fiver. And our command did this great thing called the meal train. Where everybody would pitch in to make meals, excuse me, meals for you. Bring it to you. And Jack was such a good sport.

• 3:31:16Speaker 01

  Like he was having the time of his life. Like he understood like there was something going on, but he was always so happy and so positive. And, and so it was like nice to come home and hang out with him and, you know, watch puppy dog patrol and play goofy things and listen to records and, and stuff like that. And, um, uh, one thing that, that, uh, while I was going through this, there was an amazing thing that there is a lady that I worked with and she worked for me. And I didn't expect it. But as I'm going through this, like it was a very rough, you know, experience. And she reached out to me and said, and she gave me comfort. She's like, hey, she started telling me her story. She had a premature baby. And she sent me pictures of her daughter. She's like, everything's going to be okay. It was just that one little of like, hey, everything's going to be okay.

• 3:31:59Speaker 01

  Like it was her, you know, the best thing that she could ever do was share her story. And it was like, in my retirement speech, I thanked her like still to this day, like I'm so grateful that she did that because I was in a rough spot. Like you don't know if your kid's going to make it. You see her in the NICU and things could change dramatically real quick. And when she did that, I was like, there's hope. It was, it was good that she did that.

• 3:32:26Jocko Willink?

  So you make this decision to retire and what was the, I mean, obviously you got family now, you got Jack, you got Amelia, you got your wife. Like you think it's time, I'm going to move on.

• 3:32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was.

• 3:32:43Speaker 01

  So I always told myself that if I ever became invaluable, if I was the guy that knew too much, or the guy that was burnt out, wasn't providing anything. I was approaching, approaching the, the, the time of like, I was burnt out. I've been through a lot, you know, changes were happening. I was in a different, I wasn't in the assault squadron. So I was in a, a different squadron where we did a lot of, we worked a lot with SEALs and non SEALs. And so I had to lead people in a different capacity. And it was wearing on me because, you know, with SEALs, we're so easy to manage. At, at the squadrons, you could say, this is your expectations. I need you to go do this. And if you're not doing it, you could be like,

• 3:33:25Speaker 01

  if you came to me, Jacom, and said, Murph, that was stupid. Pull your head out. Get back to it. Cool. You can't do that to people that aren't team guys. If you go to somebody and say, hey, you're screwing this up. Stop doing that. They know their job. It's something that I knew inherently throughout my career. I knew that I could fix something. I knew exactly all the different phases of the operation, everything about it. And, you know, because I had, I'd gone from being the assaulter to knowing just about everything that you could do. Now I'm in this point to where this foreign territory of leading people that don't have that same mentality,

• 3:34:04Speaker 01

  that standard that you start in buds of you get to a certain point, and now you're, you don't have the same reliance on that, that, that safety net. It's all special operations, right? So all the, even conventional force, they get a standard that they set. And so I'm, I'm dealing with different personnel. And at that point, you know, going through what I did with Amelia and Annalise, I wanted to be there. And so I, I could see it having an effect on my life. Like, am I going to be that bitter team guy that isn't good for the mission? I was, I think I was getting there. I just didn't want, I didn't want to get to that point to where it's too late to be bitter coming in.

• 3:34:43Speaker 01

  And I had a lot of personality, um, conflicts during that because the group that I was with, and I, I'll never forget. And I, the first day walking in and this, uh, another, uh, person that was in the Navy, she comes up and she's like, hey, just so you know, SEALs don't get along with us and we stay out of your way. You stay out of ours. And I was like, what happened here? Like we are a team. We don't say that to each other. Like I'm not staying out of your way. And so I started doing some research and go, well, some team guys didn't treat them well and, uh, they always complained about team guys. And so I was like, well, I'll treat them right. So I'll try and be a good leader and that's where I learned like the long-term vision of always do the right thing.

• 3:35:25Speaker 01

  And during, when Amelia was in the NICU, I had one of the girls that did not like me. She couldn't stand me. She wanted to bring me down and I did still to this day, don't understand what I did to like, and I know that you're not going to please everybody, but at the same time I was wondering as a leader, like, why is that affecting you? Why is my presence affecting you so much? And, um, she had gone through a pretty bad experience herself. And so behind the scenes, you know, I, I was getting information and you're not supposed to get certain medical information and pass it on. It's the, the HIPAA rules and stuff like that. And I, one of my team leaders brought it to me and, um,

• 3:36:05Speaker 01

  and he said, uh, hey, I'm getting this information. I was like, listen, we have a corpsman for this exact reason. I was like, let's rally around her, like find out what we can do for her, like get her flowers and start the meal train. Like she's going through something that's support her. And I'm thinking like, how would I want to be treated? You know, if I have the, I always think that if somebody doesn't like you, they're watching you real close. And so you have the opportunity to make the most impact. And so I was like, I gotta do right by her. Like I, I don't care if she doesn't like me or not. Like I want to do right by her. She's a good person at heart. She just may not like me for whatever reason. And so we, um, we had this whole text chain and, uh, supported her. She didn't know this. And, um, she ended up filing a complaint against me saying that I violated HIPAA violation. There was like a whole big, she went up,

• 3:36:49Speaker 01

  like her, to her congressman, which came down through the CEO and CEO was not happy. And was like, what is this? First of all, why did we not hear about this? And where did it go? And so there was an internal investigation where they found the text chain. We gave them over all the, the stuff that we were doing, how I managed it. And um, he sat me down and like, hey, you did the right thing. You did the right thing by supporting her. You know, I know you didn't do any HIPAA violation. She's in a rough spot. You know, we, I'm, I'm thinking it's like, hey, she gonna be okay? Like, she went through a pretty traumatic experience. Um, is she gonna be all right? And they're like, yeah, she's gonna be fine. But she's got it. She's gonna stay here. I was like, okay. And so I always thought like, it doesn't matter. I could be negative and say, you know what? Forget her. Like, that's not support. I was like, but then what does that do

• 3:37:34Speaker 01

  for me? I think of like, if I look back and reflect on what I did as a leader, was that the right thing to do? No. What I did was the right thing. But if I was like, no, don't rally around. And, and so I got to a point, um, that I got to do some really, really cool stuff, um, in that squadron. And then, uh, I kind of felt like, man, I have a daughter now. We went through a traumatic experience. I want to see her grow up. Jack is getting older and I want to spend more time with him. And the way that I was going, I was spending so much time away. And there was stress coming from work that was bringing home. And I was like, hmm, can't do that. I want to make this thing work.

