494: This is What It Takes to Be Undeniable. With Cameron Hanes

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe In UNDENIABLE, I bring together outliers of today-men and women who are experts in their field, to share their unique and motivating perspectives on reaching the pinnacle of success and remaining there. From popular neuroscientist Andrew Huberman to ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter, you will hear how undeniable individuals have obtained their winning mindset. 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 494 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Beat the odds, break the cycle, be different, be better. Everybody has a mountain they need to climb in life. What's yours? What summit do you want to reach? And what will you see when you get to the top? What self inflicted habits will prevent you from getting to the peak? What sort of self sabotage will keep you in the middle of the pack? Imagine this. What would your life look like if you changed from being passive to being passionate?

• 0:38Jocko Willink?

  Do you have an elite level talent? No.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, neither do I. Those with a ton of talent generally aren't running at midnight after a big couple of days hammering miles and long plane rides. To everybody out there with talent. Congratulations. I'm just a scrub compared to you. I know that and I accept that. But all I know is that you won't outwork me. Whatever talent you have, and we all have some untapped talent inside of us. If you don't sacrifice, then you won't reach your full potential. That's what they call wasted potential. Don't ever live with that. When you live a disciplined life, you deserve to get to those mountain tops.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  Are you standing at the bottom looking up? That's okay. We've all been there. The beginning can be overwhelming, but you've just got to start chipping away day after day. There's one thing anybody can do in life, and that's hard work. What I do to be undeniable is to work every day. I don't know what's going to happen next month or even this coming weekend, but I do know what's going to happen tomorrow. I'm going to run that fucking mountain. I guarantee you that.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  It's never too late to begin, to be someone new, to stop the bad habits, to start new ones. Yesterday is over and tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  Today matters. Make the most of it.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a new book. It's called undeniable how to reach the top and stay there written by Cameron Hanes. And Cam knows a little bit about making it to the top. But he also knows about being at the bottom. He was a regular guy, grew up without much hardships at home, was on the path that many people follow in life. Beers, bars, and a bleak outlook. But then he found something, something hard, something tough, something rewarding, something called bow hunting. An arena where hard work

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  can be used to win. And I've thought about this, I think it is an arena probably more than any other endeavor where hard work can bring success. And that's what Cam Hanes did. Worked hard, and his hard work paid off, and he became one of the most successful, recognized, and influential bow hunters in the world. And he wrote about his life in the book endure, how to work hard, outlast, and keep hammering. And we covered that book on podcast 334. And since that time, Cam's written this new book called undeniable, capturing a bunch of lessons and not just lessons from his success, but from scores of other top

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  performers who lift, run, and shoot with him on his keep hammering collective podcast. And it's an honor to have Cam with us here again tonight to share some of those lessons. Cam, great to see you. Thanks for coming down. And it was a bit of a

• 4:09Speaker 01

  That was the first mountaintop is getting

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I got a text on whatever it was Monday or Tuesday. No, I guess it was on Tuesday. You're in Alberta, Canada. You're On some bear and you're not coming home until you get some.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was so thankful you understood. But so first of all, huge honor. Thank you guys for having me back. I mean, this is, I was supposed to do a lot of podcasts this week. This is the only one I've made. So I don't know if that's good or bad, but I got here finally. Finally got those bears killed and we're here. But thank you guys for having me. It's, it's, it's like I said, it's a quite an honor.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, I hope you knew what you were going to get from me. I'm like, bears come first, hunt comes first all day. I'm like, we'll do this whenever like you, you, you gotta take advantage of the time. You got the opportunity to kill some bear, man.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  That took the pressure off because I don't know, you know, you don't know what it's like to communicate with somebody like you probably, but I'm like, God, this is gonna be the toughest one. You know, because I, I pushed them all off, right? But the other, the other texts were pretty whatever. I'm like, do I have to really? Because I was like, I need to get these bears because I gotta, gotta do Jocko's podcast on Wednesday. I gotta get there. I gotta get there. And then you were so understanding.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  Does the, does the, does nature work against you when you have like a deadline like that where?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Feels like it.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's like, oh, I gotta get this done. And it's.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  They don't, they almost don't care. Mountains don't care.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  So it, it felt like nothing was going my way. And I was just like, I might have to get my mail forwarded here. Because I'm, I'm not leaving. I've invested so much time. I had to, I had to stick it out. So thank you for being understanding.

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  Man, I'm just glad you could make it down. Awesome to see you. Um, cool. You got a bunch of, like I said, you've got this new podcast. Well, it's not new, but you've been doing this podcast for the past couple of years. Uh, keep hammering collective and you brought in all these studs from a whole bunch of different arenas of, of skills. And that's what you've been doing. And you've captured a lot of those lessons in here. So you've distilled them down and, and made it cool.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  Let's start with the title of the book undeniable. Um, I'll go to the book here. You say, I might owe Rogan for the inspiration behind the title during one visit. I was sharing how I was able to train with all these different outliers and how that allowed me to pick their brains and see what made them tick. I was able to run alongside the best of the best, and that is how you progress. Anyone who's ever risen to heights in their field has always learned from the greats and has always strived to add tools to their toolbox. Now I was able to immerse myself amongst winners to try to learn from their mindset. It's like the expression be undeniable, Joe said, there's a certain level that you can achieve in life that can, you can say all you want about Michael Jordan, that motherfucker's undeniable.

• 7:03Jocko Willink?

  He's one of the greatest basketball players that's ever walked the face of the earth, if not the best. That's just an undeniable person and it's very few people that get to that undeniable place. And if you really want to have no excuses in life, you're going to have to be undeniable. You're going to have haters. You're going to have haters, but those haters can all suck it. Because they're just lying to themselves.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, Joe comes out, man, Joe gets on a roll sometimes, so.

• 7:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, then that, that idea of being totally undeniable and just working your ass off. And that's, we're kind of going to get into this would before we hit record. But I was thinking about bow hunting and hard work. And the fact that I can't think of another endeavor where just raw, hard work can pay off in the same way. Because you know, if you're, you're, you gotta be in good physical condition. Like, let's say you gotta have good endurance to be a bow hunter, but you don't have to be an Olympic level of endurance.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be strong, but you don't have to be Olympic level strong or NFL level strong. You gotta have good hand eye coordination because you gotta be able to hit your target. But you don't have to be a, an, uh, major league baseball level.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  So you can take.

• 8:33Jocko Willink?

  Those like the the average skills that a human have. But you work hard at them and you run thousands and thousands of miles and you do thousands and thousands of pull ups. And you shoot thousands and thousands of arrows and that hard work will put you in a spot where you can get the job done. I don't know that there is another sport that translates that way like like wrestling. Like you hard work is gonna get you really close. But then there's just some guy that's a natural, just a total stud like he's got that explosive energy. Or, you know, you can name a sport, name any sport, you know, you basketball. Okay, cool.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  Michael Jordan had like really big hands. I don't care how hard you work. You're not gonna grow your hands.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  And you just you you in bow hunting, it's just raw, hard work can give you such an edge.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  And really like you is like the top.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know about that. But, uh, yeah, it's it's work does have a huge payoff in hunting. Where people, I think I had another big advantage is I grew up in a small town where being a hunter was cool. So all I cared about was being out because in hunting, it's it's that time in the field. It's picking up those animals tendencies. It's noticing the small things. It's just being immersed in it. And that doesn't happen. It's it's reps in a different way because it's just time in the field. So you can't spend too much time because you can't learn too much.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  You can't be, you know, um, there's just so many, you know, hunting, there's like a million different decisions. On one stock, where to set your your feet. You feel the wind. Oh, do I need to adjust where I'm going because this wind is coming, you know, through this draw or? Well, I mean, a million different things, staying out in the shade instead of being in the sun.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Just reading what the animals are doing. So that happened when I was a kid because I was just out all the time. And then I'm like, well, shit, I can train and I can push harder than anybody. I'm still gonna get that experience because I'm out there more, but then also I can just be more focused, have more endurance and be not infallible in crunch time, but that was always the goal. And so yeah, it's for somebody like me of average skill level. You're right, hunting is it was the only thing. What else would I do?

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And now that I'm thinking back to the book is when you're just going deeper than anybody else. Like you're going, you're gonna just go so deep into the back country that you don't have any competition anymore. You just outwork them going back.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'd always say is like in regular life, I had no advantage. Like there's always somebody who knows the right people or has more money because maybe their dad had fucking money, who knows what, or they went to an Ivy League school. They're gonna have an advantage over me in pretty much every setting until we get to the mountains. And then I'm just like, guess what, guys? None of that shit means anything now. All those fucking advantages that you make your life pretty easy and pretty nice. And so I would, yes, I would be able to go hard, but then also there's another part to that. It's like, how comfortable can you be? Because if you're just pushing by yourself, probably the biggest challenge of that is being

• 12:11Speaker 01

  by yourself in the mountains. A lot of guys get strength with other men, you know, you get confidence, you make, you're a little more bold. You just, yeah, you just feel more comfortable. When you're by yourself in the mountains for like 10 days, that's really hard.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  And so this is when you went in your first bull hunt in what 1989?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  Your first elk hunt, bull hunt, 1989. And how old were you?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  I was 19, I think.

• 12:40Jocko Willink?

  So now these years where you're developing like this, like 22, 23, it's not hunting season. Are you going out and just back country camping, like walking around, studying the animals, seeing what they're doing and running?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  I wasn't Hiking. Wasn't really running at that time. I ran just to get like for football, we'd run in the summer. Um, I was always in pretty good shape, but I didn't like not the hundred or 200 mile runs. I didn't do that till I was about thirty some when I started when I had my boys first. And, uh, I was just like, you know, I just, I gotta be better. I can't be drinking. I can't be, you know, I, you know, fuck, I was young and married and you'd like get like, start a fight with your old lady so you could go out and drink with the guys, pretend like you didn't, you weren't doing it intentionally. You plan on get Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Getting in a fight so you could, I'm fucking out of here. Then you're just like with the boys.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  And so I would do stupid, you know, I don't know if everybody does that, but I fucking did that. Cause I just wanted to go out drinking. Yeah. And then when I had Tanner and that was like, I think 93 and then Truitt 96 or my wife did. And then I'm like,

• 14:05Speaker 01

  a fucking loser dad is pretty gay. Because now you're, you know, these, these boys and I, I said this, you know, the other day I was on Chris on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson and I just said, I go if as a parent, if my, if my kids had these, this, these amazing talents and they do. But if I didn't get that out of them, I didn't do my job as a dad because they could have been, what could they have done? And I was just like, nah, you know what? You guys are good. You don't like doing that stuff. I know it's hard. It's fine. So they wouldn't even be, they wouldn't live up to their potential. We, you read that about untapped

• 14:48Speaker 01

  potential amount. Like that's, you know, man's greatest regret. Well, to me, my greatest regret would be untapped potential of my kids. Maybe, you know, Truitt is doing amazing things and inspiring a lot of other young men.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  And so I thought I need to prepare the I need to get whatever they're capable of. Let's get it all out of them. So that was that was when it changed for me.

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  Squeeze it out of them. Would you go? I can imagine. Look, it's it's hard to. So now you stop. You stop the drinking, fighting or stop the fighting with your wife in order to go drinking. But now you're just like, hey, I'm gonna go spend the weekend in the mountains just by myself.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. I would.

• 15:32Jocko Willink?

  How's that conversation go? It's not hunting season. I'm gonna leave and I'm gonna go spend the weekend in the mountains.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was always pretty supportive of me because I remember we first started dating and I killed this giant buck. And she was like, oh, so you hunt? I'm like, yeah, hunt. And she was like, thought it was just like her dad. Her dad would go and like one trip a year. And so then it was like, so I I was gone. I killed this giant buck. And I had it in my truck, just the head, like in the front seat. And it was like the hide, everything, everything. And, uh, you know, then she was just like, what is up with this guy? So she, you know, that was right when we first started dating. So she got kind of immersed into my lifestyle pretty early. Knew that I was, you know, pretty obsessed.

• 16:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was driving with my wife across the Coronado Bay Bridge. She was my girlfriend at the time, but we were going to the San Diego courthouse to get married. And as we're driving across, I said, hey,

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm a frogman. That's not just my job. That's who I am and I'm never gonna change. And if you don't want to get married to me, I totally understand and it's okay. And she just like chuckled and went, I know who you are and I know what you are. And I said, cool. And we got married. But very similar, like she knew, and I kind of told her that out of the gate. This is what I do. This is who I am. And I'm not gonna, we're not gonna get married. And now I'm gonna be like, oh, you know, I'm gonna take a shore duty job or whatever. Like, I'm not doing any of that.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:12Jocko Willink?

  And I think it's good to, if they understand who you are upfront, is probably gonna be a much better chance of survival.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, you ask, you know, because today's my anniversary, right?

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  That's right.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  And thirty three years, but, uh, You asked, you said something about the bear and I said, yeah, my wife was pumped and you didn't know if I was joking or not, but no, I, she was pumped. She was like, I called her from, I killed that second giant bear and I called her and I said, Trace, you won't believe it. I killed Scarface and she was like, you did, you know, just, you gotta have cheerleaders, right? You gotta have people, if you care about something that much and your spouse doesn't give a fuck, it's gonna be tough. Yeah. I mean, they gotta want you to win. Yeah. You know, for this to work. For sure. So she's always wanted me to win.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  Good, good to go. Uh, I guess you open up, look, this is a bunch of people in here. The first, the first person that you put in the book is Goggins and he's telling the story about this race and Goggins feet, you guys are running this race together. Goggins feet are all jacked up and you know, he kind of does a little, uh, uh, stop, pit stop to check out what's going on and you just decide you're gonna keep, keep running. Um, and you say, you say, I assumed that David would get it figured out and would catch up with me, but I couldn't help having doubts. Maybe I won't see him again. But no, sure as shit, he caught back up with me and my brother, Taylor Spike,

• 18:41Jocko Willink?

  who was running the race. By the time he reached us, he was running in a different groove. Just as we were going up the last grade to do one more summit in the race, my calf began to lock up. So I couldn't run. As I started to power hike up the hill, that's when Goggins took off. When I reached the top of the mountain, 30 miles into the race with only a couple left to go, I asked the cam, I asked a cameraman who was up there, how Goggins looked. Well, he had his shirt off. Remember it was cold and rainy and he was saying, they don't know me. They don't fucking know me, son. Who, who was he saying that to? I asked the cameraman. Nobody. There was nobody up there.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, you know, cuz I was worried because I'm like, Goggins had to stop cuz he had to undo his shoe. I don't know what's happening with his feet, but normally in those races, people, just like, I've made up an excuse to get in a fight so I could go out drinking. People will say stuff and then they're pretty much done, right? And I'm like, is fucking Goggins, is Goggins not who I thought? You know what I mean? Because I didn't know, I didn't, you don't know, you see online.

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  You didn't know him, son?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Fuck, I didn't know. And you read the books and you're like, I don't know, those are just words. I don't know until I'm actually looking at somebody and actually see what they do. All the other shit, everybody says all the tough, you know, like a badass, you write, make these stories, say these, you know, whatever. And I'm like, fuck, that would suck because I've been looking up to him forever and for being a badass, right? And I was like, I'd hope, I, I hope that, whatever, I hope, anyway, yeah. He, so he proved that day and every other time, he is the real deal. But I was like, I was worried and yeah, that, that got, you know, he beat me in that race, so, yeah.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he, I worked with him for a little bit when I was in, in the training detachment. And like, we'd be out in the desert and we have to, we'd send the platoons out there, but we, we have target sites set up. And this targets would be like 10 miles away, 12 miles away. And you know, it's a, it's a bit of a chore to like, you gotta bring all the gear up there and you set up these target sites that the platoons are gonna hit. You gotta put furniture in them and put lights on them and stuff like this. And we would like load up the trucks and, and Goggins would just run out there. And you'd be like, okay, you know, it's like, right on. And the other funny story was, there's another type of training that we do, which is close quarters combat.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  And going clearing houses, right? And when guys make mistakes, you get punished. And the way you get punished was doing tire pulls. And so you'd have like tires and various other shitty things to do. Like, I show up to the training site and, you know, I'm down in the house and watching guys do clearances and stuff. And like, like. David is is not teaching. He's I go, what's what's what's Goggins doing? They're like, oh, he's running the tire drills. And I go, I go, what do you mean? I go out there and see if he's he's just out there. When the guys would get in trouble and get punished, he would just do their punishment. He was like the freaking tire petty officer. It was freaking funny.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  He's definitely, he loves to suffer. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know that. But uh, and I realized in that race, and then we've lifted and we've run since, but where most people people falter is where he actually gets better. And so that's pretty rare. I mean, you saw, he loves training those fighters and and he's rough on the fighters. Fucking Tony Ferguson and then Style Bender recently. It's just, you know, he's just got a lot of endurance.

• 22:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's been working on it for a long time.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 22:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, you mentioned Chris Williams, Chris Williamson earlier, and this guy was like a, I I think the term echo Charles, you might have to check him up. Party boy is that in his in his previous life, he was like a party boy. Does that make sense?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, like nightclub promotion.

• 22:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And he was on a reality TV show. Did you know that?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  I feel like I knew that.

• 23:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  But I didn't see the show.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  And and then he kind of woke up one day, you know, had like a little bit of an awakening and he's got the podcast now, the Modern Wisdom Podcast and stuff. Yeah, he has got a British accent and all that. He woke up with that accent.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  That helps. That makes you sound smart.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  So smart.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  Um, he went and did love Lifron shoot with you. And you say this in the book, after shooting arrows, we took a warm up run up Mount Piska before grabbing the 72 pound rock in in my truck. The clouds had settled over the 1,060 foot tall mountain. So we jogged in a thick fog for about seven miles before heading back to the truck to pick up the rock. We took turns hauling it up the mountain. Chris learned something that everybody who comes learns eventually. There is no good way to carry a giant rock up a mountain.

• 23:51Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is just life. Like it's gonna suck and you just gotta freaking get into it.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that is hard. And people, they come and I usually say, we did both with him. I wanted to like, he's so well spoken and has such a good way of distilling things down. So I wanted him to like, share everything, or I wanted to share everything. So I did, we did the run, we did the rock. I took him to where I grew up, the little town, that tiny little logging town that I grew up in. Just, and I just, you know, showed him, I'm like, there was like a manufactured home there and like a, like an okay truck. I'm like, that was my dream right there. If I could have single wide, double wide, whatever. It's like a trailer, but then they got a little nicer than their manufactured homes, right? But still a trailer.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  Like with a skirt, get a skirt.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Still showed up on wheels, right? And I'm like, if I, if that, if I had that, a decent little trailer and a truck that ran and a job I didn't hate every day.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  That's a win. So I showed him that, just because I wanted him, and now he's, you know, true to form, he's talked about that a few times and he does a great job of, um, I don't know, just like putting that in context. But normally I tell people, okay, I said, do you want to run or do you want to carry the rock? Well, nobody wants to run because they know how much I run. So they're like, I think the rock would be better. It's not fucking better. It's not better. I guarantee you. But so anyway, we did both and he, uh, yeah, it was good.

• 25:21Jocko Willink?

  I was out surfing with my buddy Seth Stone and, uh, we, it's this spot where, where there's, you can either go in on this cliff face where there's a decent chance you're gonna get smashed, or you can take this long paddle, which then you have to go across the beach in a long walk home. And so we're out there for a while and I was telling him, hey, you can go this way, you can go that way. And he goes, Hey, which one, which one is easier? And I said, well, it depends what you mean by easier. Cause like, they're both gonna suck.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:53Jocko Willink?

  Freaking mauled.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Jocko Willink?

  So how far up it, how far is it up Piska?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  It's a mile and a half.

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  It's a mile and a half.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  And it's, uh, 1,000 feet of elevation.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah.

• 26:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's with 72 pounds.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 26:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's gonna, that's gonna leave a mark.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just because it just, it's on one side or the other. Tanner, my son, oldest son is a little bigger, so he kind of rolls it behind his head. He's got the all time fastest time. I mean, Huberman, I remember he said, he's like, so who's the fastest carrying this some MMA fighter? I'm like, Tanner was filming, cause he was working for me. And I was like, no, it's just retard right here. And I said, and Huberman's like, well, what's the time? I'm like, you don't need to worry about that right now.

• 26:39Jocko Willink?

  Cold blooded.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, cause Tanner gets it up there. I mean, he is a fricking beast. He doesn't get, you know.

• 26:47Jocko Willink?

  Bro, he's going, he's tapping into those Ranger roots too, right?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. And, and, uh, yeah, so he's, he's just tough. Just tough. He's good at rucking.

• 26:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Rucking is a, is a, there's a natural level of ability in rucking that some people have. And it sounds like Tanner definitely got it.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's got that. He says that's about all he's good at, but he has been learning. I really like that, you know, with the military, you, you know, I've heard guys say, you know, I'm a professional trigger puller. Well, it's hard to get a job doing that in your life. So Tanner was really good. They had this place, it's a coal range as part of the rasp over there. And it's navigation. And he was, he was really good at navigation in the army. And now he's, now he's working where I used to work. I was superintendent of the, you know, of the water and power company there. But, uh, so now he's working there. He just wanted, got out of the army, worked for me for a while. Then he's just like, I just want a regular job, just construction.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  And he's really good at job drawings, like elevation of pipe and using the laser to, to get that set right. So he's, it's cool that he's using those skills from the military in, and then, you know, he's just, he's just been through a lot of shit. So regular job stuff, you know, like in the interview, they're like, Have you ever, have you been in, name a stressful situation you've been in? Just like, cause laughing, cause most people are like, oh, I got a flat tire on the freeway. It was raining, you know, but you guys have done a lot more than that.

• 28:26Jocko Willink?

  Jack, um, fast forward a little bit here. You say, and again, get the book, uh, the book is, is, when did it come out? A couple of months ago, something like that?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  May 5th.

• 28:39Jocko Willink?

  May 5th, yeah. So get the book, um, it's available right now. And I'm gonna read some highlights from it, but it's got so much good information and it's so much good, like, knowledge for human beings. Uh, it says, "On the third week of the season, Roy and I made it back to Eagle Cap, and that's when I killed my first wilderness bull, a spike bull. It was 22 miles to the trailhead." See that right there? Right there, you're already, you already left behind 95% of human beings.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  22 miles to the trailhead, and we had two llamas to assist us. A spike bull doesn't yield a ton of meat, so it wasn't too heavy weight-wise, but it was still 22 miles. This wasn't the giant trophy I was going for, but the bull, but the bull was still a big mark of success for me. It meant a lot to go back there and hunt a country that people larger than life, heroes of mine, had hunted. Roy didn't kill, but he had opportunities. It's just a tough hunt. Regardless, my friend was excited for me. We felt like we had done something monumental. This was our introduction to the brutal challenges of the wilderness. Then Roy moved his family up to Alaska and started building his legacy as both a contractor and a hunter while I remained in Oregon. I tried to find people to share the wilderness experience with, but it was a hard time.

