Warrior Kid Podcast 1: Ask Uncle Jake

0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:11 - How hard is it to become a Navy SEAL? 0:03:34 - What's the best food to eat? 0:05:17 - Did Uncle Jake have a mentor growing up? 0:07:48 - How to keep on the path after the book is finished. 0:11:55 - Was Jocko like Marc when he was young? 0:18:39 - Should you try to motivate people that are okay with being average? 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.

• 0:01Jocko Willink?

  This is not the Jocko Podcast. This is a new podcast called the Warrior Kid Podcast, Ask Uncle Jake. It will be a separate podcast from the Jocko Podcast. It'll be on a separate channel that you will need to subscribe to separately. And the reason that I did that is so that kids don't accidentally get exposed to some of the more mature content from Jocko Podcast that deals with things like war and violence. I don't want them accidentally listening to a podcast that might not be appropriate

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  for them, so I'm breaking them up. But if you do have Warrior Kids and you want them to listen to Uncle Jake talk about life and the challenges that kids have, this will be a good podcast to do it on. I'm just putting this one episode out on the Jocko Podcast channel so that everyone's aware that this new podcast is out if you want to listen to it. This is the Warrior Kid Podcast, number one, Ask Uncle Jake. This podcast is based on the Way of the Warrior Kid books, of which there are two. The first one, From Wimpy Kid to Warrior Kid: The Navy SEAL Way.

• 1:29Jocko Willink?

  And the second one, which is called Mark's Mission. And the books are about a young man named Mark, and he faces a lot of problems that all kids face. And in the book, someone comes to help him solve those problems, and that's someone who's named Uncle Jake, who was a Navy SEAL and who stays with Mark, his nephew, in the summertime. And this podcast is for kids to hear some more lessons from Uncle Jake and also get a chance to ask Uncle Jake some questions. So these questions are from a bunch of Warrior Kids out there for Uncle Jake.

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  And the first question is from Micah, who's 12 years old, who wants to know how hard it is to become a Navy SEAL. Well, the answer to that question is it is pretty hard to become a Navy SEAL. First of all, you have to be in very good physical condition because in SEAL training, you do lots of exercising, you do lots of pull-ups and push-ups and dips and running and swimming and all other kinds of physical exercise. But on top of being in good physical condition, you have to be mentally strong as well because you're going to do things that are very uncomfortable and very tiring in many cases

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  and can actually be quite miserable sometimes. You will be cold, you will be wet, you will be tired as a SEAL. And so in the training, you have to get used to those things by doing those things that are hard on your body and on your mind. So the answer to the question is, yes, it is hard to become a SEAL, but it's also important to remember that even though a lot of people quit the training, a lot of people make it through the training and you can make it too if you want to, but you've got to want it bad enough. All right, next question. Next question is, what's the best food to eat?

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  And this is from someone named Kai, a young warrior kid named Kai who's five years old in Scotland. Well, this question, there's all kinds of people that debate all kinds of things about what people should eat. And I'll try and keep this as simple as I can. In my opinion, the best things to eat are foods that haven't been processed or produced inside of factories, meaning that the food hasn't been created by people. So things that, foods that are created by people include things like candy and soda and cake and juice and potato chips and that kind of stuff.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  And I, I remember hearing from one warrior kid and, and the warrior kid's dad, and we talk about it in the first Warrior Kid book, those are the kind of foods that make you weak. Those are weak foods. Now, the foods generally that are much healthier to eat, they actually come from nature. These are the foods that make you strong, things like vegetables, fruits, milk, water, and then you've got protein sources like chicken and fish and eggs and steak and pork. Those kind of things that come from nature are what you should try and eat,

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  not things that come from factories that have a really long list of ingredients of what's in them. Watch out for those. If there's ingredients that you, you don't know what it is, or you can't even say it, be careful of those kind of things. All right, next question. The next question is from a warrior kid, DT Junior. And he asks, "Did Uncle Jake have a mentor growing up?" And the answer to that is, I had a lot of mentors growing up. I had all kinds of mentors, and in fact, I still have mentors. So I learned from everyone, and I still do, and

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  not everyone has a person that, that reaches out to mentor them, right? So you're not always going to have someone in your life that says, "Hey, I'll, I'll show you the way. I'll be your mentor." But what's good is that you don't need someone that wants to be your mentor. You can learn from people without them even knowing that you're learning from them, without them knowing that, that they're your mentor. You can learn from them by watching what they do and trying to learn from the things that you see them do that are good. Now, what's interesting is you can also learn from people who do things that you know are bad. When you, when you see people doing things that are bad, or things that, for example, hurt them or hurt the people around them,

• 6:31Jocko Willink?

  then you can learn from them not to do those things. So that's what's good about having a mentor. And again, just because you have a mentor, they might not even know that they're your mentor. But you're learning from them because a mentor is a teacher. And if you can watch someone and what they do with their life, when they're doing good things, and you can emulate what the people are doing that are good, that's a mentor for you. And also, if you watch someone that's doing bad things and you learn not to do those bad things, that person can be a mentor as well. Now, another good place to get a mentor is from history. And you can learn from mentors in history by reading about history.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  You can learn from, from great leaders and great explorers and great inventors and scientists. And you can take all their lessons that they learned. And you can read about them and then you can apply those lessons into your life.