• 3:38:13Speaker 01

  I want to be the husband and father that, you know, I can be. And so I made the choice that uh, I was like, all right, I need to retire. And uh, went into my wife and we talked about it and we had a plan. We wanted to either move to Seattle or Arkansas. And, and I didn't, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my dad. So I wanted to be near him. And that was driving me there because I know how important community is. The, when we were raising a family, we had a community there in Virginia Beach, but I want to be near my family. I wanted them to get, my dad was getting older. I wanted them to get to know my dad. I wanted them to get to know my aunts. I wanted to get them to know my brothers, um, to have the opportunity that I, if I stayed in, they wouldn't

• 3:38:58Speaker 01

  have. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna retire. And she was okay with it. And we decided to move to Arkansas.

• 3:39:04Jocko Willink?

  And then what was your first move when you got out? You got to have a new job. I mean, basically. So what was that?

• 3:39:11Speaker 01

  I went to, um, so my, so actually I have a very large family, Jocko, if you can't tell. I had a stepsister named Stephanie and stepbrother named Chris. So there's two Chris's. I got a brother, Chris and a stepbrother named Chris, but Stephanie worked in Tyson Foods in Bentonville. And I was real close with her and talked to her about doing an internship there to go work there because I wanted to pursue Hit the Surf and, and I still am trying to get private and back to the warfighter. And, uh, so that's what I want to do, but I had to do something to take care of the family. I couldn't just get out and, you know, have hopes and dreams and expect that to make ends meet.

• 3:39:45Jocko Willink?

  Hopes and dreams don't pay mortgages.

• 3:39:47Speaker 01

  No, they do not. No, they're not. And so, um, I still had a couple of events with Hit the Surf that were coming up, but I did the SOCOM Care Coalition, the Warrior Transition Program, and, uh, went to Tyson Foods, helped them establish it. And I was just a terrible decision. I went into HR, said, hey, uh, cause my mindset was I'll go into human resources and figure out the organization. Well, I also learned that human resources deals with every single problem and it's not for me. Like, I'm sorry, but coming as a SEAL, like I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to sit down with kid gloves and be like, okay, what's, what are you going through? Let's watch RPs and Qs. Like I needed some time to like mature into that role.

• 3:40:33Speaker 01

  But I went there. I was just like, no, this ain't good. And I, it was funny. So just like a team guy, you, you dress up, you, you come there presented the way that you want to be seen. I, every day came in a full suit, did everything, attention to detail, presented myself dressed up. And, um, I walk in for orientation and I asked for a map. The lady looked at me and was like, a map? I was like, yes, I need to know where all these departments are. I want to know where I'm going. If I have a map, I can do that. And she was just like, I guess I'll, I'll try and get you one because it was a compound. Tyson Foods is a big compounded. Um, they kind of looked at me weird. And so my sister, Stephanie, she pulls me aside and say, hey, this is about a week of being there. She's like, hey, listen, you're not making any friends here.

• 3:41:15Speaker 01

  I'm like, why not? She's like, okay, look around. Everybody's wearing cowboy boots and jeans and you're in a full suit. Do you know who shows up in full suits? Consultants. You know what consultants do? They lay people off. So everybody's going to be looking at you like you're coming in to fire him. And I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. I was like, thank you for helping me out. Thank you for giving me the feedback to correct me and um. Uh, it wasn't working out, man. Uh, the, I went down to the global security department down there and met some of those guys, awesome dudes, retired FBI guy, former law enforcement, my people, right? I was down there and thought that, okay, if I'm not happy, I need to be

• 3:41:54Speaker 01

  doing something with a gun or security or solving complex problems, risk assessment. I'm good at that. I'll do that. So I went down there, started making friends with them and um, yeah, they, they had offered me a pretty good job and I was gonna take it. I was gonna go live my life there, but I was it wasn't, I wasn't happy. I wasn't like content. Nothing's gonna fill the cup like being a SEAL, right? You come in, you got some awesome dudes, they push you to get better. Everybody, you know, wants to be the best. And so that mentality makes you better. And coming into that every single day, it fills your cup. And that's not going to be the case when I make this transition. I felt it. I felt it. It was about two or three weeks and I was like, ooh, this is gonna be rough. So I was doing that internship at Tyson.

• 3:42:39Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. And then, and then you saw Jimmy May's post? Is that what happened?

• 3:42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42:45Jocko Willink?

  On LinkedIn?

• 3:42:46Speaker 01

  Yep, LinkedIn. I was on LinkedIn. I'm trying to figure out like, how do I?

• 3:42:52Speaker 01

  How does Sean Murphy put himself out there, not as a SEAL, but as a person? And so I got on LinkedIn and I saw Jimmy and I remember Jimmy from uh, his Bud's class two, three, eight. And he was in that same class and I run into him a couple of times. I always liked Jimmy because he was a sparring, you know, and Jimmy was just a likable guy. And so, and he said that he was, he wanted to get after the suicide problem. He had four friends in four months that had taken their lives by their own hand. And he wanted to create, you know, a community outside the community that you can get into to give, you know, our, our big focus is community purpose and goals. And it resonated with me and I was like, I'm kind of already doing that. I'm like, hey, man, here's what I've been doing. Like, I want to join forces. Like, that's what I want. And it, it's what I needed to. And so.

• 3:43:37Speaker 01

  We got together and kind of explained what our vision was. And I love the fact that cause you know, as an SEA, your senior list advisor, your job is like manning and taking care of, of getting guys trained, prepped, sent off to war, makes it their qualified, certified, all the things that get them prepared to go overseas and they also can get them back. Well, nowhere in that cycle is it saying, this is how I'm going to prepare you for your next chapter. I'm going to help you choose you to be you. There's no one doing that. There is nothing there that's saying, hey, Sean, don't worry. You can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then the day after retirement here, you're going to step right into this new platoon over here that's going to get you going in this path. And

• 3:44:20Speaker 01

  and so Jimmy and I was like, we've got to build this. Let's build the, the community, the command that takes seals, will screen them for character and we'll connect them with the elites and the civilian world and coach and mentor them. Help try and find a way to get them where they are in the military to help them transition before they get out because it's too late when you're that last day of like, I've had a lot of conversations since we've been doing this of guys that, hey, I don't know what I want to do. And I was like, how far are you from getting out?

