164: Psychological Attributes For Winning. "Psychology For The Fighting Man"

0:00:00 - Opening: "And We Go On" 0:11:00 - "Psychology For The Fighting Man" 2:19:08 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:25:00 - Support: How to stay on THE PATH. 2:47:01 - Closing Gratitude. 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 164 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  I crept ahead a few feet and raised carefully to look over the bank. Crack! A rifle was thrust up and fired only inches from Hale's head. The bullet split his scalp and the concussion broke his eardrums. Blood streamed over his face blinding him and I helped get him back to Stuart. Then I pitched a second bomb, close in. Meanwhile McIntyre had not halted. He had rushed on and Sambro and I half raised as we hurried after him. A machine gun blazed at us from a spot on the right and we dove into the mud. Crash, slam. The Stokes gun was at work but its shells dropped short, falling almost in our path. We rose again as the Maxim stopped firing.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  Then a flaming white-hot instant oblivion. When I recovered consciousness, my head was splitting with pain and a terrible nausea had seized my stomach. The Stokes shell had dropped beside me, throwing me bodily into the mud and Sambro was stunned as well. He was lying in the slime and feeling his limbs certain that he was wounded. All around us was a frightful clamor of guns and bombs and rifle shots. I heard McIntyre's voice shouting "5 rounds rapid", then it stopped but my nose was bleeding and I was too dizzy to stand. We crawled towards the sound, then halted.

• 1:34Jocko Willink?

  There was a great plunging in the murk and two dim figures came toward us puffing and blowing, tugging at something. They were Germans, big men, and a machine gun and tripod. They placed it just in front of us and one man yanked it along cartridge belt. I pulled the pin from my last bomb and heaved the missile a count of 2. It burst just beneath the tripod. One man went down like a huge tree, the other struggled a moment before he still'd. We went by them, making sure the gun was ruined, and a new-made crater found a man of A Company with his wrist almost severed. We bandaged him quickly and sent him back, and were rising to go on when Clark came stumbling through the mud and yelled at us, "Come on, give them!"

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  His shout was cut off. He pitched, dead in front of us. A man scurried by with a stretcher and we went over to the bank where we could see men moving. It was Lewis Gunner, and he said McIntyre'd been shot through the stomach and was dying. They got him on the old stretcher, but he went on to the short bank in front and found old Bill, Mickey, and Johnson crouched there, shooting at a German gun with that streaked sparks not more than thirty yards away. Sambro had bombs with him, and he and I hurled them. The burst seemed right on the gun, and it was silenced. I stared at the other men on the bank. They were all dead.

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  Melville, and Ira, and Jennings, lying there together, rifle in hand, all shot through the head by one sweep of the German gun. Old Bill had seen it, and stayed thereafter, trying to pot the Gunner himself. The fourth dead man was poor old Sam. At rest at last. We looked around and found all the rest of the party had gone, but another fit of sickness seized me and I could not move for a long time. Sambro stayed with me. We did not go back. We had to crawl a distance to avoid the machine-gun fire, but the main fighting had shifted over to the left. A light vapor was stealing over the ground, making it harder to see, and I stumbled over

• 3:48Jocko Willink?

  a body as we found the road bank. It was the Professor, riddled with bullets, dead. He was covered with mud, had lost his steel helmet, had evidently got lost in the darkness, and there he lay, after years of study and culture, with glassy eyes and face upturned to the sky, a smashed cog of the war machine, with not a hope of burial excepting by a chance shell. And the mist thickened and rolled suddenly over him.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  Knight found us still crouched in our cover, and I got up and went around the shell holes until I found old Bill and Johnson. They told me that a relief was due and that there had been no orders. Then a corporal from another platoon came and called to us to follow him. We were to go back to Ypres, the Sixteenth Battalion was relieving us. We went and met the incoming men by our old trench, where we're joined by the remainder of the company and heard that Big Glenn had been killed, that Izzy died gloriously in the fighting at the graph house. All that long dragged back was a hideous nightmare. The track was worse than when we

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  had come, and then the shelling was incessant. We moved with infinite slowness, every step a struggle, a tearing physical effort, and a vast noise was all, thundering, rolling, clamor that dulled our thinking, mercifully some smothering some of our agonized impressions of that night before. The November rains were chilling us, freezing us, our feet were always soggy, and we were almost despondent. All that time, we had been out, we had talked but little. Each man seemed

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  busy with his own thoughts, disinclined to speak to one another. There had been too many of our friends killed, the men we had been with for months. I found that McLeod and Farmer had died in the mud, Egglestone had been wounded and placed on a stretcher, and then he and his bearers were all blown to fragments by a big shell. And poor old Flynn had been killed. We seemed to move in a daze, to do things as if we were automatons.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  When it grew dark, we moved again to form a new line. The Hun spotted us and started shelling while machine gun fire raked the ground. Upham and I were together as we started digging, I saw a body just in front of us, a big man with his equipment over his greatcoat. "Catch hold of that stiff," I said to Upham. "Pull him back here and we'll use him for part of our parapet." He stared at me. "Don't," he yelled, "don't touch him." I seized the corpse myself, rolling it over into place, and Upham sprang from where he'd been, spading and commenced a new hole over to the right. A salvo of shells came and exploded.

• 7:00Jocko Willink?

  Whizzing fragments were all around me, but I was not touched. Upham fell and was dead when I reached him. There was a strange cry further on. It was the Sergeant Major who should have gone to the depot, the old original. He insisted in coming in for one more trip and his jaw had been carried away by shrapnel.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  He died before morning.

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  Two other men were down, Johnson and Barron, both wounded.

• 7:32Jocko Willink?

  The shelling continued all that night and the next day.

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  We had dug deep V-shaped pits, connecting some of them, and there we crouched, gray faces under muddy helmets, red-rimmed eyes staring, dazed, wondering, our brains numbed beyond thinking by the incessant explosions.

• 7:56Jocko Willink?

  One of the new men pitched down between our shelter and the next one. He was pierced in a dozen places and one arm had been sheared from his body by shrapnel.

• 8:07Jocko Willink?

  Mickey sat beside me, shuddering, half-stunned, staring, unseeing, his limbs twitching convulsively at each concussion.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is a couple of pages worth of reading of the book. And we go on, written by a guy by the name of Will Byrd, who was a Canadian soldier that fought in World War I.

• 8:47Jocko Willink?

  And like I said, that's just a couple of pages from the book, but the pages go on and on and on, just like that war did.

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  And you experience like the amount of people killed around him, wounded around him. It's horrific and it's hard to even fathom what that did to these men before, during and after. Combat physically and mentally and psychologically.

• 9:28Jocko Willink?

  And the physical part, these are things that you can see, you can see those wounds, you can understand them. But the psychological part is perhaps the hardest to understand.

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, I say that this podcast is about human nature. And the reason it is, and the reason that I focus on human nature is because in my opinion, in order to lead people, you have to understand people, you have to understand what their nature is, you have to understand human nature. And a lot of human nature boils down to psychology. And I recently got a recommendation from a trooper out on the interwebs, who recommended a book called Psychology for the Fighting Man. And this is a book that was first printed in 1943.

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  And the book is, it's an incredible book. It's filled with an immense amount of very useful information. And it's written as almost like a mental guide to the American military men that are getting ready to go fight the Germans and the Japanese in World War II. Obviously, 1943, that's when it's written. This is right in the middle of World War II. And even though the book is 75 years old, the, the information that's in it, the knowledge that is contained inside of it can still be utilized today in any leadership situation.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  And in fact, this book is so dense with information that I'm actually gonna split it into two separate podcasts so that we can go into some more detail and not end up with a 14-hour podcast. So, let's kick it off. Going into this book, as I said, the title of the book is Psychology for the Fighting Man, and the subtitle is What You Should Know About Yourself and Others. It kicks off Part One, Psychology in Combat. When the British Eighth Army pursued the retreating Axis forces from Egypt through Libya,

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  they found a long route, they found along the route, great quantities of abandoned equipment. Some tanks and guns in perfect condition, and gasoline for the tanks and ammunition for the guns. The physical materiel of a large Axis force was there, but it was useless to the Axis. There were no men left to operate it. You keep hearing it said that men cannot fight without weapons, but it is just as true that weapons cannot fight without men. An army is men. Not any men at all, for a crowd of men may only be a mob, but trained and equipped men. What sort of equipment do men of an army need?

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Planes, tanks, guns, and jeeps, mortars, grenades, rifles and bayonets, camouflage and mess kits, above all, food and water.

• 12:41Jocko Willink?

  Everything that the ordinance and quartermaster can supply, but that is not all. No, the men need morale. They need courage. They must have confidence in each other and the belief in ultimate victory. Who is the quartermaster who can issue stocks of courage and confidence?

• 13:04Jocko Willink?

  Yet these are essential weapons.

• 13:08Jocko Willink?

  So we're starting off with a great point. Where do you get your courage issued? Not from the quartermaster, not from the supply guy. No, it's got to come from somewhere else. And it is just as important part of winning a war as tanks, planes, bullets and bombs going on. And the army must have leaders too, plenty of them. CEOs and NCOs, who supplies them? Besides leaders, it must have all sorts of special abilities and skills. Mechanical, mechanical ability in, in particular is needed in this new mechanized war. Ability to drive trucks, pilot ability, mathematical ability, cooking ability, clerk skills, lots and lots of abilities.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  You can't fight a war without them. And the army needs efficiency too. And efficiency means not only effective organization. There is also basic efficiency of the individual man. His strength and health, his resistance to hardship and fatigue, his alertness even when fatigued and despite freezing cold or exhausting heat. Toughness of body is a weapon indispensable to victory. This book is so straightforward. It's just so straightforward and it doesn't pull any punches. It's, it's one of the best things about this and you can tell it's written, it's directed, it's directed for like the frontline grunt trooper.

• 14:33Jocko Willink?

  That's who it's directed at and not just the infantry guy, but anybody in the army doing any job. And it's refreshing to read something that's as straightforward as this book is. Going on, "The army has a perpetual problem of psychological logistics, a problem of the supply of motives and emotions, of aptitudes and abilities, of habits and wisdom. How does it get this mental materiel to the right places at the right time? That is what this book is about." So again, it's looking at the psychological aspect of warfare and saying, "How do you deliver these necessary supplies? We need courage, right? We need abilities, we need emotions, we need aptitudes, we need the right habits.

• 15:18Jocko Willink?

  How do you deliver those?" Back to the book, "If the army cannot find a man with needed ability, an effort is made to find one with an aptitude for being trained in that ability. And then it trains them all, in part by teaching them the rules and the techniques, in part by giving them practice. No troops are ready to go into combat until their training period is over, and even then they are still green troops. The training is still going on in combat until finally the men are seasoned troops, have learned how to meet the unexpected emergencies of war, and have acquired that competence and confidence that is the basis of their courage."

• 16:00Jocko Willink?

  It is this human materiel that determines more than any other one thing whether an army will win or lose. Guns and chow are essential too, but, given equally of supply, victory goes to the better troops, troops composed of men who know their jobs and do them willingly and well, men with initiative to act by themselves, the trained troops which make up the seasoned army. There are, moreover, fundamental differences between people that affect their ways of fighting and their abilities to fight. These differences are not, however, due to blood, as the Nazis teach, but mostly due

• 16:42Jocko Willink?

  to training, tradition, home life, and other things that have a powerful effect on the character of men. War is waged best by choosing methods of warfare best adapted to the nature of our own people and opposed to the natures of the enemy peoples.

• 17:02Jocko Willink?

  American men have no particular love for killing. For the most part, they hate killing. They think it is wrong, sinful, ordinarily punishable by death. They do not look upon death as a beautiful and glorious experience, and most of them do not consider the military life as a suitable life work. War to American men is a dirty, disagreeable business to be gotten over as soon as possible so that we, as a nation, can get along with what we were happily engrossed in. Inventing, producing, growing, making life more useful and satisfying.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  Americans can stand a long, hard pull. They look forward, not back. They are slow to accept war, will not go all out until they are attacked or are sure their ideals are in grave danger.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  But once they have started, they do not stop or spare themselves until the goal of victory seems to them to be secure. Perhaps in 1919, they made a mistake about having already made the world safe for democracy, but they would not have stopped had they thought, had they not thought themselves safe. Nor will they stop now.

• 18:25Jocko Willink?

  They are not demoralized by temporary adversity or single defeats. So, some good info right there. Clearly, trying to set the mental attitude of the American, young American soldiers that are reading this.

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  "We, we can stand the long, hard pull. If you mess with us, we're gonna finish it."

• 18:49Jocko Willink?

  "We're not demoralized by temporary adversity or single defeats." Doesn't matter. "You, you won a battle, right on. Watch this, we'll be back."

• 18:59Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, it has been said that war is inevitable. That men are so made that they just have to fight. That is true if you mean they have to be aggressive. That they need to have power and to use it. That they are forever wanting to change things that are hard to change. So as that they can get on with better living. But the fact is that they do not have to fight each other. And not many Americans. Agree with Hitler in thinking fighting other nations a good thing for any nation. Even when the ugly business ends in victory. There are other things than men and nations to fight. Men can fight calamity and disaster, flood, fire and famine.

• 19:44Jocko Willink?

  With anger and zest and even fight nature to prevent disasters happening. They fight disease, having for a century been waging effective war upon it. With innumerable conquests which history now records. They fight for freedom. Freedom to worship as they wish. Freedom to think and speak as they please. Freedom from want and poverty. Freedom from fear. That's the American and democratic philosophy. The reason why America is now at war. Every American ought to understand this. To know why a nation that wants peace has to go to war. Because nobody likes murder.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  You have to kill the murderers. You cannot get along without police. And this war is a policing job. It's a large scale job because it is a total war. So clearly this book is. Is answering a lot of questions for an 18 year old kid that's heading out to war. Maybe doesn't fully understand why or what's happening. And here it is just laying it out. Look, these people are bad. We're good. They need, we're the police of the world. Which sometimes in today's time. People take that as a negative, like we can't be the world police.

• 21:08Jocko Willink?

  But here he's straight up, this is straight up saying, yes, we are the world police. There's bad guys. We're gonna go put them down. And it's interesting too, nobody likes murder. You have to kill murderers.

• 21:23Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it's gotta be. Again, you know, these days, we get so desensitized by media, right? By movies and video games and music, talking about killing and like, that's just, that's the way we grow up.

• 21:40Jocko Willink?

  But in these days, you had to kind of convince people that, hey, this is the way it's gonna go down. You're gonna go kill people and that's okay.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  Total war is just what its name implies. War on all fronts with all possible weapons. There's the home front as well as all the battle fronts. There are also the military front, the economic front, and the psychological front. Military, economic, and psychological warfare make up total war.

• 22:12Jocko Willink?

  The Germans had that big idea first, but the Americans can fight the devil with his own fire and a hotter one and are doing it. The three kinds of warfare are all related. A military success may also be an economic victory if it results in the capture of great quantities of enemy materiel or blocks important supply routes to the enemy nation. Or it can be a psychological victory if it lowers enemy morale, helps to make soldiers expect defeat, leads the enemy people to be ready to submit.

• 22:48Jocko Willink?

  What I like about this idea of total war is when you apply it to other parts of your life, right? If you apply it to business and how you can't just focus on one aspect of business. You can't just focus on, hey, we're gonna go out and create something new. Guess what? We gotta create something new. We gotta sell it. We gotta figure out the way to get the cost of produce down. We gotta figure out how we're gonna beat our competitors. We gotta figure out how we're gonna spread. You gotta figure out all these things. Total war in business. In life, total war, right? How do you win the total? Your life is a war, right? Your life is a war. You're fighting against all these things that are happening and you're fighting to win. You're fighting to be healthy. You're fighting to be financially stable.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  You're fighting to take care of your family in the best possible way. It's total war and all these things you have to fight all these fronts at the same time all the time. That's why you can't sleep at night. Cause it's total war in life.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's so true. It's like you can, you can be like winning certain battles in life, you know? Like you can have a great job making great money, but don't exercise and be poor health, you know? Or, or opposite or what? There's so many like just different battles, you know?

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, absolutely. And you have to be paying attention to those. You have to pay attention to all the fronts.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:12Jocko Willink?

  And there's a lot of times where people get focused on one front.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  And it just doesn't, it doesn't help. And even, even like inside of a business, you'll get a business where they just focus on one thing.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:26Jocko Willink?

  And they'll miss that they're getting flanked.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  Big time.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of those times and this goes in life, obviously. That's what, how I'm thinking of it, but yeah, in companies, right? Where, how you say, they focus so much on one thing and then a lot of times is because that thing is like, has a big payoff. You know, like you get, it seems like dang, I'm getting ahead huge times, especially like at, like at home, right? Where, let me just put in just a few more hours of work, right? A week for a month, too much, three months. And dang, that paycheck comes in and you do so well for the, come, you go to work, you're the hero kind of thing. And you're like, dang, I'm getting ahead big time, but like something else will kind of falter, which won't show itself right away, you know? Then when you, like how you say, get flanked, you're like, dang, my health just flanked.

• 25:06Jocko Willink?