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  So I guess my answer to this question is find your mentors everywhere you look by observing and watching and learning from the people around you now and from people throughout history by reading.

• 7:49Jocko Willink?

  All right, next question. Next question says,

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  "How do I keep on the path after the book is finished and I'm not reading it every night?" So the book he's talking about is Way of the Warrior Kid. And there's another book now called Way of the Warrior Kid: Mark's Mission. And this warrior kid is asking, "Hey, I'm done with the book. What do I do now?"

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's, it's a good point because in the book, if you notice in the end of the first book, Uncle Jake leaves. He goes, he goes off to college. And there's a reason that I made that happen in the book because even if you have a great mentor or a great teacher, they won't always be there with you. And what you have to do is remind yourself of the lessons that you learned. So after you read Way of the Warrior Kid, one of the things that, that I talk about in the book, Way of the Warrior Kid, is you can write down the Warrior Kid code and hang it up on your wall. Or you can make up your own Warrior Kid code and hang that up on your wall. So you're reminded of it every day and you're reminded that you need to stay on the Warrior Kid path.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Another good thing to do is set up a routine that keeps you on the path. So that every day you do the same thing that you know is good. So for instance, wake up early in the morning, do some kind of workout in the morning, clean your room in the morning, make your bed in the morning, get ready for school, get ready for your school without anyone having to tell you to get ready for school. You get that routine going and you do that every day, you're automatically on the path. And then another thing you can do is you can write down some notes every night of what you did good, that helped you stay on the path, and things that you did wrong, that took you off the path of being a warrior.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  And what you can do to get yourself back on the path for the things that you, that made you slip off a little bit. And that kind of reflection every day, writing down what you did right and what you did wrong, what you did good and what you did bad, that will help you stay on the path as well. Now, in the first Warrior Kid book, again, Uncle Jake, he leaves. He leaves at the end, and I'm gonna read from the first book here a little bit, what, what happens when Uncle Jake is, is leaving. Here we go to the book. "Only my Uncle Jake could make being left by myself sound cool, but I still wasn't buying it. Okay, but who is going to train me and help me study?

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  Who is going to make sure I get up in the morning? Who is going to make sure I don't go back to my old lazy ways? Uncle Jake answered quickly, "You don't need me for that anymore. As a matter of fact, you never needed me. Sure, I showed you the path, but you could have found it on your own. You know what you need to do to stay on the warrior path? Hard work, discipline, study, eat good food, keep your room and your gear in order, set new goals and work hard to meet them, keep training jiu-jitsu, this is all stuff you know. As a matter of fact, this is all stuff you can actually teach and share with your friends.

• 11:10Jocko Willink?

  And you need to do that, you need to become a leader, to help your friends learn to be stronger and smarter and better. Teach them to be the best they can be." You've changed a lot over the summer. The other kids will see that. You will become a leader now. And they will follow. So that's one more thing you can do to help you stay on the path is you can become a leader. You can get your friends on the right path too. You can get them interested in the things that you're interested in. And that way you have a group. You have support. You have friends to help you stay on the path while you help them stay on the path.

• 11:55Jocko Willink?

  All right, next question. And this question came from a whole classroom in a little warrior kid video. That was sent to me. I think it's Mr. Forbes's classroom. He's got a bunch of warrior kids in his class. And here's the question. Was I like Mark when I was his age? Well, the answer to that is yes. And it's not just me. It's all kids. That's why kids relate to the book. Because we all know what it feels like to be Mark in some way. And

• 12:30Jocko Willink?

  no one is great at everything. Everyone has struggles in their life. Everyone has things that they are not good at. And sometimes we feel like we won't ever be good at anything.

• 12:41Jocko Willink?

  And when I was a kid, there was all kinds of things that I was bad at. I wasn't a good swimmer. I wasn't great at spelling. I had one year where I was absolutely horrible at math. But the lesson that Uncle Jake teaches, which sometimes it's hard for kids to understand is that to be good at things, you actually have to practice. You have to try. You have to study. You have to do the work. And so, yes, I was like Mark when I was his age, but luckily I learned that with hard work and discipline, you can get better at things. Unfortunately, I didn't learn that as early as Mark did, but I did learn it eventually. Now, that doesn't mean that you will be the best at something.

• 13:26Jocko Willink?