• 3:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Three days.

• 3:44:55Speaker 01

  Yep. And I'm like, oh, brother is like, all right. What are you doing? What do you got going on? Like, where are you at? We, we go through our, we have a whole long list of things, but I told Jim, I was like, hey, I'm, this is kind of what I've been doing. He's like, cool. Let's do it. And I actually talked to Austin about it. I said, hey, man, this is what we're doing. He's like, I love it. Same thing with all of his people. His community is tight too. And so we, we did a pit stop challenge out there. I was like, hey, let's bring some, I'm all about experience. I was like, let's make a unique experience for people. And let's bring in the guys that are wanting, the guys and guys that want to support, like the donors and the, the organizational leadership that want to learn about these seals and let's bring these seals together and have a unique experience

• 3:45:38Speaker 01

  to break down that communication and trust barrier that may be there because they don't know each other. They don't know the questions to ask. They don't know what value they have in stories and let's do something they've never done before. Let's pit a NASCAR. And they're like, and Richard Childress is awesome. He's like, hey, whatever you need, man. Like my facility, this. I didn't realize how rich the history was of that facility because like it's open, whatever you need. I'm just like, I want to pit a NASCAR and they're like, cool. Yeah, go for it. Ray was a big part of that. And so that's kind of what we do is now we break down those barriers and start pairing up guys with mentors to coach them and guide them before they get out. So that now as they they go through that last six months,

• 3:46:21Speaker 01

  or we try and get them two years out because now we can start helping them line up with certification schooling, all that stuff to to get them where they need to go. And I'm real big on that experience because you can have, and it sounds bad, but a team guy's not going to trust you until he gets to know you. He's not going to put his faith and trust in you if you're not another team guy. It's just the way it is. You know, we've we've built that standard that coming in, if you have a guy that because you hear horror stories, it's like that foreign, you know, I don't know what that is, but I've heard that you're bad. But there's a lot of great people out there. I tell people this all the time. If you have warriors going out doing great things, they're protecting something.

• 3:47:04Speaker 01

  Well, there's also warriors back here making the America country great. So they're giving it their all and we're giving it all that we have. Let's bring them together. And that's an unformidable force. Like that is something that is powerful. When you have good coaches, the right mindset to be able to bring those people together. And that's kind of what we've been been forging ahead with and it's been very successful.

• 3:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's been awesome. So beyond the brotherhood.org and what you guys do is really do an awesome assessment of people, a screening of people. You do a peer review, which is really part of the secret sauce is reaching to people peers. Like, let's say we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna see if we want to bring Echo on board. Not only we talk to Echo, we talk to Echo's peers, we talk to Echo's superiors, and we talk to Echo's subordinates. And we get a full assessment of what this guy was like because...

• 3:48:02Jocko Willink?

  Look, being a SEAL doesn't make you the perfect person. It doesn't make you the perfect, you know, you could be a dipshit, for lack of a better word. Um, but you can also be a squared away person. And there's also, when you assess someone, you can figure out what type of scenario they're going to fit well into, right? If you, you can look at someone and go, oh, you know what? This type of industry would be good for this person because they're a go-getter. They have high energy. Oh, but this other person more cerebral. Be better in this type of industry. And then getting them trained up, spending the time with them, and then doing a really solid turnover to make sure that it's the right fit. I think the program that you and Jimmy have put together is as good as it's going to get for,

• 3:48:44Jocko Willink?

  I mean, it'll get better, I'm saying, but it's as good as exists right now for taking a SEAL from that life, which is, for lack of a better word, it's institutionalized. It's like you're, when you're in the teams, you just know one thing. Like, people talk to me about, you know, because I ended up getting into a bunch of different industries when I got out. I didn't know anything about the civilian sector. Didn't know about it, didn't care about it, wasn't impressed by. And I didn't care if someone was the CEO of, of the biggest company in the world. I would be like, nice to meet you. Do you want in a platoon? Okay, later. You know what I mean? It was just like, that was, and it wasn't disrespectful. It's just like, I didn't understand. It wasn't even part of my world. And so showing, and then I, I got very lucky because as I was getting ready to retire,

• 3:49:29Jocko Willink?

  a guy that I did know who I was friends with through jujitsu was like, can you come talk to my executives about leadership? And I was like, oh, sure. And I went and talked to him. And when I gave him the four principles of combat leadership, cover, move, simple, prioritize, execute decentralized command. But when they started asking me questions, like literally the first question that I got asked, I was like, oh, well, it's because you're not doing this from a leadership perspective. And I realized that all this stuff that we had learned through the years applied to business and life. And so that was very, very lucky that that happened. But now we have, you know, you and beyond the, beyond the brotherhood.org recognizing, okay, what type of SEAL do we have here? First of all, are they a good human?

• 3:50:13Jocko Willink?

  If they're a good hu- because hey, you can be a good seal and be a bad human.

• 3:50:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:50:16Jocko Willink?

  We don't want them. You can be an OK SEAL and be a great human. Okay, that will, we at least have potential. Uh, but also where does this good human, good SEAL fit into which industry? And how can we get them out there to try these different industries? That's another thing I like is Jimmy's taking people and putting them somewhere. Hey, try this, try that. Interacting with people, seeing if there's a fit. Uh, there's a, there was a little bit of time and there still is where basically someone might want like a token SEAL, like, oh yeah, it's like a cool guy and we get to hang around and tell, yeah, this guy was a Navy SEAL. And that lasts for a little while, maybe six months, maybe a year.

• 3:50:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:50:55Jocko Willink?

  But at a certain point, at a, at a civilian company, if you don't add money to the bottom line or add some kind of value to the bottom line, it doesn't necessarily have to be money, money. It might be safety. It might be, um, something comprehensive that's going to help our, our efficiency. Ultimately, by the way, both those things will help our bottom line, but at eventually at a company, if you don't, you can't just be a token standing there, hey, I'm going to stand over here and look cool. That'll work for six months. That'll work for a year, but you don't have a career. So taking people, bringing them into situations where they can add value, that's what, uh, that's what beyond the brotherhood.org does. And they're doing an outstanding job of doing it.