  You, you gotta get focused on all fronts. Continuing on, an economic success of our own can lead to a military defeat of the enemy if it robs of him of essential supplies. It can become a psychological victory if it disheartens him and makes him readier to give in. On the other hand, of course, a military victory is useless if it leads to a psychological defeat. The Japanese may have done a great, may have done great military damage at Pearl Harbor, but it resulted in net loss to them because of the effect of uniting the Americans in anger. Real defeats, other than death, are psychological in the end.

• 25:53Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty powerful. Real defeats, other than death itself, are just psychological, right? So they're just psychological. The enemy gives up, surrenders. You have to kill the enemy or make him surrender. There isn't any other kind of victory. If he is fanatical, you may just have to kill him. Americans would rather just get him to surrender. So this is something that's so important to remember is that if you get beat, it's psychological. If you're still alive, it's just a psychological defeat. You just need to reframe it. Yeah. And how are you going to come back and win next time?

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  Psychological warfare is the newest arm in war. It is directed at opinion, belief, confidence, courage, and the will to fight. It is both defensive and offensive for it tries to build up morale in our people and troops and to break down the morale of the enemy. The chief weapon of psychological warfare is propaganda. The radio and the press are used to bolster on the home front. The enemy is reached by newspapers and leaflets dropped from airplanes and by shortwave radio. Propaganda, in spite of what many people think, is not necessarily dishonest. Truth is often the best propaganda, especially when it is fed to persons who are starving for it.

• 27:11Jocko Willink?

  The most effective propaganda must be founded on fact, must start from some important event that actually happened and is known to be true. Then the propagandist interprets the event, much as a good lawyer interprets evidence in favor of his client, or as the honest advertiser makes a claim for his product. This is another very important part when you're in a leadership position. How much of being a leader is making sure that the propaganda gets out there? Have you ever heard this expression when someone says, uh, you know, you're not really good at telling your story? Have you ever heard that before? Like a, like a company?

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  They're they're out there trying to do great things and they are they're working hard and they're having some some success, but nobody knows it. And I when I work with companies, there's sometimes the companies, no one even inside the companies knows about the successes that they're having. They're failing to even spread the word within their own company. And so they think they're getting, you know, crushed by the by the competitors. Because they're not because the competitors guess what competitors great at propaganda. Every time the the the the competitor signs a new client, they put out a big LinkedIn post, right? They put in a big social media blast. Hey, we're just signing. It's great to welcome aboard our newest client.

• 28:34Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, you know, a company is not doing that. And so everyone inside the company doesn't know that we're signing all these new clients. So this idea of propaganda is is very important in warfare and in leadership and in business.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and at the same time, you might have heard about this. Probably have, you know, I think it was Facebook, maybe Instagram, I forget. But they did like some study where like it actually was linked to people getting depressed because of that. And it's this this cons that concept that you just said. Where, you know, people, this is nothing new, where where people they'll post just their highlights of their life. And then like me as just a normal person, I'm looking at everyone else's highlights of their life, thinking dang, I don't live that kind of life. I'm not traveling to Thailand and you know, all these places. And maybe I do, but that was like once last year and this, you know, it seemed so it kind of that it's it's like propaganda, maybe on purpose, sometimes maybe not.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  But it's like, yeah, it's like the the perception, you know, where you have you know. Your life and it's like the highlights are like one out of a thousand. Meanwhile, everyone else seemingly is one out of one. It's just all highlights.

• 29:44Jocko Willink?

  They're just having another sushi restaurant tonight. With a bunch of girls. And a Lamborghini.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  All that stuff, man. And it's like everyone.

• 29:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Except me, you know, so it's kind of that feeling.

• 29:57Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, he's not.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Whatever, bro. I'm not gonna fall for it. Not gonna fall for it.

• 30:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. And that stuff does, it does build up. It does. And that's like propaganda in your own life. Now, believe me, I'm not recommending that you do good propaganda on your Instagram to show your positive life. No, no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, don't believe the hype. Military psychology. Psychological warfare is not, however, the only way which psychology contributes to success in combat. There are hundreds of others, and soldiers and officers need to know what psychologists know and what psychological methods can find out. For instance, soldiers need to understand men in order to understand themselves and their comrades. And officers must learn how to interpret and influence the conduct of those for whom they are responsible.

• 30:48Jocko Willink?

  So this is exactly what I say all the time. If you want to be a good leader, you gotta understand people.

• 30:55Jocko Willink?

  The soldier must know about human needs, motives and emotions, about fear when it comes, what to do about it, about anger when it is useful, when it makes trouble, about zest, which is the core of good morale in a unit, about anxiety and the sense of insecurity, about indignation against the enemy and irritation against comrades, about the relation of food and of sex to military life. He should know also of the relation of all these things to morale and thus learn how to avoid bad morale and to build up good morale.

• 31:32Jocko Willink?

  Clearly, and this is not just true for combat, this is true for life. Every soldier ought to understand further the problems of the mental adjustment of men, first to the army, later to combat. Why men feel insecure, what makes for courage, the signs of approaching breakdown, how to prevent breakdown and what to do about it when it happens.

• 31:57Jocko Willink?

  The selection and training of leaders for the army has become one of the most important problems in the psycholo- in the psychology of war. Not enough is known about it, but what is known to some should be known to all. The good leader is the man who builds up morale. How does he do it? What kind of man must he be? If he is a poor leader, can he become a better one?

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  And there are mobs and panics to be understood too. Civilian mobs and panics may be the concern of the soldier when the populace gets mixed up with the fighting, or when the enemy's home front begins to break. Panics may, moreover, occur in well-disciplined troops if all the conditions for panic are present. What are these conditions? Why are seasoned troops panicked less than green troops? The army place each man with his talents where he will be used to his best advantage, but each individual must know how to get the most out of his talents.

• 33:05Jocko Willink?

  The primitive fact of combat is that man pushes when he encounters an obstacle to the achievement of his desire, pushes more if blocked, gets angry if still thwarted, and then fights. But to this fighting, he eventually brings all of the knowledge and skill that has made him supreme among the animals. He fights by learning how to use his eyes at night and learning how to arrange a system that will let him hear inside of an airplane. He fights by selecting good leaders and good truck drivers. He fights by understanding human nature in order to build up good morale that will overcome fear.

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  He fights by saying the right thing in the right way to the right people at the right time, and sometimes that is propaganda. He uses every resource of science and intelligence, including psychology. He has to, for this is total war.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  I love thinking about that.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  About?

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  Every aspect of your life is to be prepared for total war. Which, by the way, you're in. You know, you might not be in combat at this moment in time, but you're fighting. You're fighting all the time and you have to bring every asset, every resource that you have available. You have to bring it to fight because this is total war.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  Now, the book goes into some pretty big sections right here. One of them is sight is a weapon or sight as a weapon and then hearing as a tool. And it literally talks about how to see better, things you can do to make your night vision better. How to preserve your night vision, how to see sharper, just all those kinds of things. It talks about camouflage and stuff, real tactical stuff. And then it talks about hearing and what you need to hear and how you can adjust your hearing and how to listen sharply. And I'm gonna go, I'm not gonna talk about the sight piece, but I'm gonna talk about the noise. There's just some interesting points about noise.

• 35:22Jocko Willink?

  Loud sounds, especially when they are sudden and strange, are natural causes of fear. Many sounds are terrifying. A sudden loud noise like the discharge of a pistol will make anyone blink and jump. It will startle them. This is true even of well-trained men who pride themselves on their familiarity with firearms. It is an instantaneous response that may be all over before the eye can see it. It shows up, however, in slow motion pictures. Seasoned troops get so that they don't appear to pay any particular attention to the din of battle. Even horses will stand still under the rising roar of a diving bomber will only toss a head impatiently.

• 36:06Jocko Willink?

  The experienced soldier, on the other hand, needs first to become adapted to the noises of war. He must be exposed to them in training as much as possible. After the noise has become familiar, its loudness will not affect him so greatly in combat. Control over noise makes it less fearful. You don't mind the noise of gunfire so much as you are the one who is doing the shooting. So, talking about getting people used to the loud noises that you're gonna come up against. And this is something that we used to do, I don't even know if guys do it anymore, because it's probably not that smart. But we used to do immediate action drills with no ear protection in. So we'd get used to shooting guns and having all that just massively loud noise.

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  We wouldn't do it every time, but we would do several runs with no ear protection. This is...

• 36:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, in current times, guys have these nice headsets that have noise, they're noise cancelling headsets. So they're actually pretty awesome. So it's not that big of a deal anymore. But back in the day, they wanted to make sure, hey, you gotta realize how loud this is gonna be if you get in a firefight. If you get in your first firefight and you've never had a M60 machine gun two feet away from your ear, getting crazy, laying down a hundred round belts, it'll be a shock to your system. So that's what, and not to mention, they're hucking grenade simulators at you and artillery simulators. So there's explosions going off, because that's what, that's what they're trying to do. Get you used to that scenario.

• 37:38Jocko Willink?

  Men subjected to the excessive noises of war over a long period sometimes build up an oversensitiveness to any sort of loud, sharp report. They are in the state of a man with a hangover. The bang of a door will make them jump. A loud shout is painful. The noise of a truck exhaust is frightening. In the hospitals where men are convalescing from bad cases of these war nerves, the dropping of a pan will startle a ward full of sleeping men so violently that the jerk will bring them out of their sleep and even out of their beds and onto the floor.

• 38:15Jocko Willink?

  But this state of nerves, though linked in their minds with the noise and produced by the noise, is due mainly to more disturbing things that have become associated with the noise. Noise is just as loud and originally just as distressing as the noises of war, if they are only just a part of everyday work or fun are tolerated. Men become used to the din of a boiler factory or a pneumatic drill. It may deafen them, but it does not demoralize them. So that's pretty obvious, right? What's, what's making these noises horrible to you is because every time a bomb goes off, you see your friends get blown up and killed and you're afraid that the same thing's gonna happen to you. Whereas a pneumatic drill, you're just making a bunch of noise. So you're not that worried about it.

• 39:01Jocko Willink?

  This was, again, there's a lot of real, basic information. You can imagine this book being issued to frontline troops, but I had to call this one out here too. Sooner or later, most soldiers have the experience of getting lost in heavy woods or jungles, possibly get lost a few yards, just a few yards off the trail. It gives a man a peculiar helpless feeling. You are so accustomed all your life to knowing where you are and who you are and about what time it is, that the feeling of not knowing one of these things comes as a great shock.

• 39:38Jocko Willink?

  And then it goes on a little further. It says, "A compass is a big help." And I was like, "Yeah, yes, it is indeed." Here's another real, Captain Obvious. "It is best to have a map in your pocket when you get lost. If you can't have one, then you ought to see one before you get into strange country." So that's real obvious, too. "The more a soldier knows about maps, the better equipped he is for combat duty. His training in how to read them and what to look for on them, if he keeps practicing, should enable him to find himself if he ever gets lost on any terrain he knows from a map." And the reason I called that part out is... Think about all the situations that you get in. Where you have the opportunity to gather some intelligence before you go into them.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you're going for a job interview, what can you know about that company? If you're going to meet with a client you've never met with before? How much information can you have? Well, these days, you can Google someone, you get all kinds of information. You go to their LinkedIn account, you can find out where they went to school and what sport they played or whatever. You go to their Facebook page. You go to their, you pull up articles that were written about them and there's all kinds of intelligence you can gather. There's no reason to go into a meeting blind anymore. Without knowing the terrain that you're getting into, without understanding the culture that you're going into, there's no reason for it. Next, work in the army is much more than just shouldering a rifle and doing long foot marches. Soldiers work at several hundred different kinds of fighting jobs.

• 41:06Jocko Willink?

  And at even more kinds of jobs, some directly related to combat and some not, which can be filled with men already trained for them or men who have the necessary aptitude for learning one of the jobs quickly. All leaders have the responsibility for seeing that the right man gets the right job and when mistakes are made, that misfits are transferred. And this thing is, this is where this book gets pretty politically incorrect. It's basically saying, look, some people can't do these jobs. Some people aren't fit for these jobs and some people aren't fit for these other jobs. Continuing on, thousands know how to drive a tractor, how to repair an ignition system. Others can weld castings, repair watches, other timing instruments or road transits, keep accounts,

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  carve carcasses of beef, develop photographs. The army needs many men who can do these things. The British found that out in the First World War. At first, they neglected to save their specialists. They sent to the front professional men, engineers and men in skilled trades. Many were killed in the early months of the war. Later, the need for them in special posts behind the line became acute. So yeah, this is all about forming up an army of civilians that have skills and saying, oh, you've been a truck driver for whatever, for six years in the civilian sector. Guess what you're gonna do for us? You're gonna drive a truck. Oh, you're a butcher? Guess

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  what? We need butchers. And right on down the line, and you can imagine World War One, probably them being very short sighted on how long that war was gonna last. And like, oh, oh, you're a mechanic? Cool. We're just gonna send you the front with everyone else. And you're gonna die like everyone else. And you look up in six months or a year, and they don't have the necessary support logistically to carry on the war.

• 43:00Jocko Willink?

  How soldiers differ. Men differ just as much in ability to learn different sorts of duties as they do in size of feet, in height, or in weight. Some are as much as three times as able as others. I like that. Hey, some people are just three times more capable than you. That's the way it is. Most, of course, are just about average.

• 43:27Jocko Willink?

  Some men cannot learn a three-figure telephone number by hearing it once. Some can learn as many as nine figures. The average is around six or seven. Have you ever heard that before? Have you ever heard that the reason our numbers are seven digits long is because that's about the average that a human can memorize?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Dang, no, I haven't. And that's very interesting.

• 43:47Jocko Willink?

  I heard that. Could that possibly be not bro-science, but urban myth? Yeah, could it be urban legend? It could be.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  It's true. I like it. It's awesome, actually.

• 44:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, you have your doctorate in bro-science, so.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  I'm working on it. Yes, yes.

• 44:04Jocko Willink?

  Did you do your undergrad in urban legend?

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Some men, starting from scratch, can learn in eight weeks to receive and send radio code at 16 words per minute. It takes others 22 weeks. Some men, used to handling certain types of machinery, can learn to handle certain kinds of weapons much faster than others. So the problem is to understand and measure aptitude. Aptitude is potential skill, the capacity for learning to do something quickly and accurately when given the chance to learn. Both speed and accuracy are important in learning. A soldier needs to learn rapidly, but also to be accurate at what he's learned. And men differ from one to another in both ways.

• 45:01Jocko Willink?

  For one thing, men differ greatly in the speed with which they learn. Some aviation cadets can solo after four hours of instruction. Others are not allowed to solo even after 14 hours. Here, the quick learners are urgently needed. Slow learners tie up the training planes too long. Besides, quick learning might mean a shorter war. Yet, the army cannot do without the slow learners. Manpower is needed, and there are many military jobs which require other qualities than speed of learning, jobs which the slow learners will prefer to have.

• 45:42Jocko Willink?

  Men also differ in speed and accuracy of reaction. The average driver requires from one-half to three-quarters of a second to put on the brakes after the stoplight goes red. Yet, some can apply the brakes in three-tenths of a second. Others use up to a whole second. These are important differences for riflemen and machine gunners, as well as for truck drivers. Every tenth of a second counts in battle. You ever see that thing where they were?

• 46:12Jocko Willink?

  They were doing like the speed tests for Conor McGregor. And he was the he was the fastest athlete they had tested.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Speed like reaction kind of speed?

• 46:21Jocko Willink?

  Like reaction time, like when you see something, you touch a button or whatever, you know, whatever they have these little tests set up.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27Jocko Willink?

  And apparently McGregor was the fastest athlete that they had tested.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Which is crazy.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is crazy.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:33Jocko Willink?

  It is crazy because you know, some of these baseball players and I guess I think I think that would be the. Do you think that would be the fastest hand eye coordination?

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, off the top of my head, seems like it. I mean, because those balls come quick.

• 46:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is a test you can do when we're kids, what how they do it, you know, in science class. You hold one guy holds a ruler. No, no, no, real science. You know, they you get a ruler.

• 46:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  And then one, yeah, the teacher holds it and then you put he puts it on your finger, you know, between your fingers, right at the at the zero mark. He drops it and how quick you can.

• 47:08Jocko Willink?

  How far do your fingers have to be opened?

• 47:11Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 47:11Jocko Willink?

  Because it seems like that could be an advantage.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  A little bit, yeah.

• 47:14Jocko Willink?

  My grandfather used to do this, it was called the dollar drop.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:19Jocko Willink?

  And he would fold a dollar lengthwise, only to make it kind of aerodynamic.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:24Jocko Willink?

  And if you could catch the dollar, you could you could keep it.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it sounds pretty easy, doesn't it?

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, it does.

• 47:30Jocko Willink?

  Some people can't catch that dollar.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's the yeah, so you'd think if you're, you know, you're saying you just said, how far your fingers.

• 47:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  The thing is, for the experiment, as long as you designate kind of that, you know, or even eyeball it.

• 47:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  You know, it might be a millimeter difference, but you know, usually it's like.

• 47:49Jocko Willink?

  But there's always those people that are looking for that edge, right?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Sure, there is.

• 47:54Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm thinking I would be figuring out how because I used to do that with a dollar drop, right? I'd get my fingers here.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yes, that makes sense when the you know, the dollar drop has more stakes for sure.

• 48:04Jocko Willink?