• 29:56Jocko Willink?

  It's not for everybody. You either love it and can't think about anything else, or you hate it, not much in between. That sprawling, remote country and the feeling of insignificance it brings is too much for some people. It made me feel alive. For the next 12 years, I ventured into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Most of the time, I was by myself. I stopped wasting the energy trying to convince somebody to join me. I couldn't afford to squander it as it took all I had to withstand those unrelenting mountains. Hunting on my own felt like nothing else I'd ever experienced. While hunting deep in the wilderness, I saw the world through a whole different lens. And through that altered perspective, I had a stark awakening.

• 30:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm nothing deep in the back country. If I die for whatever reason back here, nothing changes. Absolutely nothing changes. The wind will still blow the same. The animals will still carry on. The mountains will remain unaffected. Nothing will change if I die.

• 30:57Jocko Willink?

  I was, uh, I'm reading a book right now and this guy's in Vietnam and it, he says the exact same thing. He's like halfway through his deployment in Vietnam, guys are getting killed and he's, he's just like

• 31:11Jocko Willink?

  thousands of guys are getting killed every day. This has no impact on anything. I lost these three guys two days ago. The war has not changed at all. If I die today, not, it will not change anything. Everything will keep going. The Marine Corps will keep going on. Nothing changes. So it's, and it's a liberating thing in a way. It's like, yeah, this, I'm gonna do the best I can, but it's, um, not that big of a deal.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think we, we, you know, make a bigger deal out of ourselves, our existence than we should, you know, I, I remember when my dad died. I was running and, uh, I just couldn't believe, I would just see people driving and I'm like, they don't know, they don't care. Not, they're gonna go get coffee. There's nothing, nothing changes. All that changed was like, I was in pain. You know, my, my dad's gone and I'm like, but you look around and you're like,

• 32:17Speaker 01

  what does it mean? And so I can't imagine with war with being faced with debt, that much death. I don't know. I mean,

• 32:27Jocko Willink?

  I came home from Iraq in like 2006 and I remember, you know, I'm with my family now and like we walked down the street to get ice cream for the kids or something and it was just.

• 32:40Jocko Willink?

  No, no impact of war to anyone there at all, except for me. I'm like in a totally different world. And everyone's just like, like you said, they're getting ice cream, they're getting coffee, they're walking around and everything's just carrying on. And that's the way it is.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I know I is, how do you? I mean, isn't that one of the hardest things to deal with for people coming back from being deployed? And, and then you're like looking at, do you almost get mad at people? Like you see people complaining about their fucking dinner or whatever. You know what? Shut the fuck up.

• 33:14Jocko Willink?

  I've been, I've been talking a lot about that. You know that silly, uh, uh, there's like a fable about the, the scorpion and the frog. Have you ever heard this? So the scorpion says to the frog, hey, can you carry me across this river? And the frog says, no, you'll sting me. And the scorpion says, no, if I sting you, we'll both die. And he goes, okay, yeah, it makes sense. So the scorpion jumps on the frog and he starts swimming across. And then the scorpion stabs the frog and they both die. And before they die, the frog goes, dude, why did you sting me? And he goes, I'm a scorpion. And this for me is the way I look at people. Like they're just gonna do what people do.

• 33:55Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not mad at them, just like I'm not mad at the scorpion and I'm not mad at the frog for trying to be cool. And I'm not bad at the scorpion for stinging him. Man, people are gonna be people and they're gonna do what people do. It's kind of like, you know, you wouldn't be mad at an elk because he smelled you and ran away. You wouldn't be mad at that elk. You'd be like, elk is doing what the elk is gonna do. And that's, I hate to say it, but that's kind of the way I view people. It's like they're gonna do what people are gonna do and I'm not gonna get, I can't like hold a grudge against humans for being humans.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, but that's when you have that healthy perspective.

• 34:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I would think that you don't always, you're not always that forgiving. Or I mean, I would, I would have a hard time with it, especially just, I can't imagine, I didn't serve. I can't say, I can only assume, but man, I don't know, it'd be tough.

• 34:50Jocko Willink?

  It takes, it would take something, someone doing something really like, really truly offensive to piss me off.

• 34:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, bad mouthing, you know, like a fallen friend of mine or something like that. Might get me like pissed, but.

• 35:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, I can't, I came home and it, you know, it took probably took me like that specific day. Literally walking down the street with my kids to go buy them ice cream and seeing people doing what normal people are doing. I was kind of like, probably had four seconds of like, these fucking people have no idea. And then just being like, well, that's why we're doing it. So that they don't have to have any idea.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  Like, they can be mad that there's not a strong wifi signal in the freaking Starbucks.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  On the plane. Yeah, thirty thousand feet. Yeah, I just, I, I remember, and I don't know if it's probably, you know, some Hollywood stuff, but, American Sniper, I remember that Brad, uh, who was it? Bradley?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, he was playing Chris Kyle, but he's just sitting there staring at the TV. And I was just thinking, that's, that's always a powerful scene, you know?

• 36:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, and, and Bradley Cooper, he, he did a really good job, man. Like, when, when, when I first saw him and I heard him talk in the movie, and it was like, this guy did a really good job of imitating Chris. Unfortunately, what they didn't show is Chris was like, actually a really funny guy and like a wise ass. And he would laugh at people, make fun of them. He was a shit talker. He was like a A-level shit talker all the time. And having fun. And they made him like real brooding in the movie and all that stuff, which was a bummer, but he did a great job. But yeah, that scene, I think that's a real famous scene too.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  Because the way they shot it, you know, you're like just seeing him watching TV and then you realize he's, he's not watching anything.

• 36:56Jocko Willink?

  I had, I, I know that when I, like, as, as a officer in the military, you have a lot of paperwork to do. And I remember my, and I, I, I went to college as a grown man. I was like twenty-eight years old when I went to college. And I would, I was like, I wanted to get As. Like, I, I, I wanted to beat the teacher. I wanted the teacher to not be able to give me a question on the test that I didn't know the answer to. And I would study till I knew. And I can remember the questions that I missed right now. Yeah, like I can remember them because it wasn't that many. Cause I studied, I was, went too hardcore.

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  But when I came home from my last appointment to Iraq, and I remember I like had a lot of paperwork to do. When I was in college, I would do paperwork for nine hours straight, just like I would like write papers or read whatever. When I got home for a little while, I would be like a half an hour deep or like 20 minutes deep and I'd be like, God, I'm gonna do something else. And I just had to, I had to re-acclimate myself to be able to have the, alright, I'm gonna do this thing that's tedious and stupid for a long period of time. That was probably my closest to having some kind of, you know, whatever,

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  symptoms of flashbacks or staring at a TV that's freaking got nothing on it.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, did, did you miss the excitement of war?

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes, I did. The, the, the thing that was, that I really noticed a lot was,

• 38:42Jocko Willink?

  I didn't realize it, but when I was over there, when I came home,

• 38:49Jocko Willink?

  when I was over there, I, if I wasn't going out with the guys,

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  when they were out, and a lot of times they'd be out, I'd have a bunch of different groups, you know, we had, we had, we broke up into five different elements. So almost all the time, there would be like one group of five or six guys, of my guys in the field. And you, you, you worry, you're waiting, when there's guys getting wounded and killed every day, you're expecting one of your guys to get wounded or killed. And you have this, I, I would have this like gnawing sick feeling all the time. And it was, and I didn't, I kind of, I kind of, it became like a, you know, when you're, when you're wearing a pack and you got it rubbing you bad, and after a while, it just stops hurting because this is part of life.

• 39:40Jocko Willink?

  So I got to that point. And then when I got home, I was home for maybe like a month. And we did like two weeks of turning in gear and all the stuff and then I had like two weeks of leave where I was just hanging out with my family. And I woke up one day and I was just like, I feel so like good today and and I don't know what is different. And I was like, oh, I'm not worried about one of my guys getting killed. And that was another sort of feeling where it took about a month for that to go away when I got home of gnawing fear that one of my friends is going to get wounded or killed today.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  Which sucked, sucked.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I just, I don't know. I'm always yeah, the mindset of that because you know, they prepare young men to go over and fight. And then you come back and like that transition back is always like, because I saw Tanner do it and then I just remember that, you know, it's always the army is always about or Navy or whoever is always about, you know, the team and the guys and the unit and everything and then you come home and then you're just by yourself. And so the army does a good job of saying, you know, kind of like taking your power away as an individual.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Because you rely and and your guys rely on you and you rely on them and you die for them and they die for you and all that. So they do this for years about it's all about the men. And then you're just

• 41:32Jocko Willink?

  They're gone.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  By yourself. And you're like, well, fuck, I thought I needed everybody, but now I'm I don't have anybody. So, yeah, I'm always, yeah, that mindset and like how to deal with that. I'm always.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I get messages from people. I don't know what to say, you know, guys struggling.

• 41:53Jocko Willink?

  The thing that, the other part of that is not just like the guys, but also you have a purpose.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  Like you, you are, you are, for lack of a better word of saying it, you're assigned a purpose in life. Like this is your job. This is your machine gun. This is what you need to be able to do with it. This is our task. This is our purpose. This is where we're gonna go. You have a mission in life. And that is freaking awesome.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's an awesome mission. I mean, awesome is maybe not the best word, but it is a, it is a noble mission, right? It's an important noble mission that you are a part of. And you have that. And then you got a bunch of your friends that are also have the same mission. And then one day, it's gone.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  Snap the fingers and it's gone. So that's why when guys talk to me about that, what I tell them is like, you've got to find a new mission. You've got to find a new mission. You've got to find a new mission, whether it's a job, whether it's your family, whether it's a sport, whether it's going back to school, but you gotta say, okay, I'm done with that mission and here's my new mission. Cause I think the worst, I think where the worst

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  mental space is, is I don't have a mission anymore. I don't have a purpose. Even for you, like reading in Endure and in this book, for you finding bow hunting.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:15Jocko Willink?

  It was, you have a mission now. And then, then when you had kids, now you had another, you have these two very clear missions in your life. Be an awesome bow hunter and raise awesome kids.

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  When you take those things away from somebody, you don't, now what are you gonna do?

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:33Jocko Willink?

  It's not gonna be, generally speaking, they're not gonna go in a good direction.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, I know archery has helped a lot of people.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  I was just, do you know Caleb Brewer?

• 43:46Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  He was. Yeah, he lost both his legs.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  IED and he was in bear camp this last week. He killed it, just killed, sent me a picture, but just killed. Nice, big bear, but he's green beret.

• 44:00Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he, he has a pro, Archer Pro Shop, I think in, must be in Tucson, I think. Could be Phoenix, but anyway, and that's just helped a lot of veterans.

• 44:11Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  So that's, that's a big deal too. It just gives them, gives to focus on something, just like it was for me, but different.

• 44:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's, well, the cool thing is even though there's not a job for trigger puller in the civilian sector, hunting and bow hunting, you take a lot of skills that you use in the military, land navigation, you know, breathing right when you're getting ready to take a shot, packing out, like getting your gear ready to go on a hunt is the exact same thing as getting your gear ready to go on deployment or go on a mission. So there's a lot of applicable skills that you learned in the military that you can just take and apply them to hunting. And so that feels good, too.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think I told, I don't know if it's Doug Collins, because he's on the podcast, you know, he's head of VA now, but it's like these guys like Tanner, I can think, you think about what, well, what job, because it's not professional trigger puller, but like the top of military, they can do any fucking job. I don't give a fuck with it. I don't, I don't care what the job is. They know what it means to sacrifice, to be there, to be, do what's expected, to be a leader, to, so, give them a job.

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  It'll get done.

• 45:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  It's just, you know, and, and that's why I feel good with Tanner with the construction, because he, he does, that is his mission. He wants to be the best at that. And that's, you know, I'm very in, or I'm not, I'm, I'm just happy or relieved he found something.

• 45:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's like, it's not everybody does.

• 45:42Jocko Willink?

  And that's good, too. Like, I've always found, well, when I was a kid, I worked construction and it's like, you can visually see what you did each day.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  That's big.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  It's very gratifying. It's not like you're pushing papers or looking at spreadsheets or something, or just doing a job where you don't see any progress. In construction, you get to see what you did today.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Jocko Willink?

  And that feels freaking good. I think that's why people order so much shit from Amazon. You know what I mean? They feel like in a way, in a weird way, they feel it may gives them the feeling like they built the thing. They like earned that thing when all they did was click, click and then showed up at their house and they kind of feel like they they did something good. It's like the freaking weakest dopamine gratification for for creating something in the world is to order it on Amazon.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  What what I heard too is people, they get the same sort of dopamine reward by saying they're gonna write a book. So they say I'm gonna and everybody's like, oh, that's great. You're writing a book.

• 46:43Jocko Willink?

  Got my payoff.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Then they never fucking do it. So, yeah, we're. Yeah, I don't know. Humans are, God, we're a fucked up species sometimes.

• 46:54Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of fucked up, here's something for people every everywhere. Um, you say this in the book. I signed up for a 10 K and quit at mile five. Yeah, we all have to start somewhere. Well, how did you quit at mile five?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  God, I was just, I was like, just a fucking week. I was probably like.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  I was probably like twenty three, maybe twenty four. You're just. If you're just a regular person at twenty three, twenty four with some shitty part time job going to school, chances are you're not that tough. So I had been tough before because I played football and I was like, you know, did all that and.

• 47:39Jocko Willink?

  And you ran track too, right?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  No, I didn't do track. I did football, basketball, baseball.

• 47:42Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I thought you did track at some point.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  No, my my dad was.

• 47:46Jocko Willink?

  Was this your dad's influence?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he was. He was a really good track athlete, but uh, no, I never did. Um, back in my in my little logging town. You weren't cool if you did track, dude. You played baseball. So, yeah, I just ran to get in shape. But anyways, at this time. I'd been out, you know, drinking and doing all the stuff and I'm like, just. My time was gonna be terrible. Um, I felt like shit and so I just stepped off the course.

• 48:17Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Fucking terrible, but.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  And I see, the reason why I know how all this works is, so if I, so I, that was a loss, right? That day, then, for whatever the case, I was able to turn it around. But if you just keep having those losses, or you don't put yourself in position to where you might want to quit, you just avoid that altogether, then that's how you end up, you know, just fucking overweight and not accomplishing shit and watching fucking Pornhub every day. I mean, that's just, that's what happens, I think, to people. Oh, yeah. And it's like, I could have done that, I could have easily done that, but that,

• 49:05Speaker 01

  you know, quitting, you can justify it to yourself, you can make up all these things and you start to believe your own BS, you know, as we know, but for whatever the case, I was able to,

• 49:16Speaker 01

  yeah, I just felt like a failure and, but it was the kids, it was mostly just having, you know, I just knew that my boys, you know, I had, I had a shitty life, they had, you know, their dad, I was there all the time, you know, when I was hunting, but I had a regular job, my wife loved them and was always taking care of them. I'm like, these, these kids are going to be big fucking pussies if I don't push them, because they got everything. They didn't, I was, I was miserable, so I felt like it made me tough as a kid and made me tougher, aside from quitting that race, but, but I knew my kids, I needed, you know, because you said like, well, you wanted to raise good kids.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  I actually didn't care about raising good kids. I just wanted them to be prepared for getting their ass kicked and getting, you know, having to overcome and that life is going to be competition. So I, you know, that's all I was kind of focused on.

• 50:17Jocko Willink?

  Another lift on shoot guest that came on your podcast and fast forward and again, get the book, retired National Football League defensive and Derek Wolfe. And this dude, you know, you, you talk through some of the stuff in the book, you know, rough, rough childhood, low expectations, people telling him he's never going to be anything, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, um, but he, you know, obviously he made it, made things happen in his life. And, and he says this, you quote it in the book, "If you fail, you fail, but you're not afraid to fail, right? And you push and you push and you push. And what you've done is you've found something that you love.

• 51:01Jocko Willink?

  You chased it as far as you could go and it hasn't slowed you down yet. It just keeps getting better, better. And that is inspirational and anybody can learn, anybody can do it, anybody can go and find something they love to do and fucking chase it. So many people, too many people are afraid to chase those dreams. They're afraid of failure. Wolfe encouraged them to keep going. "What if you do fail?" he said. "Then try again, motherfucker. Go."

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know how it works. People fail, they have this big goal and they're like, I'm going to do the, I see, I see with bow hunting all the time, I'm going to do this, I want to kill a bull elk. They realize how fucking hard it is. Then all of a sudden, they don't have time to shoot their bow, they're not going out, they're like doing something different. Now, now they're in pickleball. Like, I thought you were bow hunting. Oh no, that was too hard? Okay. But that happens with a million different things. Nobody, yeah, I mean, just sticking with it.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Shit, it's like, I wasn't the best athlete in, in my high school, but I just never quit. So I graduated, I don't even know how long ago it was, fucking 40 years ago, and I just have never quit training. So now I guarantee there's nobody I went to school with that can do what I do. It was just the long game.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Just outwork them over the freaking four decades. I got you now, fool.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I'll, I'll see you in 40 years.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I remember I didn't, they had most athletic and I didn't get it. I was like Glenn Roberson got it. I'm like, what the fuck? He was a center on the football team. I was a recie- I was the leading scorer. Fuck.

• 52:50Jocko Willink?

  Did he play baseball? And what'd you say? You played basketball?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Baseball about, he, yeah, he did. He was a catcher in baseball. I think he was okay.

• 52:59Jocko Willink?

  So how did he get it and you not get it?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  I don't know. I was probably, I don't know. He was probably a better athlete, but all I know, all I know is like fucking, I still remember that shit.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Forty years.

• 53:16Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of hard bow hunting and failure, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Perch on the top of one mountain while surrounded by snow cap peaks, I see him. The doll sheep was in the distance, sitting like a king, wearing his massive culled curled horned crown. Right away, I begin to approach, mindful of where I step. These mountain ledges can be treacherous. One slip and you die. I move down an incline, then up another peak. My legs ache, but I'm not tired. All those miles from the past year, the past decade are paying off. I ease to within bow range. At a chip shot range of 23 yards, I try to sneak my arrow over a rock into the ram's vitals.

• 53:54Jocko Willink?

  I hear an almost inaudible tick as my arrow arches toward the ram, but catches stone, causing the arrow to hit low, cutting the ram's leg. I have confidence I can make the threaded, I have confidence I can make the thread the needle shot. Maybe too much confidence. My dream animal is so close and I make a bad hit on him. My goal in the discipline of bow hunting is perfection and I work toward it every day of the year. Every day I'm working to hone my craft and my abilities and then I just fucking fail miserably like this. I feel sick.

• 54:34Jocko Willink?

  And this freaking hunt for a doll sheep is like.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  What, what, you threw, you throw the stats in there and it's like to get a tag, it's almost impossible to get a tag. And then they put out like a hundred tags and one person or two people or maybe three people will get, will actually fill the tag.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  That's how freaking hard it is.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's very tough and that, you know, incidentally, that was in two thousand eight. So I've only had two sheep hunts in forty years of hunting, essentially. That was my first one, then I've had one like maybe four years ago, so I've killed two rams. But it's, those opportunities don't come up. You're not twenty-three yards from a ram and then that country is very steep. That is, it's the same tag, so that tag is a little easier to get because the season starts October first and goes through the tenth, which in those mountains right there, you can get some pretty intense weather, like eighty mile winds. So that's why a lot of people don't kill. It's like the weather can come in and you're, you know, high elevation in Alaska.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  But then when I talk about the, how treacherous that is, that is right where Roy fell and died is he, I, that where I screwed up was on one side. Or very close to where he had fell. It's just super steep, super unforgiving, one screw up.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  You, I mean, you just, you might not get another chance. And so we had done everything perfect and it's like, you see that day, it's like that, that picture's from right there. That was on my birthday, October second and uh, we were like as high as we could be where, you know, I got the ram. But uh, it was, it took a lot for that to get in that position and then I screwed it up and I, I made my way back up to Roy because he was watching. He was just like, nice shot.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Cause I hit it like, I think it was this, this wrist, but it'd be like cutting your wrist. So I got lucky in that I broke its, broke its ankle, essentially cut that artery. So it was bleeding, but uh, I said, yeah, I was like shaking my head. I said, I said, we'll get him. He's like, oh, I know we'll get him, but might be a while. And I killed him the next day. He was on this cliff edge and I was able to get down and get another arrow in him.

• 57:00Jocko Willink?

  Even in this picture, you got a freaking ice axe with you guys. Like this is like, this is no joke of terrain. And incidentally with the, on my first elk hunt, I did the exact same thing. And I, and I remember coming back to camp and I didn't recognize the fact that people missed. You know, I was, I didn't even understand that. I was just like, I am the only person who's ever missed and I'm a loser.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:27Jocko Willink?

  And I sat down with you at the table and you're like, hey dude, I had a freaking 23 yard shot at a doll elk and, or doll sheep. And I missed it or I did this, you, you basically shot the same shot I did. You hit him in the leg. I did the same thing with that elk who's bleeding everywhere, but we didn't find it that night. So we come back empty handed and, but that was, uh, it was very reassuring to me. I'm like, well, if that freaking dude campaigns like had a, had a bad shot, then I guess I'm not that horrible person. Cause I felt like a bad human being. Like I'm a piece of shit.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  And that, I mean, there's so many people there at that camp too. And like, you feel like everyone's looking at you going, did you hear about fucking Jocko? Nobody knew, right? But you, that's not how you feel. So I knew exactly how you felt. And um, yeah, so it's like you got your bull.

• 58:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  You know, sometimes you make perfect shots. Sometimes you don't, but you just gotta make it, you know, stick with it and you never know. You got, I got lucky in hitting that. Um, I'm not going to say you got lucky, but sometimes

• 58:37Jocko Willink?

  I got lucky.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Sometimes you can be off by this far and you miss the lung or you hit the shoulder blade and you get no penetration. You're not getting that bull, you're only two inches off. You just caught that shoulder blade or you can be this far off and get it. And you're like, Is that fair? No, life's not fair. It's just the way it fucking goes. But yeah.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  It's a rough freaking game.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  It is.

• 59:00Jocko Willink?