• 3:51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other, the other part of that Jocko is that how we align it, and this is, this is what I really like. We have, uh, Jay Harrison, who's a former NHL player and, uh, he turned sports psychologist. He has an assessment that we put every guy through. We have it for every SEAL that applies to, like you, you take the assessment. You get your initial like read, uh, feedback because you want to do right by the entire community. Well, if you get selected and picked up, Jay will coach you through this assessment. And what this assessment does is it has all these different, uh, attributes and characteristics that it aligns with different industries. And I'll just tell my story just to try and, uh, paint the picture for people is that when he first gave it to me, it was just like any team guy.

• 3:52:19Speaker 01

  You give him something. I was like, I don't want to hear that. Like that is, he said, you could be a high school football coach. You could be a chief learning officer. I was like, what is that? And then, uh, another one was like a director of sales, like he had all these job, uh, titles on there. I was like, Jay, I'm gonna have to be honest with you, brother. I was like, this seems like a little, little crazy gimmick. You know, and I challenged him on it and he was, he was ready. He was like, kind of smiling. He's like, he's very well spoken professional. He's just like, let me explain this to you. He's like, I want you to think about these different jobs. Not that you need to go out and seek these things, but they all have something in common and like you would be happy doing these things. And we broke it down and really what he made me realize is just like, I go back to trade debt.

• 3:53:03Speaker 01

  When I was training and teaching people, he says, you like to see people learn and grow. And I was like, yeah, I do. Cause I went back to trade it and I loved, that was like, of all the cool things I've done in my career. I go back to that time with, you know, JP and Lois and, you know, Vaughn and all those guys, like we were having the time of our lives. Building curriculum, instilling it, teaching people the why, watching them grow, and then like seeing that go out and do great things. I was like, man, that is awesome. He was like, you know, you're actually in a pretty good position with me on the brother. Cause I think that's what you need to be doing. And he's, he mentioned like, you could be a psychologist too. I was like, nah, no, I couldn't do that, man.

• 3:53:43Speaker 01

  It's like, I like where I'm at. I love doing this and seeing, you know, helping people. Cause I've been affected directly by what happens when you don't, when you do stop. I had a little brief taste of it. When I had that surgery and I started going like, okay, I was full of speed. Now I'm stopping and thinking about things. Hmm. It wasn't good. And then I get out and now I'm sitting in Tyson. And I'm like, cause I went through it when I remember I didn't know what a seal was like, who is Sean Murphy? What am I gonna do? And then I was like, oh, Sean Murphy's a seal. But then I had to realize I'm no longer a seal. Who is Sean Murphy again? Okay. What am I gonna do? I didn't have really any guidance. That's kind of what I hear from a lot of people is they like, I don't know what I want to do.

• 3:54:24Speaker 01

  I'm just probably gonna go work for the agency or FBI or I was just like, well, let's fill out an application. Let's get you squared away. And then the guys that we do coach through, I, I, I push them to Jay is like, hey, man, before we push you forward, I want you to be aligned with an organization that not only, cause team guys will grit through and they'll do a great job. But if you are happy there, think about the balance that is, if you are happy at work and you're not only going to perform, but you're going to love doing what you're doing and you're going to come home and be happy. That, that to me is like, man, that's worth it.

• 3:54:56Jocko Willink?

  That's a win all day long, man. All day long.

• 3:55:01Jocko Willink?

  Does that get us up to speed? Does that kind of get us to present day?

• 3:55:04Speaker 01

  Uh, it does. I think so.

• 3:55:07Jocko Willink?

  Um, where can people find you? So you have hitthesurf.com?

• 3:55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:55:12Jocko Willink?

  You have tryvetllc.com. That's this gadget, uh, system that you can rehab your ankles with.

• 3:55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're, we're actually, um, um, with a manufacturer right now. We're, we're starting to learn on how to take it to market. Cause right now we want to, it's a DME and, um, durable medical equipment. And so we're going through the FDA approval process. We've already got it orthosis, um, stuff like that. I'm learning a lot from this about the medical world and it's, uh, we've got some pretty good people excited about it, but we're about to break through on some things because we're advancing it because there's nowhere you could have a portable ankle rehab device for strengthening, conditioning is for longevity, for post rehab. And then if you want different programs, like it's something that we're going to advance it to where,

• 3:55:57Speaker 01

  um, I can't give away too much, but, uh, we've got some, uh, ideas that we're going to put into place to where it's, you know, you think about telehealth and where a medicine's going. And that's where we want to take it to where somebody that can't afford healthcare or something, you know, there's going to be something out there for them. And this is what we're trying to do.

• 3:56:14Jocko Willink?

  And you're the executive director at Beyond the Brotherhood.

• 3:56:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:56:19Jocko Willink?

  Right? That's your, that's your role there. Uh, I only found you on LinkedIn. Is that your only, uh, social media for lack of a better word?

• 3:56:27Speaker 01

  I've got, so we, I do hitthesurf.com and then I have, um, HTS LLC on Facebook and Instagram. Um, but other than that, yeah, it's, it's LinkedIn or Instagram, Facebook. And I have an X account, um, but, uh,

• 3:56:43Jocko Willink?

  What's your X account? At what?

• 3:56:45Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it's HTS LLC.

• 3:56:48Jocko Willink?

  You can always tell someone's a real active user when they don't know what their address is.

• 3:56:52Speaker 01

  I'm sorry. I'm terrified. Like I said, I, I'm learning.

• 3:56:55Jocko Willink?

  It's all good, man. HTS LLC, right?

• 3:56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:56:59Jocko Willink?

  That's right. Awesome. Um, yeah. So that's people can find you. And I know that you are active and, and Jimmy's active on, on LinkedIn as well.

• 3:57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57:06Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of his most, I don't, I don't know if he has any other social media. Uh, I think he's just there, but that's where you can communicate with, with you guys and beyond the brotherhood.org is awesome. Um, Echo Charles, you got any questions? Yeah, I've got a couple of questions. Here we go. What position you play in football?

• 3:57:24Speaker 01

  Have you heard of Left Out? No, I played.

• 3:57:31Speaker 01

  When I was in high school, I was a strong safety and tailback. And then at college, I played tailback.

• 3:57:36Speaker 02

  Oh, right on. Okay. Okay. So here's a serious question. So back in the day, you had Tuesday nights as your special night?

• 3:57:42Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:57:43Speaker 02

  And you had macaroni and cheese? How long did that last? Like you having Tuesdays?

• 3:57:49Speaker 01

  That was forever etched in stone. Tuesdays was always my day because there were five of us. And so instead of changing it up, I always stuck with Tuesday.