  High stakes.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Even though.

• 48:05Jocko Willink?

  Especially when he pulls out that fiber.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  You're probably the guy in science class who wanted to win though, even though it wasn't a competition.

• 48:13Jocko Willink?

  Of course it's a competition.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  And I, I don't know, I'm pretty sure that that stuff can be trained as well. And that's one thing that, um, you know, when you, when you're bringing your kids up, you bring them up and you make them play multiple different sports. You don't focus them too young because they become, they don't, they don't develop the broader athletic skills.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 48:37Jocko Willink?

  So you're supposed to. Get them involved in a bunch of different sports. And those kids will end up, even if you took one kid and you say, oh, you're just gonna do a hundred percent football this whole life. And you took another kid and you did multiple sports and, but you did like a little bit more of a focus on football. The chances are the kid that did multiple sports, but focused on football is gonna do better than the kid that just did football. From what I understand, I'm sure there's some bro science people out there that will, uh, object to my statement.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Makes sense, you know.

• 49:09Jocko Willink?

  You brought more broadly athletic.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you can, and I'd imagine you'd be able to learn quicker too, because your body is used to moving in, different ways rather than just the one way.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  Cause what are you gonna do when things are a little bit different out on the football field, right? There's little situations that can unfold and if you're athletically adept at adapting to various situations, you're gonna be better off.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 49:32Jocko Willink?

  Going on. Men differ also in the speed and accuracy of perceiving. One clerk can check in five minutes, a company roster that takes another man 20 minutes. Some men can see a white target in the dark 400 yards away to others, it is invisible at 200 yards. Range finders differ in their ability to tell the distances of different objects. When the job is seeing, you must choose the best seers.

• 50:02Jocko Willink?

  So that's interesting because you could have someone that has bad reactions, but they can see really well. And if you ever read, and I'm sure at some point we'll do Chuck Yeager's book on here. Matter of fact, Chuck Yeager's on Twitter. I don't know if you know that, but Chuck Yeager's on Twitter and I've gone back and forth a couple of times. People have said, come on the podcast, but in his podcast or his book, Yeager, he just had incredible vision, like he'd be flying in formation and he could see the enemy way before anyone else could see the enemy. He'd be like, oh, bogies at four o'clock, boom, we go. And because his eyesight was apparently just amazing. And that used to be a big deal for fighter pilots. I think it's less of a big deal now because you got radar and, and all that.

• 50:46Jocko Willink?

  So it's not as big of a deal as it used to be. Just your eyes against the enemy's eyes.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, there is however, much more to a good soldier than speed and accuracy with which he learns, acts and perceives. Every man has interests, likes and dislikes. These determine in part what he will do well and how fast he will improve. A man's interests, for instance, usually determine what he will do with what he learns. Mere exposure to training never made a skilled soldier. It is the interested man who remembers and profits by his training and is ready to apply it to new situations. Right? So true. So true. How true, it's just so true.

• 51:41Jocko Willink?

  So true. We don't, and, and what I think is really important about this from a business perspective is what they're basically saying is put the right people in the right jobs. That's the overall concept to put the right people in the right jobs. That's what you need to do. If you've got someone that might not be super talented, but they're, they're very interested, they're probably the better hire than someone that's just got a bunch of talent, but doesn't care. In fact, I'll go ahead and say they straight up are the better hire.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz and then they'll they'll wind up learning like so quick and your specific thing. You know, your specific.

• 52:15Jocko Willink?

  They're into it. Someone that's not into it, that's that's bad.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Or like someone who has like a major like degree and you know, his resume is.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Degree, but like, hey, I'm really into whatever it is that you're doing. Like, for instance, you like making videos, you're into it, right?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 52:34Jocko Willink?

  If you didn't like making them, if you got no enjoyment from it, think of how horrible it would be to trying to get you to do it. I mean, it's pretty hard to get you to do a video right now and you actually like doing it.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you know, like um, like politics, right? You know how like some people, they like politics, some people don't. So you get someone who likes politics and the news comes on. They're gonna be all up in there, learning everything what's going on like today, you know, then someone who's not, they're like, oh, the news is on, let me watch.

• 53:05Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's an interesting, I thought you were gonna say that people that are into politics, cuz I actually, that's one case where I would disagree. Cuz a lot of times, people that really like politics, you don't want them in politics cuz they're just political machines, right? You want a normal person. Just a normal, everyday, you don't want the person that's like, you know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna be president. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be in charge, they like that person, you don't want him to be president. It's like, look, I don't really wanna do this.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think, yeah, that's different.

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  All hungry for the political life, they're they're they're arrogant person that thinks that they should be in charge of it, it's like, no.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I meant, I meant like on TV, like so, like me, if I if I watch, um, I don't know, like.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's kind of a good example cuz I'm interested in Hawaii. So, you know, I'm gonna like, but like, okay, so on, so I make videos, right, I do some some visual effects, whatever. There's a YouTube channel called Video Copilot. Right, so all this, it's mainly just tutorials on how to do stuff, that's all it is, really.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  So when that like if a new video comes out or something, man, I'm all up in there, all up in it. But you.

• 54:17Jocko Willink?

  Don't care.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Bro, you're gonna watch that thing and you're gonna, you're gonna, you're not even gonna click on it. Not even close.

• 54:23Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 54:24Jocko Willink?

  Unless I was like, hmm, I wonder if I want to take Echo's job.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, or okay, so.

• 54:28Jocko Willink?

  But case in point, I'm not interested.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:30Jocko Willink?

  So I could barely even get through one of those videos.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 54:34Jocko Willink?

  Before I'd be like, no, I'm gonna go over here and do burpees.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So you're gonna click on that video. If I say, hey, Jaco, click on this video. This will make, you know, you're broadening your horizon. I don't know, whatever. Click on this video and just watch the whole thing. Watch it five times, actually.

• 54:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Bro, when you're done watching it five times, bro, everything went over your head.

• 54:52Jocko Willink?

  Don't care.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Bro, you don't even care.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  So advice from this book is put people that are interested in the job, truly inherently interested, and they're gonna do a better work even than maybe someone that's more talented than they are.

• 55:08Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Other personal differences besides interests and likes and dislikes are important, especially for some military tasks. One may feel, one man may feel completely at ease in the transparent cage in which a bombardier must sit, while another ordinarily dexterous is so upset in the exposed position that the pupils of his eyes dilate, his fingers fumble, and he cannot manipulate the bomb site properly.

• 55:40Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. You got a guy that's probably a better, maybe he has quicker reaction times, but he's just scared to be inside the turret.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:49Jocko Willink?

  Two equally wise officers may not be equally good leaders. One is at ease with his men, talking with them freely, getting their slant on matters of importance and giving his orders and directions readily. The other, although he wants his men to like him and respond alertly and willingly to him as a leader, cannot bring himself to feel free and confident with them and open up with them in a way to gain their confidence and liking in turn. The first is, of course, the better leader.

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. That's like straight up, hey, this person, if you're more comfortable talking to your troops, they're going to sense that and you're going to be better than someone that's not comfortable talking to the troops. Indeed, leadership is the quality that the army most needs. All advancement brings with it responsibility and responsibility for the conduct of others requires leadership.

• 56:51Jocko Willink?

  That's interesting because what's interesting about that is that is, and it goes into this later on, talking about the, we probably won't cover it until the next podcast on this book, but talking about the, you know, are leaders born or made? And this is clearly leaning a little bit towards born, clearly. Which I agree with. I think leaders are born and made.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it feels like a lot of times when people use the expression, are they born? Whether it be leaders, whether it be whatever, you know, he's a natural, whatever.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  I get the expression and I understand and I agree of course, but technically, like if you say if a leader is made or born, born meaning like he wasn't trained at a very specific point to be a leader. He brought to the training or to the position, just a bunch of like talent or whatever, but he probably learned that through like his life, what he was exposed to, what he was, you know.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  True, but there are certain aptitudes that people have. And those play an impact. So if you have somebody that's really articulate, they're going to make a better leader than someone that's not articulate.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  But even someone who's articulate, they they learn that through sort of life. There's no.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  Possibly, but some of it.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Maybe they have like a shorter tongue or something. Because it has to be genetic is what I'm saying. I don't know if there's an articulate gene.

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  There is an articulate gene for sure. Well, it's not a gene, it's your brain. How much capacity do you have to process words quickly and assemble them together into sentences and put them out into a comprehensible statement? How can you do that? How well can you do that?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're not born knowing how to talk. I guess, yeah, it is like a processor.

• 58:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you have what? Yeah, that's it. What processor, what size processor do you have in your in your brain? Do you got the old four eighty six?

• 58:47Jocko Willink?

  Or you got the new pentium, whatever.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  No, I don't know though.

• 58:50Jocko Willink?

  Probably like ten years old now, isn't it? A pentium.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  I know, it's like a I seven or I nine.

• 58:55Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Anyway, but no, because there's articulate people who don't talk fast or don't. Yeah, then, no, yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  Able to assemble their, okay, here's another one. And this one's, and I've talked about these before, but the ability to look at complex problems and simplify them. Sure, some of that is learned. Some people just are born with it.

• 59:16Jocko Willink?

  Some people learn it in the streets.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think my, my, I'm drawing back on my borough science background. And I, I do think, I believe I'm under, I believe it all, it's a belief that you get it from like life.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  Like you get some of it from life, but I guarantee if you take someone that had a twin brother. And, and you, one of them would be more apt at some things than the other one. There's got to be some things that you are better at than your brother naturally. And some things that your brother's better at than you.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  I don't know of any, but the, I mean, put it this way, all the differences that we have, I feel like I can map it back to why. Because just being second born, I was born a little bit smaller too. Now look at me like a bigger, cause I'm like, I don't want to be bigger. Especially people would compare too, you know, like growing up with a twin brother, they always compare. They're like, oh, he's a little bit taller than you right there.

• 1:00:14Jocko Willink?

  Skinny one.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Yes, or whatever. Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  They ain't saying that no more, are they, boy?

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Anyway, the point is, I'm not saying, I'm not saying you're, I think you're probably right, of course, but.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  I think it's mostly learned.

• 1:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Bro, people have a certain genetic cognitive capacity without question.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Jocko Willink?

  That's not even debatable.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Yes, I would not debate.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  So what we're talking about is the ability to take that cognitive capacity and steer it towards the articulation of language. If you have more cognitive capacity, you'll be able to articulate language better. And there's probably little. Modules inside the brain that are genetic that have even more capacity for the grabbing and assembling of linguistic patterns together. Where they flow off the tongue rapidly and sensibly. And there's got to be part of your brain that's better at that just genetically. Now, of course, if you spend a lot of time in that arena, you will get better at it over time.

• 1:01:25Jocko Willink?

  But there's got to be some, just like you have X amount of fast twitch muscle. And Echo Charles, like, how hard did you work at your vertical jump? Did you guys test that in football?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  Okay, what was the highest vertical jump you ever had?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Thirty nine and a half inches.

• 1:01:42Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty good, right? Is there, were there people on your team that worked harder than you, if not harder, that never got to thirty nine and a half inches?

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Probably yes. Actually, yes.

• 1:01:55Jocko Willink?

  Affirmative.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz they didn't really work.

• 1:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. I knew this was a loaded question.

• 1:02:02Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:02:03Jocko Willink?

  So somewhat, there was someone on your team that they, they worked and they trained and they were doing jump squats and Bulgarian lunges and split squats and they were just trying to get that vertical jump up. They were wearing, remember those shoes with like the toes on them?

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, sir.

• 1:02:18Jocko Willink?

  Get them hops. Want to get them hops? So this guy had all those things and you know, he got to thirty two inches, right? And he was, he was bummed.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Jocko Willink?

  But, but that's what I'm saying.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:29Jocko Willink?

  He has a certain genetic capability. There's physical capabilities that are genetic and there's some, some mental capabilities that are genetic and both of them have a max capacity. And that dude with the, the toe shoes for vertical jump improvement that wore them awesome. There was a kid one time, he lived across the street from me. He, you know, he's young, he was, this is when I was probably twenty five, I was in the, it was back in the day. But this kid trained all summer long with those shoes and he was, what he wanted to do is dunk a basketball.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And he did it. You know, he did it eventually, but he, he worked hard. There are some people that don't even have to work hard, they can dunk a basketball. They're just got it.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:03:13Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, my friend Cake Nuts, who I mentioned.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Can Cake Nuts dunk?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  No, we're talking about some, some different attribute now. He was, he always had like, kinda like. Big, it's called big muscle bellies, like the part of your muscle. Anyway, he had kind of big muscles genetic. He was a thinner guy, but and he was always cut. So even into adulthood, he wouldn't have to watch his diet, you know? Meanwhile, if like a normal person, if you watch your diet like a lot, then you can get that cut. You can get there. Oh, yeah, I totally can. But Cake Nuts, he's just cruising. He's just cut, shred abs, you know, and then he like lifts a bunch of weights over the summer. It was workout I gave him, by the way. And he lifts, but he comes back and he's just huge, still cut, by the way. So it's like dang. But you know, he just has it like that.

• 1:03:59Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Genetic, genetic differences. And that's what they're talking about in this book. And I think sometimes people's attitude nowadays is like, well, you know, you, you can do whatever you want. Well, it's like, no, actually, you should find out what's good for you.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Jocko Willink?

  That's what you should look for.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Jocko Willink?

  Like I was a radio man. You know, it's like a radio man. Why? Cause I was like smart, but I was big enough to carry a radio, right? If the small guys in the SEAL platoon, they become the point man. Cause you don't have to carry any extra weight generally.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  So you're so right, like so right. And consider like major um industries and we'll just say sports, right? Where it's like, it's pretty clear. When you win, you win. When you lose, you lose. Sports, right? So get the established sports.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  With very, very few exceptions is going to be the case. You're going to get like, okay, football. Because there's a bunch of positions that do very different things. The tight end, he's going to be a certain build generally speaking. The quarterback, he's going to be a certain build and receiver, he's going to be a certain build. The center and the line, certain build. Like you grab a guy from a line, guard, right? One of the guys in the line, you put him on defense as like a cornerback or something. Who needs literally opposite attributes, you know, to do that, see what happens. So, no, no, no, just train him. Train him for 10 years. No, negative.

• 1:05:15Jocko Willink?

  You can make him better, but you won't make him successful.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Exactly, right? So it's like, it's such a clear example, just because there's more on the line with that, you know?

• 1:05:21Jocko Willink?

  So if you're a youngster. You should look at your attributes and see number one where your attributes fit and then what your interests are. Sometimes people get they're super interested and so they just try for it anyways. You know, and that's cool. That's cool. There's there's some people that would get really good at a sport, but they're still not good enough to go pro because they don't have the genetic.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Jocko Willink?

  Gifts that are needed.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's why it's so prevalent. It's such a like big deal when you do find the like the super rare guy where it's like, hey, he's not really genetically gifted, but he works so hard. That he made it to the pros and typically that's like a guy in basketball who's like not tall, not fast.

• 1:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  You know, like that kind of guy. Yeah, but he was he was pretty fast, though, and he could jump.

• 1:06:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, well, but he's small. You know what's interesting? I was talking to Dallas, who's the coach of the Gulls, the San Diego Gulls hockey team, but a few years ago, not very long, the hockey had become all these big giant guys, you know, six, four, six, five, two hundred and sixty pounds, these big monster guys, and that's where everyone had started going in that direction. All the teams are just getting bigger and bigger because these guys are massive. They can hit hard. And then recently it started going back again to guys that were smaller and quicker and could move faster. So that's an interesting evolution, but you can look at it. You could have looked at it, you know, four years ago or whatever it was.

• 1:06:54Jocko Willink?

  I don't really know, but ten years ago or whatever, when if you were five, eleven, you're like, oh, man, I'm not big enough to play pro hockey. But some kids were like, you know what? I'm five, eleven. I'm be fast. I'm faster than everyone. Okay, cool. And they made it. And now they're in the game.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, I'm not as familiar with like the necessities of being a good hockey player or or team as far as the physical attributes. But like football, I use that be that example because the the jobs of each position are so different. I meant not each position, but like the differences between, you know, like a cornerback, wide receiver, and then the difference between that and like a lineman.

• 1:07:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, totally different.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  So like basketball is different, even though they they have different positions where everyone has sort of generally speaking, of course, there's exceptions, but everyone's gonna be tall. No one's gonna be like slow. If you're like slow, it's like that's a big kind of deal, you know? So everyone's a little bit more uniform.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Hockey seems the same way.

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, more uniform. Hockey's more uniform. SEAL platoon is not uniform.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Jocko Willink?

  Cause you got a big sixty gunner.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  Pig gunner.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:08:01Jocko Willink?

  But, but you know what? Not all pig gunners are big.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  Cause you can just be a tough one hundred and sixty-two pound pig gunner.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Just king gold.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Just can grind it out.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Jocko Willink?

  Point man's usually a little bit smaller.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:08:14Jocko Willink?