  Um, fast forward a little bit. Crunch time. This is when everything comes down to one heart racing moment. The bow hunter shooting at his target. The game winning basketball shot, the putt for victory, the sprint toward the finish line. This is the high pressure moment when the work you put in and all the time you spend and all the resources you've used comes down to one single point. The key to my archery success over the past 35 years and the way I've been able to master those crunch time moments has been consistent practice. I want to make my, make shooting a bow as natural as taking a breath. And the only way I've found to do that is through daily dedication, shooting every day. Weight vest, no weight vest. Pack, no pack. Sun or rain or snow, coat on, no shirt, shorts, pants,

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  bathrobe, one sock only and nothing else. Doesn't matter. I just shoot. I focus on the process and perfect it. Yes, you can be the best hunter in the world and in better shape than anyone. But if you can't make the shot at crunch time, you simply won't find consistent success.

• 1:00:05Jocko Willink?

  You gotta practice shit to get good at it, man. Bottom line.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  I mean, you can get lucky because we both kind of got lucky on those animals we just talked about. But when I say consistent success, yeah, that's not, you can't get lucky consistently.

• 1:00:21Jocko Willink?

  How many arrows would you, would you shoot a day when you were like 30?

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  I probably shot more back then. Um.

• 1:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's my guess. Yeah. Like when you were really developing your, your technique.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  I would shoot for hours a day. So I would say probably, I would say probably 200 arrows a day, but I would always try to shoot 15,000 a year. So it was always my goal, but.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  There's like no thought happening anymore at that juncture.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  No, no, you're just going through, cause I mean, and I was telling like, we had some new guys in camp. It was our first bear hunt. And um, so I'm going through like, I don't even want to say, I, I guess I saw them doing some things wrong. I'm like, how does, how do I look? I'm like, I, I don't even want to mention anything because it's only gonna fuck you up. You know, yeah, cause one, like they're um, grabbing that bow too deep and hitting their arm. And so I'm like, you just have to, the grip has to come here, but if all of a sudden you've been practicing like that over and over and over and your bow sided in for doing it wrong, if I fix it, in crunch time, who knows what's gonna happen. So.

• 1:01:36Jocko Willink?

  All bets are off.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and um, you know, not, not that guy, but the other guy ended up getting a shot and hit the bear in the leg, back leg. So it's just, it's fucking hard. And that was at 20 yards. It's just really hard to keep those emotions in check. And um, so the only way to do that is you have to take, you have to make the shooting part subconscious. And then you can focus on your emotions, but if, if the shooting mechanics, you're still thinking about those and you have these emotions to deal with, chances of fucking hitting that thing good aren't high.

• 1:02:20Jocko Willink?

  It's weird too, um, like in camp, guys that are freaking good, like awesome. Like they'll just blow shots, just blow shots and, and they'll be like, I don't know what happened.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Jocko Willink?

  Like my first time, I'm like, wait, this dude missed a shot. I'm like, I'm a, I'm gonna, there's no chance. It's freaking crazy. It's a rough game.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's uh. Um, that's one thing like, cause you know, I don't know what release you shoot, but the big, the big fad is like these back tension releases and the, all this other shit. I still shoot the old school, like people make fun, people make fun of how I shoot. E- even the biggest names make fun of how I shoot. And I'm just like, is this shit dead?

• 1:03:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Is it dead? Then I guess it doesn't fucking matter, but like with these releases, because on paper, like these guys will shoot like in Vegas, they have this big tournament, sixty arrows or thirty arrows. I don't know what the fuck it is. I don't shoot tournaments, but they're like in the X every single time. I guess, yeah, it's thirty arrows around, but uh, so the X is fucking tiny. Every arrow in the X. Or a ten. But you put those same guys, best in the world, the sa- same thing, and they'll still fuck up hunting. Because on the target, it's not going anywhere. You got as much time as you want. You can focus on your mechanics.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  When an animal with moving and you're doing all this, it's like, so when I say, the people say, well, why don't you shoot this back tension release are so much more accurate? I'm like, well, if these, okay, if these guys who never miss on a target, never miss on an animal, then I'll switch. But they're still fucking up all the time. So it can't be that great.

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  And how, you've been shooting the same thing forever too, right?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Jocko Willink?

  Like you, it would be crazy for, in my opinion, that's like I've shot the same type of pistol forever.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  Probably hundreds of thousands of rounds.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:24Jocko Willink?

  For me to now switch to a different mechanism of pistol, but I'd have to re- educate, I'd need to get brain surgery to like re-educate my mind.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So and that's, I mean, that's kind of how I feel about shooting. If I, what I would, what I always say is like, if all of a sudden I start fucking up a lot, then I'll, okay, I need to get back to whatever, need to figure out what's going on, but I still kill on every hunt.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  And have for a long time.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  Did you have someone teach you how to shoot? Or did you read it in magazines? Or like, how did you actually learn or did you figure it out by yourself?

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  No, I mean, you have somebody kind of give you the basics, but back then, everybody shot too long of a bow. So my bow is too long and so I'd have to anchor like with my thumb behind my neck. And the string would be like back here. Because draw length, like all the bows came in like thirty or twenty nine inches. I have a twenty seven and a half draw. And um, so it was too long, so I'd anchor weird. Well, now this is how I do it. Hmm. So I still anchor that way. The bow fits me, but if any, if any of these pros look at me, they'll be like, well, Cam puts his thumb behind his neck. And even Wayne at the bow rack, who, you know, my best buddy, he's on the bow rack for thirty years. He's like, he used to tell me, we got to fix your form.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  I'm like, I'm not fucking changing anything. And so I haven't, and he now he never says anything.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  He just like, okay, whatever.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  And then as, as the technology too got better, because you know, the technology on bows and the, and the sights and everything is amazing. And did you get to a point where you're like, all right, this is kind of what I'm sticking with? Like with your release and everything, this is what I'm doing. And you see new releases come out, you don't even pay attention to it anymore.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Don't even, I mean, yeah, I don't, I know it works. Um, I changed broad, I, I've very slow to change anything. I changed broadheads um, recently to those Grim Reaper Karna fours are kind of an expandable. And uh, they open like a two point seven five inch hole. Whereas I was using a fixed blade head and those were like a inch and an eighth or inch and a sixteenth. So, you know, with an arrow, it kills from hemorrhage. A bigger hole is going to kill that animal quicker. So that's been like the only big change I've made in a long time. But yeah, I just know it works. Like I said, if I if I started struggling and I, you know,

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  I wasn't making crunch time shots, I'd be like, okay, I gotta figure something out, but.

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of, speaking of shooting, world champion archer Levi Morgan, you had him. He says, you have to be able to adapt to all different, or you say this, you have to be able to adapt to all different situations in bow hunting. Levi said, whereas in a tournament, in the tournament world, he knows the situations he's dealing with. That's why hunting teaches him a lot. It prepares him for those tournaments. You can't replicate that feeling when your heart rate's up and you're nervous and you know if you don't make a good shot, what's riding on that? It could be an animal of a lifetime. It could be a world championship. That feeling you can't replicate, there's no way to practice it. And that's everything that you just said. And so he actually goes and hunts so that he gets like, learns more about

• 1:07:53Jocko Willink?

  controlling his emotions and everything to be ready for target archery.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they both help each other, but he's like, he's a machine. I think 16 time world champion. He just, like we shot, he came out, we shot and it's like, I beat him on a few, but got pretty lucky. He's fucking a machine dude, but still hunting, whole different thing. Cause that was 3D targets. And he's still super successful on hunting, but it's, it's different. It's just different. It's like, I always, I know I just did that. I don't know if you saw, but I did a big race recently. It's 257 miles. And it's like, um, you can be in shape. You can have all the best stuff.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  You can have the best fuel. You can't simulate not sleeping for two days. And still having to, to push and your feet torn up because they're wet, because it's been raining and your skin got soft. And so. You just can't simulate that. That's hunting. You can't simulate what those emotions or what that bull's gonna do, how you're gonna react, what's gonna happen. You, you just have to be there. You can do all the shit you think is getting you ready and I'm sure it helps, but you just have to be there.

• 1:09:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was saying in training for MMA or Jiu Jitsu, you cannot simulate what is going to happen exactly in the, in the fight. Because like if you and I are training and you grab a hold of my neck in, in a fight, in a real fight, like there's no way that you're gonna squeeze as hard as practice as you will in that real fight. And it just is, there's a one more level of reality that's gonna hit. And it hits in fighting, it hits in Jiu Jitsu, and it hits in hunting. Like you cannot simulate that shit.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  And it hits in running, ultra running. But yeah, it's a, yeah, I don't know. It's, I think any, you know, so those are all very performative gut check type endeavors that you just mentioned. That's, a lot of people avoid those type of situations because it sucks. And that like most people don't excel when the shit gets really hard. So yeah, it's not fun. Not fun for sure. But to get good at it, I don't know. You have to do it.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26Jocko Willink?

  You say this, focus often breaks down for one reason, fear. It can be fear of failure or fear of falling behind. It can also be fear of being mauled by a giant bear. There are many ways fear can ruin the focus you must have for the task at hand. Being able to conquer your fears is just part of the journey that takes you from a humble beginner to a seasoned veteran in whatever field you might be in. Fear is a defense mechanism which kicks in naturally. Because above all else, the human body wants to survive. When fear hits as a big fat dose of adrenaline rushing through your veins, it leaves those who aren't mentally strong enough, shaky, panicking, and not in position to make the best decisions. Outside of the back country,

• 1:11:07Jocko Willink?

  our normal life seems secure and comfortable, but deep, but in deep, that will change. We will definitely be separated from all the conditions that make us feel safe. Our home, our family, our circle of friends, the money in our bank account, and our physical health. Uncomfortable thoughts racing through the minds of new wilderness hunters can be debilitating. How do you use fear or anxiety as an advantage? As we know, fear is normal. So the big question is, how will you react? The key is being able to answer that question. When you can anticipate and understand your fears, then you can do something about them. Like Levi Morgan, you can figure out how to adequately adjust to those fears. Once you do that, you'll be a much more deadly and lethal

• 1:11:51Jocko Willink?

  as a hunter. And you got to put yourself into those positions to know how to deal with them. I was in the military, you're going to do things that you're that are going to make you afraid, and they kind of build you up over time. So you know, like in boot camp, they're yelling and screaming at you. Okay, well, you learn how to deal with that. And then they put they shoot machine guns over your head, right? You learn how to deal that. And then you climb over the cargo net on the obstacle course, which is like 50 feet up. And if you're scared of heights, dude, it ain't comfortable. It's a little sketchy. You gotta throw your leg over. But then you're going off the slide for life. And then you're rappelling off the tower. And then you're rappelling out of a helicopter. And then you're parachuting, and they just keep elevating the amount of fear

• 1:12:35Jocko Willink?

  that you're feeling. And hopefully, what you're supposed to do is each time, you're like, okay, I learned how to overcome that. Okay, I learned how to overcome that. Okay, I learned how to overcome that. And then they put you in stressful situations, too, where you're going to the room, and there's people screaming in the room, and you got to hit this target, and like doing everything for time. You do all kinds of shooting for time. It's freaking ridiculous. Yeah. But all they're trying to do is put pressure and stress on you. So that way, when the pressure and stress comes, you're you're ready for it. And you learn how to deal with it adequately. That's um, something that from a leadership perspective, something we'd find all the time because leaders are the same way. Like you're going to get put in a situation where you're going to make a decision.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  And if you're not used to it, you don't know what's happening, bro, you'll fall apart. Like you'll just lock up. I've seen people do that countless times. They're in charge, bad things are happening and they freaking just lock up.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Jocko Willink?

  And you, but I've also seen when we train them properly, they learn how to like, oh, I'm starting to lock up right now. Take a step back, take a breath, look around. All right, make a call. Like it's that, those little small adjustments that you make and you learn how to do it. But people that have never done it before, bro, it's fricking, it's, they lock up sometimes, some types of people.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  I think maybe the last time I was here, I think you told a story about, I don't know if it's in training or something, but we're like, you're like looking at the situation, but then you just like maybe rose up a little bit just to get a different, little different perspective on it. And so I said this the other day when we were bear hunting with these, those new guys, I'm like, I said, here's what I do. When a bull's coming in, I'm getting ready to shoot. I consciously take a deep breath and relax my shoulders because so many people are just like fucking this, you know, and they're just like, do you really think that was going to work? But you're, you're not, but if you just consciously just like you rose up and you know, took a look, if I can just like consciously

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  relax, man, it makes a big difference.

• 1:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Makes a big difference.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  But to like to, to take yourself out of that moment is hard, really hard. It's um,

• 1:14:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Where I originally learned like the breathing thing.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Is when you talk on the radio in the teams, you, you don't want to sound panicked. You don't want to sound like you're a freaking, yeah, you're panicked. And so you'd be like, see something going on, you key up the radio and be like, before you keep the radio, you go.

• 1:15:12Jocko Willink?

  Hey, this is Jocko. We need to move to building 54 and everyone thinks you're super cool. Yeah. But you're like, you're gonna make building 54 and everyone's like, you come back and you're gonna get freaking Yeah. ridiculed and you'll screw everybody up because now everyone starts to freaking elevate their panic scenario. So, yeah, literally taking a breath. I'm glad to hear you say that. Same exact thing. You just go.

• 1:15:37Jocko Willink?

  And it just reminds you like, okay, take a wrap off, relax your shoulders and we're gonna make this hit. That's another thing I've been saying lately. Somebody asked me a question a while ago, like, how do you deal with uh going into stressful situations? And I was talking about how I'm like super humble. You know, training, getting ready, preparing like, all right, but when it's go time. Like I become in the last moment of execution, like when I put my night vision goggles on. Like I become unstoppable. Like I can't be killed. We're gonna take on the world. My platoon's the best in the world. No one can stop us. And I, and I think that attitude and even training like MMA fighters.

• 1:16:21Jocko Willink?

  Like we'd be training an MMA fighter. We wouldn't be like um beating the shit out of him. When he's two weeks out from the fight. No, we back off and you're not letting him win, but you're also not beating the shit out of him. But you don't want his confidence to be broken. Yeah. And when you go in, when you're, when you're cage side about to put a guy in the cage. You don't say like, and remember he's got a really good left hook. You gotta be careful. You don't say that shit. No, you say you're gonna fucking murder this guy right now. Yeah. And that's, I, I've used that now in archery as well, where like, when I'm getting ready to step up to like a 3D target. Mm hmm. You know, I'll walk up to that thing like I'm gonna fucking smoke this thing right now. Yeah. Like go through the protocol. This thing's getting smoked and it's been very helpful. Yeah, definitely.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Well, that mental, it just reminds me, we were talking about animals earlier and how they can just kind of pick up on emotion. It was, I killed that first bear and my camera guy was there and there's this bear, he'd kind of been, there's some bad bear, just like bad dogs, right? And you can kind of look, you're just like, nah, fuck, this thing is going to be a pain in the ass. And there was one, he kind of charged me the other day. And, um, so James, he was like, gonna go, this bear was on the bait. Cause we were over at the other bear and he was just like, oh, the dominant boar's gone now, cause he's dead. Now, he's like thinking he's gonna run the show. So James is gonna run over, go over there and get good pictures of him.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I said, that bear knows. And he's just like, so he's trying to like,

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  like kind of spook the bear off. And I'm like, you can't lie to that bear. Cause James was nervous. That bear was not going anywhere. And I'm like, you can't, he knows. And so then I would go over there, just walk right over, he'd take off running. So it's like, they can just like, it's like, it's like a horse, you know, if you're afraid to be on a, that horse feels your fear. The animals are exactly the same. So if, I think the point is, if you believe and you're like, I, I'm more, a more dominant predator than that thing.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  You just, you have a different energy. And then that, the animal feels it. But James didn't quite have that yet. So he's like, fuck.

• 1:18:42Jocko Willink?

  And it's like, when you get, uh, you see like a basketball player have a hot streak, like they start thinking, I can't mess. And they start shooting better, better. Or when you're ahead, you know, like they start getting like three, four, oh, now we're up six points. They start taking more risky shots and they're making them.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Jocko Willink?

  It's because they're just cocky and there's a certain level of cockiness in the moment that is

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Jocko Willink?

  Totally good.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:05Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to, and it's just like Jordan, like, oh, there's one second left and we're down by one point, give me the ball. I am going to make this shot.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Jocko Willink?

  And it was like, yeah, dude, you're like Apex predator here, give me the ball, you're gonna make the shot.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's I love, I love when the guys in basketball get on a, on a roll. And then they do like what's called a heat check. Cause they're like, I can't fucking miss. So they might like Steph might just come right over half court and pull up. Because if you're really on one, you're gonna hit that one too. So it's a little heat check. And it's just like, so if that one goes, then fucking look out. But yeah, it's fun. It's fun when, when you have that unwavering confidence, like when you're, you put your nods on. It's like, is there any greater feeling? I mean, that's fucking the pinnacle.

• 1:19:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And just for people that are wondering. You can't just bullshit that. Like the bear knows and the world knows. If you haven't trained hard, if you haven't put in the work, if your weapon's not sighted improperly, like all those things, you can't just put your nods on and be confident and think you're gonna win. No, you're gonna get your ass kicked, just like you're gonna miss that shot.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:13Jocko Willink?

  You can't fake it and be like, oh, I'm not worried about my bow. I haven't been shooting much, but the, I'll, I'll make it happen. Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  I'm good. No, you're not.

• 1:20:20Jocko Willink?

  You're lying to yourself. Yeah. You know it. The, the animal knows it and you're gonna freaking miss.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:20:27Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Huberman, you had Huberman on. He said, or you, you say about, about him being able to have that tunnel vision focus, or as Huberman called it, being able to bring your mind to focus on such a little narrow cone of attention. Is something that is necessary in life and something that those who are undeniable are able to do. But we need to be able to big picture focus as well. And that also is a very similar to me of, of what you were talking about with like taking us, like taking a breath. And if you get tunnel vision on anything, you're, you might miss other components that are going on. Like you, like in hunting, if you're charging, you're trying to try, trying to go, trying to move and you miss the fact that the wind shifted.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  And now you, you, you blew it. And so you gotta be able to focus, but then at the same time, you gotta be able to take a little bit of a step back and see what else is going on. Otherwise you're gonna blow it.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. What I think about there is like, you're so focused on a bull that you don't see this cow that busts you and takes a whole herd because they spook. Right? So it's like, you have to be able to look at everything and think about, you know, you said wind and, and everything else, but yeah, it's a. I was, Huberman wrote a great foreword for me. He's fucking so smart, but uh, I really wanted him. I want him to hunt because like I told him, he like operates up here. I don't know how his brain works. It's not like my brain, but uh, I, and I'm down here. I'm like, oh, I'll carry a rock and fucking kill an animal. That's about as, you can't get any more fucking caveman, right?

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  I'm like, if, if I could get him to weigh in on what hunting means with his brain. Oh, he could just explain it so well to people, you know, it'd probably make, cause I can explain it to people sorta like me, but not some neuroscientist. I don't fucking know how to talk to those people, but he does. So wouldn't that be sick?

• 1:22:27Jocko Willink?

  He seems fired up. Like when, when he shot with you, he sent me a text like, dude, I'm, I think I got the bug, you know? So he seems fired up.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  What, what I loved is, you know, so he came up, he, he spoke to the university there, had like 500 kids to talk about science on a Thursday. It's like, God. So.

• 1:22:48Jocko Willink?

  You're like, I'm going for a run. Sorry.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I went, but I'm like, why would these kids be here? But he's just, you know, a scientist, rock star, kind of, right? Cause he's just cool. But uh, and he's just got something about him. It's like that if factor. Like what, well, how do you explain it? But um, yeah. So we did the rock, we shot, um, did we? I think we might've lifted, but anyway, we did all the stuff. The rock was hard. His, he had a goal of not setting it down the whole time. So, and he didn't, and he, he did a good job, but so it was all like very out of his comfort zone type things. And he, you know, he was, I think he's 49 now. So maybe he was 48 at that time.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  But he left like so out of his comfort zone, doing all this new stuff, a whole different world. And he left, he's saying that was the best day of his life.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  And I'm like 48 years, like he's famous, he's rich, he's, you know, what a beast. And like this was the greatest day, that's, that is so, that's amazing to me that somebody with all his success could come into my, you know, basic ass world and appreciate it. And that's, that's, I mean, that kind of impact is so him shooting a bow and, and hunting and doing all that, I think I'm just excited for that opportunity.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  And I think he, did he post pictures of you shooting in his yard, like standing on top of his sauna or something?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  I was on the roof. Yeah. Yeah, it was.

• 1:24:24Jocko Willink?

  Was that before or after? Did, did you go down and do his podcast or something after he was on yours?

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  No, yeah, that was after. That was just recently. I kind of went down. He moved from where he was. He's right, kind of right below the Hollywood sign over there in LA. But, uh, yeah, that's where that was. So that was just probably a couple of months ago.

• 1:24:41Jocko Willink?

  And was he shoot, is he like consistently shooting now?

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Sweet. Yeah.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like, like I said, he texted me like, dude, this freaking archery shit's badass. I think I got the bug.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  So he's such a good guy.

• 1:24:53Jocko Willink?

  Is he lining up a hunt then?

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  We've been trying. Yeah. I wanna, you know, I wanna take him on one, like a high country elk or mule deer. Fucking hard. So I wanna like maybe access deer and, you know, Maui or somewhere, or Joe and I went to Lenai. It's, that's actually pretty hard too. Those things are fucking cagey, but a bear hunt would be perfect.

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  That's wild.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  The bear hunt out of the gate.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Jocko Willink?

  Get, get the blood pumping.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  I know. Bear, I just love hunting bear.

• 1:25:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, another lift, run, shoot guy you had on Nick Bear, army dude, you know, and a marathon runner and a, and a strength athlete beast type individual.

• 1:25:39Jocko Willink?

  And it says here, the key is to make a plan and stick to it. Nick said, to not deviate from it. And if you miss the goal, you have to go back and revise and refine that plan.

• 1:25:49Jocko Willink?