• 3:57:58Speaker 02

  So right now, today, so in two days is Tuesday, today. Does Tuesday still have like a special feeling to you even like right now?

• 3:58:08Speaker 01

  No, not Tuesdays, but it, so going through that. And I got a, this actually ties into Beyond the Brotherhood and why I love giving back is during that timeframe. You know, we didn't have a lot of food and my mom, she worked her butt off all the time. And so when we had the limited amount of food that we had, we, we never had any like the name brand, name brand stuff. One day she said, hey, guys, you know, I finally got a paycheck. If we, the church is having a food drive, if we clean out our cupboards, I'll reward you. We're letting you buy one treat that you really liked.

• 3:58:47Speaker 01

  And so with five boys, we're all like donuts, you know, all of the powdered donuts and then the apple pies and all that stuff. And so we started having like what we're like, we're giddy and just like all that. And so we went to the store and we went to the church and dropped all the food off. And then we went to the store and we all got our little things and we, we drove back home and we looked on our front porch and the food drive was for us. And my mom broke down crying, like she just bawled her eyes out and I'm like grabbing her, it's like, mom. Look at all that food and she and I now see why, you know, the what she was going through, you know, because she wanted to provide and then. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

• 3:59:27Jocko Willink?

  Crazy explanation of your mom too, of your moms like they there's someone that's more needy than us and she's cleans out your cupboard, sacrifices your damn food. And then it turns out it's man, that's a moving story.

• 3:59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we, we, um, yeah, as kids, we didn't, we were like, mom, we have food for like days. We, I was always hungry, cold and tired. And then we were like, we're going to eat like kings. We're going to have like apples. What is an apple? What is, we don't have to scoop out cheese from this big brown bucket that we got from the government or like know the right uh, ratio of water to powder to make milk.

• 4:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's funny like we, in my family, my family tradition, this is my direct children. If it's your birthday, you get to pick where we're going and we did that when I was a kid too. And I would pick McDonald's because that was kind of like the deal back then and we didn't, you think about, we never, we hardly ever ate out when I was a kid. Cause it's expensive to eat out and you know, both my parents were school teachers. Not a ton of money, so we didn't eat out a lot. So then I had the same tradition with my kids and be like, hey, you get to eat out wherever you want. And the best was they would pick their classic malt shop across the street over here. Our friends, our friends own it. And they like, they kind of for, they, they really take care of us there. They always have, you know?

• 4:00:46Jocko Willink?

  So I would always be triple stoked when they, my kids would pick the malt shop because we were going to get a real cheap meal. It gets fully taken care of and but it's just funny, you're like for kids. You know, there's, there's something to the fact that like when you had five, uh, five of you living in a one bedroom apartment, you don't even know. It's like when you, when you fly economy class. Yeah, you know, economy class is fine. Until you go to comedy plus. Which economy plus is kinda awesome.

• 4:01:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Until you go to business class and then you're like, yo, I'm never getting in that back. And then you go first class.

• 4:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01:24Jocko Willink?

  So having that taste of things, you know, gotta, it can be rough, but it's for kids. You don't care. You don't know about any of this stuff. You're just like, mom, there's food. We're stoked. Well, where do you want to go for dinner?

• 4:01:36Speaker 01

  McDonald's.

• 4:01:37Jocko Willink?

  Like, yes, I'm gonna get a quarter pounder with cheese. Let's go.

• 4:01:41Speaker 02

  That, um, that system of having like your day where you get to make all the decision, you know, in your case was birthdays or whatever, but you, yours was just because there was five kids, right? Or?

• 4:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think what they did is my mom was like, okay, you're the first born, you're Monday. You're second born, you're Tuesday. You're third born, you're Wednesday and fourth Thursday and Friday.

• 4:02:00Speaker 02

  But you'd think that, um, like later on, you know how like during the week, right? Every day has a feel, you know, Monday has a feel like Friday has a feel, right? Saturday, Sunday, they all have these different feels. It would seem like Tuesday would have a special feel for you.

• 4:02:14Speaker 01

  I wish it did, but you know, I, I look at, um, now I, I do try and do nice things for my kids. We make Friday night pizza night.

• 4:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:02:23Speaker 01

  They would do pizza night because I know how special that is, like having that special, like we just talked about. But Tuesday didn't, I mean, I do think about it from time to time, but it's not like Tuesday, I'm gonna do something special to honor that, that day of being able to say.

• 4:02:38Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you're over here trying to forget about it, bro. He doesn't wanna think about that.

• 4:02:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna need a minute. They go over in this corner real quick.

• 4:02:44Speaker 02

  All right, there you go. All right. Uh, yeah, man, that was it. That's what I was wondering. Thanks.

• 4:02:49Jocko Willink?

  Any other questions that go to?

• 4:02:50Speaker 02

  All that's saying, good to meet you right on.

• 4:02:52Jocko Willink?

  Any, uh, any, any closing thoughts, Murph?

• 4:02:55Speaker 01

  No, we've got events coming up for Beyond the Brotherhood. If you're interested in getting involved, check that out.

• 4:03:00Jocko Willink?

  Tell me what happens at one of those events.

• 4:03:02Speaker 01

  So we have one up, coming up in, uh, November.

• 4:03:04Jocko Willink?

  It's November, right?

• 4:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Veteran Day shootout down in, uh, Copandaro. Um, we're gonna have a silent auction. So if people wanna. Houston, Texas.

• 4:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 4:03:11Speaker 01

  Copandaro shooting, indoor shooting range. Um, get together with the team, come on out. It's really, uh, not just, uh, competing, but it's also networking, getting everybody to, um, meet some of the guys that they're actually supporting. And then also having the opportunity to network with them, get to know them and, and humanize everybody. Have a good time and raise some money. And then at the end, we're gonna have an auction that we'll talk about some of the other events we got coming up like our triple S, which is awesome.

• 4:03:36Jocko Willink?

  Jimmy told me about triple S. I know it's shooting. What is it? I knew I was like, I know shooting is one of them. What are the other two S's?

• 4:03:43Speaker 01

  Shifting and saving. So we did it before.

• 4:03:47Jocko Willink?

  Like a mobility thing?

• 4:03:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:03:48Jocko Willink?

  That's shifting and then survival is what? Trauma? Combat trauma?