  But that's, but when you get to a SEAL team, guys look at you and you're like, oh, you're, you're five, seven. You're a hundred and forty pounds. You're gonna be a point man. That's the way it's gonna work.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Most of the time. Sometimes you get in a platoon and they're like, we already got a point man, dude. You're gonna carry a pig. Here you go. Buck up and start doing some squats, boy. All right. Personality. It takes more than brains to make a good soldier. It takes guts. It takes endurance. It takes a willingness to do hard work. It takes a keen interest in doing the job well. Psychologists wish they could give the army right now a method of measuring these important personality assets. Tests that would be as accurate and reliable as a test for measuring the ability to do arithmetic

• 1:09:02Jocko Willink?

  or aptitude for learning radio code. They can't. Some tests have been tried. Many have been found useless. Few are promising. You know what's interesting? I just thought of this. I went to communication school, the SEAL communication school, and we had to learn Morse code. And there was probably twenty guys in my comms course. And we all had to learn Morse code. And this was very clear that some people were better at it than others. Cause you had to, and we didn't have to send very fast, but we had to be able to receive.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:40Jocko Willink?

  Like a certain amount of groups. It's called a group. It's five, five letters in a group.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Jocko Willink?

  And they would just come at you.

• 1:09:48Jocko Willink?

  And you had to be able to receive and write down what the letters were.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Jocko Willink?

  With no mistakes. But what's interesting is we all showed up. No one knew any Morse code when we showed up. And there was a complete bell curve when we got done. You know, some guys were really good at it naturally. Some guys were horrible at it and it took every ounce of mental power for them to figure out and get to be able to pass the test. And I had a crazy guy that was teaching the comm school and someone would be like, hey, um, chief, why do we have to learn? You know, Morse code since no one uses it anymore. He'd say, uh, in the event of a nuclear holocaust, Morse code is the only thing that's gonna be punching through the ionosphere. And of course I was 18 years old and I was like, oh dude, that's right.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink?

  Right on. I was, my interest was piqued. I was like, hey, in event of a nuclear holocaust, I'm gonna be on the HF radio hammering out Morse code to the troops, letting them know what's up.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Well, that makes sense.

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  That's how stupid I was.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  What, wait, what do you mean? So what? You don't agree with that now?

• 1:10:49Jocko Willink?

  Dude, if there's a nuclear holocaust, I wouldn't be alive.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  Well, what if you're. But you, you know, what if you're like one of the only survivors or survivors like me? But it's so, man, that's interesting that, that where you'd have to, I mean, that small little thing that you just said where you have to, it's less about putting it out. It's more about receiving. Cause Morse code, you don't communicate necessarily.

• 1:11:11Jocko Willink?

  Here's the reasoning behind it. If you wanna send Morse code, you can send it whatever pace you want because the people are just gonna sit there and take the letters that you're sending, right?

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  They're not saying hurry up.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:23Jocko Willink?

  So you can send it whatever pace you want, but receiving, you gotta be ready. And I forget what the minimum standard, I think, I wanna say it was 20 groups a minute or something like that.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. What, to pass? You mean like?

• 1:11:34Jocko Willink?

  To be passing and I forget, I forget. But we weren't as good as like a regular Navy guy who would just be, I don't even know what, but they were way faster. We were like knuckle draggers compared to them.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  They're like a language.

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  We had to learn it every day and you had to do it every day until you tested out. And some people tested out in a few weeks. Some people didn't test out until the, you know, the last days. Sitting there doing Morse code.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Do you um, do you, do you still know Morse code?

• 1:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Not really.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  What if it came in at like beep?

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  No, I would need to brush up on it. I would need to brush up on it, and which I need to do because if there is a nuclear holocaust.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  I want to be, you know, ready to get comms out HF comms.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and receive them, of course, you know?

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, check. But it, it's such a clear example of, and the guys, it wasn't like on that bell curve of guys that were good and bad. It wasn't like everyone that was a good seal was up at the top and the guys that weren't good at Morse code were bad seals. No, it was like some of the guys were awesome guys and they sucked at Morse code.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Jocko Willink?

  And some guys were marginal guys, but they were great at Morse code.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  And there's a perfect example. Like, what do you do with that guy? Well, put him in a, make him a radioman, you know?

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's interesting. He had cake nuts when, when he was going through, I think it was buds. No, no, it was after buds. He, he kept saying like, man, actually, my other friend Jeremy was telling me that, oh yeah, he's good at like pretty much everything. He's, he's just really good at stuff except for picking locks.

• 1:13:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  He was like struggling with like picking locks, which is kind of a random thing to struggle with.

• 1:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Picking locks is, is a difficult thing and it's a it's more like playing a musical instrument than it is like doing a technical skill where you do A, B, C, and you get D. No, picking locks is like you gotta feel for it.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Little art, man.

• 1:13:25Jocko Willink?

  You gotta feel for it. And I've been with guys, I was okay at picking locks.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Jocko Willink?

  The guy that I learned from was he could walk up and put the, you know, walk up to a doorknob and stand not facing it and just stand there and just pick the lock open in seconds. It's pretty incredible.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Kind of like on that, that movie, The Italian Job. You ever watch that?

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good one. So this girl, she was like the safe cracker, right? You know, they're like a den of thieves. There are this group of thieves. So she was the safe cracker. Guess what her dad was? Master Safe Cracker. You know, so it was like a genetic thing. They're good, you know? So the dad passed it on to the, you know, it's like genetics, some people, that's out, you know?

• 1:14:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Maybe. It's a learned behavior as well that you learn from the old man.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yes, there it is.

• 1:14:11Jocko Willink?

  All right, going on back to the book. One trouble is that a man's person, now this is important. One trouble is that a man's personality changes in different situations. For instance, the man who is brave as a lion in the test room at a reception center may not be so brave when he gets into combat. The man who is able to make quick decisions wisely when things are quiet may go to pieces when he is distracted by machine gun fire and do something that result in his own death or the death of others. And difficult situations may have the reverse effects on some men. Men who have never distinguished themselves in training camp may become fired with new spirit when going, when the going gets tough, astounding themselves and other men with what they can do in extreme emergency. So that's obviously important, too.

• 1:14:56Jocko Willink?

  So even though you know someone, you don't even know them.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  You don't know what you're gonna get. You might have somebody that freaks out when things go sideways. Next section, Training Makes the Soldier. When men enter the army, they are told the importance in the fighting areas of taking cover from enemy fire in slit trenches. This point is emphasized in books, lectures, training films, demonstrations, and exhibits. By the time the soldier reaches the battle zone, he has learned that he should take cover in a slit trench whenever he stops. That is one kind of learning. In one way, it is the most useful kind. With knowledge of how things should be done and why they are important, a soldier is equipped to act in new situations, and there is nothing that produces so many new situations as combat.

• 1:15:42Jocko Willink?

  But this kind of learning unfortunately does not always result in action. A soldier may know perfectly well that he should dig a trench. He may have learned it from demonstrations exactly how to go digging it. Yet, when the enemy planes come overhead, he may in his excitement forget that what he was learned. In such emergencies, he is more likely to act from habit than from reasoning and sense. Habit formation is a further stage of learning. It depends on practice, experience, and repetition. No action ever becomes automatic by learning in words how to perform it, but without actually practicing it. But by repetition, the operation of a machine or a rifle gets itself reduced to habits

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  so that it becomes almost entirely mechanical, like walking. You do not have to think about putting your left foot forward after planting your right foot ahead. That is because you have walked so much, you could do, you could not get that way merely from listening to lectures on how to walk. If during maneuvers, a soldier practices taking cover instantly, whenever he sees or hears an air attack warning or plane coming close, he, if he always throws himself flat when he first hears the sudden whistle of a shell or the singing of bullets past his ears, these actions soon become second nature to him. The particular warning sights and sounds become fixed as signals for immediate actions. In a real emergency, the soldier does not have to stop and think about what he should

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  do, he just does it. Straightforward, that's why we roll in jujitsu. That's why, look, drilling is important, I get it. You gotta learn the move, but you gotta roll.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and one could argue that drilling, it serves the same purpose, just in a more like specific.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  It does, it does, you gotta do both, yeah. Yeah, now, if you drill correctly, but what you can't do is sit there and get shown a move.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do the move.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  And I used to do that too, when we'd have guys going through CQC training, and a lot of times, you know, instructor might wanna hear himself talk a lot and explain things, because you know, it's a, it's a, it's a pump to the ego when you get up there and you show people what's what. You show how I did it. Did it like this. So, you know, you get an instructor that wants to hear himself talk, and meanwhile, they sit there and talk for 20 minutes, uh, the SEAL platoon could have done three more runs through the kill house in 20 minutes. So I'll tell you what, say what you gotta say, say it quick, and let the boys go pull that trigger, because that's how we get good. By doing.

• 1:18:20Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, this sort of learning of minor importance in high school or college is basic in the army. That is why drill is so important, why discipline is so essential. In war games, the soldier gets conditioned to all sights and sounds of battle. In early training, it may be possible to simulate realistically the noises of shells, dive bombers, and bursting bombs by recordings reproduced by loudspeakers. In advanced training, a soldier may be taught to lie flat on the ground while real bullets strike within a few feet, close enough to cause sand to fall on the back of his neck. He knows he is safe as so long as he lies still, but if you get up and run, he will be killed. That is good training for

• 1:18:58Jocko Willink?

  combat. A real bullet forms much better habits than a lecture about a bullet. Such thoroughly drilled habits enable the soldier to act when there is no time for thought. They ensure that he will act correctly and mechanically even when his mind is confused and thinking is almost impossible.

• 1:19:19Jocko Willink?

  But knowledge of the science of warfare and practice in solving novel military problems are important too, because they enable the soldier to act wisely in the thousands of unexpected emergencies that arise in battle. Habit is safer than thought for standardized acts, but it won't work for brand new problems. That is why we would train our guys in brand new problems all the time. That way you get a protocol for how to handle brand new problems. You start to understand what you're gonna do. Oh, I don't know what's happening. What am I gonna do? A step back. I'm gonna look around. I'm gonna assess the situation. I'm gonna come up with some possible solutions. I'm gonna think about what the outcomes of those solutions are, what the risks are, and then I'm gonna make a decision. We're gonna move forward in that direction.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz like confronting or dealing with new problems or uncharted situations or whatever, the skill of dealing with that is like another skill in and of itself. Like I think you're saying this like last.

• 1:20:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, protocol. And people were asking about protocol. Protocol for handling new problems. What do you do? And eventually you get good at, cuz the obvious first thing is you do is you detach. You have to take a step back. You have to turn and look around, physically look around. So detach, look around, make an assessment, come up with possible solutions, think about what the outcomes of those solutions might be, and then pick the one that has the best possible outcome.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's way different than like. Trained, level 10 training.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Perfect training on situation A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P.

• 1:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  And Q.

• 1:20:57Jocko Willink?

  Cause you, but you're gonna get hit with Z.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, when Z hits, it's like dang, can, and then you've totally shut down.

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  I just got a message from a guy that was in a, a police officer was in a big firefight with some of his guys. And he was literally said, said, I was like thinking to myself, I'll get covered, move. Here's what we're gonna do, prioritize and execute. He was going through, he's like, it was pretty awesome, pretty awesome to hear that. To hear a guy say, yep, I could hear your voice saying, cover, move, put down cover fire right now.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  When it's going down.

• 1:21:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when it's happening. They were in a 21 minute firefight, which is a long, that's a long firefight for, especially for police officers.

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Drill for combat changes the recruit squad into an efficient fighting machine. Training can convert an unorganized civilian group into an organized unit with deadly power. Military confident competence moreover strips war of its most repulsive and paralyzing horrors.

• 1:21:53Jocko Willink?

  And knowledge takes from the enemy his most potent, potent and effective we- weapon, surprise. Drill, combat, training, practice and discipline combined with the experience in war are things that make America's combat troops into seasoned troops. So even taking away the ability for the enemy to surprise you, it's like we talked about before. If, if you try a move on me in jujitsu. And you, and I've never seen it before, there's a chance it's gonna, there's the best possible chance it's gonna work. As soon as I know what that move is. Then it's, the chances of it working are a lot less.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:32Jocko Willink?

  A lot less.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:35Jocko Willink?

  Significantly less.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. That's why role playing is so important.

• 1:22:40Jocko Willink?

  Well, in the business world, yeah, role playing is very important. Cause we can come at you with different things that a subordinate is gonna say to you.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Jocko Willink?

  Or even up the chain of command. If I had to go brief my boss on something that we were pretty sure he didn't like. And I, I was like, okay, I go, you be the boss, you come at me with all the negatives about the plan I've come up with. And then we do that. So then when I go in, I've already seen these, I've already seen these thrown at me.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Even one time, like I said, one time.

• 1:23:03Jocko Willink?

  One time makes an incredible difference.

• 1:23:06Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, and we need speed. Democracies always have to hurry up at the last minute. The enemy is always facing us, ready, trained, and there isn't much time. We must take advantage of every possible shortcut toward the goal of creating seasoned troops, troops armed with adequate training. The first shortcut is an understanding of the few facts about how learning takes place. The most important requirement of learning is incentive. Men marching to drill reluctantly can no more be taught swiftly and efficiently than a jeep can be taught to run on an empty tank. People need incentive.

• 1:23:46Jocko Willink?

  But fortunately for the army's instructors, there is a powerful motive furnished by the situation itself. No false incentives need be thought up and provided. The enemy has attacked us, we are at war, and no man wants to go out and face that enemy unprepared. No American wants to see American soldiers killed needlessly in unmatched battle. No one wants to see our armies defeated and the Gestapo policing New York City. Success itself is a reward to the soldier. It makes him proud. This is when they start, I forgot to say that I'm skipping chunks of this book, but

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  this is where he's talking about how the incentives that a soldier can have. His commander may commend him, but it is usually enough if he sees that his CO has noticed that he has done a good job. Good morale depends on such rewards.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  Such awards by his officers and approval from his own comrades. In general, reward is much more effective for learning than is punishment.

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  This is good. Punishment excites resentment and tends to make the soldier anxious not to comply if he can get away with carelessness or disobedience. That's, if you could remember that right there, this podcast is worthwhile. If you remember the fact that as a leader, if you're, if you're constantly punishing people, what you're doing is making them resentful, encouraging them to not comply and rebel against you and try and get away with carelessness and disobedience. Think about your kids do, right? Cause we do that with the kids. You better do what I told you. And they're trying, they're trying to skate around you. Reward keeps his attention on the business in hand.

• 1:25:39Jocko Willink?

  Punishment tends to shift his attention from the task to his own troubles. The best kind of reward, because it is most effective in learning, is the glow of satisfaction that a man has when he knows he has done something correctly and well, it has clicked. The most effective punishment is the surge of disgust that comes when he knows he's missed the target.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  That sounds always good to have a reminder, cause it's natural to like, with your kids or whatever, the, when they do something wrong, it's, cause that'll stick out more in your mind, you know? If they, they do something right, especially if it's not for the first time, it's like, oh yeah, that's how you're supposed to do it, right? Kind of thing. So it doesn't stick out as much in your mind.

• 1:26:23Jocko Willink?

  To commend them.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like encouragement, reward kind of thing, like it's, you know, it's more powerful. But then in your mind as kind of the teacher or whatever, uh, the, the, when they fail to miss the mark, you know, especially if they do it like if they're having a hard time with something, you know? You know, like to learn stuff, you gotta do it over and over. So then they're having a hard time, I don't know, swimming, potty training, I don't know, whatever. When they don't miss the mark yet, so you, it becomes frustration sometimes, can't do that, can't show that kind of thing. But even though it's like the most readily available like reaction, you know? The, when they fail. So you, so yeah, to be reminded of it helps, I think.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's an important point.

• 1:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Next. This is why the army has to, has been right to reduce greatly the emphasis on close order drill in recent years. In the light of modern knowledge and in the view of modern conditions of warfare, this drill conflicts with the methods which must be used in battle. So, close infantry drill is, or close order drill is when, you know, you see Marines or Army, they're like handing the rifle back, real force and everything's all, it's like parade type stuff. That's what close order drill is and they used to do more of it and now he's saying that they do less. Back to the book. In the drill of the early basic training, the whole emphasis on teaching, is on teaching the soldier to respond to spoken commands. Yet, when he goes into combat, spoken commands become impossible.

• 1:27:50Jocko Willink?

  The human voice is silent in the din of battle. If commands are given at all, they must be given in the form of a nudge, a kick, or an arm and hand signal. And in drill, the soldier also forms the habit of acting shoulder to shoulder with other men. He comes to rely on being in a group, on doing what the other men do when they do it. Yet in combat, such close order work would be suicidal. Men are on their own. Men are then on their own, or in twos or threes. They must keep at a distance from each other, both to do much of their fighting skillfully and to avoid making crowded targets for the enemy's bombs, shells, or bullets. This means that in advanced training, men must learn new habits which conflict some

• 1:28:33Jocko Willink?

  respects of the old. That's not good. The basic rule of learning is this: do it right from the beginning. Because if you form wrong habits, you must unlearn them before you can learn what is right. The rule to follow is never prepare for combat by learning to act on a signal that cannot be given after combat has started.

• 1:28:59Jocko Willink?

  And then it talks about how to increase the speed of training. Here's some things to do to increase the speed of training. Number one, do things right the first time. Number two, keep constant checks that you know immediately whether you are doing right or making a mistake. That's a good one. That's why I like shooting steel so much. Have you ever shot steel before?

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  As soon as you, as soon as you pull the trigger and the shot goes, you know if you hit it or not.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:22Jocko Willink?