  You hop back on that track and you keep working toward it, Nick said. Once you realize you can pretty, once you realize you can pretty much do anything you want, you're unstoppable. So again, it's like you start to see these consistent messages coming through everybody that's talking here. You have to do the thing. You have to do it consistently.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  That's the biggest thing is people ask me like if they're, what's consistent, what's a consistent theme with all the guests, all the outliers? It's just like, they just love and are obsessed with, you can't, I mean, if you don't love what you're doing, you're, you're not going to put in enough work. Right? So like training, coordinating right there, running the mounds is like there has to be, you have to have that passion or love for it. Otherwise you won't put in the work to become an outlier. So if it's just something you see somebody else do and you're like, I think I might want to do that. That's fine. If, if you start to do it and you're like, I live for this shit, but these people, whatever it is they do, they live for it.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  And that's just, so finding that, you know, we talked about the military guys coming out and like having that purpose. That's what's hard. It's like, I got lucky with bow hunting. They got lucky with whatever the fuck science or running or training. But yeah, it's like,

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  and there's no, there's no formula for that. It's just you. What do you care about?

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink?

  That's the big thing in the book outliers. You ever read that book before? Yeah.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Is those individuals?

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Like, yeah, they got some natural talent. Yeah, they got some, a good situation that they're in, but they just freaking love doing it. Like Tony Hawk, the skateboarder. Yep. He, he didn't really, he was like this tall, lanky kind of kid. So he didn't really have some physical thing, but his dad would be like, Tony, can we go home now? And he'd be like, let me just try this trick. I'm going to do it 72 more times. It'll take me 30 minutes. Can you, can you come back in 30 minutes? And that's what he was like. And he's nine years old. And he just would just stay at the skate park doing the thing over and over and over again. And if you don't love it, you ain't going to do that.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  That's, I mean, you know, Truitt was kinda like that when he was a kid. He would, he would like watch TV, but he, we had this ab roller, you know, the little wheel and he'd just be like straight, side, side, hours. Cause all he wanted to do is have a six pack. So he was like eight or nine years old and hours of training. So now, and people like, oh, it's cool. You get the world record on pull ups. He, what's not cool is being in your garage by yourself for 12 hours, doing pull ups for 12 hours. Because one thing that also happens is

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  he, he tried to go for the official world record, you know, is the one Goggins had, but it got broke before that. But, uh, he tried to go for it. So his goal was to get 8,000 pull ups and he shit the bed at 4,000, wasn't even fucking close. And, you know, I was there and I just, you know, I was just said, it's not happening today. Your body just cannot do it. He just wasn't putting in the work. Some people, and for a day, he was like, well, maybe, maybe I just don't have what it takes. Maybe I just can't, I'm not even close, half. 4,000 is a long way from 8,000, right? And, uh,

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  what separates him apart is it doesn't matter what it is. He'll be like, I just gotta work. I can do it. I just gotta, he'll, he never has any, his confidence is unwavering. It's like, oh no, I can do it. I'll just outwork, I'll, I'll train everybody. And that's what he did. That's how he got the 10,000 pull ups, you know, and, and nobody's, you know, got close since. But, uh, the 12 hours in the gym and doing, he was like doing 2,000 pull ups a day, you know, for seven days. So he'd do like 14,000 pull ups in the week. And, um,

• 1:29:49Jocko Willink?

  Would he do them, would he do them, you said 2,000 pull ups a day?

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:54Jocko Willink?

  And was he doing them like in one, one shot? And like he would just go to the gym and spend two and a half hours or whatever it was at the gym and just do 2,000 pull ups?

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:02Jocko Willink?

  And he did, and that was sort of his protocol, getting ready for breaking the record?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Goggins was a big help. I mean, Goggins, you know, pretty much hates everybody.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Which is fine, but he, he doesn't hate Truitt. So he like knows he's kind of special like has like this, he just, Goggins loves people who train like that. You know, that's what, that's what his whole life has been. It's like, how much can you take? So he sees Truitt and like when Truitt went for this official world record, I mean, Goggins was calling and giving, telling him what to do, exactly what to do. And you gotta get his heart rate down. You gotta this, it's like so invested in it. So it was, it was pretty sick. But, um, you know, Truitt just did a last man standing because you mentioned Nick Baer. He was down at, you know, Baer's property in Texas.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  And the last man standing is you run four miles an hour for as many hours as you can. You have to get your four miles done. Then you have to be on the line to start the next hour. Chad Wright was there who's, he, he can be really good at those two, but there are some freaks there, right? And Truitt, it's like, this is his first last man standing. He's got crazy endurance, but not, not this type of endurance. This is a whole different deal. And he, uh, he, his goal was to win it. Cause I told him, I said, you haven't won shit for running. You know, he's done really fast marathon times. He does the genes and it's like, it gets all these fucking goes viral. But I

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  said, I need you coming across as a win, right? Because that's the one thing you're missing. You got the world record, you're fast, you're shredded. Let's get a win. So we thought, well, he could win this maybe. Whole different level of people. And so now he's just like, okay, now I know. He got sixth, I think he went, ran a hundred and thirteen miles, but, uh, not even close to what it took. What the winner do?

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  They had to, they canceled it. So how it goes is basically last man standing, you have to be the last one to do that lap and then you win, right? Everybody else has to quit and you're the last person to be able to finish a lap. Um, big storm came in, there's two guys who just would not quit. One guy from Germany, one guy from fuck, South Africa or I mean, South America somewhere, I think. And they were just not even, I mean, 230 some miles, still unfazed. And this weather like flooded, lightning, wind. And so they said it was unsafe. So they were co-winners essentially. But yeah, I mean, this fucking, it's, it's a mind game because

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  Truitt, I, I was like live feed and I could see he came in way late, like barely made the cutoff. So I called his wife and I'm like, what's, what, what's going on? And I was telling her, I said, he can't show weakness. He can't show, he can't be like looking at anything. He can't be shaking his head. I said, cause everybody's watching everybody else. And it's, it's just a, if you think somebody's not even phased, you're going to be like, I can't beat this fucker. So it's, it's just a big show.

• 1:33:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's like, you can ask Echo Charles, how many times he's seen me tired when, when we trained jujitsu? It's like, I will never show tired. Like an hour in, I'll look the same, just like, that's what we're doing.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  And Echo's not quite as good with the poker face.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, here's what happens like in these long endurance races is like Courtney's super positive. She's always telling people, oh, you're doing great. This and there's some people who are like, I'm not, I'm not wasting positive energy on, I'm not getting somebody else in a better mood. I'm not wasting my whatever to make them feel good. So guys won't say shit. Because it's like, you only have so much of that.

• 1:34:09Jocko Willink?

  But also I could, I bet like if you were hurting and you know, Courtney comes by and she's like, oh, you're, you're doing great. And you're like, wow, is she even freaking talking to me right now? Like I'm gonna lose. This is freaking terrible.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Well, is another weird thing that, I don't know, you know, humans are so crazy species, but if you, uh, if you smile.

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  Even by yourself. So I've tried it. Running by myself like a fucking idiot, smiling, you're in a better, you get in a better mood. You get a little strength from that.

• 1:34:45Jocko Willink?

  Putting in the manual.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's weird. It's weird, but yeah.

• 1:34:51Jocko Willink?

  Uh, speaking of Courtney. You say if any, if anybody's life is an example of true compounding consistency, it has to be Courtney Dauwalter. She is the legendary ultra girl who's considered the goat of trail runners. And yeah, dude, she's like a freak, like a genetic and just

• 1:35:13Jocko Willink?

  freak of a human.

• 1:35:17Jocko Willink?

  She won the Moab two forty first place overall.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  By hours.

• 1:35:21Jocko Willink?

  By hours.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:23Jocko Willink?

  And the thing, and I've heard you talk to her about this, the thing that is crazy about that is when you're ahead by hours, you can back off. You can be like, oh, cool. I can, you know, take a little breather here and, you know, get some water. But she doesn't do that.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  No, pushing, push, push.

• 1:35:42Jocko Willink?

  The entire time.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  I'm like, why?

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  But yeah, her, yeah, she's, and that's so hard because I've talked to Huberman about this a million times. It's like fucking willpower. How?

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  Why does somebody have more willpower than, and how do you measure willpower? Because running, just running is just how much will you push? Cause you're not going like in the mountain races, you're not going fast. So it's not like you have to be able to run a four minute mile. It's just you grind it out nine minute. Everybody can run a nine minute mile. Not everybody, but a lot of people.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  How long can you run nine minute mile? How long till you're like, I'm not, I'm walking, I'm fucking, I'm exhausted. But for her, she can do it for days. I don't know. So why?

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not like she's the fastest.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  There's a lot of people have a lot of endurance. Why, why? What gives her that willpower to push when everybody else would would would stop? I don't get it. I don't understand. It's like, so I'm telling Huberman, fucking give me a number on this shit.

• 1:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  What? I want to measure willpower.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's crazy, though.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, was it you that kind of enticed her to do the triple crown thing? Did I, did you put that idea in her head?

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mentioned it. She she had never mentioned it to me. And, uh, maybe she had thought about or talked about it. I didn't know about. But yeah, I I had said, I said, could ever, could anybody ever win? The three most basically prestigious hundred miles in the world in the same summer. Cause they're June, got one just coming up. It's Western, then Hard Rock, then UTMB over in Europe. And, uh, nobody's ever won them. I said, could you? She's like, I'd like to try. I said, I think that'd be good, a good goal for you. And she did.

• 1:37:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know, I I've heard, I don't know what the stats are, but I've heard like some crazy number that it takes some crazy amount of time that it takes to recover from a marathon.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:58Jocko Willink?

  And it's like, oh, you you take four months or something to recover from a marathon. Cause I, and the reason I remember is because they used to win in Hell Week, which I don't know what it equates to with the marathon, but it's it's like five or six days of a lot of physical stress. And we used to think like, well, how long does it take to cover, recover from that shit?

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Jocko Willink?

  But doing like a hundred or if it takes months to recover from a marathon. How long does it take to recover from a hundred? Or is there just another level of fitness that these marathoners didn't used to be at? And that now you guys that run this far are like, it's a different level that you're conditioned for it more and it doesn't take as long to recover.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, you know, because we just did, Cocalona was 10 marathons, essentially 250 some miles. And with 40,000 feet of gain. So it's a.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:38:54Jocko Willink?

  And you roll in here and say you're not limping, you're walking normal, you just came out of a freaking hunt.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  So obviously recover, recovery.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm banged up.

• 1:39:04Jocko Willink?

  You're back.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  It's, it's been a month. It was, I mean, my, my immune system was so shot because I ran, I slept two hours and eighty, took me eighty four hours to finish. So three and a half days, I slept two hours. I was definitely ripe for any sickness and I got fucking so sick. Yeah, I was like, I had to go to the hospital. The hospital's like such a wasted, I'm like, I'm never going to the hospital. What the fuck? They don't do anything. And, uh, so I fought it off for a couple of days and finally the guys, because I like was supposed to come home three days earlier. I couldn't move. I couldn't get out of the, I couldn't, I'd take a sip of water puke.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  And, um, so my body needed everything because I just, you know, pushed it. I was depleted and I couldn't take anything in. So they came in, what do you think about going to the hospital? I was just like, yeah. So, so anyway, they gave me some Zofran or whatever the fuck it is so I could eat at least. And, uh, yeah, but, but I don't know those, yeah, those races, man, they're not good.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  Have you done, have you, have you run since you did, got done with that?

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:13Jocko Willink?

  How, how many days of no running did you do after the race?

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Maybe a week, probably a week. Yeah. I ran like, like probably four days in bear camp this last one out. Cause other, I was hunting. That was one thing on, on the bear hunt that sucked. It's like my advantage is physical. Sitting on a stand, I have no advantage. So my only advantage was, okay, I gotta, I gotta sit longer than anybody. And that's what I was doing.

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  How many hours a day were you sitting?

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  It's like, I mean, in three days I sat forty hours from the same stand. And my cameraman, I felt bad for him. I told him I was giving him a $5,000 bonus because it's like fucking dude, sitting there in the rain for 12 or 13 hours and you know, this bear hadn't been seen by humans ever in the daylight. It's like.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  What are we doing? But when I had so all my advantage, like I said, was gone. I didn't know what else to do. I just got to be out here more than anybody ever has because they've never had anybody spend that much time. And I'm like, I guess that's what I gotta do. So.

• 1:41:25Jocko Willink?

  Is it a stand like a deer, like a tree stand type thing? Or is it a little bit more built out? Or are you comfortable in it at all?

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  Well, it's on the ground. So I like a little brush. I mean, most of the time they hunt the bear like, because people don't want to be on the ground with a bear. So they're in a tree stand like a deer. But I I've killed so many bear over the years. Like when they invited me up there for the first time in 2013, I said, yeah, I'll come up. You got, you know, big bear. I like, you know, it sounds like a good challenge, but I said, I'm not not sitting in a tree stand. So I said, well, let me hunt them on the ground. And so that's what I've done up there since 2013 is I just like being, I always say eye to eye. I want to be eye to eye with them.

• 1:42:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you you posted that picture of you like with that sow just look just freaking so close.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was cool. That was awesome. I love it. I mean, you know, you know, my wife or like even that outfitters like, don't get killed. And I'm like, they'd have to get really lucky to kill me. I mean, a black bear, you could get killed. They kill people every year, but

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  have to get lucky.

• 1:42:33Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you ever seen anybody swimming with great white sharks? Uh-uh. Yeah, people do that. That seems like a

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  Risky.

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  It seems like something I would not be that into.

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  You've seen a, have you seen them surfing?

• 1:42:48Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  Like never see like jaws, the fin come up or anything.

• 1:42:52Jocko Willink?

  I haven't. I've seen whales out there. Obviously dolphins all the time, but I seen sharks in the water at San Clemente Island, which is where like we have a little training facility out there in the SEAL teams. And I'd seen sharks out there like, you know, you're getting ready for it. They canceled swim. They canceled the swim for us because there's too many sharks, which is freaking crazy. But yeah, there's definitely sharks out there. And and now that they have drones flying everywhere, like they're seeing there's sharks all over the coast of California. Like they're everywhere. And we just never knew about them because they don't put their fin up, you know, like you see in the movie Jaws. They don't do that normally.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:28Jocko Willink?

  But they're, but now they have drones up. It's freaking, they're, they're, bro, and it's like, people, I can't believe there's sharks. I'm like, it's freak, the ocean.

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:37Jocko Willink?

  This is where these things live.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Jocko Willink?

  It's no surprise, but people swim with, with great whites, you know, and like, hold their fins.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Like a thrill or what?

• 1:43:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And I think they have the same, like, you know, you're comfortable, you've been around enough bears, and I think they've just, they've just, you know, pushed the envelope and gotten closer and understand and read the signals and all that stuff. In my mind, it still is like, hey, man, you got a, a great white shark. Like, those things seem like they might be, at least have some level of unpredictability. But again, these people around them, I've never been around a great white shark, so I don't know. Maybe they're like, oh, yeah, don't, you don't have to worry about them as long as you're here and you do this, you don't do that, like, okay.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sounds pretty intense, though.

• 1:44:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't really think I would do it, to be honest with you right now. Now, again, if I had one of them talk to me and coach me, and be like, hey, here's the deal, here's, here's why we do it, here's why we get away with it, here's what they're thinking, here's what they, you know, here's why, here's how you do it. Maybe?

• 1:44:41Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I might even lean towards yes.

• 1:44:45Jocko Willink?

  Nah, I don't know. I don't know. Echo's shaking his head a big negative.

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  Do you, do you surf Echo?

• 1:44:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  Somebody surf if that counts.

• 1:44:53Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had this, there's this seal that lives like two houses from me. He lost his part of his arm in training, but uh, he's gonna go do that swim back, is it around Statue of Liberty?

• 1:45:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, New York, yeah.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he's, he told me to ask you if you're gonna go do it.

• 1:45:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know, uh. Yeah, I'm, I'm friends with the guys that run that thing.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Jocko Willink?

  And they're always like, can you get out here? So, I don't know.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is one a congressman or something like that? Who's part of it?

• 1:45:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, a bunch of guys do it.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  A bunch of guys do it, but there's, I think it's pretty much like a bunch of seals, so I'm sure if some of, there's a bunch, there's so many congressmen seals. So, they're all just being congressmen, um, writing books and being congressmen. That's the, that's the, the post, uh, seal career thing.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Well, did, I mean, did you have any interest in like getting a position on this new administration?

• 1:45:53Jocko Willink?

  Uh, you know, I'm.

• 1:45:56Jocko Willink?

  I love America and if America, if they, if they stepped up and asked me to do something, I would do it. You know, I mean, um, I, yeah, I love America and if America wanted me to serve, then I'd serve, but I'm not like, um, uh, you know, maneuvering to try being for it. Yeah, I'm not lobbying to get into it because,

• 1:46:20Jocko Willink?

  you know, I don't, I don't really like politics and you know, even before we hit record, you know, we're talking about just how crazy the political world is and you know, but again, this is America and I, I love this country and if I was asked to serve, then I would. I don't think I'd be able to say no. I think I'd be kind of hypocritical if I said no at this juncture in my life.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  Wouldn't it, wouldn't it be frustrating to want to make a difference? And then, cause it's like, I went to that, uh, make America healthy again thing and like, you know, RFK and all those guys were there and Trump was there and everybody and FDA was there and there it's like all about, you know, I don't know, fucking seed oils and prescription drugs and all this shit. And it's like, red diet forty. I'm like, it feels like to me like the FDA, they're there just kind of like, pretending they care, but they're in their head or like, my impression is they're like going, how long do we got? Three and a half more years. Okay. We'll just fucking pretend like we care and then we can get back to business.

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  Once this guy's out of here. So it's like, do people really want to make a difference? Or do they just like, they're kind of in their groove, they're playing the game and it's like theater.

• 1:47:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, there's, there's, we are, everybody kind of knows that term, the deep state, right?

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:46Jocko Willink?

  And then even a, but it might be hard to define, like, what does that actually mean? The deep state. What are you talking about? Like, what are you talking about? There's weird, there's, there's shadow people in control. So it might be a little bit hard to understand that or to believe that. But when you say, Unelected bureaucrats that are embedded in the system. It's very easy to see those people because they're unelected bureaucrats that are embedded in the system. They've had a job for 15, 18, 20 years. They've got their little fiefdom that they protect, protect whether it's in the FDA or the IRS or whatever government agency you want to talk about. And they're there and they want to protect that thing. And they, and generally speaking, they want to grow it and

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  protect it. So I want to, if I got this job, I want to hire more people underneath me. I want to get more money from the government to make my job bigger. Yeah. And you multiply that times hundreds of thousands of government people. Yeah. And yeah, of course, when an administration comes in and is like, well, we're actually going to do away with some of your budget. What are they going to do? They're going to be pissed and they're going to resist. Yeah. And so, so that's what the fight is there. At least a lot of that fight, I think, from the people that are in DC right now that are part of this administration that have a vision of what would be better for the country. And they're trying to execute that vision. But there's some

• 1:49:13Jocko Willink?

  unelected bureaucrat that's like, well, you know, we can't quite do that. Or did your computer go down again? Sorry about that. Oh, your email's not working? Sorry about that. Oh, we, we didn't get that part done. And they're just holding their breath and hopefully they can create enough chaos and mayhem in the next three years that they get someone that's more supportive of a bigger federal government and they can hold on to their job longer.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, it would just drive me insane because I feel like there's, there's people who, like I said, they're pretending and they, they're saying they want to help and like, this is amazing. But what do they do? Are they really, do they really want a change? Because it doesn't seem like it.

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  What, so is that the feeling that you got up there from everybody?

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  It sounded, I mean, it sounded good. It all sounded good. But it's like, you know, if you look at like the ingredients of food in America compared to these other countries, you've seen those lists, right? So they're putting these fillers in this cheaper shit so they can make more money in our diets. And they make sick people. They make overweight kids who need.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  Who aren't accomplishing much. They're just going to be kind of consumers and they have, you know, they're on these drugs. So they're they're getting prescription drugs all the time. All that whole system's making money. They're dependent on doctors and healthcare. So they're not like changing the world because they don't. They don't want people changing the world. They want people like conforming and, you know, they can make money. So it's like I I'm like, do these fuckers really care? Or do they just kind of like how it works now? This is a machine, right? And we're, we're just like part of the machine.

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  And I want to believe.

• 1:50:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  That they care.

• 1:50:53Jocko Willink?

  We're like the fuel in the machine that keeps the machine turning because we're the ones that are getting made sick and getting.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:59Jocko Willink?

  All the stuff.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I, I mean, I want to believe and I want it, but then I'm like, why would the FDA give a fuck? They they haven't cared until now. Now they're at this Maha thing saying, yeah, we want to be part of this. Do you?

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  I'm not convinced.

• 1:51:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What kind of, what kind of those people, what kind of relationships do they have with the big pharmaceutical companies?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:24Jocko Willink?

  Those other things.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:51:26Jocko Willink?

  Actually, Rogan just had Cash Patel on.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  It was like, I saw it pop up as I rolled in here today. Want to go listen to that.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  Me too. I saw that. But it's like.

• 1:51:37Jocko Willink?

  I wonder when they recorded that. I wonder if they recorded it before the Elon, Elon Trump thing just popped off like, was that today? That was today, yesterday.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Or yesterday.

• 1:51:49Jocko Willink?

  Yesterday it popped off. Yeah.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I don't know.

• 1:51:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if they recorded that before or after.

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  It's just, yeah, it's just nuts. It's like, it's a whole different world. You go back there. I mean, we were walking back from like dinner. I was with that Brigham, you know Brigham from Ways to Well.

• 1:52:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Anyway, we're walking back and I'm like, I'm like, God dang, what is that building? He's like, that's our hotel. It's like, it's so much money in this building. It's like called the, it starts with a W. I can't remember. It was like this a thousand dollars a night, right? And then you go in there and like all these politicians are down there in the lobby. And I just like think they're like going and putting on the show like, you know, scolding these people, you know, like the confirmation hearings, right? And I talked to, it's like such. That'd be the worst thing about trying to make a difference in one of those positions like with Tulsi or Doug Collins or, you know, Pete. It's like all this shit you're gonna have to listen to about in this.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  They're just wanna make you say, and then, oh yeah, then you're confirmed. It's like, could we have just skipped all that where he tried to ruin my life?

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  Remember that part?

• 1:52:59Jocko Willink?

  And you, you, yeah, you ruined my life and humiliate America in front of the world.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  What are we doing? That's what, I mean, it would be amazing, cause even like I, I campaigned for Trump in 2020. I went with Don Jr. And Ted Nugent, we did like some campaign stops. I got so much hate, but I was like,

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  you know, if this could make a difference and like it could impact the country, then it's like, as you said, it's kind of my duty. You know, it's like, what else is there? It's, you know, do something for our country. It's like, what can make a positive difference for America? But man, then you're like, fuck, is it worth it? Holy shit.