• 4:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, we we changed it up depending on, you know, what we want to do this year. We're going to do escape from restraints like saving yourself. So it's gonna kind of cool, put people under pressure and see how they work as a team. And it's just, it's a lot of fun. And we, Jimmy, we got nods now. And so I brought some out, had a buddy of mine that let me borrow some. I said, I brought him out last time and it was awesome. Like, it didn't dawn on me that some of these people probably have never.

• 4:04:18Jocko Willink?

  Never seen nods before.

• 4:04:19Speaker 01

  And we, I let him drive a Humvee on nods and they were just like blowing. It was like, the guys that didn't have nods, the guys and gals that didn't have nods, they were like, I can't see anything. How do you know where you're going? He was like, I can see plenty of this day. And I was like, isn't it beautiful? And so we're gonna do that again and have more nods. It's time for people to experience that. So.

• 4:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 4:04:36Speaker 01

  It's just, it's really, it's, it's a way for people to come out, get some good, I look at it as like, you spend money on going on corporate retreats and why not bring them out to have them experience, learn from some of the leadership and the, the things that these guys have been through and then also get to tell your story as well to impart some wisdom and knowledge on these guys that are so thirsty for that knowledge to share. They want to, they drink it up because that's, it's just like anything. You have that passion to succeed. And if you don't seek that knowledge, then you're just kind of stagnant. So if they have that opportunity to, to give a little bit to some team guys that are looking to be part of that new community, that new family to find some new goals to accomplish, then come on out. That's, that's where to do it.

• 4:05:18Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Awesome, man. Well, thanks for joining us, man. Really appreciate it. Obviously, thanks for sharing. You got a ton of lessons that everyone can learn from. And of course, thanks for your service, your sacrifice for the teams, for the country. And, and thanks for what you're continuing to do today to help out our brothers, make that transition from the teams and move beyond them into the civilian sector, man. Really appreciate what you're doing.

• 4:05:46Speaker 01

  Well, it's known. I appreciate you guys for having me. It's, it's been a good time.

• 4:05:49Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Thanks, brother.

• 4:05:53Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Sean Murphy has left the building. And then we were talking about performance. Sure. Talking about stressors, talking about some protocols that he goes through, very good protocols. Yeah. Having some, some reset points mentally, physically even. Get yourself back on track, but physically, guess what?

• 4:06:15Jocko Willink?

  Got to be physically ready. Which means we're lifting. We're running. Sure. We're sprinting. We're training.

• 4:06:26Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 4:06:28Jocko Willink?

  And when we're doing all those things, guess what else we're going to need to do? Guess what else we need to do? Guess what else we need? Fuel. Of course. The proper fuel.

• 4:06:38Jocko Willink?

  I recommend Jocko Fuel. Yes, sir. Hey, check it out, JacoFuel.com. We, we've got everything that you need. We got protein. I just pounded one, by the way. I just, in that break, which was probably, what, 10 minutes we were talking? Maybe 12? I had 30 grams of protein, just like that. Yeah. Just put down a milk. You had 30 grams of milk, 30 grams of protein during the podcast. And then another 30 during the second part of the podcast. So you're at 60 right now. Yes, sir. 60, so there you go. Ready to drink protein, protein powder, joint supplements, like joint warfare, super krill. We got everything that you need. JacoFuel.com, also available at Walmart, also available at Wawa, Vitamin Shop, GNC,

• 4:07:22Jocko Willink?

  Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanaford, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wakeford, H, ShopRite. Did I say HEB already? You said H, but. H, HEB. I knew where you were going with it. Down in Texas, Meyer up in the Midwest, Wegmans, out there in the Pennsylvania and eastern regions, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness. Anyways, Shields, small gyms, we're, we're rolling into all kinds of CrossFit gyms, rolling into Jiu Jitsu gyms, like madness. We're going into Atos, did you know that? No. Going into Atos. We're going into Pedro Sauer. Yeah. Kind of our people, you know? So if you got, if you got a gym, you want to have the Jocko Fuel there so your people can be stronger, faster, smarter, healthier, and just better? You can email [email protected].

• 4:08:07Jocko Willink?

  So we got you covered. Covered. Also, when you're training Jiu Jitsu, you're going to possibly need a gi.

• 4:08:17Jocko Willink?

  Gi is a uniform that you wear for jiu jitsu. It's a piece of clothing that you wear. But there's also no gi jiu jitsu. There you're gonna wear a rash guard. We can get both these things, 100% American made at originusa.com. Miha did a, I was talking about this, I think with Keenan and Miha. The percentage of people that train no gi, the percentage of people that train gi.

• 4:08:44Jocko Willink?

  The largest percentage of answers was I train both. So a lot of people out there, they're training gi and no gi.

• 4:08:53Jocko Willink?

  We got you covered either side. Originusa.com. American made. By the way, American made jeans, American made shirts, American made hoodies, American made boots. Did you get the new boots yet? They're freaking awesome.

• 4:09:10Speaker 02

  The moccasin.

• 4:09:11Jocko Willink?

  The mock toe boots, man. They've got like this cork.

• 4:09:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:09:16Jocko Willink?

  Footbed, right?

• 4:09:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I saw the whole process.

• 4:09:21Jocko Willink?

  Super comfy dude, super good to go. All made 100% in America. So that's what we're doing. Oh, by the way, workout gear. Oh, by the way, hunt gear. It's hunt season right now, which I'm missing. We know why I'm missing it. We got other priorities at this time, which I know it's hard to have a priority above hunting, but we got one. So we're making that happen. But I see pictures of Cameron Haynes out there slaying. See pictures of John Dudley out there slaying. See all kinds of people in that Origin USA. By the way, if you're, if you hunt with Origin USA, will you like, uh, put my name in your picture? So I can see what you got.

• 4:10:00Speaker 02

  Oh, like tag you.

• 4:10:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tag me in the thing because I wanna.

• 4:10:05Jocko Willink?

  I like, I'm living vicariously by all the people out there.

• 4:10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I dig it.

• 4:10:09Jocko Willink?

  So do me that favor. Originusa.com. Tag me. That's right. Tag me.

• 4:10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Well, and now I think there's a bunch of different things you can do, right? Tag, collab, uh, what do you call it? There's like different things.

• 4:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Just tag me or whatever.

• 4:10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, tag is way more convenient.

• 4:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know about the other stuff.

• 4:10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:10:28Jocko Willink?

  But just so I can see what you got, whatever you got this hunting season, I want to check it out because I'm not out there with you. I'm jealous, but I'm not jealous. I'm happy for you, but I want to share the joy.