  And so it's completely gratifying. Make no unnecessary motions. If you flourish your hands or putter around with your tools, like it or not, these profitless motions will become habit too. So want to do everything as clean as you can. Do things in the same order and in the same way. Stick to this rule as far as possible. Avoid unnecessary links in the chains of your learning.

• 1:29:51Jocko Willink?

  This was interesting and I'm not going to read it because it went on about learning Morse code and how, how you can put these multiple different steps in to learn it. When in fact, you could just say that noise means this letter. You don't have to translate it to the little things in your mind or the sounds in your mind, the dit dit, dash, dot, the dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, or whatever. You don't need to translate that in your mind. That sound means this letter and you can get there quickly.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Right, right. Like a language, it is a language, really.

• 1:30:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when you're fluent in a language, you don't think in English anymore. Whatever you don't think, yes.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I've rarely got, I've maybe gotten to that a little with a few parts of Espanol.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  When I was in college, but I never carried on a conversation without translating what I was hearing, which is completely lame.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, you know, it's clunky for sure, but you know, that's a part of the process, I would think.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. Number six, aim at first for smoothness of performance rather than speed.

• 1:30:57Jocko Willink?

  Number seven, be sure to understand what you are trying to do, what final objective you are aiming at.

• 1:31:05Jocko Willink?

  That's important. People should really, whoever you're training needs to understand what they're trying to do. I found this in early jujitsu, there was a lot of lacking in this, where you didn't understand that getting the underhooks was a thing. You just understood, like for this particular move, you put your arm here. I didn't understand it was a whole thing. It would have been better to be like, hey, you're always looking for the underhooks.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Makes sense. That's actually what Dean taught me.

• 1:31:30Jocko Willink?

  Totally. He is the one that taught me that too. And this is when he was a blue belt.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Number eight, learn a series of actions rather than single moves. That's good for jujitsu as well. You don't just want to learn one, you want to learn how all those three, four, five moves tie together. And how you set up the counters and how the counter leads to another trap.

• 1:31:59Jocko Willink?

  Nine, keep on practicing. Ten, overlearn. Number eleven, relax. Interestingly enough, tell people to relax and relax harder.

• 1:32:16Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, ways have been worked out to help cut down the time required to master a subject, to read and understand a book or assignment, to solve a problem, or to memorize a rule or formula. The man in the army, this is, this is about studying. And I, I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna put this in there, but then all, you know, people are students. People had a new job, they gotta learn something, and this is the most cold-blooded way to talk about learning. The man in the army should not allow noise or other distractions or interruptions to put him off his work.

• 1:32:50Jocko Willink?

  Working under such difficult circumstances is direct training for actual fighting conditions. Oh, so there's some annoying things going on when you're trying to, you know, read a book? Cool. Learn to ignore them.

• 1:33:02Jocko Willink?

  In the field, the most, in the field, the most vital and difficult decisions must be made in the midst of the most violent distractions and under all sorts of physical and mental strains. The officer who had to wait until he could be free of noise or disturbance before he could work out a problem or make a decision would be useless in the army. If he's used to it, a certain amount of noise and confusion may actually stimulate the army man to do better thinking.

• 1:33:28Jocko Willink?

  If it's convenient, a definite time of the day should be assigned for study. The mind can be trained to be ready for work in a certain hour. So this happens as much the same way as you begin without, begin thinking about food or some other set time. For the same reason, it might be desirable to have a certain place set aside for study, even if it is just your bunk in a noisy barracks or tent. Then the act of sitting down in that place will immediately form habit, put you in the proper frame of mind for mental work. If you are lucky enough to have a desk or a corner for your study, don't spoil its value by using it for relaxation or loafing.

• 1:34:07Jocko Willink?

  But even if they are insistently disturbing, insistently disturbing is nearly always possible to ignore distractions and get down to the business at hand. The mind is an excellent sieve net. You can read the newspapers and never see the advertisements. You would hear a strange footsteps across the room, yet never notice the loud ticking of a clock on your own table. The telegrapher can sleep through the long continuous sounding of his instrument, yet wake at once his own call, when his own call comes in with the right dots and dashes. In the same way, it is possible to make yourself deaf and blind to all sorts of sights and sounds, except those directly concerned with the problem being studied.

• 1:34:51Jocko Willink?

  Do you get annoyed with this? When you're trying to do, do you listen to music when you're doing work? Depends on the work, but yes.

• 1:34:59Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 1:35:01Jocko Willink?

  At first, it is fatiguing to shut out distractions. You know what I'm like. I was just, as I was asking, this is what I'm like.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  If I let something start to bother me, then it just bothers me a ton.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  And and for some reason, if I just don't let it bother me, then it's fine. Like if my my wife's in the other room with, you know, my youngest daughter and they're playing a game and they're making noise and having conversations about it and whatever. If I'm if I'm in the wrong mindset, if I don't do what this book is telling me to do, which is just you just shut it out like a like a like a legit dude is supposed to do. Oh, there's some noise over there, whatever.

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:40Jocko Willink?

  Just lock it up.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Yep. Otherwise, it's what weakness.

• 1:35:43Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, it's major weakness.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  What about like snoring? Like, you know, you ever heard like a roommate or what, but you know.

• 1:35:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I have. We have a mutual friend that when we used to go to fights, we'd stay in one room and the snoring would be pretty crazy. But I would normally sleep right through it.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If I know what's happening, it's weird. Like my my crying kids, when they were babies, they would make wake up my wife and my wife and I would sleep right through it. But if there's a noise outside the house or whatever, I'm awake and she sleeps right through it. It's like the perfect combination.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  I think the what the girl, the mother and the crying child, I think that's a genetic thing. I think where like a crying baby is like, you know, it's like a genetic thing.

• 1:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Did you learn that in bro science? The halls of bro science? Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And is there a part of me, because you know, when when we had small children, my wife didn't work, I did. So

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  that was her roles and my roles and responsibility were go to the, you know, do my job during the day and whenever I was in the Navy. Her roles and responsibilities were take care of those kids.

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:53Jocko Willink?

  So she, there's probably a huge part of that where I'm maybe in the beginning when the first baby was crying and I was like, oh, what's that? And then eventually I just said, oh, she's got it.

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:37:05Jocko Willink?

  Got it handled.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, at first it is fatiguing to shut out distractions. You actually make your muscles tense in your effort to attend to business. Later you get so that things that distract you no longer worry you. You know what's, when I'm on an airplane, you ever have a screaming baby on an airplane?

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  No factor to me.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:25Jocko Willink?

  It's like no factor whatsoever. I'm like, whatever.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we talked about this while we were on airplane.

• 1:37:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  You brought it up too.

• 1:37:32Jocko Willink?

  I was like, oh, yeah, that screaming, is that bothering you?

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:35Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't bother me at all. Still later they help and find that you miss them if they disappear like the man who is startled when his clock stopped ticking or the radio. At first it prevents you from studying, but if you keep it on continuously, you may get so you cannot study without it. Having set the stage as well as possible for most effective study, the next important preparation is to develop absorbing interest in the material to be mastered. It is not necessary to resort to self-delivered mental pep talks. Enthusiasm grows naturally out of the realization that a study is important in reaching a desirable goal, that it will satisfy your curiosity and will give you a chance to exercise some special talent.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Isn't that funny how that could very well be a self pep talk? That those words right there, you know, you could use it.

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:38:26Jocko Willink?

  The chief aid to learning, however, is understanding. When something makes sense, when it all fits in with what you already know, then it is easily filed away in the ready reference system of your memory where it can be recalled later at need. Learning without understanding is hard. You probably learned the multiplication tables that way. Learning with understanding may require no effort at all. So try to understand. See relationships. If chapter eight depends on chapter two, then you are uncertain about chapter two, turn back. See the dependence, work it out for yourself rather than read it again.

• 1:39:06Jocko Willink?

  If you learn a new scientific fact, see whether you can find instances of it in your own experience. And then, when you think you know it, when you think you know what you have studied, say it all over to yourself in your own words. That tests understanding. Sometimes it gets clear for the first time as you explain it to yourself. And if you can't get it said to your own satisfaction, then chances are you really do not understand it. And what you don't understand, you won't remember. That's good information right there for the students of the world, which everyone should be.

• 1:39:43Jocko Willink?

  This is other good information. Solving problems. The method of bird's eye view first applies to rapid problems solving as well. Haste too often tempts people to plunge into working out the first part of a problem or the easy parts before the entire problem is clearly in mind. This may result in a false start and needless work. Read the whole problem through first. Use care in setting the problem down. If you are new at this particular sort of problem, don't try to take shortcuts in this. A little extra time used on formulating the problem in your mind or on paper can save a great deal of time in finding the solution. The next step is to rapidly review all possible methods of solving the problem

• 1:40:26Jocko Willink?

  until you find the one that seems right. Then try that. If that fails to work, try another. That's the way you work with a mechanical puzzle. You should use the same method on a technical problem. And this is the same exact thing that I was saying about how to solve like a complex tactical scenario. You take a step back, you look at what the problem is, you make sure you understand the whole problem. You just don't say, "Oh, we're getting shot at from over there. We're gonna change everything and focus on that because you're getting flanked."

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:51Jocko Willink?

  Or you're getting some recon by fire over there. So you take a step back, you analyze the situation, you make sure you've understand it to the best of your possible ability. And then you start saying, "Okay, what are my options?" Once you figure out what your options are, you quickly assess what would the results of those options be? What's the upside? What's the downside? And then you pick one of them and you go.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  So funny that exact thing, not as complex, but that exact thing played itself out in my life very recently. So I got a trampoline, right? You know, one of those big ones for your kids and you gotta put it together.

• 1:41:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, someone didn't look at the whole instructions.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Well, I do this thing where it what that that they said, I forget how they how it said the words they they use in the book right there that you just said. But basically, I looked at it. I didn't understand the whole thing. I didn't read the whole. I don't I looked at it. I was like, Oh, I understand. I see. I see the problem I'm dealing with here. So I did it. And

• 1:41:44Jocko Willink?

  How'd that work out for you?

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  Bro, three separate times I went, you know how like at a certain point, you gotta make sure you gotta do something. It's like that kind. So I had to make sure that the springs were aligned in a certain way for a reason that's gonna come up later.

• 1:41:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that you didn't know.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  So I'm like, I get it. I'm smart. I put on all this with the whole thing, everything took like an hour, just over an hour to do it. So I keep going and keep going, keep going. Now it's time to put up like the the, you know, the little barriers so your kids don't fly off that trampoline. But the springs are the the springs are not aligned with the hooks there. So I can't put up the barriers.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a bummer, isn't it?

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  It's a freaking bummer. Yeah. And it happened again with another thing later. Actually, it happened four times. But the fourth thing was just the little basketball hoop. And I was like, It's not worth it. So I never put on the basketball hoop. But yeah, man, if I were to under and just read the whole thing, read the whole dang thing, and I wouldn't have read. It would have saved me like three hours.

• 1:42:42Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. When you are stumped, it may be because you have taken the wrong approach to the problem. It's easy to get into a rut in thinking. It is hard to shake yourself loose from one point of view and see a completely new. This stuff is so simply stated that it's you underestimate the power of what's being said right here.

• 1:42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:59Jocko Willink?

  This stuff is lifesavers. You tend to keep going back and repeating the same old kind of attack that has always failed. It's like feeling in the same, it's like, it's like feeling in the same pocket six time, six times when you've lost your cigarettes and cannot find them.

• 1:43:19Jocko Willink?

  Especially is it hard to try new methods when you are tired or nervous over your failure to get the right answer? At such times, it is best to close your book and work on something else, or to do something outdoors with fresh air, or even if you can afford the time, take a nap. When you come back to your problem, the, the new approach may come to you in a flash, and from then on, the work may go quickly and smoothly.

• 1:43:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Jocko Willink?

  I, I have to actually, that's one of those things, I'm pretty instinctive on a lot of things that I do. In terms of things that I talk about and the way I actually apply them in my life, I'm pretty good at most of them. Most of them, I'm not even, I don't have to consciously, I can kind of look back and go, oh yeah, I see what I did and I'm pretty stoked on it.

• 1:44:07Jocko Willink?

  I can do that, especially in jujitsu. I can get in a rut and be like, oh, I'm just gonna do this right here and it should work because I've done it before and it's gonna work this time. And I'll have to constantly be like, oh, you, you're, you're, you're beating your head against the wall. Don't do it anymore.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:20Jocko Willink?

  And I'll have to do a different approach.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I mean, that's very, it's kind of demonstrates your humility because you've always, like every time we roll in, actually, when I see you rolling with other like really good guys, it seems like you adapt and, and make little changes way quicker than most people and for Dan, sure, way quicker than me. I feel like I'm all that. Like what you just said, I feel like that's just hundred percent me.

• 1:44:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Know what I'm saying, but I, I'm sure I'm okay at it. I mean, I know I'm okay at it. But even me, at this point, I'll be like, oh, he's not gonna put his arm there. You've tried it three times in a row. It's not working. You need to do something else.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can like recognize it in yourself.

• 1:45:02Jocko Willink?

  I recognize when I'm beating my head up against the wall.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:04Jocko Willink?

  And that's not a good feeling. And it's, but the great feeling is as soon as you do something different, generally, you, you may not get total success, but you won't get the same outcome because the outcome is failing.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Jocko Willink?

  Which we don't like.

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  No, we do.

• 1:45:18Jocko Willink?

  How to make learning stick? The two basic principles of learning anything are interest and participation. It is not true that repetition alone is the basis of learning something well. A man who repeats an act again and again with his mind only half of what he is do- with his mind only half on what he is doing may indeed learn it. But he will learn it neither quickly nor well. Fortunately, doing a thing and practicing it usually reinforce a man's interest. So that there is really only one important principle, interest at the bottom of learning. Active participation is secured by practice.

• 1:46:00Jocko Willink?

  Lectures are used only when preliminary explanation at some length is needed. Or when men cannot be put through the work itself. You're not only told how to fire a rifle, you are helped actually to do the firing. And you work out of doors in the way that you will later work in combat. You do under instruction what later on you are going to have to do in combat yourself. So you gotta do these things. Interest is secured in a variety of way. Number, variety of ways. Number one, the personality of the instructor is important. It should be dynamic and for- it should be a dynamic and forceful person. Who appreciates the fact that learning takes time and that some men are slower than others.

• 1:46:45Jocko Willink?

  He must stimulate his men to want to learn. Two, instruction must finally become individual. There must be close contact between some instructor and every soldier. Three, the relation of the learning to the problems of combat must always be stressed. Four, although non-essentials are omitted in army teaching. It is important that the soldier should understand the basic principles of what he is doing. If he is learning how to use a machine, then he should know how the machine works.

• 1:47:25Jocko Willink?

  Critical. And number five, the soldier must also have full knowledge of the purpose of what he learns, of why he needs to know it. Only with such knowledge can his interest be at the highest. And only with such knowledge is he able to adapt what he has learned to different circumstances that arise in combat. So he's gotta know why.

• 1:47:53Jocko Willink?

  And it also says here that all army commanders are leaders and teachers. So if you're a leader, you are a teacher.

• 1:48:08Jocko Willink?

  Talking a little bit here about efficiency in training. The simplest kind of learning is to learn by trial and error, but this isn't the best, the most efficient way. It wastes too much time and so the army never uses it except in solving original problems where one method after another may be tried, or at least imagined.

• 1:48:28Jocko Willink?

  So trial and error is never the best. Here's a good one. In battle, a leader can give orders, but only brief ones, sometimes by signal. The soldier receiving such an order must also see the battle situation right around him in deciding how to best carry out that order.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  Next. How to speed up training.

• 1:48:57Jocko Willink?

  Will to learn. A soldier's common sense tells him that he must learn how to fight before he meets the enemy. Number two, interest.

• 1:49:06Jocko Willink?

  Number three, discipline.

• 1:49:09Jocko Willink?

  Soldiers are trained to realize the serious importance of the things they are taught, how much these things will mean in combat later on. Number four, individual instruction. Number five, experience of success. Army instructors try their best to see that each man does a thing right the first time, even by holding his hand and putting it through the correct movements if necessary.

• 1:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Number six, elimination of non-essentials. You're only supposed to be learning things that you actually need to know. Number seven, all-around attack. Every possible way of reaching the soldier's student's mind is utilized. And then this instruction is immediately put to use in action on the job. Soldiers learn by doing so. As far as possible, instruction is kept practical and concrete. If an instructor puts too much emphasis on training men in the particular details of doing a job, the soldier fails to get a clear understanding of the results aimed at it. Although in training men in many different army jobs,

• 1:50:22Jocko Willink?

  adequate attention must be paid to the detailed steps to be taken to reach the final objective. The aim itself must also be made entirely clear to the soldier. This is cool. When I train little kids in jujitsu, I'll be like, you just gotta get around their legs. Yeah. And you tell them that and they'll figure out how to do it. And then when they get stumped, you teach them some actual technique. Otherwise, he's apt to become confused in battle if the situation changes and he cannot follow the steps in exactly the way he was taught in training.

• 1:50:59Jocko Willink?