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then on like a personal level for those people, when they step into those positions, like you said, like for, for Tulsi, to sit down in that chair and just be ridiculed and attacked and your personal life picture apart. And that's what, that's what you're volunteering for. You know, like, oh, that's what you're gonna get. Like, oh, you're gonna have to, like, she lives in Hawaii, bro. If I lived in Hawaii and I was Tulsi and they asked me to move to Washington DC, I'd be like, fuck you. I'm gonna be over here. But, you know, she's a patriot, you know, and

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  She is. She wants to make a difference.

• 1:54:17Jocko Willink?

  She wants to help.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  And you can see how challenging it is to have this total misalignment and to have people just would rather, would rather like throw the game.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  Then have, you know, the, the, the star get some points.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  But you don't know that they're throwing it, cause they're doing it behind the scenes. So you, they're saying they're on your side while they're sabotaging you.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  And you know, and then even like I go, she's like, could you come talk to my like, security team? All the they, you know, like she said, their fans or whatever, all the best people, all the, the fucking. It's mostly all guys. There's one, I think one woman, but the, you know, patriots just fucking putting to protect her.

• 1:55:09Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  The best people. And it's like, so there's like those type of people. And then there's the dirty politician types, then you got people who want to make a day. And I'm like, and then you think, okay, well now we got, right now the Republicans have everything. Probably going to lose the house or some fucking thing. So then the next two years after that will be trying to impeach Trump.

• 1:55:31Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  No work will be getting done because they'll be trying to impeach him the whole time. So when is any work getting done? The first two years are trying to figure out who's on your side or who's trying to sabotage you. And then you're dealing with a bunch of BS and I'm just like, oh my God, this is our fucking country. It's how it runs. It's crazy.

• 1:55:50Jocko Willink?

  It's so dysfunctional and it's because, it's because the nature of, of bureaucratic elements is they try and grow themselves. They try, they just are going to try and grow themselves. And when someone comes in to try and take away their growth, they just try and attack it and kill it. That's, it's like that little thing that I said of like, oh, if I got hired to run freaking, uh,

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  the street repair in my town. Cool. The normal person goes, you know what? In order to do the street repair, I need more money and need to hire two people. And when they're like, well, do you really need to, oh, do you want this freaking streets fixed or not? And then, by the way, when I hired two people, those two people are like, well, you know, I also need another person. We need a little more money and that's what happened. And you just multiply that time, every freaking type of government organization. And you look up in whatever 200 and however many years old this country is. And every little element has grown. I mean, wasn't it crazy the board, the, the Department of Education, right?

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  And and they got created by Jimmy Carter or something like that.

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:00Jocko Willink?

  And since then, every, every aspect of our education has gone down. Like, we test worse, we have worse reading levels, everything is worse. Be when that, when that, since that organization got created. But that organization was, it wasn't just like a little organization, it was freaking huge and it grew over time. And just apply that across the board. And then, when those people get threatened, what do they do? They do what you said, because they're politicians and they're little snakes, right? And so they don't, they don't come out and say, hey, I don't, I don't think this is a good idea. Here's what we're gonna lose. No, they go, oh, yeah. Okay, and then they hide and they freaking bite people in the back and stab them in the back. And that's what's going on. It's really disgusting.

• 1:57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I do like that Trump has got people in who weren't like this career politician type, like, you know, like Pete, you know, I think he was on TV or something like that.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:49Speaker 01

  Um, so, because once you pull people, if that's all they know, it's gonna be really hard to. I'm sure there's some good ones.

• 1:57:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I think Trump, with the space or whatever, with the lost election in 2020.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  When he came back in 2024, he's like, oh, yeah, I learned it the first time. Because the first time he went in, he did get fairly decent amount of bureaucrats that were kind of standard DC people.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:16Jocko Willink?

  Thinking that, okay, well, you know what, this guy's got some experience, I'll bring him in here. And those people were not.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was firing people like every day.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  I remember that. Yeah, it was just, I don't know, I wanna believe, I wanna believe that good people can make a difference. I love Tulsi, Doug Collins is like, you know, I listen, I love what he says. And he says, but he says he has 400,000 people working for him. I'm like, 400,000?

• 1:58:46Jocko Willink?

  That's rough, yeah.

• 1:58:48Speaker 01

  Where would you start?

• 1:58:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, especially when, when, whatever percentage of it, of those people, of those 400,000, right? Even if it's 10%, even if it's just 10% of those people that are trying to jam up your changes that you're trying to make. 40,000 people are trying to, hey, I don't think we should switch to this new, more efficient computer system. So I'm just gonna freaking unplug the computer today.

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:13Jocko Willink?

  And that's what they're doing.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  I know. Yeah. And then, you know, cause I sat on a plane with the guy and he had a, he was a marine. I didn't know what he was, but his dog said marine service, something like that. And I never know if these guys, you know, want to talk. I don't want to, I don't want to bother people. So I just waited and we landed and I just, you know, said, I'd, hey, brother, I just want to tell you, thank you for your service, what you've done for our country. And, um, you know, he just said that he's had like 13 or 14 friends that have killed themselves and like he, uh, you know, he buys his own insurance because the VA, he can't, he can't get any help at the VA.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  So he pays for his own regular health insurance. And I'm just like, I mean,

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  We're failing, yeah.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just, I, I don't know. I mean, and I told Doug that too. And it's, where do you start? You know, because, and I, I told, I think, I think Doug was on with Sean Ryan and they're talking about like, Sean Ryan had this guy, or I mean, this woman that they would call that could get things done at the VA, I think, or something. And, but they had to go through her to like, and I'm like, so one person, there's one person that's actually going to get shit done. You have to call this one woman to make something happen? It's like, what?

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  How, how is that?

• 2:00:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 2:00:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I think another thing that they're running into is when you go in and you try and make sweeping changes because some, because things are bad. You're going to cause collateral damage. Like you're going to, like, if I was to, if you had freaking mold in your house, I would come in and I would like wreck part of your house that didn't need to get, or if you needed surgery on your knee, I had to cut your skin and pull back, you know, some of your muscle and I'd like hit some of that muscle and like, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna get some collateral damage.

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:11Jocko Willink?

  And if you, if you wanna make change, you gotta accept the fact that there's gonna be collateral damage. And if the other side, when there's a bit of collateral damage goes, you cut my husband's leg, you know, well, it's trying to fix his knee. I don't care. You're, you're, you, you made him bleed. Yeah, you mutilated him. It's like, well, okay, you can see where we're gonna go with this. We're not gonna get very far. It's just, it's tough. And I mean, Trump is a bull in a china shop. And you kind of realize why he's a bull in a china shop, because he's trying to make changes. And when it's not happening, shit gets knocked over.

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the only thing that I, I learned is just when back, being back there just for that. And I don't know shit about anything. But man, it seemed like almost unwinnable.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  How long were you there for?

• 2:02:04Jocko Willink?

  Like a couple of days?

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple of days. I, I just went to the, the Maha thing where, you know, Trump and kind of had this committee to speak. And then the next day I went to Tulsi's, she's, she was out there, her offices, one of them is just not in DC. But, uh, yeah, so just spent, and then I was going around with Tim, Tim knows DC, like, you know, back of his hand. And, um, you know, met Pete, Pete and, and Doug Collins signed this thing memorandum of understanding, working together, the VA and Secretary of Defense type thing, which is good. And it's had, I guess, had never been done before. So even just stuff like that.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  Freaking crazy to think about, right?

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Nuts.

• 2:02:43Jocko Willink?

  Like, oh, we have the, the Defense Department is not working with the VA?

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:47Jocko Willink?

  Are you freaking crazy?

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they, I mean, yeah, it's, it's nuts that it hasn't happened, but they're trying. So I do think they are trying, and I believe that they have the best, the country's best interests in mind. But it's just like, how do you win this thing?

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  It's weird too, even in the military, you know, people think like, oh, well, everyone in the military is on board with whatever the chain of command says, but they're not. And there's, there's bureaucrats in the military. The military also has its own, uh, unelected bureaucrats. So like at the, at the Pentagon, there's people that have been at the Pentagon for 40 years. And, and they like, you know, you're an officer, you're an admiral or a general and you show up, but you're coming into work and now you're going to be in charge of the office that I'm in, but I've been here for 28 years. And you're going to be here for 18 months. Bro, I'm gonna, before you even, it's going to take you six months to figure out what the fuck is going on.

• 2:03:52Jocko Willink?

  And in that time, by the way, I said everything because I kind of got a read on your personality. I was like, oh, this guy likes this type of weapon system, but we don't want that. So here's what I'm doing to sack these reports and like, you show up and you're gone and it didn't even matter to me. And I'm still pressing forward with my agenda. And so it's not just the federal government, but the, the DOD. So Hagseth has got to deal with that. Inside the, what they call, they call the Pentagon, the building. That's what he's got to deal with in the building, all these, and some of them I'm sure are on board. Cause you got, of course you got warfighters in the Pentagon. Of course you got a percentage of them. But you also have a percentage of negativity.

• 2:04:35Jocko Willink?

  And what is easier in the world to build or to break? Bro, I can, I can, yeah, breaking shit is so easy to sabotage shit is so easy. You know, you can, a child can demo of a house. And you know, it takes a craftsman to build one. With education and knowledge and time and, and a, a 15 year old boy. No, three 15 year old boys can destroy a house in like, like two hours, totally destroyed. But it takes, you know, eight months to build a house. And so when you got it, when you're an unelected bureaucrat and you don't like what's happening, fucking throw a grenade in the room. You know, throw a wrench in the system and it gets, just gets derailed.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  And so I think there's a lot of that happening and I don't think it's happening for any good reason. I think that, you know, you could have, you could, there could be some government official that comes in that's trying to do something nefarious and you're like, dude, I gotta do what I can to stop this. Okay. That, that could be, but I don't think that's what's going on. I don't see Pete Hegseth with some anti-American plan where he's trying to hurt the troops. Like, I don't, obviously, I don't see that. Yeah. So what are they against? What are they trying to stop? It's, it's very bizarre to look at from the outside. And now that you've seen it from the inside, it sounds like it's even more bizarre.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  It's just, it's frustrating. It's like, you want to believe that we're better than that. You know, you want to believe that it's, it's, we always say we're the greatest country in the world. And then I just want that confirmed. And I go back there and I'm just like, God.

• 2:06:13Jocko Willink?

  Disconfirmed. And part of it, there's, there is a reason for like, the things should be hard to move, right? You, you want a government that can be flipped on its head every four years. And now we're doing something radically different. That's where we have checks and balances. That's where we have the, the different parts of the government. That's why we do have those bureaucrats that are in there. Some of them, it's like, oh yeah, you need some level of continuity in the system. But it's now to the point where the bureaucrats have more control than the people that are elected and, and appointed into those positions by our elected officials. So who, why are they there? Yeah. Like, what is happening? So?

• 2:06:56Speaker 01

  The biggest thing that I liked that I saw was Tulsi, Doug, Pete, veterans, or still serving, you know, reserves. So to me, that feels like a win. Cause I feel like that gives, that's just an advantage. You get people who've served our country. It's just gotta be better than somebody who's just went to school and, you know, whatever, just wanted to be a politician.

• 2:07:19Jocko Willink?

  And I was at a soccer game the other day and for the national anthem, they, instead of having a person go out there and sing it, they put the words up on the screen, screen, like the big teletron screen, and everyone sang it together.

• 2:07:38Jocko Willink?

  And it sounded good.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:41Jocko Willink?

  Because even though there's some people that are a little off, you know, they don't know how to sing too well, but the majority of people, they figure out how to hit the note and it all sounded good. And I was like, that's kind of surprised.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:51Jocko Willink?

  And right now, it's, it's interesting. The reason I bring that up is because right now, like, oh, recruiting is up right now for the military. Right? So regardless of everyone that say, oh, this is terrible. It's like, oh, but the general feedback from the nation and from the people that are actually willing to step up and serve is, oh, we're, we'll, we'll join up now.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  We buy in.

• 2:08:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we buy in. We're, you're hitting the right notes.

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:15Jocko Willink?

  And we like it.

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's a litmus test. That, that should be the most important litmus test to me. Is like, that's more of the mood of the country right there. Our volunteer army. That says it all because that's people who weigh in on people who say, hey, I might join the military. You got all these people weighing in why you shouldn't, or why it's bad, or whatever. So apparently that's not happening as much because there, so that should be like, that, that's the health of the country.

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  It is a certainly a very good indicator.

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  When people want to join and serve the military as opposed to having the worst recruiting. For the last like three years prior has been terrible recruiting, like the numbers. And I, I know some of the numbers, I know some of the numbers in, in, in special operations. And you know, you always think like, oh, every teenage boy wants to go in special operations. Well, it's been down.

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:09:13Jocko Willink?

  It's been down. Like, you, you know, it used to be thousands of people are trying to get into special operations and there's, oh, you're only going to get this many selected. Well, now there's this many getting selected, but there's not that many, not as many leftovers there used to be.

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause people didn't want to join.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember Eddie Gallagher said that Obama had this thing where he wanted, I think it was like 500 more seals or something like that. And it's like, I remember Eddie was saying, you can't just make more seals.

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  Like you have the standard and however many you get, you get, you can't just say you want 500 more. Cause if they can't do it, they can't do it. If you lower the standard to get your 500 more, then you're not getting seals.

• 2:09:59Jocko Willink?

  That is, yeah, that's the, that's a huge fear in, in any special operations, but definitely in the SEAL teams. Is that they lower the standards for any reason.

• 2:10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:12Jocko Willink?

  Because the standards are there for a reason.

• 2:10:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:10:15Jocko Willink?

  They are there for a reason and

• 2:10:19Jocko Willink?

  they should never lower those standards. They should never lower those standards. They're there for a reason and they're proven. Like you, you know what, you, I can tell you this, I went through SEAL training and when you are with a guy that went through SEAL training, there is like a baseline of

• 2:10:37Jocko Willink?

  they are going to be with you when you need them.

• 2:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:41Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. And that training is hard and it's there for a reason. And, uh, but it seems like, you know, what Hegseth is doing, like they're raising the bar on the, some of these standards.

• 2:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  So hopefully we get to see that because

• 2:11:01Jocko Willink?

  warfighting sucks.

• 2:11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, it, it's hard and it's physically hard, very physically hard. Now, one thing that I, I always wish that Trump did or Biden did. I wish that one of, when they made Space Force, I wish they would have made a like cyber force, like recruiting people that are computer nerds.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:26Jocko Willink?

  To nerd out and get cyber warfare ready. And now what I hope that Space Force becomes is drone force. Because What's happening in Ukraine right now with the drones and what China's preparing for drones? Like drone warfare is going to be a huge part that we're going to need to contend with. And we're going to need to be proactive on. And one thing that sucks about our military and our government is here's a freaking word that you have to learn when you're an officer in the military is procurement, which means like getting weapon systems.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  Buying it.

• 2:12:07Jocko Willink?

  And it is such a long cycle in America to buy a weapon system. It takes years in some cases, like to get a new rifle and it's got to go through all these tests and they gotta put it out for bid. And then, once they bid, they build it and it doesn't work the way we wanted it to. So we put it out for bid, it takes like decades, decades.

• 2:12:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:12:24Jocko Willink?

  To get a new weapon system. Well, if we take decades to get drones, and by the time we get the drones, because it took decades, they aren't worth a shit because the technology's so much better now, we gotta get like decentralized, decentralized procurement where people are able to just go out and make things and build things and buy them off the shelf and modify them and give the money to guys so they can make that happen. Otherwise, it's going to be, we're going to fall behind.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:49Jocko Willink?

  And we, we're, we keep, we can't afford, obviously can't afford to have our military fall behind the times.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  What's happening.

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  I know, that's what, that's what's scary. Yeah.

• 2:13:02Speaker 01

  That's not undeniable.

• 2:13:03Jocko Willink?

  That is, that is undeniable truth is that that would be freaking scary.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:09Jocko Willink?

  Um, bow hunting is a discipline that will humble you. You have to be prepared to hike up any mountain in any weather or any storm. You hunt animals that are used to being hunted every single day. So they're dialed in. Getting into bow range in the red zone is difficult. You have to be patient, you have to be quiet, you have to battle being alone. You basically have a sharp stick and you have one chance to make a perfect shot. And then you see these majestic mythical creatures and you have to be calm and steady. Don't start bow hunting unless you can deal with failure. It will humble you no matter how good you think you are. That is why you need to practice and prepare for it. There are many things, there are many things you need to do.

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  But there's also a trait you have to embrace in order to be successful, not just as a bow hunter, but in life. And that trait is discipline.

• 2:14:00Speaker 01

  Discipline equals something.

• 2:14:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I hear. The discipline thing, yeah, the discipline is a, is a key component of success in anything. Natalie Eva Marie. She's a stud.

• 2:14:17Speaker 01

  She is. WWE. Supposed to do her podcast this week, too.

• 2:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Damn it. Sorry, Eva.

• 2:14:23Speaker 01

  I know, God.

• 2:14:27Jocko Willink?

  She's like a soccer player, total athlete, played in college.

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Smoke show.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and she, but after that was over, she started drinking, like alcoholic type scenario, drunk driving accident, goes into AA, goes into rehab.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  You pick up the story here, Natalie called back her sponsor with her tail between her legs and asked to be taken back and her sponsor did. That's when her life got amazing. Natalie told me she signed a contract with the WWE and began training for a sport she'd never done. She also starred in the long running TV reality show Total Divas. It was all by the discipline of working a 12 step program and keeping her priorities in the right place. For her, it comes down to living day by day, making meetings, working out and eating as clean as you can. Once you actually make that choice and get sober and do the deal, you gotta put the work in, Natalie explained. It's actionable steps on a daily basis. You can have a life beyond your wildest dreams. Sitting here with Cameron

• 2:15:32Jocko Willink?

  Hanes, a life beyond my wildest dreams. That's what it's all about. And it's a testament to doing the program. In March of this year, I'll have, God willing, 10 years of sobriety. It's been a journey. And you got a couple of stories in here. Your younger brother. This is, is this, this like section is basically about like addiction.

• 2:15:54Speaker 01

  Substance.

• 2:15:54Jocko Willink?

  Substance.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I did have somebody, a guy I used to work with, and he struggled.

• 2:16:02Speaker 01

  With, yeah, substance abuse, but he said that this book was, it's hard getting a book that really speaks to people that struggle with that. And he said, this book does a better job than any book he's ever read. So I don't know if it was their stories or lessons they've learned, or what I, or my personal experience, but whatever it is, it feels like we spoke to those people. So.

• 2:16:29Jocko Willink?

  Was there anything in particular that he laid out or not really? He just said it landed?

• 2:16:33Speaker 01

  He just said it landed. He just said, yeah, it was, yeah, it was the best he's read on the subject, basically.

• 2:16:38Jocko Willink?

  And your brother Taylor, he's your half brother, is that right?

• 2:16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:41Jocko Willink?

  And he was just freaking kind of going down the downward spiral.

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, pills and drinking. He back, you know, had back surgery, stuff like that. So you know, when you can't move and you get depressed, you get overweight. It's like that whole thing.

• 2:16:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's that, that little path of surgery and then the opioid prescription, that, that, that grabbed a lot of military guys where, yeah, they just get addicted to the painkillers and it's a downward spiral.

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Um, but Taylor got into, uh, got into ultra.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a freaking beast. Yeah, he just got, he did a, right before I did Cogadona, he did the Arizona Monster 300. He got second, 300 miles.

• 2:17:24Jocko Willink?

  Damn dude.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a freak.

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Um, and then you got another person was, uh, was freaking Jelly Roll.

• 2:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love Jelly Roll. What a story.

• 2:17:40Jocko Willink?

  Crazy dude. The dude was in prison.

• 2:17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like year. I mean, I don't know how many birthdays he was in prison. And, uh, yeah, he got some girl pregnant. So he said the warden came or not, or the security guard or not, like whatever, whoever works there, correction officer came up and said, hey,

• 2:17:59Speaker 01

  you got a kid. And he's like, what's his name? I don't, he's like, I don't know. And he's just like, something like that. And he's just like, I gotta, I gotta make a change. And now fucking Grammy nominated, just out there just killing it. Lost 200 pounds now. He was 500.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  Four ninety seven.

• 2:18:20Jocko Willink?

  Is he gonna have to change his name to like Eclair or something like that?

• 2:18:24Speaker 01

  I don't know, or like, you know.

• 2:18:26Jocko Willink?

  Beef jerky?

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  Wheat bagel.

• 2:18:30Speaker 01

  But biggest heart dude, I mean, we, we went to the Oregon State Penitentiary and they hadn't had live music there. I think they had Stevie Ray Vaughan back in the day. What I heard is an inmate got killed at the concert.

• 2:18:44Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:18:45Speaker 01

  And so had been like 20 years or something like that. And I set up, I did a visit and I was just like, you know, I knew Jelly had been in jail and all that. And I'm like, hey, do you think, what if I could get Jelly Roll here? Do you think we could ever make that happen? And anyway, turned out, um, September of this year, he played Modus Center up in Portland. And the next day we went to OSP and I think that's where that picture was where we were walking. But yeah, just, it was crazy. He's, he's so good at speaking to the broken. Cause he was so broken. And so they, those guys, they don't want to hear somebody who

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  hasn't been through that shit. Cause what the fuck do you know? But he has, so he can, he can really, you know, and I, I got a lot of, I got some negative feedback because some of those guys, you know, I mean, I got an email, one of the guys in the pictures of that prison had raped, I think it was the younger brother of this guy who emailed me. And I'm just like, God, I mean, I, you know, there's some people maybe don't deserve grace, but it feels like they're still human. We still have to, they're still humans. They're

• 2:20:08Speaker 01

  still, I don't know. So it's like, it's hard knowing, it feels like you're doing the right thing, but then like to victims, I do understand that part too.

• 2:20:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that makes sense. And, um,

• 2:20:22Jocko Willink?

  Man. Yeah, it's weird cuz like I'm a very forgiving person like I said cuz to me everyone's just a scorpion and they're gonna do what scorpions.

• 2:20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:32Jocko Willink?

  Person's gonna do what they do. But then when you do something where there's like a victim who is gonna be changed forever by your, by a person's actions and yeah, there's a difficult to forgive and that's why they have prison.

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:47Jocko Willink?

  That's why you're going to prison.

• 2:20:48Speaker 01

  I just, I just, I just know that for that moment when Jelly Roll was there talking and playing for him, they probably forgot they were there for a little while. And it's just like, how often, how often does that happen? They're reminded of that shit all day, every day for some of them their whole life. You're locked up, you are an animal. So a little reprieve on that day, it felt good, but then I would also hear the other side and I was just like, fuck, so.