• 4:10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:10:38Jocko Willink?

  I want to go, yeah.

• 4:10:40Speaker 02

  Be there in the spirit.

• 4:10:41Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Uh, also.

• 4:10:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, also Jocko's store called Jocko Store, you know, crazy, right? Anyway, this is where you can represent your discipline equals freedom. Cause discipline does equal freedom, by the way. We knew that from the beginning, I know, but if you want to represent now, boom, you can get your stuff there. Got some shirts, some hats, some hoodies, new shirt out, jujitsu shirt, by the way.

• 4:11:03Jocko Willink?

  What's the situation?

• 4:11:04Speaker 02

  Jujitsu is life.

• 4:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:11:07Speaker 02

  It's a good one, it's a good one, it came out good, but um, yeah, that's where you can get it. Jacostore.com, also on Jacostore.com, it is what we call the shirt locker. Subscription scenario, every month you get a new design. That's representative of discipline equals freedom, a little bit different, a little bit outside the box sometimes, most of the time.

• 4:11:25Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it's right on target.

• 4:11:26Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's right on target.

• 4:11:27Jocko Willink?

  Right in the middle, smack that bullseye.

• 4:11:30Speaker 02

  I, I agree, I agree. Um, people seem to like it, it's good, you can check it out, again, Clay, if you, if you go on, on the, on the website, you go to the top right, boom, boom, click on that, it'll take you to the page, you can kind of see some past designs, see what it's all about. Um, but yes, it's all on Jacostore.com.

• 4:11:45Jocko Willink?

  I like it, you're also gonna need some steak, cause listen, hey, sometimes when you are living five people in a one bedroom apartment, and you're eating government cheese, like our boy Sean Murphy was, hey, that happens, man.

• 4:11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's real.

• 4:12:00Jocko Willink?

  But eventually, hopefully, you get to a point where you can get some steak.

• 4:12:05Jocko Willink?

  ColoradoCraftBeef.com, PrimalBeef.com, get some of the, the best steak there is, not some of, get the best steak there is. Also, Colorado Craft Beef has the beef sticks.

• 4:12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:12:16Jocko Willink?

  The meat sticks, it's so good to go. Primal Beef launching some jerky they sent me. And Sean Glass is like, oh, you know, he sent a message through my wife, like, hey, make sure he doesn't eat the jerky, cause we're gonna do it for something with it or whatever. I ate the jerky, I didn't eat it all yet, cause he sent me a lot, but it's freaking tasty. So, PrimalBeef.com, get some jerky, ColoradoCraftBeef.com, get some meat sticks, and both of those, get yourself some steak. That's what we're doing. Also subscribe to the podcast, also jockounderground.com, check that out, we just recorded one this morning, prior to sitting down with Sean Murphy.

• 4:12:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, YouTube channel. We got a YouTube channel. Echo is putting some really ridiculous AI formatted images on there.

• 4:13:05Speaker 02

  Sure. It's not ridiculous, but yeah.

• 4:13:07Jocko Willink?

  It's totally ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. Out of line.

• 4:13:12Speaker 02

  Out of line now.

• 4:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Out of line.

• 4:13:13Speaker 02

  Okay, alright.

• 4:13:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, they're at least questionable. They're borderline. Well, I think they're, I think they're over the line.

• 4:13:18Speaker 02

  You did literally reject one of them, so I guess you might be right. You're, you're right about that.

• 4:13:23Jocko Willink?

  But most of them, you, the good thing is you at least know if you have one that's really questionable, you're sick. Cause like the latest one that come, came out, what was it? It's something, I forget.

• 4:13:32Speaker 02

  Not my circus, not my monkeys.

• 4:13:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, is that what that one is?

• 4:13:34Speaker 02

  That's the most recent one.

• 4:13:35Jocko Willink?

  See, that's a good one, but the image that you have of me on there, which is an AI gemmer. Oh, okay, I get it. But it's just like a picture of me looking all.

• 4:13:43Speaker 02

  Monkeyish. Yeah, with two monkeys in the back and it says not my.

• 4:13:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, subscribe to that so you can see the dumb AI generated images. You, you're like a, you know, like, let's say a chef, he gets a new tool.

• 4:14:00Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:14:00Jocko Willink?

  And he starts like cutting the meat or cutting this, the cake in a certain, or he gets a, wait, when they put frosting on a cake.

• 4:14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:14:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, and sometimes it's fancy.

• 4:14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:14:09Jocko Willink?

  And it comes out of a different type of tube.

• 4:14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:14:12Jocko Willink?

  But now they're going crazy with it. That's you with AI pictures, bro. You've lost your freaking mind. You're going crazy.

• 4:14:19Speaker 02

  I, actually, I don't think you're wrong. I think you're right. You know, we got a new tool. We're gonna experiment with that one. You know, see if we can't utilize it in real life, you know?

• 4:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Publicly experimented.

• 4:14:27Speaker 02

  Publicly experimented.

• 4:14:28Jocko Willink?

  Occasionally a guitarist will get a new effect on their guitar.

• 4:14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:14:32Jocko Willink?

  And then they'll just make an album and it's all this effect that they overused.

• 4:14:36Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:14:37Jocko Willink?

  That's you right now.

• 4:14:38Speaker 02

  Hey, man.

• 4:14:39Jocko Willink?

  Overused.

• 4:14:39Speaker 02

  I thought every, everyone pretty much loved the one of you dressed up like a clown. Everyone liked that one.

• 4:14:44Jocko Willink?

  That one was pretty sinister looking. Was that an AI prompt? How does it work? You say jaw, Jocko dressed up as the Joker and make it look super sinister?

• 4:14:54Speaker 02

  Well.

• 4:14:55Jocko Willink?

  Or do you, how does it work?

• 4:14:56Speaker 02

  It depends on what you're asking. So how do you make the whole thumbnail?

• 4:14:59Jocko Willink?

  No, no, just.

• 4:15:00Speaker 02

  How do you get a picture of Jocko?

• 4:15:01Jocko Willink?

  How do you get that picture of that thing? Do you have to input a picture?

• 4:15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you get, there's a, it's a, I don't wanna waste everybody's time, but basically you have to, but.

• 4:15:12Speaker 02

  I gotta get a few pictures of you, real you, and then I have you gotta essentially learn how to use this tool, program tool, which is through another program called or thing called Discord. And then boom, you got to, you know, and then anyway, so you input, yes, you input your pictures and then you'd use a prompt, I guess it's called to do to, I don't know, say.