  Efficiency in the army. Every ounce of the soldier's energy should be concentrated on the defeat of the enemy. Whenever he wastes his strength on any sort of activity that does not contribute to that one end, it is in effect a casualty. Nowhere is efficiency more important than in combat. There, every man must work at the very peak of his powers. His eyes must see better than the enemy's eyes. His ears must hear better. He must think better. On this, victory depends. Wearyness, tired hands, or eyes, or nervous system,

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  anything that reduces the soldier's efficiency at a critical moment in combat may cost him his life. It may cost the army a position and advance a battle.

• 1:51:56Jocko Willink?

  The enemy usually refuses to recognize the end of a workday. Nature often provides the only lighting. Bomb holes ensure ventilation. When a soldier gets into actual combat, what he is called upon to do seems to have no similarity at all to anything he had ever done in a civilian job. There is no routine in battle, no standardization, no monotonous repetition. Each moment is a challenging new experience, calling for new decisions and fresh insight. It is hard to see where the combat soldier can get any help at all from what he has learned about efficiency in a factory far from the battle zone.

• 1:52:36Jocko Willink?

  That is why a soldier in training must learn from the start to cut out useless and roundabout movements that take needless time. Seconds count. And a soldier's energy counts too. He can't afford to get worn down before his job is done. He must keep his speed and accuracy up to top-notch performance. Any blunder in combat may be fatal. There, he may not be able to miss an aim again. He may never have another chance.

• 1:53:09Jocko Willink?

  Now we get into this last little section that we're gonna cover today. It's about fatigue, but sleep.

• 1:53:17Jocko Willink?

  That other enemy.

• 1:53:20Jocko Willink?

  Fatigue is a fifth column enemy. That is always ready to infiltrate and attack. No man can stick at a job for long periods through the day and night and continue at top-notch performance, especially if his job involves using a great deal of strength, keeping alert, and making accurate split-second decisions.

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  So you allegedly need rest.

• 1:53:45Jocko Willink?

  I posted the other day, "Sleep is the enemy," and people get so... It's a song by Danko Jones. And it's a great song.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:53:55Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I kinda do feel that way, you know, cause it's pretty easy just to fold to sleep and you can spend all day in bed. I know you don't see it that way. But I kinda do.

• 1:54:04Speaker 01

  No, man. Sleep is enemy, just like food is the enemy.

• 1:54:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  If you start abusing it and making, you know, like, but no, man.

• 1:54:12Jocko Willink?

  Good point. Just how long men can work and continue to do their best depends upon a great many different things. It depends first upon the man. It depends also on the type of work. It depends upon the conditions of the work, upon the food eaten, upon rest obtained during the job, upon worry and excitement, and finally upon the necessity for action. A man can run fast and long if death or the devil is behind him. He can fight hard for unbelievable lengths of time if there can be no retreat or a victory is in sight.

• 1:54:50Jocko Willink?

  Most hazardous is the fatigue which comes from spurts of extreme effort. The greatest of which a man is capable. Such supreme effort seldom if ever occurs in any job on the home front. It does occur in sport. It does occur in battle. Spurred by the necessiter necessity to extraordinary violence a man may actually put out so much effort that he burns up his body fuel at a rate eight times more than the normal rate.

• 1:55:19Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea where they got these numbers. Eight times more, that's a pretty accurate. This, he cannot keep up more than a few minutes at a time. Otherwise, the sugar in his blood will fail, will fall to a critically low level. His heart will fail, his collapse or even death will follow.

• 1:55:40Jocko Willink?

  What do you think, bro science right there?

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that you make a good point where you where you got these, I don't know where you got those numbers from.

• 1:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Well, we did know people get rabdo.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  Yes, and, and.

• 1:55:51Jocko Willink?

  But you get rabdo, you don't like fa- fail on the moment, right? Your heart doesn't fail.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's, I would, I, the first thing I thought of is like in, in jiu jitsu or MMA where you get the, like, like the adrenaline dump, right? Because you're, you're so like.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  I mean, it's through adrenaline, but like it's these external circumstances like you're on the stage. You know, usually it's in a competition. It's not necessarily in training. So you're on the stage, so it's win, it's do or die.

• 1:56:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  On, on stage, everyone's watching, it's do or die, it's not do or die, but that's what you're.

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  Guys are, this is combat, that's do or die.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Yes, but so.

• 1:56:24Jocko Willink?

  Because I was just thinking like, if this is true, like when a guy gets gassed in the UFC and he just can't go on. But then what if somebody came in there with a machete and was like, run, I'm gonna hack you to pieces. What do you think the guy would do?

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he'd run.

• 1:56:39Jocko Willink?

  Either he'd run, right?

• 1:56:40Speaker 01

  But that's like another level of stress.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  That's do or die.

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  Yes, that's do or die.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  So you're throwing do or die out there on the UFC or whatever, and that's not accurate?

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  No, sir, it's not. It's very inaccurate, but as an example, it feels like that's, you know, like they're so, but they're using like probably eight times the energy, you know, because they're so pumped up because of their on stage and stuff, the nerves and all that stuff. So it's like that. You know, it's another weird one when someone gases or whatever, and then they end up winning and then they get that other surge from winning.

• 1:57:10Jocko Willink?

  They're jumping around celebration, yeah. You're like, where was that a couple 10 seconds ago? Why didn't you put that effort out, bro?

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  I know, bro.

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that, that proves, I wrote about this in the field manual, like sometimes you gotta use emotion and sometimes you gotta use logic. But sometimes you gotta let that emotion come out.

• 1:57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so but all that, the thing is like, that does sound funny and look funny if a guy like seems to be sort of gassed and then right the, literally the second he wins, he's, he's running with his hands in there, by the way, when you know, but all that is, that's not like a, um, like a maybe a slacker there or something, nothing like that. That's like just the stress and winning is like, I don't know if I'd call it a stress, but I guess this is what I heard, this is bro science. I heard this from people. I didn't read this in any official thing, but you get like this boost of like hormones, like testosterone and all these crazy hormones when you win a fight. So maybe it's that. So it's like, man, it's not like it's controllable. You have to actually be, be confronted with a stimulus of winning

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  for that, for you to get that boost, you know, just like you're confronted with a stimulus of the crowd to get that overdrive scenario where you're using eight times the energy.

• 1:58:21Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, yet such fatigue does not always make you inefficient if you have strong enough need or desire for action. I like that right there.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that machete scenario that you just introduced.

• 1:58:34Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes I wonder if I'm like perpetually in a state of like war.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  I wonder that sometimes too, yeah.

• 1:58:41Jocko Willink?

  Cause sometimes I can't sleep at all.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  I believe that, yeah.

• 1:58:45Jocko Willink?

  And because I want to get up.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  I'm not like that all the time. I mean, I do, there's, there's definitely days where I sleep really soundly.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:56Jocko Willink?

  But a lot of times it's like, no, it's not happening. Cause I got stuff I gotta do or a war over here. On my end over here.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  I understand, yes.

• 1:59:05Jocko Willink?

  Mental work and emotional strain are also fatiguing, but the man who gets tired from mental work or the strain of responsibility and worry has additional problem. He may not consume the sugar in his blood as does the man engaged in a violent physical work or combat. His blood therefore gets out of balance. This is bro science coming at you. And the rest of sleep may not readily restore it. It's actually weird because it's bro science, but it makes sense.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:29Jocko Willink?

  I guess all bro science kind of makes sense. That's why it's bro science, right? It is good for the man who has been under this sort of strain to get some sort of physical exercise. A swift game of tennis, a long walk or a turn at chopping wood. A second effect of fatigue is the tired feeling. I think that's funny.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  This is nature's natural protection against over fatigue. When a man feels tired, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to go on with his job. He is more and more eager for rest and sleep, less and less able to spur himself on to go another mile. The best antidote for this feeling of tiredness is high morale and the example of other men. It is the man working alone who has the hardest job in combating his own desire to lie down and sleep.

• 2:00:22Jocko Willink?

  But the most important effect of fatigue is the effect it has on work. When a man is tired, he doesn't, he cannot do his very best. The amount of work he is able to do falls off and the quality of his work suffers too. He does not see it as well, does not hear as well, nor is he so alert. His movements may become clumsy and bungling. In loss of, loss and efficiency, strange as it may seem, is not always related to feelings of fatigue. A man may feel very tired when he has not been working particularly hard, but is merely bored or uninterested in his work, or when the ventilation is so bad that he gets dopey. This is important, I think. On the other hand, a man really close to exhaustion

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  may be so excited by his work that he's unable to rest and does not feel tired at all.

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So consider this and probably think about this a lot for some reason. Yeah, it is you. That's what I think. And consider this like in jujitsu, right? Like right now, if I were to talk enough smack to you right now, like no matter how you feel, you'd be tired, you'd be in one hour sleep, you could be doing all this stuff like before and whatever. You could be tired. If I talk enough smack and I challenge you to roll outside, you'll probably do it.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's no probably. It's on.

• 2:01:37Speaker 01

  But if I say, okay, after this, go like run on a treadmill. It's easier, it's easier output.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  I guess I kind of walked into that. Anyway, anyway, it's debatably easier to run on a treadmill. But man, you ever ran a, have you ever run a treadmill?

• 2:02:03Jocko Willink?

  Like I've run a treadmill probably 10 times in my whole life.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and you know, I used to get into the treadmill, but man, if, when you, when that boredom hits you, bro, you're like, I can't run one more step on this damn thing, even though I could easily go train right now with like a bunch of good guys, you know? So it's like, it's that exact thing. When you get bored, like just the littlest bit of fatigue is gonna jam you up big time. But even if you're really fatigued and you're doing something fun, bro, you'll go.

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, for sure. That's why jujitsu is such good exercise, because it's fun.

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  So true.

• 2:02:36Jocko Willink?

  Men differ considerably in the rate at which they get tired on the same job. They differ even more in their rates of recovery after work is over. There's almost no general rule as to what will happen, except that recovery is very rapid at first and slows down as the resting state is approached. The fact means, however, that a lot of good can be got out of short rest, and that many short rests are better than one long one. That makes sense to me. Take a little power nap. Students learn best if they do not do all learning at once, do not try and cram up before examinations, but study a little and then quit for a while, for a day or two. In industry, efficiency is highest when rest pauses are arranged at frequent intervals.

• 2:03:19Jocko Willink?

  I agree with that, although sometimes I just pop through stuff. So it does not pay to overwork workers or soldiers. Some fatigue is unavoidable, and much fatigue must be undergone in the process of toughening a soldier. But chronic fatigue is not to be found along the shortest road to victory. So don't get tired. Now it gets real specific on sleep. You can stay up all night and keep awake, and this, I was surprised how accurate this reflects me. I think you'll find it accurate as well. You can stay up all night and keep awake, provided you are active, provided you keep using some muscles, at least the speaking muscles. You can march all night, play poker all night, fight all night, and talk all night.

• 2:04:04Jocko Willink?

  You will likely, you will be likely to get terribly sleepy somewhere between 0300 and 0600. Unless you're doing something exciting or intensely interesting, but you can get through that provided you're active. So like, this would happen a lot. You go out on a patrol, and you patrol all night to get to a position, and then it's now 3 o'clock in the morning, and that's when you get tired. 4 o'clock in the morning, you haven't gone to bed yet, that's when you get tired. Then this happens. Do you actually continue on? That does not mean, however, that you can read or study all night using few muscles other than those of your eyes. If you have to study all night, you may need to read out loud or stand up to read.

• 2:04:46Jocko Willink?

  By the time, because basically, and that's totally true, right? If you have work to do and you're up working, it's fine. But if you, if you again, read this book in the next 10 hours and you're falling asleep.

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why you, if you like, let's say you have a, a normal scheduled job, like a nine to five, and then you want to work out or go jujitsu or something after work, don't go home. Because when you go home, you sit down on the couch for a second, or even if you just like, you know, just talk to your wife or whatever, it's like, like, rather than going straight to the gym and you're, you're going, you know?

• 2:05:21Jocko Willink?

  That might be the best advice you've ever given. Seriously. Like if you want to train, don't go home. Go to the gym. That's very good advice. Then it goes on and it says, by breakfast time, you will be getting less sleepy. This is totally true. If you stay up and the, so once the sun's coming up, you can get through the next day pretty well. You may feel tired, especially if you've been awake, march, especially if you've been marching or walking to keep awake, you won't feel fresh, you'll feel uncomfortable, but other people will not notice anything wrong with you. Unless you sit down to relax with nothing important or interesting to do, then very likely you'll doze off. If you have a job that requires accurate movements or accurate thinking, you'll probably make no more mistakes than you usually do. So that's saying, hey, if you stay up for 24 hours, you'll still be good to go, whole next day.

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  Which I know you've done this at the muster or close to it, right? Where you've done like an hour sleep, two hours sleep.

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I've done it before.

• 2:06:11Jocko Willink?

  Maybe for one day?

• 2:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:13Jocko Willink?

  And like second day, you kind of hit the rack real early.

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, big time, yeah.

• 2:06:18Jocko Willink?

  Uh, the second night, you won't want to stay up, but you may have to. Another march may be necessary, the enemy may attack. And it's the second night, and the second night is like the first, but more difficult. It's harder to keep active under your own power, yet you can, if your officers or the enemy furnish the motivation. You don't want to keep your mind on any topic very long. Your thoughts and ideas will trail off into irrelevancies. If you can possibly get a chance to relax, you will, and then you'll go to sleep. You ought not to be on sentry duty, but you may keep awake by walking. Or if you go off into an inattentive daze while you continue walking. By this time, you are probably getting quite irritable.

• 2:06:59Jocko Willink?

  Little things provoke you and you may talk some nonsense. Your anger does not last though, you'd rather go to sleep. The day after the second sleepless night is better than the preceding sleepless night, but you'll be irritable, rambling, and illogical in speech, thought, and inattentive, more than usually sensitive to pain. Your eyes itch, you may begin to see double, you can't sit down to read, your handwriting becomes bad and pencil may drop from your hand. You may even begin to have hallucinations, imagining events that do not really happen, as if you begun to dream while you are still awake. You can still be spurred to your full mental powers in manual dexterity if this stimulus is strong enough. If your commander demands your attention, if a shell comes over, but the effect of these things doesn't last as long as it would normally.

• 2:07:42Jocko Willink?

  Pretty soon you are back to where you were with the most important thing in your world is to need the need to shut your eyes and go to sleep. Wounded soldiers coming out of combat after many days and nights of continuing, continuous fighting, fighting may be so terribly in need of sleep that even the severe pain of wounds does not keep them from going sound asleep as soon as they are allowed to lie down. Anesthetics can be dispensed with. So there you go, there's your, there's your second day, and now you're in your second day. Uh, second full day without sleep. How long can you go without sleep? You can manage a third night without sleep and maybe a fourth with all the symptoms getting worse, with attention harder and harder to command, with more activity necessary

• 2:08:26Jocko Willink?

  to keep you awake. A psychologist once kept himself awake for four whole days spurred only on by scientific motive for seeing what would happen next. With those doses of a stimulant, benzodrine, which is like a, an amphetamine, which I had to look up to help, he may actually, he actually kept himself awake for eight whole days and seven nights. There was a man once who believed that sleep was a bad habit,

• 2:08:54Jocko Willink?

  which ought to and could be overcome. He was given a watchman's clock on which to record every 10 minutes the fact that he was awake. He stayed awake almost continuously for nine and a half days, missing only 31 out of 1,380 recordings of the 10-minute intervals. Of course, he got some other catnaps during the 10-minute intervals. As time wore on, he became dazed. He could keep appointments at the wrong time or in the wrong place or both. He got so he could, so that he was not always sure where he was. At the end of the time, he was beginning to have hallucinations and delusions of persecution and had become so cantankerous that the experiment had to be stopped. He just turned into, so he just got so angry, he just had to shut it down.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  Like, it wasn't like he was gonna die. He was just real mad at everyone. They're like, "We can't take this anymore." So, that's pretty accurate.

• 2:09:48Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, "Sleep soon restores the sleepy man or animal. The men who stay awake for two or three days are generally in pretty good shape after a 12-hour sleep and show no effects at all after two or three normal nights." That's totally true. You can get yourself back to normal real quick.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:08Jocko Willink?

  "The whole trouble in sleeplessness is with attention and thus higher levels of the brain which are necessary for attention. The soldier who loses sleep is becoming inefficient because he can no longer keep his mind on the job, on any job except the one job of getting relaxation, closed eyes, and sleep. He can be stimulated into attention by activity, by authoritative command, by danger, but the effect of the spur lasts less and less as time, less and less time as he gets sleepier. When spurred, he can do almost any simple task as about as well as usual, unless it is a task that requires attention, alertness, and judgment, then he begins to fail."

• 2:10:51Jocko Willink?