• 2:21:23Jocko Willink?

  This dude can ride out.

• 2:21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:25Jocko Willink?

  World's best marathoner over fifty. This is another dude. He's like.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, stockbroker on pills.

• 2:21:31Jocko Willink?

  Just, just doing good stuff in the world and then loses, loses the, the, uh, battle to the, to the chemicals, man.

• 2:21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And he said he was just like really good. He'd go to these mom and pop, like when you could kind of forge, um, prescriptions and just could get as many pills as he wanted, just like forging prescriptions. And he was like, you know, making bank, but when he got sober, I remember, I don't know if I put, I can't remember if I put it in there, but I remember talking to him about it. He was worried that his wife wouldn't even know he was cuz she had never seen him sober. For years, he had been high, the, taking a pill the whole time. And so he's just like, she doesn't even fucking know me.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Crazy.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  You say this, I, I, I ask, I ask Chris Williamson, another person who I put in this category, are they influenced by people who are not disciplined? Well, think about it this way, Chris answered, do you think that the most successful people in the world became successful and then got disciplined? Or do you think that they became disciplined and then got successful? And you say, I obviously agreed with the la- latter. And then you say this, this chapter isn't about me standing on a soapbox or preaching from a pulpit. Look, I've been there. I understand what it's like to self sabotage. As I've said, for me, alcohol was not helping in any of the things I cared about. I wanted to be more fit. I wanted to be more disciplined. I wanted to be the best bow hunter and the best athlete I could be, yet alcohol was always a step backwards on all those things. I wouldn't be who I am if I kept drinking.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  That's how powerful it is. That's how powerful of a drug it is. Yet it's society, societally acceptable drug. Most people don't truly understand the poison that it is. I had a buddy that was like, uh, he did everything. Drinking, crack, heroin, LSD. And he's, he ended up going to prison. And when he got out of prison, I was talking to him and he's like, yeah, I got arrested three times, all on alcohol. He goes, I never got arrested on crack. I never got arrested on coke. I never got arrested on heroin. He goes, and I can't do, uh, those things are totally legal, but I can go down to the seven 11 and buy booze and it makes me fucking crazy.

• 2:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Of all those things, it's alcohol that makes him crazy. I, I, when we started this podcast, it was like 10 years ago.

• 2:24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:00Jocko Willink?

  And I'd be like talking about drinking like, yeah, you know, you don't want to drink too much. And it's like, you know, but there's bonding that happens and, and now I'm just like, no, there's nothing good. I have nothing good to say about alcohol anymore. Don't do it. That's, that's where I've arrived.

• 2:24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:15Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like you're there too.

• 2:24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And did you know Joe's not drinking anymore?

• 2:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I heard.

• 2:24:19Speaker 01

  Pretty sick.

• 2:24:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:20Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just, if, if, I guess of people, there's some people who are fine with it. And that's, you know, whatever. That's not me. And that's not, you know, your friend or people we've talked about there. But yeah, it's, it's so weird how accessible it is and how, you know, dangerous it is really, just. Changes people.

• 2:24:40Jocko Willink?

  People are drinking less too. Like drinking is becoming less popular. I'm glad I don't have a freaking alcohol company. Because if I did, I'd be like, I'd be looking to get out of it.

• 2:24:51Speaker 01

  Sorry, Kip.

• 2:24:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sorry, Kip. Other than, other than big trucks, right?

• 2:24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, alcohol is tough, man. Like, it's, it's, it's a fading thing.

• 2:25:03Jocko Willink?

  Like, I, I see even in, in the SEAL teams, which had a culture of alcohol.

• 2:25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:10Jocko Willink?

  Like, we drank all the time. And it's definitely not what it was. And there's a lot more SEALs that don't even drink anymore.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:19Jocko Willink?

  And so I think we're heading in the right, in the right direction there.

• 2:25:25Jocko Willink?

  Stop drinking if you're drinking. Doesn't do you any good. Uh, Michael Waddell.

• 2:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:31Jocko Willink?

  From the backwoods of Booger Bottom, Georgia.

• 2:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  That's for real, huh?

• 2:25:38Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:25:39Jocko Willink?

  Or is he just pulling your leg?

• 2:25:41Speaker 01

  He's always said he's from Booger Bottom. I don't know if that's like a joke reference, but I like it. He's just a good old boy.

• 2:25:50Jocko Willink?

  Normally I do, like, if there's something I don't know, I, I research it.

• 2:25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:54Jocko Willink?

  I missed this. I was like, as soon as I was like, wait, that, could that not be real? Huh?

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  Uh, if it gobbles, quacks, bugles, grunts, chances are I've chased it more than a time or two. So you got a, a freaking, another hunting, he became, 2008, Waddell became the co-host on one of the Outdoor Channel's highest rated shows, Bone Collector. He also started a company with the same name that was dedicated to standing up for the hunting culture. Since then, he's become one of the most recognized and beloved ambassadors for the hunting industry. And what I like about what he says is, if you can't bet on yourself, who the hell are you gonna bet on? I love that quote from Waddell. Every single outlier I've met has bet on himself time and time again in his life.

• 2:26:39Jocko Willink?

  It comes back to what I said at the start of this chapter. Just because you believe you will find success doesn't mean you deserve it. And then speaking of Kip, you talk about Kip in here and it's funny, Kip, I just reposted something on Instagram. Cause Kip like put something out like, hey, I tried this thing and it did work.

• 2:26:59Speaker 01

  Method and mindset.

• 2:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He's like, I misjudged the people and it didn't work. And it was like, I reposted, I was like, take the shot. Cause he's holding an arrow. He's like, hey, you gotta take the shot.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:10Jocko Willink?

  And it's true. Like you gotta take the shot and he took the shot. He had an idea. He went with it and like, oh, it didn't work. And now he's gonna move on to the next thing. And he's obviously, you know, he's one of the founders of Under Armour and he's like, if you get that shot in your life.

• 2:27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:25Jocko Willink?

  You can brag about that forever. You don't have to take another shot.

• 2:27:28Speaker 01

  But he does.

• 2:27:29Jocko Willink?

  He does. You know, that's what's badass about Kip is he's, he's really, he wants to do something. He goes out and he freaking makes it happen.

• 2:27:37Speaker 01

  He goes all in.

• 2:27:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like Alaska, like what he's gotten going on at Porsche Rack. Have you, have you been up there yet?

• 2:27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I killed a grizzly last year.

• 2:27:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that, that was there, but that was that when he had already bought it? Or was that just when he bought it?

• 2:27:48Speaker 01

  Just when he bought it. Yeah. I went up last August. Yeah. So we made a film.

• 2:27:56Jocko Willink?

  When you, yeah, that's the film.

• 2:27:58Speaker 01

  Redemption.

• 2:27:59Jocko Willink?

  Redemption.

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I commented on that post too. And I said, winners, what did, what did I say? Winners win even when they lose. Cause it's like, if you, he's learning, you know, he's, you know, he's learning from it. So he said he misjudged and that'll impact his next decision. And that's fine. That's how it works. You don't, not every, not everything is a home run.

• 2:28:23Jocko Willink?

  When you start writing about Kip in here. It sounds like there was you, you, I didn't know, and I don't know if you explain it or if I'm misreading it, but like you, did you guys have friction?

• 2:28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:36Jocko Willink?

  For real?

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:38Jocko Willink?

  It sounds like, uh, like two herd bulls kind of. Is that what you had?

• 2:28:42Speaker 01

  Well, I just, you know, hunting, just in general, there's way less hunters out west than there is in the south or back east. Like we're Booger Bottom, Georgia. So many fucking hunters. We have less people out west, less people hunt. Everybody kind of grows up that hunting culture out there. So consequently, the hunting market is way bigger out there. So I thought I was just badass. I was training. I was like, you know, killing these animals in the mounds and real, you know, soul testing hunts in the wilderness, right? It's like, and so in my head, I'm like, fuck these guys. They sit in a tree stand and they're getting all these opportunities. Like Michael was the biggest on TV.

• 2:29:25Speaker 01

  And so I was like, he was competition to me and I was pissed at him. I was pissed at everybody because I'm like, I'm fucking better than everyone, but I couldn't, so I would tell Under Armour, I want this, I want that. And they're just like, he's just like, who is this fucking guy? Cause he didn't know me and he's running a business, right? And, you know, if you look at the market share of what I do, it doesn't make sense to promote me unless now, that was kind of on the cusp of Western hunting got really cool then. Then it was just like, oh, well, this is something we could train for. We can be badass bow hunters. That's a thing? I didn't know that was a thing. So that kind of evolved from that.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  But the growing pains to get there. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't getting what I thought I deserved. And, um, so again, I always like having that chip.

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  I always thought that he, I thought that he was the guy that brought you on. I thought that he found you and he brought you on. So we didn't tell this part of the backstory, but Kip at Under Armour, he started like the outdoor, the hunt division.

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:30:35Jocko Willink?

  And so how did he end up like finding you?

• 2:30:40Speaker 01

  Um, no, I went to shot show and they had.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  You pointed out that they're freaking.

• 2:30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's Randy White. Randy White, he played for the Cowboys, big stud, you know, fucking veins everywhere. He had a Super Bowl ring on, he's holding his bow and the bow didn't have a rest on it. And I think it had even like the price tag still hanging on it or some fuck. And I was just like, giant picture of him. And I'm like, you know, that would be a lot more realistic if that bow was actually set up to shoot. So they did a shoot with me and Waddell. Waddell was kind of deciding on whether he wanted to sign with Under Armour. And like, I fucked that up too, because he called me and he's just like, he goes, we need to be on the same page. Like these Bass Tournament guys, they all know what the contracts are.

• 2:31:25Speaker 01

  They kind of work together for the market, this, that. And he goes, so, you know, whatever you're going to ask for Under Armour, we should be on the same page with it. And I was like, okay, yeah, sounds good. And I'm like, I'm not fucking telling him anything. I'm, I'm getting my own and because he was a bigger name than me, right? So I was just like, everybody, I hated everybody, everybody's competition. But Kip finally was just like, I think we went on a hunt, me, him and Roy. We went to, uh, well, we did a hunt giveaway in Quebec for caribou. And, uh, you know, we went up there and he made a poor shot on the caribou. And I was like, make kind of, I said, what is this fucking bow you're shooting?

• 2:32:07Speaker 01

  It's like, are those suction cup arrows? Cause it like hit this bull in the back of the knee and bounced off the arrow.

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  God.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, what, what is this? So he left that hunt, got an 80 pound Hoyt, heavy arrows, killed a giant bull right after that in Colorado with giant elk. But so I kinda, I think earned a little respect on that. Then we did a hunt with Roy in two thousand nine in the wilderness of Wyoming for elk. And so then he's just like, okay, this guy, whatever. I mean, just kinda started to know me and then we became friends and um yeah, just kinda developed.

• 2:32:45Jocko Willink?

  Was that his first Western hunting experience was with you?

• 2:32:49Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I think he'd done a couple others. Yeah.

• 2:32:52Jocko Willink?

  Right on. Yeah. And then you guys eventually um became bros.

• 2:32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's, he's, he's still always like, you know, he's like, I remember one time. So he's telling me, you know, you can't, you can't always just perform and make money. He goes, you gotta have some way to make money without, you know, without breaking your back or breaking your body or whatever. He goes, I'm gonna design six t-shirts for you. I'll have my guys do it here at Under Armour and then you can sell them. And so he did that. And then he's like one other than like little ways down the road. He's like, you need quit worrying about fucking t-shirts and just start. But I'm like, motherfucker, you told me to come. This was your idea. And now you're like scolding me for doing this. So there's always like, he always wants this, like, you do

• 2:33:40Speaker 01

  this, you do this. And it's like, it might contradict what he told you before. But he's passionate about whatever he's saying. So it's like, I don't, I don't give a fuck if people are wrong, but or varied, but just believe whatever you're saying. He always believes what he's saying. Always. So I'm like, fuck it.

• 2:34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:08Jocko Willink?

  Aaron Rodgers. We all know who Aaron Rodgers is. As I look back at my twenty, last twenty-two years of my life, playing the greatest moments of growth and learning experiences were associated with an ego death in some way or another. Aaron reflected. That's kind of an interesting term. And it's thrown around from time to time. It just means that the idea of who you think you are gets destroyed.

• 2:34:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, ego death. If there's anyone, I don't think there's anyone more qualified in the world to talk about armchair quarterback than freaking than Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, literally the guy that gets armchair quarterbacked.

• 2:34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He had, he had a rough one too, because Favre was a quarterback when he went to Green Bay. The fans loved Favre and he was like supposed to take his job. So that was, he went through a lot of shit because NFL is just like, everybody's got an opinion. It's like, have you even played football? I mean, and you're, you're, you think you know how he should have done some, you know, people are just crazy. Same with fighting.

• 2:35:12Jocko Willink?

  Same with everything.

• 2:35:13Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 2:35:14Jocko Willink?

  Everybody's an expert on everything.

• 2:35:16Speaker 01

  So, yeah, he's went through a lot and he'd, he gets criticized so much because he is pretty outspoken and then he kind of seems kind of aloof. I think some people think he, you know, because he's just so relaxed, but he is such a good quarterback.

• 2:35:32Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's amazing.

• 2:35:34Jocko Willink?

  Uh, speaking of athletes, Michael Chandler. Um, again, these are all guys that you had on your podcast and you do all the stuff with them. And so you get, you get, it's like, I think you mentioned this too in the book. It's like a little bit of truth serum. You make somebody carry a rock up a hill, you get to see what they're all about.

• 2:35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's, you can fake a lot when you're not suffering. When you're suffering, the truth comes out. So, yeah, channel, I, I just, I just love, you know, anytime you train with somebody and you kind of suffer, it's like, just makes that more of a bond than you can really get some good, you know, have good conversations.

• 2:36:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was, uh, he says, I was a walk-on at the University of Missouri, meaning I didn't have a scholarship, but I could essentially try out for a spot on the wrestling team. I was the hardest worker in the room, coach's favorite wrestler, team captain. I did every single thing right. God blessed me with some amazing abilities. I could have been a multiple time All-American, maybe even national champion, who knows, but I didn't give myself permission to win. Fast forward a little bit, I'm still battling that guy Chandler admitted and that's okay to continue to battle him and never slam. And you say, I noted that Chandler's done a good job embracing that mentality, especially since when he's wearing a sweatshirt that says, walk on. It's almost as if he's challenging that mindset every day.

• 2:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, the fight game, I mean, I still remember his fight with Olivera and he had him fucking hurt. Olivera is like trying to get his head away. Chandler's like, needed to land one more shot, probably one. One punch needed to land and he's champion. Then he comes out in the second round and gets knocked out.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:37:16Speaker 01

  Fucking had Olivera right there. I, that would be so hard to deal with as a fighter. You train your whole life. He went through so, all that experience of the walk on not giving his, himself permission, having Olivera on the cusp of KO. And being UFC champion and still has never been back. Never got that, still hasn't won that.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  You know who Chael Sonnen is?

• 2:37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:45Jocko Willink?

  Chael Sonnen was beating, dominating.

• 2:37:49Speaker 01

  Anderson.

• 2:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Anderson. For four minutes and something like four minutes or for what, 24 minutes or 23 minutes?

• 2:37:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  Deep into the fourth round.

• 2:38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:02Jocko Willink?

  And I was watching, yeah, deep into the fifth round. It's almost over, like total, just total domination. I was watching the fight with Dean.

• 2:38:10Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 2:38:11Jocko Willink?

  And Dean, traitor, is rooting for Anderson Silva, which he, I didn't realize until like at, towards the end.

• 2:38:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  And Dean is like, oh, he's, he's setting up a triangle. And I'm like, he's not going to fall for a triangle. And, and sure enough, got triangled. That was horrific to watch.

• 2:38:33Speaker 01

  Oh, well, and he talks about he like promised his dad or like, he's going to win one for his dad.

• 2:38:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:38:41Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 2:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then when he fought, I was at the fight when he fought Anderson again in Vegas and he got like, got knocked out.

• 2:38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:51Jocko Willink?

  It was just, but yeah, it's amazing how you can be so close. You can be moments from winning. Like Chandler was seconds, you know, just had to land, like you said, one more punch. And it's, and you, and you get to be the world champion forever.

• 2:39:08Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 2:39:09Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're the world champion forever. And then it doesn't happen.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  Oh my, I mean, I.

• 2:39:15Jocko Willink?

  It's a rough freaking game.

• 2:39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, you know, it's like, I was, I had, not the same, but I was working so hard to get a bear kill. And I had that, I hadn't killed one yet. So that first giant came in and I thought I screwed up because I drew, drew back. He was like, maybe 16 yards away. A little tiny little branch off this tree. I had this ground blind. I come to full draw, my elbow hit this little branch and it went. All I did was that bear just getting ready to shoot and he's just like, heard that? Gone. And I'm just like, oh my God, I've been here nine days. Hours in the rain, my elbow.

• 2:40:03Speaker 01

  And thank God. And I'm just like, I'm sitting there and I'm like,

• 2:40:09Speaker 01

  about 10 minutes later, the sow was still at the bait. 10 minutes later, here he comes back and I'm just like, okay. He's not getting fucking out of here without an arrow. So then he turned to leave again and I was like, I stopped him, whack, smoked him. But that little, a little, that could have been everything.

• 2:40:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:27Speaker 01

  It reminds me of one more punch. It's just like, it's a little, you could do 99.9% of it right. You have to do it all right.

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  And that's, those are the things in life. Like if there's things in life that you can give a half ass effort and it still works out, those don't fucking matter. You can convince yourself those matter. They don't matter. It's where you have to do everything right for it to, to get, for you to get what you want. That's when it matters. And that's what.

• 2:40:56Speaker 01

  You know, that's hard to achieve. It's like hard to get those type of things, but that's what makes them so special.

• 2:41:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:03Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna be hard if they're worth doing. Katie Knight, ultra marathoner, world toughest mudder champion, beast in the gym. You say, I asked her if she trains daily. Every day, twice a day, six days a week. Sunday is completely off, rest day. I walk the dog.

• 2:41:21Jocko Willink?

  This is why I had to pull out this quote. I was born, bred and corn fed in Iowa with that hardworking mentality. Those people there, that's what they do all day. I grew up like that. Grew up in sports. There's no excuses. You work hard and you get it done.

• 2:41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's a beast. She's a stud. She played hockey. She's like did all this shit, but just a freak. And I took her on her first deer hunt this year.

• 2:41:46Jocko Willink?

  And she killed, right? Did she have a good time? Is she addicted?

• 2:41:52Speaker 01

  I think so. You know, killing an animal is,

• 2:41:56Speaker 01

  you know, right when it dies, it's like,

• 2:42:02Speaker 01

  it's a, there's a lot of emotion, but, you know, I think she felt good. Once we got the meat off and I sent the meat, you know, to after she went home. And so that always feels like a reward when you're eating what you killed, but that moment for new hunters always.

• 2:42:18Jocko Willink?

  Was it a little bit of a, little bit of a stress for her? Or just like mixed emotions?

• 2:42:23Speaker 01

  She made a, yeah, she made a perfect shot. I mean, I had the gun set up on sticks and she made a, she's a good shot because she's done like the SIG, whatever those hunter games and all that shit. So she can shoot, but it just dropped and then it was like kind of twitching a little bit. And she's like, you know, asked if he is suffering. I said, no, he's, he's gone. So it's just that, that moment, but she did great. She's a stud.

• 2:42:48Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of studs, UFC legend Cowboy Saroni, Donald Cowboy Saroni. Pretty wild because you know, you, you point out in here, he kind of grew up like his, wealthy family, but even the wealthy family, they had like a hard work ethic and they were working their asses off as doctors in, you know, just slaving away. It's hard work.

• 2:43:12Jocko Willink?

  Cowboy's grandmother always told him that there were worse things in life than what might be happening to him on a bad day. And then he says, whenever we start a project, we do it and work hard. And my friends can't ever keep up with me. They actually hang out with me in shifts because they can't maintain the pace that I play at and have fun at. It's just my work ethic. I like it. The dude takes having fun as a freaking sport.

• 2:43:37Speaker 01

  That reminds me of, you know, how Khabib would have like, however, they do with like the five new guys come in every round type thing and just go through all of them. That's just like, I love that stuff.

• 2:43:48Jocko Willink?

  You've got to do that when you're doing a pro, you're building a fence and you've got to get people to work with you in shifts. You've got 20 minute rounds of work and.

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

  Cowboy is such a freaking good dude.

• 2:43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is.

• 2:44:00Jocko Willink?

  What's he, isn't he, what's he doing now? Is he like acting or something like that?

• 2:44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was in a, was he gonna come back and try to fight again? I thought I saw.

• 2:44:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, isn't he fighting for like a BMF belt?

• 2:44:12Speaker 01

  Oh, is he? I don't know.

• 2:44:13Jocko Willink?

  Again?

• 2:44:14Speaker 01

  I thought he wanted to get like 50 UFC fights. I think he was like two away or something, something, I don't know what.

• 2:44:21Jocko Willink?

  Let's go cowboy.

• 2:44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I'm, it's just, it's a tough, tough job for an aging fighter.

• 2:44:27Jocko Willink?

  And there's high consequences.

• 2:44:30Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:44:30Jocko Willink?

  Like getting, getting knocked out at, you know, that's not good for you.

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  And these kids coming up are fucking machines.

• 2:44:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a new, it's, it's, it's now you're getting people that have just trained for MMA, you know? They, they wrestled for MMA, they boxed for MMA, they did Muay Thai for MMA and they were homeschooled and they did MMA all day. Like, there's a generation coming for sure.

• 2:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:57Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, things are changing.

• 2:44:59Speaker 01

  There's some, I can't remember the kid's name. He's got like kind of big, black curly hair, young. I don't think I've ever seen him get hit.

• 2:45:10Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 2:45:10Speaker 01

  And he just keeps winning. I can't remember who it is, but he's young and I'm just like, holy shit. This kid is, I don't know.

• 2:45:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you remember like what a basketball player looked like.

• 2:45:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, like Bob Cousy.

• 2:45:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like it's just a different game now.

• 2:45:25Speaker 01

  I know. I know. It's like they barely, you know, dribbled with their left hand back in those days.