• 4:15:36Jocko Willink?

  So you can say make Jocko look like the Joker.

• 4:15:38Speaker 02

  Say, yeah, it'll say make Jocko look like the Joker from Batman, you know, and be detailed. Boom, it'll spit it out. It won't look like you. So now I gotta do a prompt called swap this or swap that. One of the pictures that I inputted as that ID, boom, swap the picture. Now it won't fit because your head is shaped different. See what I'm saying? So now you gotta bring it into Photoshop and do a whole bunch of stuff. So it's a process is what I'm saying, but yeah, you talk to the AI like it's a person essentially.

• 4:16:05Jocko Willink?

  Some people are fired up for that process, aren't they?

• 4:16:10Jocko Willink?

  Anyways.

• 4:16:10Speaker 02

  We're trying to utilize it.

• 4:16:11Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can follow Echo's Follies.

• 4:16:19Jocko Willink?

  Also, Origin USA has a cool YouTube channel. Also, Jocko Fuel has a cool YouTube channel. Check all those out. Plus Psychological Warfare, plus FlipsideCanvas.com. Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Books, I've written a bunch of books. Everything from leadership books to novels to field manuals to kids books. A whole series of kids books called The Way of the Warrior Kid. It got made into a movie, by the way. Did you know that?

• 4:16:47Speaker 02

  I did know that. Someone, you know.

• 4:16:48Jocko Willink?

  Hey, rumor has it, you're in the movie.

• 4:16:52Speaker 02

  Rumor has it.

• 4:16:52Jocko Willink?

  Is this true?

• 4:16:53Speaker 02

  It's, yeah, bro. Yeah, it's true.

• 4:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Do you think there'll be at least a percentage of people that are kind of going to see the movie? Because you're in it?

• 4:17:03Speaker 02

  Yes, I think there is a percentage, albeit small. There is a percentage of people that, yes, that is their motivation. Um, this is what my attempt, you know, there's just so many people I want to thank, you know? But my attempt is to bring authenticity and excellence, you know, you know, to a film any way I can.

• 4:17:20Jocko Willink?

  You just misquoted.

• 4:17:23Jocko Willink?

  What was it? Legitimacy? Legitimacy. Legitimacy. Excellence and legitimacy. That's what Echo Charles brings to the scene. That's what we're trying to do over here. Excellence and legitimacy. In any way I can. Uh, the director of the movie is called, is a guy named McG. And he's fired up. And he pointed out in a, in a scene, complicated scene, lots of things going on, lots of people playing their role. Sure. Hundreds of people, by the way, are involved in all this stuff. Oh, yeah. And out of all that activity that was going on, all the people, people that are some of the best actors and most popular actors in the world, by the way. Yes, sir. But all that.

• 4:18:00Jocko Willink?

  There was one thing that got revealed. And then McG pointed out. And that was Echo Charles brought excellence and legitimacy. It was you and Ryan. Yep. And Ryan's a black belt from where? Uh, Gracie Bah. And you and him were providing excellence and legitimacy in a cage match in the background. Yep. In this one particular scene. Yep. I felt it. I felt it too. I think everyone felt it. And we know McG felt it. Yes, sir. Excellence and legitimacy. My man. I feel like the whole, this is the beginning or something big for you, my homie. So there you go. Way the Warrior Kid movie coming, also, Mike and the Dragons.

• 4:18:41Jocko Willink?

  So check those books out if you want. Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. One of the things that Sean mentioned was getting hands on and doing things. Well, we have a program at Echelon Front called the FTX. And everything that Sean and I were talking about, trade ed and assaults and training things, we kind of simulate that. I mean, it's at a, it's at a much more sort of simplified level, but boy, the leadership challenges are the same. And that's what we do. We teach leadership. So that's JP Denell also. Sean mentioned JP Denell many times today. JP runs that program. He's the, the.

• 4:19:19Jocko Willink?

  Chief of experiential training. So that's what he's in charge of, but he's also got a great crew and they do a great job. So that's Eshlon Front, go to eshlonfront.com. We also do long-term consulting with companies. We have live events. You can discover all about this at eshlonfront.com. We also have online training because you can absorb information and knowledge through classes, through tests, examinations, role plays. Like there's a bunch of ways we do it. If you're interested in learning the leadership principles that we teach, go to extremeownership.com. And these are not just leadership because you're in charge of 400 people at a company. This is the kind of leadership that you're enacting

• 4:20:04Jocko Willink?

  with your family, with your friends, with yourself. So check out extremeownership.com if you want to get engaged with that. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. You heard us talking about Mark Lee today. And his mom started a charity organization when Mark was killed. It's AmericasMightyWarriors.org. It's an unbelievable organization that has helped out so many people and so many of my friends. If you want to involved, you want to donate, go check out AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also

• 4:20:43Jocko Willink?

  HeroesandHorses.org. Just graduated a class, Micah Fink up there in the bush, the mountains, or as you would say, mountains. Sure. Helping our veterans get their soul back. And then finally, you heard a bunch about this today, Jimmy May's organization, which I'm also involved in, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org, just doing an outstanding job. And you heard about that today. If you want to check that out or support it, or you want to get involved with it, go to BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. Once again, if you want to connect with us, Sean Murphy, you can find him, hit the surf.com, tryvetllc.com, and BeyondTheBrotherhood.org.

• 4:21:24Jocko Willink?

  Also, he's on LinkedIn at Sean Murphy. For us, Echo is at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Willink on the social media stuff. I'm also, you can check out Jaco.com. Just watch out for the algorithm on all these things. Thank you once again, Sean Murphy, for joining us, for sharing your lessons, and for what you did for the teams and what you're still doing for the teams. It is much appreciated, brother. Also, thanks to all of our military personnel around the world for what you do each and every day to protect our freedom and our way of life. And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks

• 4:22:08Jocko Willink?

  for what you do each and every day to keep us safe here at home. And everyone else out there, there's ups and downs in life, and things aren't always going to go as planned. You might get rolled back one, two, three, four times. You might get rolled back three times and then sent to another job that's not the one you wanted at all. Stay on the path. Keep going. And you'll get where you're supposed to be by putting one foot in front of the other. And no matter what happens, keep getting after it. That's all we've got

• 4:22:51Jocko Willink?

  for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.