  Being frustrated by not being allowed to sleep, he becomes irritable, belligerent, and perhaps even unmanageable. His morale goes down. He's no longer a good comrade. But his recovery will be rapid. Give him sleep, which is all he wants, and pretty soon he'll be back his old competent, friendly, alert self. That's all right in an emergency, but ordinarily, soldiers should have enough sleep. They need to be alert, whether for study or combat, whether driving a truck in America, or firing an anti-tank gun in Africa or Europe. Enough regular sleep from taps to first call should be the rule. Except when the enemy decrees otherwise. There is no rule about the amount of sleep

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  that young adults must have. Some get cranky and irritable when cut down from seven hours a night to five. Others do not. The unit with high morale can do with less sleep, but sleepy men tend to have low morale. These two forces work against each other. There is also, there are also no rigid rules about the details of sleep. No rules that apply to everyone alike. So, and, and actually, it's interesting, because I'm here right now, on a very minimal amount of sleep. I had a meet, I had to fly to DC, I had a

• 2:12:14Jocko Willink?

  meeting in DC. It went late. And when I got done with the meeting, got back to my hotel at midnight. I had to prep this podcast. I was on west coast time, so I was like, well, it's only 10 o'clock, or whatever, 9 o'clock. So I just stayed awake. My car pickup was at 3. I probably slept 40 minutes. And then, well, but then I did sleep on the plane, flying back from the east coast out to here. I got at least probably 3 hours of sleep there. Uncomfortable, you know, just not, is that even sleep? We don't know. What does that count as? And...

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  Not try not don't have much sleep right now.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  You're doing pretty good.

• 2:13:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it doesn't matter. When people, you know, when people, people go, you can't perform. I don't, I don't know. And people freak out and say, you cannot, there's no way you can perform as well. When you're sleeping, if you don't have enough sleep, it's like, bro, I get it. Hey, I'm not anti sleep. If you need to sleep, man, sleep as much as you can. Sleep as much as you can. Sleep eight hours a day. Sleep 10 hours a day. I don't care. I'm not against you. I don't hold it against you. But there's two things. Number one. If you have a lot of things that you need to do. And you spend a lot of time in bed, the things that you need to do aren't gonna happen. So you may need to get out of bed and get things to happen. Number two, I don't even, I, I have a horrible feeling if I sleep a lot.

• 2:13:49Jocko Willink?

  Not, not just, okay, I feel bad because like I missed on doing some stuff that I probably needed to do. Also, I don't feel more rested.

• 2:13:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 2:13:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't feel more rested if I sleep eight hours. I feel sometimes worse.

• 2:14:05Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he essentially said everyone's different.

• 2:14:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes, like there's no. Hundred percent.

• 2:14:12Speaker 01

  So, because man, I'm the complete opposite. I feel way more rested. Even seven hours, I'm good. Six hours is, I'm fine. Six hours. Two days in a row, I'm not, not, that's when those symptoms start to creep in. Seven hours, every single day, fine. Eight hours. I feel like a boost, like I'm a, yeah. Nine hours, I don't know if I would, could go nine hours more than one or two nights in a row, like just physically, I just wake up or whatever. Oh, I could do the nine hours and I'd be like solid, solid, solid.

• 2:14:42Jocko Willink?

  I'll have to try some, something out. I'll have to try it out and see if I feel more solid.

• 2:14:47Speaker 01

  But you, but you, you know, um, like you said, people will say, hey, you, you, there's no way you can perform at your, at your highest. If you're like sleep deprived or whatever, whatever. I would imagine just like how, you know, um, how they say in here. That everyone's different, like your optimum versus your suboptimum might be like super small, you know? Where, you know, you feel little teeny tiny effects, but your output or the results of your output or whatever are pretty similar. They're almost on, pretty much unnoticedable, even though. You could have done a little bit better with more sleep kind of thing. But you know, just like and then opposed to me where man, I go five hours of sleep. The difference between six hours of sleep and five hours of sleep for me is like, I feel like a completely different person.

• 2:15:31Speaker 01

  Like there is, yeah, oh yeah, man. There is one time it was like, I remember because I was talking to Leif. So it was the time when Leif was in town. I got like very hardly any hours of sleep. And I remember talking to him and thinking, bro, Leif thinks I'm stupid. Just because I didn't even really make sense. I mean, I don't know if he noticed it, but I noticed it. But then, yeah, if I got like six or seven or whatever, it's cool.

• 2:15:55Jocko Willink?

  Well, for everyone that freaks out.

• 2:15:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying don't sleep, sleep, sleep a bunch, sleep all you want. That's fine.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  You don't sound very confident or you don't sound very like.

• 2:16:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's probably because. I don't.

• 2:16:16Speaker 01

  Cause you only got three hours of sleep.

• 2:16:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  You're irritable.

• 2:16:20Jocko Willink?

  I think it's because. I I get that you should sleep, but I think people take advantage of it real quick.

• 2:16:28Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 2:16:29Jocko Willink?

  They start just getting into the, you know, hey, I'm just gonna sleep all the time. It's like when someone says dark chocolate's good for you. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  And then they eat a whole dark chocolate cake.

• 2:16:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and then it's like, well, does that include dark chocolate cakes? Does that include dark chocolate triple fudge ice cream? Cause the dark chocolate is good for you, so I'm in the game. So sleep is good for me, so I'm not getting out of bed.

• 2:16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:51Jocko Willink?

  So, but whatever, I I encourage people to sleep and I, it's not, the other thing is that's crazy is it's not like I don't sleep. I sleep, I sleep almost every day.

• 2:17:04Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:17:05Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 2:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Like almost every day I sleep. No, I sleep just about every day. I go to bed at ten, ten thirty, eleven, eleven thirty. Somewhere in there, I wake up at four thirty, maybe four twenty, maybe four thirty two. But that's a lot of sleep, you know, that's between five and six hours.

• 2:17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Every day.

• 2:17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess for your standard, but.

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  So people freaking out.

• 2:17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:33Jocko Willink?

  So, no reason.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I mean, for people who are sleep deprived and they do have differences, which very.

• 2:17:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay, this, this much I do know. I do know this for a fact. When I have less sleep, I'm more emotional.

• 2:17:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:17:46Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know what? I actually, it actually is helpful for me.

• 2:17:51Speaker 01

  Oh dang, okay.

• 2:17:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like, I like to be sleep deprived somewhat. I don't, I shouldn't say sleep. I like to sleep a little bit less because it's more, it makes more, it makes my life a little bit more on edge, which I like.

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  Actually, what's funny is you said that one time, when you were like, I like a little bit of sleep depth, just a little bit. That was weird when you told me, I was like, I see what you're saying, because it kinda, it's almost like a comfort thing, right? Like, if you're too comfortable, like, you might be more, like, inclined to relax, almost kinda idea. Uh, even though, I mean, I can't really get down with it, because the more rested I am, the more happier I'm gonna feel. And you, like, you said emotional, and in the book it said irritable, right? Or something, I think it's the same thing. I'm with you, I'm with you, man. Irritable, like, the kinda like, I'm irritable with, like, stuff, not even, like, inanimate stuff, you know? Like, the, my, my phone isn't connected to my Bluetooth in my car quick enough. I'm like, what the hell's wrong with this thing in my head, you know? That kind of stuff even.

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  But then if I'm rested, but no, no factor. Maybe it won't work at all, I don't care.

• 2:18:55Jocko Willink?

  See, I, I like that little bit of edge, because part of it is because things like that never bother me, so, oh, whatever, my phone didn't connect.

• 2:19:04Speaker 01

  So you're kinda dead inside.

• 2:19:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I'd rather bring it back to life a little bit, a little bit of anger, irritability, make it good. Anyways, that, so, that's where I wanna stop for this podcast about this book. And on the next book, and actually, this is like the warm up, and I think the second half of the book is, is even better. It's when it gets into the morale, it's when it gets into leadership, it's when it gets into the psychological warfare, offense and defense. And, so we'll pick that up on the next podcast. I wanted to do one more little passage from this book here. It's a shorter passage, but it's just, uh, again, just a, just a reminder of what.

• 2:19:50Jocko Willink?

  What War Is Going back to "And We Go On" By Will Byrd Here we go. "We found the platoon and hardly recognized it. The sergeant was there, and Macdonald, but the rest were strangers. They told me that the Seventy-Third of the Fourth Division had been so cut up that they had been withdrawn, and the Eighty-Fifth Nova Scotia Highlanders had taken their place. The remnant of the Seventy-Third had been divided between us and the Thirteenth. I got Macdonald to one side and asked questions.

• 2:20:28Jocko Willink?

  It was far worse than I thought. The Forty-Second had gone straight through to their objective despite the sleety snow and mud and confusion had driven back all opposition and seized their objective. But on their left, the Fourth Division had been held up, and a flanking fire had taken a heavy toll.

• 2:20:51Jocko Willink?

  Freddie was gone. He had predicted truly. A big shell had landed beside him, killing him and burying him.

• 2:21:02Jocko Willink?

  Charlie had fallen in the first rush, riddled with bullets. Joe, the ex-police man, had fought through to the objective and had been killed by a sniper on the flank. One shell had wiped out Stevenson, Thoreau, and Roy as they grouped by a captured gun.

• 2:21:24Jocko Willink?

  MacMillan had been shot in the stomach and had died after waiting hours in the trench. Billy, the complainer, had fallen as he had charged a machine gun, keeping on until he was almost within reach of the gunners.

• 2:21:39Jocko Willink?

  Little Gilroy had been killed. And Westcott, smaily, had been wounded.

• 2:21:49Jocko Willink?

  Huggie, the sergeant, had been defied, and had been wounded at the same time, and had been taken away together. Big Herman was missing. They located his body a month later. That morning, he had shaken hands with Freddy, said goodbye to him, and then, when he had got going, had run amok.

• 2:22:13Jocko Willink?

  He was found almost at the bottom of the ridge, near a battery position, with eight dead Germans about him, four of them killed by bayonet.

• 2:22:24Jocko Willink?

  In the other platoons, besides Tommy, Slim and Joe had survived, and Ira and Sam, and Big Glenn, and Eddie, and Mickey, and Jerry. They sat in the dugout that night, after a hard day of rebuilding roads, each man suffering from bodily fatigue, and crawling with vermin, and the clammy chill of mud-caked clothing, their faces brooding, enigmatic, even Mickey's curiously odd, only their eyes moving.

• 2:22:57Jocko Willink?

  They would not talk about the fighting, and seemed utterly worn.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Six months ago, we had marched eagerly, bravely, our tin hats askew, and with a cheeky retort for every comment, hiding whatever secret apprehensions we had, not knowing the heavy ominous silence that follows the burst of big shells, and the cries of the wounded.

• 2:23:23Jocko Willink?

  Not knowing what it is to scrape a hasty grave at night, and there bury a man who has worked with you and slept with you since you enlisted.

• 2:23:38Jocko Willink?

  And...

• 2:23:41Jocko Willink?

  Clearly, war is hell. It's a physical, and it is a psychological hell.

• 2:23:51Jocko Willink?

  And, the more we know about it,

• 2:23:55Jocko Willink?

  the more we should understand that war is to be avoided as much as humanly possible.

• 2:24:03Jocko Willink?

  But it also teaches us how strong we as human beings can be, what we can overcome. It teaches us the importance of training, the importance of preparation, the importance of will, not only the will to win in war,

• 2:24:24Jocko Willink?

  but the will to carry on and to win in life.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  And we all have that power.

• 2:24:37Jocko Willink?

  We just need to find it.

• 2:24:41Jocko Willink?

  And to win.

• 2:24:44Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got tonight. So Echo Charles, speaking of

• 2:24:54Jocko Willink?

  winning. I know we are sort of trying to be on the path of winning mentally, physically, psychologically, in life and on the mats.

• 2:25:08Jocko Willink?

  And I know that's sort of the thing we're doing here, the movement.

• 2:25:14Jocko Willink?

  And I know you have some recommendations for that.

• 2:25:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Might be helpful.

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  Yes, they will be helpful, factually.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  What do you got?

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  I have, well, we're on the path, right? We got that. Wait, war, life is war. We're at full, what is it? Full war, all out war.

• 2:25:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, all out war.

• 2:25:33Speaker 01

  All out war. Now.

• 2:25:36Jocko Willink?

  Total war.

• 2:25:37Speaker 01

  Total war. Yes, that's what we're looking for. Yes, total war. So within that total war, there's little battles, right?

• 2:25:45Jocko Willink?

  So I think people are not gonna like that.

• 2:25:47Speaker 01

  What?

• 2:25:47Jocko Willink?

  Life is war, but it's so true.

• 2:25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it, I mean.

• 2:25:52Jocko Willink?

  And if you start looking at your life like it's war, it's gonna make you better.

• 2:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:57Jocko Willink?

  If you look at every day as a war on multiple fronts, that you have to fight where victory is the only choice, you're gonna have a better life.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  Actually, it's, yeah, it's really good, even for someone who, look, I get it, the word war might trigger some people. I get it. Just like the word fight might trigger some people, but you could say life is a fight. It's always a fight, not against people.

• 2:26:19Jocko Willink?

  My suspicion is.

• 2:26:22Jocko Willink?

  The amount of people listening to this podcast that are triggered by the words war or fight is zero.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  Zero, yes, I agree with you.

• 2:26:29Jocko Willink?

  That's my suspicion.

• 2:26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:30Jocko Willink?

  I could be wrong, but they're severely triggered at this point if that's where they're at. Since the only thing we talk about is fighting in war.

• 2:26:38Speaker 01

  Yes, I think you're right. I believe.

• 2:26:41Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:26:42Speaker 01

  You're right. So, within the all-out war, there's little battles, right? And in those battles, one of those battles is the jujitsu. When you do the jujitsu, you're gonna need a gi and a rash guard, just to begin. That's why I think so. Actually, technically, you could wear basketball shorts and a tank top, you could.

• 2:27:05Jocko Willink?

  Not recommended.

• 2:27:05Speaker 01

  Not recommended.

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Especially the basketball shorts.

• 2:27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  They will be pulled down.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  Pulled down, pulled up, caught on people's toes sometimes.

• 2:27:14Jocko Willink?

  Just not a good plan.

• 2:27:15Speaker 01

  Not as good as like, yeah, maybe some board shorts, because they don't, as far as, yeah, nonetheless, is where you can get these things from. Origin, originmaine.com, that's where you go. Get a rash guard, get a gi, best gi in the world, factually, by the way. Also happens to be made in America. Are they the best because they're made in America? Maybe, maybe not, but those are two separate attributes. Oh, yeah, best gis in the world. Many different options there. Also, rash guards, like I said, also joggers.

• 2:27:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:49Speaker 01

  Like I've said before, but yeah, a lot of clothes, apparel, we'll say.

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  What you're missing is jeans.

• 2:27:56Speaker 01

  Yes, there are jeans.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:58Speaker 01

  Wait, can we get jeans now?

• 2:28:00Jocko Willink?

  We should be getting jeans now. I know I have Origin jeans. I know I'm in a little bit of a preferred scenario.

• 2:28:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:07Jocko Willink?

  I know people.

• 2:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was gonna say, wait, if we can all get jeans now, that's interesting, because I didn't get any jeans.

• 2:28:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, the jeans are being made at this time.

• 2:28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:17Jocko Willink?

  So, they're available, we'll say.

• 2:28:21Speaker 01

  American denim.

• 2:28:21Jocko Willink?

  American denim, American-made.

• 2:28:24Jocko Willink?

  Best genes ever, obviously. And yeah, check them out.

• 2:28:29Speaker 01

  Yep, or gene.com. Also supplements. Best kind of supplements. So I've come to the conclusion, the harsh conclusion that exercise, generally speaking, is probably the best thing you can do for yourself.

• 2:28:47Jocko Willink?

  Agree.

• 2:28:47Speaker 01

  Generally speaking, I'm not saying there's no exceptions. I'm not saying that.

• 2:28:51Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:28:53Jocko Willink?

  And you're not saying that throw everything else into the dumpster.

• 2:28:56Speaker 01

  Correct, yes. So when it comes to supplements, okay, so what's the best kind of supplements to take then? If we understand that exercise is the best thing you can do for yourself, what kind of supplements? Is it like muscle building supplements? Or is it, this is what I'm asking myself as I'm driving, because I drive sometimes. Or is it the kind of supplement that allows you to stay able to exercise at full capacity longer? Probably those, right?

• 2:29:27Jocko Willink?

  I know what you think. Yeah, you like the joint warfare krill oil.

• 2:29:31Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:29:33Jocko Willink?

  You like the discipline.

• 2:29:34Speaker 01

  Right, because and I say this because it's not self intuitive, it's not just intuitive. You think supplements get my body bigger, whatever, stronger.

• 2:29:42Jocko Willink?

  But what if you do want to get more yolk, let's say, how about you get some of that milk?

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  Like you said, we don't throw everything else into the dumpster. I'm just saying this is.

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  When I go on the road and I'm eating whatever, and when I go on the road, I go on a trip, I eat, I usually eat really good because I go out to steak restaurants and I get ribeyes.

• 2:30:00Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:30:01Jocko Willink?

  And no matter what, when I come home, I want to have milk.

• 2:30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:03Jocko Willink?

  I want to have that mint chocolate chip milk.

• 2:30:05Speaker 01

  Because it's like a dessert, or it is a dessert.

• 2:30:08Jocko Willink?

  It is a dessert.

• 2:30:08Speaker 01

  Without the.

• 2:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Without the crap.

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  That's literally good for you.

• 2:30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:15Jocko Willink?

  How can you get a dessert that's actually good for you? I'll tell you how. You go to originmaine.com, you get milk. And if you've got kids, instead of feeding kids junk that's horrible for them, you get them some Warrior Kid Milk. You will have kids that want to drink something that's awesome for them.