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward, when I was an editor for Eastman's Bow Hunting Journal, I quoted Joe Rogan in an article I wrote long before I met him titled Finding Your Way Train Hard Hunt Easy. Here are the opening two paragraphs. During a UFC pay-per-view some years ago commentator, Joe Rogan, used a reference that caught my attention in quoting Musashi, a famous Japanese Samurai, who wrote the Book of Five Rings, a classic book of strategy and life. He said, "Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things." I was struck by this quote, which in plain, in plain English means, "Once you find the path to success in whatever it may be, success comes easier in all things." And that is-

• 2:46:21Speaker 01

  I remember that. Yeah, I remember that. I loved, he said that line during, you know, as he's calling the, the show. And I was like, man, that makes sense. Cause you see people who, they just keep winning at whatever the fuck they do. And you're just like, like I see these track athletes and they're like, some of these women, they look like they could be like super models and they're Olympic athletes. I'm like, how the fuck does this work? It's like, you're just good at everything. And then like Gabby Thomas went to Harvard on top of it. And it's just like, so these people, they just, I don't know, it's just, they just figure it out. Here's how I get to be the best at everything.

• 2:46:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's what Rogan says, and you talk about in the book, like Rogan started doing martial arts, started doing Taekwondo and got good at it. But then he applied that technique of skill building to everything else that he's done. And he keeps kicking ass and everything.

• 2:47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause he quit fighting or, you know, competing like when he's 19. Right?

• 2:47:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. 19 or 20, something like that.

• 2:47:23Speaker 01

  So he took those lessons from then and have applied it to everything, that work ethic or that obsession. And so, yeah, it's like- He was done at nineteen, but now he's fifty seven and still doing it, still winning.

• 2:47:41Jocko Willink?

  Still winning.

• 2:47:43Speaker 01

  And he worked, but the thing is, he works his ass off.

• 2:47:46Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:47:46Speaker 01

  That fucker, I mean, I look at his, it's like, how many podcasts you do this week? You're already, you're number one. Why are you doing five podcasts every week? And just like in depth into the conversation and just fucking, you can't. I mean, that's just work. That's hard. And he just, and then the comedy, you know, goes down to his comedy story. He's like there, then shooting his bow for hours. Then living, just like breathing like crazy. And it's like, everything is just fucking at this level. And people are like saying, you know, somehow questioning his success. It's like, bitch, he's been working his ass off his whole fucking life, every day, rich as hell and still getting it done.

• 2:48:31Speaker 01

  Doesn't need to work at all.

• 2:48:32Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:48:33Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 2:48:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yep. I was, I think the last time we were all in hunt camp together and you guys were out and I joined you guys were shooting like,

• 2:48:45Speaker 01

  Ninety yards?

• 2:48:46Jocko Willink?

  Like ninety something, ninety four yards, actually. But I walked up and I was like, fuck, alright. I had to do that thing where I was like, fuck, well, I'm gonna smoke this.

• 2:48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 2:48:57Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, you can't like, like you said,

• 2:49:01Jocko Willink?

  Joe Rogan doesn't have to freaking do anything.

• 2:49:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:49:05Jocko Willink?

  But you can't not train and walk up to a ninety four yard target and freaking plug it like that. This shit ain't happening. You have to freaking work at it.

• 2:49:14Speaker 01

  Oh, and, and also you're like, touch his shoulder and it feels like this table. It's just like, he's just, everything is that, I don't know how he does it. He. Everything he does is at this, at the highest level he can. It's amazing.

• 2:49:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And even listening to like, when I go to live UFC, I'm always bummed because I can't hear his commentary.

• 2:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's like, so good. It's gonna be great.

• 2:49:38Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:49:39Jocko Willink?

  And you're gonna, and he does the entire fight card with all these undercard fighters and you're like, how's he know about this dude? And yeah, you have notes, but he watches their fights.

• 2:49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I never, I never see, he doesn't have like, Anik has a shitload of notes. All I ever see Joe practice is how to say the name. He's, he's got his like, the little matchup thing and he's just like, on the way over, like going over the names. I've never seen any notes. He just loves fucking MMA. So he just, he watches all this shit.

• 2:50:11Jocko Willink?

  Then he'll go deep on like, you listen to a podcast and we talking about like boxing 1953 and you're like,

• 2:50:17Speaker 01

  That's what we did. Yeah. We were like, hey, you gotta watch this video of Rocky Marciano training. So we watched this whole thing on him training, which is awesome. But I'm like, when are you watching this stuff?

• 2:50:31Speaker 01

  He sends me bowing stuff all the time. And it's like, man, I don't know how he does it.

• 2:50:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. Uh, you gotta, you gotta Evan Hayfer in here and talking about the, you know, what his passion was a freaking cup of espresso. And he literally remembered his first cup of espresso before he made Black Rifle. Like freaking crazy.

• 2:50:53Speaker 01

  That's where Truett set the world record at Black Rifle in Salt Lake. He's like, hey, you want a coffee? So we go over to his thing. He's doing all this shit, like this chemistry. And I'm just like, I don't give a fuck what this coffee tastes like. I'll do a Keurig. And he's spending like a half hour on this coffee. Point is passion. He cares. That's, that's what it takes. Me, I, when I all drink a, a Keurig or a Folgers with flavor crystals. I'm not gonna fucking start Black Rifle coffee, but man, he's like so into it and look what happens.

• 2:51:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 2:51:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The,

• 2:51:34Jocko Willink?

  Just another guy you have in here, Remy Warren, and it's interesting because you wrote a book called Backcountry Bow Hunting. And Remy, you say, I read that book cover to cover 900 times. I would bring it out hunting. I read that book constantly. So here's a guy that's like, you know, followed what you put out.

• 2:51:53Speaker 01

  And he's a great hunter.

• 2:51:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Crazy how these things interact.

• 2:52:00Jocko Willink?

  Dakota Meyer, you had him on, obviously. He recently became an active duty Marine again. God bless him.

• 2:52:09Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:52:10Jocko Willink?

  Dude.

• 2:52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:12Jocko Willink?

  He texted me, he's like, I'm going back in the Marine Corps. And I was like, are you, I'm like, can you do that? And he's like, well, I guess you were Medal of Honor recipient.

• 2:52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:22Jocko Willink?

  And you're Dakota Meyer.

• 2:52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:24Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, just what a freaking total stud. And the crazy thing is like, it's not like, I mean, he was a, he's like a volunteer firefighter and then he became a firefighter. I mean, he's just always just going.

• 2:52:38Speaker 01

  Well, he won, so obviously the Medal of Honor, but he also won like the Texas Medal of Honor. Saved somebody that was drowning. So it's like, how, how is he always in this position to save people?

• 2:52:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm always extra careful when I'm around Dakota.

• 2:52:55Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:52:56Jocko Willink?

  That no bad shit's gonna happen.

• 2:52:57Speaker 01

  You choke on some meat and had to get Heimlich for sure.

• 2:53:01Jocko Willink?

  No, he's freaking, just such an awesome, awesome human.

• 2:53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:07Jocko Willink?

  He says, resiliency is nothing more than the ability to stay in suffering so that you can learn more of the lesson. Because you don't get better unless you're uncomfortable, right? You don't grow. You don't move the needle any internally, emotionally, physically, or mentally, unless you're suffering. I like that idea of staying in the suffering to learn more of the lesson.

• 2:53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:29Jocko Willink?

  I like that idea a lot from old Dakota right there.

• 2:53:34Speaker 01

  That's powerful. Cause most people, they start to suffer this much. They're looking to get out. But when you can embrace it and be like, fucking, finally, here we are.

• 2:53:45Jocko Willink?

  And that's like the Courtney Payne cave thing that she's trying to chisel out.

• 2:53:50Speaker 01

  That was nuts. I, I thought, you know, I thought she was saying that she just embraced the pain, but she's saying, no. She's expanding this cave. So if this was a cave, I'm like, so it's the same cave every time, every race? She's like, yeah, she goes back in the same cave and she just makes it bigger. And she's not thinking about running. She's thinking about this chisel and hitting it with hammer and rocks falling down, piling up, not thinking about running. She's thinking about hitting that hammer. So she's thinking about this work. And it's not the pain of running. It's not the astride. It's not, it's, it's, it's making this cave bigger. And I'm like, she goes, I was like, kept asking questions on that. She's like, I think I'm going to quit

• 2:54:33Speaker 01

  talking about this. The more I talk, the crazier I sound. But I was like fascinated that it's like some mental trick to get her out of the pain she's feeling. So, pretty cool.

• 2:54:46Jocko Willink?

  Freaking beast. This is you talking. I wanted my kids to be prepared for everything we go through in life. I wanted them to understand that life's a competition. I want, I might not have taught them a lot of things, but I did show them what it means to be tough. I wanted them to know what they're capable of. The truth is, I know more, I know they're more talented than I ever was. They're better kids. I was hard on them, especially my sons, and I never cut them slack, but I, but they knew I loved them. Did I push my kids too hard? Yes.

• 2:55:18Speaker 01

  Definitely did.

• 2:55:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I did too. Yeah. But, you know, you took, you talk about hunting and hunting and running, obviously, that's what you had them do. You got, you got, you had Truitt on the podcast. And this was interesting, man. Truitt's like, growing up, we'd go out every single year, not by choice, Truitt said. What I always tell people is when we were kids, we'd go hunting with you. We didn't have a choice and it would be the hardest thing we did all year. And I don't know if you, I don't know if you know this about yourself, but you can be pretty intense. And then for me, I just kind of didn't want to deal with it anymore. Honestly, it's pretty hard getting yelled at. I don't think I wanted to do it. The last hunt we did for a long time

• 2:56:00Jocko Willink?

  was blacktail. I think I was 13 back in 2010. And I didn't hunt again until I think 2018. I took like an eight year break from hunting. And it wasn't even that I was busy. I just didn't want to do it. And then when I got reintroduced to it in 2018, I killed a blacktail. That honestly felt really good to do. So I just kind of got that fire back a little. And then from there, you know, we've been going just about every year since then.

• 2:56:27Jocko Willink?

  I did that with uh with my kids like hundred percent in um in jujitsu where I was just like

• 2:56:35Jocko Willink?

  what would be probably considered child abuse by most people and I just made them all mad, you know, they just like didn't like it and I had to I had to just go I I realized that my kids were not just gonna hate jujitsu, they're gonna hate me and they're gonna hate life.

• 2:56:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56:51Jocko Willink?

  I was creating like serial killers, so I had to just back away from it um. And now you got through it like the king of pull ups uh ten thousand one pull ups in twenty four hours.

• 2:57:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:57:04Jocko Willink?

  Freaking sick.

• 2:57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a yeah, and it's like even when he did that and I told him, I said

• 2:57:13Speaker 01

  um yeah, it's good, I'm not surprised cuz this is what you're supposed to do. This is like this was the goal the whole fucking time. It's I always told you, I always told him, you guys aren't regular kids, so don't have regular goals. You're gonna do, you can do amazing things and so, yeah, you got the world record. That that was the the plan. What the fuck, what was all this for? So I'm just like good job, but not surprised.

• 2:57:46Jocko Willink?

  So when you say were were was I too hard on them? Yes. Do you kinda not really believe that too much though because your kids turned out good?

• 2:57:59Speaker 01

  You know what I mean like? Um, the I can't remember if I said this before, but um I really

• 2:58:10Speaker 01

  you know, cuz I told him like if you have if you if you have a regular job you're a failure, right? I said if you're like a regular person, if you if you're average, you failed. And um so Tanner had, he was worked at the jail corrections officer, which is a, you know, good job, it's an important job and that's when he quit to he wanted to be a ranger and he just said, I have I have more to offer this world than just being working at the jail. And then I was like Did I cause him to feel like that? And what if he gets deployed and gets killed? And then I'm like, that was me fucking them up as kids saying it's a failure to be a regular person.

• 2:58:53Speaker 01

  When, and I had to say it's, you know,

• 2:58:58Speaker 01

  it's not a failure. It's, I was wrong. Cause I was like, what if this caused, you know, I mean, I couldn't imagine. So,

• 2:59:09Speaker 01

  yeah, there's, there's things I regret. There's things I said I regret.

• 2:59:15Speaker 01

  You know, that like in games and, you know, I just drives home, you know, if I didn't think they were hustling or didn't think, I thought they had more to give than they, it was probably not healthy, the shit I was saying. So yeah, I just wanted,

• 2:59:35Speaker 01

  yeah, I don't know. I just had so much expectation for them, but they're just kids. You know, kids don't want to fucking suffer, you know, and I would see Truitt running with his track team and he'd be like back in the mid pack. I'm like, you got, you should, you could make, I mean, he might've been able to make the Olympics, but he wasn't working. And so now his goal is like, you know, he's going to run in the two twenties, which is getting close, you know, Olympic standard for the marathon or Olympic trial standard is two eighteen. So he loses some weight, does some, gets a little lighter. He's got that potential, I think, to get down there to qualify for the trials.

• 3:00:18Speaker 01

  And so I knew he had that because I would see him as a kid and I'd see what he's doing. And then I would see him at practice and I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? You're back there fucking around? You have a gift. I hate running. I'm like, that's your gift, dude. Your gift is endurance. I'm not, I said, if you, if you step it up, you know, and it's like, he, he made state as a freshman and his, I think his coach said, and he, oh, you ran a good marathon and his coach said, yeah, when you're a senior, you'll be winning the state meet. He never got any better.

• 3:00:54Speaker 01

  So that was really hard for me because when you see your kids and you know they have this crazy potential and they're just not doing it. I'm not good with, that's okay. It's okay. We'll be all right. I'm like, it's not okay. That was hard.

• 3:01:10Jocko Willink?

  And then, you know, what we were talking about earlier with like, if you don't love it, you're not gonna

• 3:01:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he didn't love it at that time.

• 3:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Love it like

• 3:01:17Speaker 01

  I couldn't make him love it. And that's, I think that's the hardest thing is, you know, finding something that your kid loves and then if they have a natural talent for it, that's great. But if, man, if you're making it, if you're pushing them to do it, it's hard. And then all that I feel bad about is I know that there's fathers that, you know, follow my family and they have kids and they might try to push, you know, everybody wants their kids to be beasts, right? Especially boys. And it's like, it's gonna, I hope it could go bad for a lot of families, a lot of kids.

• 3:01:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've told the story of my kids like a bunch of times to make sure that people understand like it's, and there's better ways to do it. And, you know, like one thing that they point out in that book outliers is like, you want, and this is what I tell people, the most important thing with your kids and whatever activity you want to do is you want it to be fun. And in order for it to be fun, well, winning is fun. And in order to win, you got to practice. In order to practice, you got to think it's fun. So it's like this little circle of, you know, with, with jujitsu, a huge mistake I made was making my kids compete against people that were kids that were older than them, heavier than them, and more experienced than them. So they go to a tournament and get destroyed. And in my mind, I'm a great dad because I'm making them tougher.

• 3:02:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02:42Jocko Willink?

  And in their minds, they're like, I suck at this. You know, I just got my ass kicked.

• 3:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02:47Jocko Willink?

  I suck. I don't want to train. I don't want to practice. But, you know, in that book outliers, when it's like, oh, the kid that's the oldest kid on the soccer team because he was born in January. And now he's the biggest kid, he's the strongest kid, he's the smartest kid. So he gets to play a bunch, he scores goals, he likes scoring goals, so he comes home and practices and that's how they get freaking champions.

• 3:03:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:08Jocko Willink?

  So if you can make things fun for your kids, that's the best that I know of course of action to make them love it. And now they'll do it more and when they do it more, they'll win more, when they win more, they love it more and then they practice more and you get a positive cycle going on. What you just said, though, you can't make them love whatever. Like I just had this conversation with my middle daughter who's a competitive jujitsu beast right now, but I made her hate jujitsu. You know, when she was 10 years old and and then she was telling me, she's like, do you remember when I was 13 and I hated jujitsu? And you gave me a gi, a jujitsu, a new gi for like my birthday?

• 3:03:54Jocko Willink?

  And she's like, what's wrong with you? And I was like, I was like, I want you to love jujitsu.

• 3:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:58Jocko Willink?

  I just wanted you to love jujitsu or to just.

• 3:04:01Speaker 01

  You're trying to will it.

• 3:04:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, tried to freaking make it happen. God.

• 3:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, and they they say like, do you remember the time you did this? And I'm just like, no, I don't remember it, but fucking they do. That's the, you know, I say a lot of crazy shit. So that's just one more thing I said that I probably shouldn't have said to my kids. And it's just like, so they they don't hate me, so I guess we made it. But I I do worry about my kids were just what for whatever, just like probably yours, this is like built or prepared for it or could handle it. Some kids just won't, they can't. And then maybe their dads might not go about it and they're, you know, maybe the dads aren't even, you know, being the example is one thing. Cause it's like, you can't just say.

• 3:04:50Jocko Willink?

  That's true.

• 3:04:50Speaker 01

  So it's like. Your kids saw you doing the shit. So it wasn't just you were just like these empty words. You're making do what what you wouldn't even do. So if if a dad wants their kids to have all this attention, get all these these rewards, but they're not doing it themselves. That's gonna be tough. So anyway, I worry about that, you know?

• 3:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you really, you have, your kids are going to be who they are. Like, you can, you can guide it, but like, you can't reshape it. If you try and reshape it, I think you're gonna end up causing some kind of a malfunction. Yeah, you know, and part of it, the shaping is like, they see, like you said, they see you. Like, that's okay. They see it's hard work. That's what's what we're doing. But yeah, you can't make people love things.

• 3:05:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:05:38Speaker 01

  No. Yeah, I don't know. Truitt's coming around with running now. So he's and he, you know, he's putting a lot of work into it.

• 3:05:46Jocko Willink?

  Is he gonna, so is he gonna like, try and make a run at the Olympics or anything?

• 3:05:51Speaker 01

  Um, I think he might be a little, I don't want to say old. He's 28.

• 3:05:59Speaker 01

  We'll see. I mean, I think he's gonna get into the 220. So he did 230 for Eugene in jeans. Six days after Boston. So

• 3:06:09Jocko Willink?

  What, what does he weigh?

• 3:06:11Speaker 01

  Uh, he's like 170. But those, those elite marathoners like 140.

• 3:06:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, so, because you mentioned earlier, like you could lose some weight.

• 3:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we're talking about, oh, what is a shoe weight? Six ounces? This one's five ounces. How about fucking lose 10 pounds?

• 3:06:25Jocko Willink?

  How about 30 pounds of muscle mass?

• 3:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you just like, just in general, you think about that. How much faster would he be not hauling 30 extra pounds? Um, he doesn't want to be a twig. Cause he's worked really hard to get, you know, muscle. But, uh, anyway, I mean, I don't know. We'll, we'll see. He's, he is a great runner. That's all I know. I don't know if he's got the, the time or the talent to ever qualify for the trials, but, um, he had a lot of talent that he didn't use for many years.

• 3:06:58Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, you tell the story in here about the, what gets portrayed in the Once Were Wolves. Did I say that right?

• 3:07:07Speaker 01

  Once Were Wolves.

• 3:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Once Were Wolves, which is a movie that's on or a video that's on your YouTube channel.

• 3:07:15Jocko Willink?

  And it's about going to Alaska. This is, this is your first time back in Alaska. Since your, your best friend Roy, who you mentioned earlier. Died on a, on a hunt. And you go up there and um. You go up there to hunt a grizz and this is, so this is at Kip's place, Bushwhack, Alaska.

• 3:07:39Speaker 01

  No, this was before he bought that.

• 3:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so it was before he bought it.

• 3:07:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go to the book here. So you, you take a shot. You're tracking the bear. It's you, it's Kip. Um, Kip's brother Kobe. Um, your guide John, you're tracking this bear that you shot.

• 3:07:59Jocko Willink?

  Going to the book here, pushing through the brush while following blood, I heard John say behind me, dead bear. I had knocked, I had an arrow knocked just in case a follow-up shot was needed. John's keen eyes saw the grizzly lying motionless. In the brush with its head down, I moved a little closer to within five to 10 yards and the bear lifted its head weakly. Hold up, said John, bear isn't dead. As it laid its head back down, I eased to my right, trying to find a shooting lane. Don't shoot, I whispered to the guys toting the guns as we moved a little closer. So the guide and Kip's, uh, Kip's brother. They're, they have guns with them. I'm a bow hunter only. And as a romantic of the tradition, having rifles involved in my hunt isn't something I'll ever agree to if asked.

• 3:08:41Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to sound egotistical because it's not, it's just a measure of how much bow hunting means to me. There's a line I won't cross. I don't judge other, others for the weapons they choose to hunt with and don't care about anyone else. I know what's important to me and my purpose, death by arrow or nothing. The bear raised its head once again, and this time its haze had cleared some as we locked eyes. This is always a key moment when hunting true predators. I came to full draw, but all I had. A shot at was the grizzly's head, which is notoriously made of thick bone and has caused even bullets to ricochet off the skull. In other words, not a high percentage bow shot. Holding at full draw, I dropped to one knee.

• 3:09:24Jocko Willink?

  At that moment, I was four yards from the bear. The difference between a grizzly and a deer or elk is that a prey animal will burst from its last bed and run away from its pursuer, likely dying after a short burst. Grizzlies are not prey animals. They are predators, and they survive in this country by being aggressive and keeping their spot at the top of the food chain unchallenged. Sure enough, my bear exploded from its bed and charged me. It was weakened and had to try and fight through the thick alders to get to me. Still at full draw, I released my arrow, striking the grizzly in the chest as it lunged toward me. John fired his rifle from the left of me and Kobe fired his from a little behind John,

• 3:10:09Jocko Willink?

  also to my left. A bullet hit my bear in the hip, diverting it from the path towards me and taking its feet out from under it. John shot once more through the top of its back to neutralize the threat. Fuck, I cussed, fuck. I wasn't rattled at all, but I was certainly frustrated that I couldn't get an arrow off before the bear charged, frustrated that I even needed to shoot another arrow at all. But most of all frustrated that others had to weigh in on my destiny, especially with guns. All those feelings came to a crescendo and had me pissed. I gathered myself, approached the fallen bear, and silently offered my respect. Then I thanked John and Kobe for being so unflappable under a stressful circumstance. Kip, Brandon, Kobe, and John, and I succeeded on this hunt together. I considered a team effort.

• 3:10:54Jocko Willink?

  To say otherwise would be lying. It makes me sick when an animal suffers more than I think it should in dying from my arrow, and for whatever reason, this bear hadn't died from what I felt was a mortal wound. My other brown bears died in seconds. And that was, of course, my goal, and on this and all hunts. I dedicate my life to being a merciful bow hunter, which is why this experience leaves such a pit in my stomach. I'll second guess myself forever. Should I have given the arrow more time to do its job? The bear would have bled out in just a few more minutes, I guess, but who really knows? It was late, and maybe my desire to recover my first ever grizzly pushed me when I should have suggested we be more patient and let the bear die without one last adrenaline surge. I needed to be more disciplined.