  But if you work hard, you can definitely get better. And, and that's in the first book as well. Some kids at school are really smart or really good at sports, and that happens in life, too. I can tell you, I was never naturally great at anything. I wasn't the smartest, and I wasn't the strongest, and I wasn't the fastest. But what I was, was I was a hard worker. And over my life, the hard work is how I was able to overcome the challenges that I faced. The, another thing that happened that was very similar with Mark when he was a kid is Mark loses his temper. And sometime when I was a kid, I lost my temper, like most kids do.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  And kids need to learn to control that because when you lose your temper, you make bad decisions and you do things that you shouldn't do. And so I wrote that, I wrote about that in the new Warrior Kid book. And in the new Warrior Kid book, I'm gonna give you a little sample of it. So there's a kid in the new Warrior Kid book named Nathan James. And Nathan James is a little bit of a different kind of a bully. He's a bully that picks on people by calling them names and making fun of them. And he makes fun of Mark and keeps making fun of Mark. And Mark loses his temper and throws a papier-mache pumpkin at his head. And it hits Nathan James in the face and it bounces off his face and it hits Ms. Carpenter,

• 14:53Jocko Willink?

  his teacher. And Mark gets in a bunch of trouble. And Uncle Jake picks him up from school and wants to find out what happened. And here we go to the book. "He kept calling me Plate Face." "Plate Face?" "Yes, Plate Face." Uncle Jake laughed. "He laughed." "It's not funny," I told him. "It's kind of funny," he said. "I don't look like a plate," I told Uncle Jake. "You do have a pretty round face," Uncle Jake said. "No, I don't," I told him. And when I told him this, I have to admit, I was kind of yelling. I was really mad, really mad. Rounder than most faces, I mean. You've seen your face in a mirror, right?

• 15:37Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Jake asked me, still laughing a little bit. I couldn't believe this. Uncle Jake was agreeing with Nathan James and saying I actually was a plate face. Tears started to flow down my face again. I could feel my blood begin to boil. Yes, I've seen my face in a mirror and no, I don't look like a plate, I yelled. I couldn't stop myself from screaming. It was like the whole world was against me, even my hero, Uncle Jake. Suddenly, Uncle Jake pulled the car over to the side of the road, put it into park, and said, "Look at your face right now and tell me what you see." He flipped down the visor of the car and pointed the mirror, pointed at the mirror, at my face.

• 16:19Jocko Willink?

  I looked in the mirror. "I don't see a plate face," I barked at Uncle Jake. "Okay, then what do you see?" he asked. I sat and looked at myself. My face didn't look like a plate, but it was bright red. My cheeks were covered in tears. My nose even had slime running out of it. "What do you see? Really, look at yourself and tell me what you see?" Uncle Jake asked again. I looked at myself. The tears, the runny nose, the red face. I knew exactly what I looked like. So I told Uncle Jake. "A baby. I look like a big baby."

• 17:02Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Jake smiled and nodded. "And why do you think you look like a big baby?" I knew exactly where Uncle Jake was going with that question, and I knew exactly what the answer was, so I told him. "Because I'm acting like one."

• 17:19Jocko Willink?

  Uncle Jake nodded his head. "I'd say that's a pretty good answer. What does a baby act like?"

• 17:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, they get mad and frustrated and they scream and they cry and they throw things. Ah, yes. They get frustrated and they scream and cry and throw things. That sounds familiar. Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake said with a knowing look on his face. But do you know why they do that? Because they get mad or frustrated. But everyone gets mad and frustrated. Those are called emotions. Anger, sadness, frustration. And there are good emotions too, like happiness and excitement. But here's the thing. Babies can't control their emotions. They don't know how. So they scream and cry and that's what you just did. You acted like a baby.

• 18:12Jocko Willink?

  Warriors have to keep control over their emotions. Especially over something as silly as someone calling you a name.

• 18:23Jocko Willink?

  So, that's another thing that I wrote about in the book is losing your temper. And when I was a kid, I lost my temper and as you grow up, you have to learn to control your temper. And Uncle Jake teaches Mark how to do that.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  Question number six here.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  Should Mark try to motivate people that are okay with being average? When he knows they have the potential to be great?

• 18:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's a good question from a warrior kid and my answer would be yes. You should always try and help and encourage people. But you also have to remember that sometimes people don't want to be encouraged. They just want to be left alone. So you have to pay attention when you're encouraging people to make sure you aren't annoying them too. And sometimes the best way to motivate people is just to do your best. So that they see that hard work works.

• 19:24Jocko Willink?

  All right. Well, that's all we have for this episode of the Warrior Kid Podcast. And if you want to get one of the Warrior Kids books, you can get them at WarriorKid.com. And if you want a Warrior Kid t-shirt, or a Jiu-Jitsu rash guard, you can get them at a place called JacoStore.com. And that's it. Thank you for listening. Thanks for reading the books. And now go out there, train hard, study hard, work hard, get after it, and be a warrior kid.