• 2:30:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:30:34Jocko Willink?

  And by that, it's a meal, by the way. They will be stoked. So get your kids some Warrior Kid Milk tasty.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  People have been asking about when the strawberry adult mulk is coming out. I told Be, I told Be Little, do not mess this up. I'm like, Be Little? The strawberry kids mulk is epic. It's epic.

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:56Jocko Willink?

  I said, if you mess up and the, and the adult strawberry mulk is an epic, we're gonna have an issue.

• 2:31:04Speaker 01

  That's a problem.

• 2:31:05Jocko Willink?

  So Be Little's on the case.

• 2:31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 2:31:09Jocko Willink?

  He's on the case.

• 2:31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it's true. Also, Jaco's Store. It's called Jaco's Store. So go to jacostore.com. This is where you can get shirts, hoodies, rash guards, more rash guards, all representative of this path that we're on. And we're on the path.

• 2:31:28Jocko Willink?

  Certainly.

• 2:31:29Speaker 01

  And we're gonna stay on the path. We're gonna stay on the path until the path, path ends. And guess what? The little answer to that little riddle? Path doesn't end.

• 2:31:36Jocko Willink?

  Path doesn't end.

• 2:31:37Speaker 01

  So, but if you want to represent jacostore.com. Got some new stuff on there, by the way. A little new design of the hoodies, you know, some people really like that one. Nonetheless, hey, look, go check it out if you like something.

• 2:31:49Jocko Willink?

  Trucker's hats.

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  Trucker's hats.

• 2:31:51Jocko Willink?

  Stickers?

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  There's some, uh, yeah, but there's bumper stickers on there. There's patches on there. There's more. I just designed a new rash guard. It's not like totally new. It's a new rash guard.

• 2:32:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:32:02Speaker 01

  Sent it to Pete. We're getting it done. It should be there in, you know, within the week. Um, also, I know you talk a lot of trash to me about lightweight hoodies.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:11Speaker 01

  We're gonna do a lightweight hoodie, hundred percent. It's in the pipe.

• 2:32:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:32:15Speaker 01

  Jaco unapproved. But when you see it, it's gonna be approved. Anyway, if you like something, get something.

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  If I was gonna wear a lightweight hoodie, I would just wear a t-shirt, bro.

• 2:32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did it. But some of us, you know, we like that. There's like this little intermediary position, uh, uh, situation where it's not hot. It's cold, but it's not cold, cold. You know, like when the wind sort of blows consistently and you're like, you know, I could.

• 2:32:40Jocko Willink?

  Only by the grace of decentralized command that this is happening.

• 2:32:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:32:46Jocko Willink?

  Because despite what you're saying to me.

• 2:32:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:32:49Jocko Willink?

  A medium or whatever you said, a lightweight hoodie makes no logical sense to me as a human.

• 2:32:55Speaker 01

  Well, you know, that's one of the many differences between me and you. And I think that there are a lot of people out there who support me on this decision, which is why.

• 2:33:03Jocko Willink?

  We will track and see if anyone buys lightweight hoodies.

• 2:33:08Speaker 01

  Going to the numbers. Okay, I understand. Also, there's women's stuff.

• 2:33:11Jocko Willink?

  We will present them to the people.

• 2:33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool. Well, there it is. Yeah. Anyway, Jaco store.com. There's some women's stuff on there. There's cool stuff. If you'd like some, get some. It's a good way to represent. For sure. Also, Jaco White Tea. If you want to deadlift eight thousand pounds, if you're not already, okay, this is the reason, or one of the reasons, unless you're already a tea drinker. Even if you're not a tea drinker, because I wasn't a tea drinker, and I drink Jaco White Tea. So I am a tea drinker, technically.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  This is the original. This is like the first thing.

• 2:33:42Speaker 01

  What?

• 2:33:43Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna make something. I'm gonna make this tea.

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  Oh, the yes, the tea is the OG product, yes.

• 2:33:48Jocko Willink?

  The OG product.

• 2:33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:49Jocko Willink?

  I had some on the way over here.

• 2:33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what's funny, man? If you kind of.

• 2:33:53Jocko Willink?

  Because I was a little bit chilly. I wanted some warm tea. I could have used a little lightweight hoodie.

• 2:34:02Speaker 01

  Anyway, it's interesting how all these products is all stuff that you use. So you're like, you're like walking, not walking, but you're just sort of existing. You're like, hmm. Instead of like, you know, getting this stuff, let me just make so and it turns out that like you make all your own stuff.

• 2:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, the thing is, if you're gonna, I'm picky. That's my problem. I'm picky about what I like and what I don't like.

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:23Jocko Willink?

  And so, yeah, well, I'm straightforward, but I'm picky. I want this specific thing a specific way. And you can't buy what I want, or you couldn't. You couldn't buy what I want. Now you can. This is what I want.

• 2:34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 2:34:38Jocko Willink?

  It's just like everything, like the like Victory MMA and Fitness, our gym.

• 2:34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:42Jocko Willink?

  Why is that? Why does it exist? Because we want it to have the way we want things to be. You can't just, you can't go to someone else's gym and expect it to be the way you want it.

• 2:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:52Jocko Willink?

  You can't buy some supplement off the shelf and expect it to taste the way you want it to taste. It's gonna taste the way some random person in some other area wanted it to taste. And they don't know what tastes good.

• 2:35:08Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:35:08Jocko Willink?

  And they're gonna take, once they figure they get to put in that they're just trying to make the maximum profit margin. So they're putting fillers. Whatever.

• 2:35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense. Make totally makes sense.

• 2:35:20Jocko Willink?

  If you're gonna make something, then if you have to use, if you want to use something, why not make it the way you want it? Origin jeans, by the way, same thing.

• 2:35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:29Jocko Willink?

  The way I want them to be made, the way Pete likes them made.

• 2:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, in America. So anyways, yeah, that's how we end up doing this stuff.

• 2:35:38Speaker 01

  Boom. Yeah, good. I'm glad you did, by the way.

• 2:35:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, and uh, there's some people, we joked about subscribing to the podcast. I saw some comments that people didn't, hadn't subscribed to the podcast until the last show. This dude was like, I listened to a hundred and sixty three episodes and I never subscribed to the podcast. Until you said and joked about who would listen to a hundred and sixty three episodes and not subscribe to the podcast? And he said, that was me. So there might be one other person out there that hasn't subscribed to the podcast or hasn't subscribed to the YouTube channel or hasn't subscribed to the Warrior Kid podcast. So if you haven't subscribed to those things.

• 2:36:24Speaker 01

  Do so.

• 2:36:25Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what do you mean you stand corrected? You're the one that always says like, there might be someone that's, and I didn't believe you.

• 2:36:31Speaker 01

  I think, I don't know if I'd ever say for subscribing, but it was.

• 2:36:36Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:36:37Speaker 01

  I, I always said, or feel that it seems obvious like to subscribe, but subscribe.

• 2:36:44Jocko Willink?

  And I always thought that that was dumb.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:46Jocko Willink?

  And I thought to myself, who could listen to this podcast over and over again and not subscribe to it?

• 2:36:51Speaker 01

  But that rubbed off on me and I started to feel that way. In fact, cause right now I'm trying to search my feelings and I do feel that way. Like, yeah, you just, why are you telling people to subscribe?

• 2:36:59Jocko Willink?

  So we don't need to say this anymore. But now what I'm saying is we got reports back from the field of people that didn't subscribe yet. A hundred and sixty two podcasts deep. And now we're a hundred and sixty four podcasts. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you check out the YouTube channel, by the way, the YouTube channel, Echo's videos are on there. He's real proud of them.

• 2:37:20Speaker 01

  What are you talking about? Alright.

• 2:37:24Jocko Willink?

  He's real proud of him, puts little things exploding. Some people think it's too much.

• 2:37:29Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not gonna argue with that one. Sometimes they're.

• 2:37:33Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes they're right in there. It's a dichotomy. You gotta balance the dichotomy. No, no effects, too many effects.

• 2:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's, there's varying levels of appropriateness with effects.

• 2:37:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so at some point, I want you to purposely make a video that's completely, you take whatever I've said on this podcast, that's over the top anyways, and then just make the most over the top video.

• 2:37:55Speaker 01

  That is a good idea.

• 2:37:55Jocko Willink?

  I remember one time I said, don't sleep, eat steak, train hurt, or something like that. That's what, that's what the video should be. It should be about that. Just guys with broken legs crawling out on the mat with a steak hanging out of their mouth with, you know, like that kind of thing, over the top, everything exploding, fire. Cause a lot of times your explosions don't have fire. A lot of times they're just smoke and more, more like smoke and dust.

• 2:38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:22Jocko Willink?

  You keep it dark.

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're less explosions, more just like this rent, like various levels of destruction. What it's going for.

• 2:38:31Jocko Willink?

  So, check that out. Check out the Warrior Kid Soap at IrishOaksRanch.com. Young Aiden making Warrior Kid Soap.

• 2:38:40Jocko Willink?

  Check out Psychological Warfare. Little tidbits of information to help you overcome momentary weakness. I'll tell you how to do it. It's not real complicated.

• 2:38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  But it is effective.

• 2:38:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:38:56Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:38:57Speaker 01

  Amazon Music is where you can get it.

• 2:38:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:59Speaker 01

  And iTunes.

• 2:39:00Jocko Willink?

  And iTunes.

• 2:39:00Speaker 01

  Or if you buy MP3s, that's really, that's what's called Psychological Warfare. It's a good one. Very much so. Also, you want to subscribe to the Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 2:39:08Jocko Willink?

  I said that. I'm glad you're emphasizing it, though.

• 2:39:11Speaker 01

  Well. Yeah, I thought you didn't say that.

• 2:39:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:39:14Speaker 01

  I think I missed it. Nonetheless, yeah, yeah, it's a good one. That's a good one for you and the kids, both of you guys. Cause they're, they're, they're good lessons, but they're super basic, just like this, just like this book, man. Very much so. Also.

• 2:39:29Speaker 01

  On it, on it.com, go there, slash Jaco, on it.com slash Jaco, this is where you can get kettlebells. Add to your home gym, add to your capability, rings, add to that capability, I just got some, uh, the stormtrooper. One, Star Wars.

• 2:39:44Jocko Willink?

  Straight up, huh?

• 2:39:45Speaker 01

  Bruh, don't hate on that, Russ, they're, they're dope. Nonetheless, a lot of good stuff on there, good fitness stuff.

• 2:39:50Jocko Willink?

  When you think of stormtroopers, do you actually think of like badass?

• 2:39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cuz I always think of them as just things that get shot all the time.

• 2:39:58Speaker 01

  Yes, and that is true, that is true, but.

• 2:40:01Jocko Willink?

  Are they humans?

• 2:40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're people, they're troopers, actually, I think they're clones of people.

• 2:40:07Jocko Willink?

  So they're just, that's why they're just fodder, they just get killed by laser beams all the time.

• 2:40:11Speaker 01

  In the movie, yes, but when you see a stormtrooper kettlebell, it's pretty cool.

• 2:40:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:40:16Speaker 01

  And there's a Darth Vader one too, there's an Iron Man one, and there's a, the Bubble Fat guy. Or Jango Fat, or both of them, I don't know, they wear the same helmet, so nonetheless.

• 2:40:25Jocko Willink?

  Are they related?

• 2:40:27Speaker 01

  They're, one is where the clone came from, if I'm not mistaken.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  I, I don't know, I might have got my Star Wars mythology mixed up, but nonetheless, they are kettlebells now, On It makes them, and they're dope. A lot of cool stuff on there, on it.com slash Jaco.

• 2:40:44Jocko Willink?

  We got Mikey and the Dragons book. That's available right now for every kid that you know, get a Mikey and the Dragons. Way the Warrior Kid.

• 2:40:56Jocko Willink?

  And Way the Warrior Kid Two, Mark's Mission. Those are books to show your kid how to be on the path. And now we have coming Warrior Kid Three. Which now has a subtitle, and the subtitle is Where There's a Will.

• 2:41:14Jocko Willink?

  So he has to dig deep in this book, learns a little bit about digging deep, he also learns a little bit about humility. He learns about ego for the first time, his ego starts getting involved, so check out those books, the, I will let you know when Warrior Kid Three is available for preorder, which we're gonna be a little bit more efficient this time when we do preorder, so we don't get into the Mikey and the Dragon situation where people have to wait a little extra time to get the book when it comes out, so.

• 2:41:42Jocko Willink?

  Book three, I'll let you know when that's ready. The Field Manual, Discipline Goes Freedom Field Manual, available right now. I was with a buddy of mine that's a, in the finance world and has, you know, one of those, I guess it'd be a stereotypical office of the finance, the investment bankers. You know what I'm talking about? Everything's all clean and white, New York City type thing.

• 2:42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:42:05Jocko Willink?

  And he showed me a picture in there as you walk in this beautiful, clean office, entryway. It's not even an office, it's like a thing.

• 2:42:15Speaker 01

  A foyer.

• 2:42:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, one of those. And there's a white table, it is a big white table, you know, it's probably eight by eight. There's one book by itself, the Field Manual. And he says, and he says, his, his, um, front office girl the other day said, everyone that comes in looks at that book and says, what is this? Where did this come from? Where did you get this? Every single person makes a comment. So that's the Field Manual, Discipline Goes Freedom Field Manual. Get it for anyone that needs to, a little help being on the path. And you know who needs helping on the path? Everybody. Extreme Ownership, first book I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, Leadership Lessons From The Battlefield.

• 2:42:58Jocko Willink?

  And then we wrote The Dichotomy Of Leadership, which gives some guidance on how to be more balanced as a leader, because if you get out of balance as a leader, you go extreme in one direction or the other in a multitude of various dichotomies, you will rip your team apart, which is not good. So Dichotomy Of Leadership, get that one. We also got Echelon Front, which is our leadership consultancy. And that's what we do is we solve problems through leadership. It's me, it's Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Sorelli, Mike Biama. Go to echelonfront.com if you want us to come and work with your company.

• 2:43:39Jocko Willink?

  Get your leadership aligned and get your entire organization on the path to victory.

• 2:43:46Jocko Willink?

  Hit us up. We have the muster, which is our leadership event. 2019, we're doing it May 23rd and 24th in Chicago. We're doing September 19th and 20th in Denver, and we're doing December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. Are you going to Australia with us?

• 2:44:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:44:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so that's what's happening. Every event that we've done has sold out. And when I say sold out, I mean where personal friends of mine are saying, hey, hey, it's a little late, but can you just, I just need three seats, you know, for me and my girlfriend and my buddy, we're gonna go. And I'm like, actually, no, I can't. There's no more seats and the fire code will not allow any more human beings in there. So these all are gonna sell out. There'll be no

• 2:44:31Jocko Willink?

  alibis, like, well, in the military, it's called safe rounds or alibis, meaning like I got an extra round. Hey, just one more. But no, it's not gonna happen. So, and don't get mad if that does happen. You know, oh, Jocko, you, you, no.

• 2:44:48Jocko Willink?

  Can't help you. We have to talk to the fire marshal.

• 2:44:54Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to come, sign up early, extremeownership.com. I'll tell you what, the Australia one is gonna be, it's gonna sell out quick because I think there's 450 seats. That is not a lot. When I did a book signing up in Brizzy, up in Brisbane, Australia, Brisbane, there was a ton of people there that flew to Brisbane to hang out for five minutes, you know, get a book signed. So that one in Sydney is gonna be sold out quick. So jump on there if you want to come down. If you're a trooper in the game, come to the muster, extremeownership.com. EF online. Now active. What is it?

• 2:45:37Jocko Willink?

  It's interactive leadership training online. It actually puts you into scenarios that you have to figure out, that you have to make decisions. Combat scenarios, business scenarios, role-playing scenarios, dealing with people.

• 2:45:54Jocko Willink?

  It's awesome training. It will really engrain the principles of extreme ownership, the laws of combat, the dichotomy leadership, it will engrain them into you. It'll make you a better leader. That is efonline.com. Whether you're a company that wants to use it as enterprise service, or you're just an individual that wants to get in the game deeper, go to efonline.com. And we also have EF Overwatch, where we're taking proven combat leaders from special operations and combat aviation communities, and we're putting them into businesses that need experienced,

• 2:46:31Jocko Willink?

  proven leaders. Go to efoverwatch.com. If you're on either side of that calculation, whether you're a vet that needs work, or whether you're a company that needs leaders, let us know, efoverwatch.com. And if you want to talk to us, or you want to share a good book with us, like somebody shared the psychology for the fighting man with me on the interwebs, that's where we can be found, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook.

• 2:47:05Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And of course, thanks to all of those who serve, our military personnel, police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, border patrol, all first responders, all of you that put on a uniform and protect us from evil in the world. We can only do what we do because you do what you do. So, thank you. And to everyone else out there that is listening, remember to train

• 2:47:46Jocko Willink?

  hard. Do your best to prepare. Stay in the fight. And even though you might not feel like it sometimes, you can drive on. You can push through. You can deal with unimaginable adversity.

• 2:48:07Jocko Willink?

  As long as you keep getting up every day, moving forward and getting after it.

• 2:48:17Jocko Willink?

  So until next time, this is Echo and Jaco.

• 2:48:23Jocko Willink?

  Out.