• 3:11:39Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't, and that's disappointing.

• 3:11:47Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 3:11:49Jocko Willink?

  Go watch that movie. Go watch that video.

• 3:11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sucked. I mean, it was, I said later in that, I think it's in the film too, but you know, I wanted to, I wanted to put on a show for Roy.

• 3:12:06Speaker 01

  You know, he fell on 2015. This is 2022, I believe. And I just wanted to like, we always wanted the biggest adventures, the most intense, the, it couldn't be as close as we get to the edge. That's what we wanted. We loved it. And so that's what that hunt was. It didn't work out the way I wanted, but it's like, that's a story. You know, it's like, we'd always say, like, tell me a story. Do you have, do you have a story? What the fuck's a story? And it better be a good one. It's a good story. That's what, that's what we live for.

• 3:12:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you say, as I packed out the bear, reservations aside, I couldn't have been more grateful for sharing this hunt with these men in this special magical country. I also couldn't help being overcome with emotions. I remembered the legend who used to walk this country, the toughest and best woodsman I had ever known. If you put a bow in Roy Roth's hands, something was going to die. He was also the most optimistic person you've ever come across. I've been bow hunting for 35 years and hunted with some amazing people, some very capable, incredible bow hunters themselves, but none were like Roy. My mind drifted to our last hunt together, miles deep in the wilds of Alaska. We were four miles back up and over this big ridge and got this bull moose killed. I could still picture Roy breaking down that bull around midnight while he sang.

• 3:13:28Jocko Willink?

  He was always singing and always loved the work part. He always loved being miserable. This incredible hunt was something he surely watched down on and enjoyed. We lived for these moments, charging grizzlies, big boars, incredible country and hard work. This is for you, I told Roy. Miss you, but we're still getting it done till we meet again. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Roy singing.

• 3:14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:14:06Speaker 01

  It's definitely not the same without him. But.

• 3:14:11Speaker 01

  Still trying to get it done, like I said.

• 3:14:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's um.

• 3:14:17Jocko Willink?

  That's. You know. The way I think about things too is like I think about my friends that I've lost and when I'm doing everything that I'm doing now is. For them.

• 3:14:30Jocko Willink?

  And I think that ties into the last chapter of the book, which is. Make the most impact. And. You go really deep on talking about purpose. You talk about find your purpose and you got you detail these sections, find your purpose, embrace your purpose. You go into share your purpose.

• 3:14:57Jocko Willink?

  Love your purpose.

• 3:15:02Jocko Willink?

  Cherish your purpose. And again, you go into these descriptions and various tales to try and convey. You know. What that means. And then I want to close out the book. With this section.

• 3:15:20Jocko Willink?

  Become undeniable. You aren't born undeniable. Yes, a few individuals inherit their great abilities, but most men and women who achieve greatness are born lacking it. Their refusal to accept this becomes the very thing that defines them. We often look at the abilities of those who are undeniable as traits we can acquire. Maybe that thing, maybe the thing that makes someone become undeniable is the act of refusing and rejecting the life and the path they're on and rewriting their story. You don't wake up undeniable. You work up to it. And the truth is you don't stop waking up and working. You do it day after day after day.

• 3:16:02Jocko Willink?

  If you're truly dedicated to your craft and you believe in your skills, there's only one person who can make your dreams a reality, the man in the mirror.

• 3:16:12Jocko Willink?

  You might be able to look yourself in the mirror and say all the right things, but if you don't believe them, it's going to be tough. It starts with a purpose. Do you know yours? A writer puts pen to paper, a doctor heals the sick, an artist shares their vision, a carpenter builds. You'd never expect any of them to do anything other than their calling. So, come September, don't ever expect me to do anything other than roam the mountains, bow in hand.

• 3:16:48Jocko Willink?

  This is my purpose. This is what I do. What about you?

• 3:16:59Jocko Willink?

  Well, there you go. And anybody that's listening right now, that question is directed at you, the reader.

• 3:17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17:07Jocko Willink?

  What about you? What is your purpose? And what are you gonna do about it?

• 3:17:14Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 3:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Freaking awesome, man. I know we touched on a bunch of stuff that you're up to, you know, lately. Obviously, you just got off of a hunt. You just got off that 250 mile race.

• 3:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Did you had a broken foot going into that or while you were preparing for it?

• 3:17:31Speaker 01

  I broke it.

• 3:17:34Speaker 01

  In last June and it's just the brakes, they wanted to put a plate in and screws and then it has to heal them. They have to take the plate out. And I'm just like, still just. I've still been able to do a lot, but it's still, the brake is just, it's on the fifth metatarsal. So it's just too much of a gap to heal. So it's just still broke.

• 3:17:54Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna get surgery or you're just gonna hold off? I mean, if you just ran 250 miles, it's kind of like.

• 3:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that but it causes so much shit like cuz my calf's fucked up. My hamstring's fucked up because it's like not working like it's supposed to. So yeah, I mean, I need I probably need to do something, but I just don't want to. So I just deal. I'm used to the pain now.

• 3:18:17Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever had surgery before?

• 3:18:19Speaker 01

  Um, no. No, I had a hernia when I was young. Yeah.

• 3:18:25Jocko Willink?

  I had a hernia surgery.

• 3:18:26Speaker 01

  That's about it.

• 3:18:27Jocko Willink?

  I had a neck surgery and you you've had what knee surgery, couple knee surgeries and dual bicep surgeries?

• 3:18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and hand.

• 3:18:37Jocko Willink?

  What'd you get done with your hand?

• 3:18:38Speaker 02

  Took out a BB when I was young, three times.

• 3:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:41Speaker 01

  You do your bicep or like detach your biceps?

• 3:18:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, both of them.

• 3:18:45Jocko Willink?

  Both of them.

• 3:18:46Speaker 01

  The same time or different?

• 3:18:48Speaker 02

  Uh, nine years apart.

• 3:18:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, doing jujitsu though, not curls. Thank you.

• 3:18:52Jocko Willink?

  Both of them were jujitsu, right?

• 3:18:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:18:54Jocko Willink?

  I was there for one of them. I was there for both of them.

• 3:18:56Speaker 02

  You were there for the turn the one in the tournament and then I forget if you were there.

• 3:19:00Jocko Willink?

  What'd I say to you?

• 3:19:01Speaker 02

  That wasn't about that was a whole different thing. Same day when I lost.

• 3:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 3:19:07Speaker 02

  DeShawn Roberts with a gogo plato.

• 3:19:10Jocko Willink?

  And what I said?

• 3:19:11Speaker 02

  You're like, you got you text me from across the arena, real confidence inspiring this guy. By the way, as a coach, he goes, and I had more matches coming up too, by the way. He said, uh, you got caught with a gogo. That's gotta sting. That's it. Thank you for that again. But yeah, I got injured later that day. So.

• 3:19:29Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 3:19:30Speaker 02

  Whatever.

• 3:19:31Jocko Willink?

  What what else? Anything else? Uh, does that get us up to speed?

• 3:19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I gotta gotta do a movie this weekend.

• 3:19:39Jocko Willink?

  What's the movie? Where are people gonna be able to watch it?

• 3:19:42Speaker 01

  Theaters.

• 3:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:19:43Speaker 01

  Sheriff Browning.

• 3:19:44Jocko Willink?

  And it's called Dream.

• 3:19:45Speaker 01

  Dream, yeah.

• 3:19:46Jocko Willink?

  And you play the role of Sheriff Browning, you said?

• 3:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:19:49Jocko Willink?

  Hell, yeah.

• 3:19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So we're getting bad guys. Um, it's about human trafficking. So it's pretty serious story, but uh, yeah, we need, I think it'll be good to get awareness on it. So.

• 3:20:01Jocko Willink?

  How was your acting experience?

• 3:20:03Speaker 01

  Terrible. Like it's so hard. Yeah, so hard. But uh, I committed to it. So I got to follow through.

• 3:20:12Jocko Willink?

  How many days did you have to film for?

• 3:20:15Speaker 01

  Shit. Well, I did quite a few days and then actor turnover issues. So we're reshooting a bunch of it. That's what I'm doing. So I got. Saturday, Sunday, and then four days in July.

• 3:20:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, wait, that's for reshooting?

• 3:20:31Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 3:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. So that's what you're out here for? To reshoot some scenes?

• 3:20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's uh.

• 3:20:38Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 3:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:40Jocko Willink?

  At least you have your lines memorized, I guess?

• 3:20:42Speaker 01

  No, I haven't even looked at it. So.

• 3:20:45Jocko Willink?

  Did they change the lines?

• 3:20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:47Jocko Willink?

  Oh shit.

• 3:20:48Speaker 01

  So I'm like, that's what I'm supposed to do tonight.

• 3:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Study.

• 3:20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:20:52Jocko Willink?

  But you're gonna go sleep.

• 3:20:54Speaker 01

  So tired. Yeah. So other than that, I just got a bunch of podcasts to make up, except for this one.

• 3:21:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, I appreciate you coming down. Uh, people can find you, Cameron Hanes dot com. Your, your YouTube, your Instagram is at Cameron Hanes. Your podcast is called The Keep Hammering Collective. And then, of course, your first book, Endure, and now you got Undeniable. You're not hard to find. Uh, you're out there. Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 3:21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, real quick. You, do you ever think about, like nowadays, like if you didn't get into bow hunt? Cause that's, that was kind of the main vector, right? That kind of created all this, this whole thing. If you didn't, like, like it that much, see what I'm saying? Like, what would you have been doing, you think? Do you ever think about that?

• 3:21:42Speaker 01

  Um, I'd have a job that, uh,

• 3:21:47Speaker 01

  you know, I hated and I'd just probably drink on the weekends and maybe drink after work. And I have that little manufactured home in that truck I talked about and just getting through life.

• 3:21:59Speaker 02

  So like, cause right now, I mean, I don't know which one comes first, but like you found something you liked so much and then did that consequently make you so like, cause let's face it, Brad, you go kind of hard compared to a lot of us. But with that discipline, did that come from something you loved? Like you liked it that much? Or was there that discipline guy kind of in there? See what I'm saying? And like, was it, could it have been just a matter of time before you stumbled upon something that you loved near as much? You see what I'm saying?

• 3:22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I don't know, because I've never found anything that I love as much as bow hunting. So is there anything out there? Uh, maybe. Um, but that definitely gave me focus. Cause like in, you know, in a small little town, it's not like people are like telling you, oh, you can do, be whoever you want, chase your dreams. They're usually just shitting on you. So it's like. I don't know.

• 3:22:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I get it, of course, but

• 3:22:58Speaker 02

  bro, like, there's a lot of people who grew up in small towns. See what I'm saying?

• 3:23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:23:01Speaker 02

  A lot of people like doing stuff. I don't know, it seems like you're different. In a way. See what I'm saying, though?

• 3:23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure. I mean, I, I got lucky with finding something and then I could, once I started to get, um, like, positive feedback, I hadn't really gotten positive feedback on much in, in life, and then with bow hunting, I kinda did. Then I was like, I liked writing, so I'm like, well, I'm gonna write hunting stories. That's why I wanna be a, wanna be a hunting writer. And it just kinda gave me something to be like, okay, this is what I, this is who I'm gonna be now.

• 3:23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's crazy. Were you always this vascular?

• 3:23:41Speaker 02

  Like, when you were young? Cause you're pretty impressively vascular.

• 3:23:48Speaker 02

  Or, you know, like, if, cause if you weren't, it's like, maybe the training, you know, cause endurance training makes you more like, it increases your, like, capillaries and stuff like that.

• 3:23:57Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think you gotta be lean, so the running definitely does that. You know, to be, like, to do these races, it's, it's how much can your body stand in training? So, almost everybody's running over a hundred mile a week, so it's, that's fourteen miles a day, for sure. And, uh, if you're putting in that much work, you're gonna be lean. And then, as you get older, your muscles kinda get more dense, so it kinda pushes your veins up, generally. So, I don't know, I think it's just kinda the training. Yeah, just some miles and miles for forty years.

• 3:24:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, hell, yeah. Uh, it is my anniversary as well.

• 3:24:36Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 3:24:36Speaker 02

  Happy anniversary from, you know, someone who knows the deal.

• 3:24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Working.

• 3:24:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:24:44Speaker 01

  I know, happy anniversary. How many years?

• 3:24:46Speaker 02

  Sixteen.

• 3:24:47Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 3:24:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. You have the same birthday as my dad, too, by the way.

• 3:24:50Speaker 01

  Really? October second? Oh, shit, we got all sorts of.

• 3:24:54Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 3:24:54Speaker 01

  You're going to some numerology type scenarios now.

• 3:24:57Speaker 02

  Maybe I'll take a bow hunting, you ever thought about that?

• 3:24:59Speaker 01

  I thought you were gonna do that.

• 3:25:00Speaker 02

  Crossbow.

• 3:25:01Speaker 01

  I thought you were gonna do that last time.

• 3:25:04Speaker 02

  I gave the crossbow a rest for a little while.

• 3:25:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:25:06Speaker 02

  We'll look into some new stuff. How about that?

• 3:25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:09Speaker 02

  Good to see you again.

• 3:25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great to see you guys. And like I said, it's, it's, it's just being here. I mean, you guys are larger than life. It's like, everybody knows Chaco and Echo Charles. And it's like, just to be here is pretty sick. So at some point, if you want a bow, you know, my lift run shoot, I get everybody set up with their own bow and you take it home.

• 3:25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz like, bro, I was like, oh, I was at Greg's house and you know, Dave, right? Dave Youngworth?

• 3:25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So he was like, he brought his bow. He was like, hey, you know, do this. And his arms are shorter than mine. And I'm like, I'm like, bro, how do you even shoot this? Like, I didn't know if he was just stronger than me in that way.

• 3:25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 3:25:48Speaker 02

  But.

• 3:25:48Speaker 01

  It's technique.

• 3:25:50Speaker 02

  But I was like, it was easy at first, but it was like, I couldn't pull it all the way back.

• 3:25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25:55Speaker 02

  He was like, no, it's just fit to me.

• 3:25:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Also, also you have areas of weakness, I think.

• 3:26:00Speaker 02

  No, but I don't know. I'm strong in like literally every single possible way. And, you know, but if I got a bow fit to me, it'd be ergonomically more friendly for me, right?

• 3:26:09Speaker 01

  It's, it's pulling a bow is crazy cuz Huberman's pretty jacked.

• 3:26:15Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 3:26:16Speaker 01

  I had this bow like light poundage and he's pulling it, pulling it, pulling it. And he's like, is it locked? I'm like, no, just pull that fucker back. And so it's just, he is strong, but that bow is different. Yeah.

• 3:26:32Speaker 02

  Interesting. Interesting. Right on. Hey, you might hear from me about that one.

• 3:26:36Speaker 01

  Gotta carry the rock too.

• 3:26:37Speaker 02

  Right though. All right, here we go.

• 3:26:40Speaker 01

  You can go for, you can break Tanner's record.

• 3:26:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. We'll see what I can dig up. How about that?

• 3:26:46Speaker 01

  Right on. Thank you, guys.

• 3:26:48Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it, man. And thanks, thanks for making the, jumping through hoops to get down here. And thanks for the support over the years, man. I mean, you, you helped me out in my very short bow hunting journey. And, and thanks for tuning every day, man, out there pushing people, making people better and getting people to step up and to keep hammering. Freaking out steady, man. I'll see you in the mountains, brother.

• 3:27:14Speaker 01

  All right. Thank you. Keep hammering.

• 3:27:17Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Cameron Hanes has left the building. And he's coming off a 250 mile run, by the way. Off a multi 10 day, what 10 day bear hunt, nine day bear hunt. Going from here to there to somewhere else. He's getting after it. Recommend you do the same. When you do that, when you get after it, you, all of you, myself included, you're gonna need fuel. We recommend Jocko Fuel. Check out JacoFuel.com. You get deals on Jocko Fuel at JacoFuel.com. You make sure you get the real goods at JacoFuel.com. Free shipping, orders over 99 bucks. Everything's in stock there.

• 3:28:03Jocko Willink?

  If it's not in stock there, it's not in stock anywhere. We've got a really cool loyalty program. You know what that means? Yeah, of course. Taking care of people that take care of us. Hell yeah. You know, we've got free gifts and stuff like this, points off or points and you can get some. So, subscriptions, just all happening there at JacoFuel.com. With everything that we make. Protein, go hydrate. Just everything that you need. You can get it at JacoFuel.com. And you can also get it at Walmart, at Wawa, Vitamin Shop, GNCs, Commissary,

• 3:28:41Jocko Willink?

  all the military stores, Afees, Hanaford's, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wakefern, ShopRite, HEB down in Texas, Meyer up in the Midwest, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Publix, we got you covered. Go clear the shelves. Get what you need. Lifetime Fitness, Shields, small gyms everywhere. If you need it in your place, go to JF Sales at JacoFuel.com and we will set up a wholesale account, take care of your clients, take care of your people, take care of your friends. Also, OriginUSA.com. We make all of our clothing 100% in America. Whether you need jujitsu clothing, whether you need jeans, whether you need boots, whether you need hunt gear,

• 3:29:26Jocko Willink?

  whether you need hoodies, sweatshirts, whatever you need, don't buy communist goods.

• 3:29:33Jocko Willink?

  Don't buy goods made by slaves, buy goods made by freedom. Built by freedom. OriginUSA.com Get some.

• 3:29:44Speaker 02

  It's true. Speaking of clothes, JacoStore.com is where you can get your Discipline = Freedom clothing. Whether it be shirts, you want some hats, some hoodies on there, socks on there. The email went out. Let everybody know the socks are in, ready to roll. So, I think we still have some. But yeah, if you weren't on the email list, you might have missed. Might have. I think we have some.

• 3:30:05Jocko Willink?

  What if, what if Jocko Store and your name is Jocko? Do you get socks?

• 3:30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can get some socks for sure. Um, I'm gonna have to double check. Actually, I'm pretty, I'm fairly certain we do have some left, but what I'm saying is the people who got the email, they got first dibs. See what I'm saying? So anyway.

• 3:30:21Jocko Willink?

  What if your name is Jocko, do you get dibs?

• 3:30:23Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I don't want, I don't want to be above the policy, but yeah, for you, yes.

• 3:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause I haven't gotten any yet.

• 3:30:28Speaker 02

  Part of the point there is, hey, we have an email signup thing on the bottom of the page, JacoStore.com on the bottom page. Put your email in there. Hey, when, when there's some new stuff, new merch, new drop, I don't know, whatever the terminology is.

• 3:30:40Jocko Willink?

  If you sign up for that email, if you sign up for the email on JacoStore.com, you'll get information before Jocko gets the information. You'll get dibs before Jocko gets dibs. That's valuable.

• 3:30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't worry. I'm not gonna spam you nothing. I'm just saying when there's new stuff, you will know about it first. See what I'm saying? Even before Jocko, there it is. Also on JacoStore.com. Something called the Shirt Locker. It's a new design shirt, new design every month. Subscription scenario. Really good on, you know what? In the email, I think I'm gonna start sending out the design. I might do that. I don't know. Either way, new design every month. People seem to like it. A little bit more creative. Uh, it's a good one. It's called the Shirt Locker. It's on JacoStore.com.

• 3:31:21Jocko Willink?

  Check. Also check out PrimalBeef.com and ColoradoCraftBeef.com. We don't always get to eat elk. We don't always get to eat Axis deer or whitetail. Sometimes we gotta eat steak, which is also, let's face it, steak is steak. If you want awesome steak from awesome people. Go to colorado craft beef.com or primal beef.com and get what you need. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also check out jocko underground.com. Check out our YouTube channels. Check out some books, books here. We got endure by Cameron Hanes. That was his first book. It was his most recent other book because he's written backcountry bow hunting books,

• 3:32:05Jocko Willink?

  but endure and then undeniable. This is the latest book that we covered today. Fantastic book. Go check it out. He did the audio book too. I checked on that. He reads the audio book, so it's good to listen to Cam. Also, I've written a bunch of books. Dave Burke wrote a book. It's called Need to Lead. Need to Lead. Check that one out. And then a bunch of kids books that I've written. You can get into those as well.

• 3:32:30Jocko Willink?

  I have a leadership consultancy. It's called Echelon Front. We solve problems through leadership. We have in-house where we will come to your organization and help you with your leadership. We also have events. The next muster event is December 7th through the 9th in Orlando, Florida. We have the council, which is happening very quickly, June 22nd through the 25th.

• 3:32:55Jocko Willink?

  We have the FTXs. We have Women's Assembly. That's coming up in the fall as well. So if you want to come to one of these events, or if you want us inside to help your organization, go to echelonfront.com and check it out. We also have an online training academy because leadership is a skill and you need to learn it and practice it. And you can do that via online. We have a bunch of courses. We have live interactions. We have Q and A sessions. So if you want to get better at business, you want to get better at life, you want to get better as a friend, as a family member, go to extremeownership.com and check it out. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their

• 3:33:38Jocko Willink?

  families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Also check out Micah Fink's organization, Heroes and Horses.org. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, Beyond the Brotherhood, helping SEALs get out of the military and on the right path. BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. If you want to connect with us. For Cameron Hanes, as I said, Cameron Haynes.com. He's got a YouTube and an Instagram that are both at Cameron Hanes and then his podcast is called The Keep Hammering Collective.

• 3:34:20Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to check out, or if you want to connect with me, you can go to Jaco.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just be careful because you shouldn't be spending all your time on the social media channels. You should be running, you should be lifting, running and shooting is what you should be doing. Lift, run, shoot. Thanks once again to Cam, Cam Hanes for finding time in between ultra marathons and deep country, deep backcountry hunts and everything else that he's got going on to come and share these lessons. It's always good to see you, brother, and I'll see you in September. Also, thanks to all of our troops that are out there around the globe

• 3:34:59Jocko Willink?

  right now in these uncertain times. Thank you for guarding us 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. Thank you for guarding us here at home. And for everyone else out there, from the book Undeniable by Cameron Hanes, obstacles can't stop you. Circumstances can't stop you. Failures can't stop you. Only you can stop you. The struggle never ends. It's a

• 3:35:38Jocko Willink?

  lifelong war, but each day, each day is a battle that can be won. That choice is up to you. And that's all I've got for tonight. Until next time. This is Echo and Jocko. Out.