DEF 02: "Why" Can Bear Almost Any "How"

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  Discipline equals freedom, episode two. Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go straight to the book on this one right here. Discipline equals freedom, field manual. Why, over and over and over again, I am asked, why? What drives me? This is, happens to this day, I still get asked this question. And I think people are looking for, hey, maybe he's gonna say something that then I can hold on to. Right? Like, why are you, tell me why you're doing this? So then when I know why you're doing it, then I can do it for that why as well. Unfortunately, I don't think that works. I don't think it works 100% of the time. Maybe it works 70% of the time. But what it comes down to is my why is not going to be the same as your why, in many cases.

• 0:59Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, what drives me? When I was younger, I was preparing for war.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  What a way to grow up.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  What an awesome way to grow up. And it's weird because I was preparing for a war that at time didn't exist. Cause it was the 90s. And in the 90s, there was no war going on. There was little skirmishes that would break out around the world.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  So what I was preparing for was the unknown. What I was preparing for was something that I, I didn't understand fully. And in my mind, and in many of our minds, we, we prepared for like a dragon that was 1,000 feet tall and breathed fire.

• 1:50Jocko Willink?

  And so that's what we were getting ready for. We weren't preparing for a kangaroo.

• 1:56Jocko Willink?

  Did dragons kinda look like kangaroos a little bit, right?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. It depends on what depiction of the dragon, I guess.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  But don't dragons, they kinda have their back on the, aren't dragons on two feet? Kinda like a kangaroo?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Some of them, yeah. The, well, you know, like a Godzilla scenario.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Is that a dragon?

• 2:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then if you look at like

• 2:15Jocko Willink?

  Moth.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  The last drag. More of a moth, but you know, you got the last dragon. I think it's called, or dragon heart. Sorry, that's a four-legged dragon right there.

• 2:23Jocko Willink?

  So we could go both ways.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, what I was preparing for was a big giant, the most evil dragon you could imagine. That's what I was preparing for. Back to the book, I knew that somewhere out there, another man was also preparing. That man was my enemy. He was working, training, planning and preparing to meet me on the battlefield. I didn't know when, I didn't know where. So all that changed. Once the war started, it was like, oh, you're going on deployment in 12 months. And you're going to Afghanistan, you're going to Iraq, you're going to wherever, where you know there's a war going on. So you knew, you knew who the enemy was. We didn't even know who the enemy was back then.

• 3:04Jocko Willink?

  It was like, well, it could be some terrorist, it could be some insurgent, it could be some, we didn't know what it was. Partially also because I was young and dumb. So we're training for the unknown. You know, this reminds me talking to Brian Sargent.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  He said when he, you know, he was a really good wrestler. And he would train for wrestling. And when he would visualize who he was going against, they never had a face.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  Because he didn't, he said he didn't want to, to be opponent specific because you're not sure. You know, you're going through the brackets and maybe this guy upsets this guy. So you're not going to go against the guy. The number two seed, now you're going against the number four seed, but I didn't prepare for him. So he'd prepare visually to wrestle people without faces.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  And I feel like that's kind of what I was doing. But in doing that, it makes you prepare in a lot of ways. It makes you prepare harder, right? Cause you're just, if you're smart, you're thinking worst case scenario. Like maybe you're thinking, oh, well, well, the way the bracket's going to be set up. I'm going to be going against the number 12 seed. That's going to be pretty easy. I know that guy. He doesn't have a real good sprawl. I'm going to take him down easy. Then all of a sudden you're going against some other guy. So that's a problem. So when you prepare for someone with no face, non-specific, what that should do is increase your fear levels, which therefore requires you to increase your discipline levels. So you're going to train harder.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, but I knew that at some point we would meet and I wanted to be ready, ready mentally, ready physically, ready emotionally. So I trained and I prepared and I did everything I could do to be ready for that day. Waiting. So that's an awesome driving force to have in the back of your head, right? That for me, at least it was, for me, at least it was. It goes on. So I trained and I prepared and I did everything I could to be ready for that day.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  When I became a leader, I took the same approach to prepare my men in the same way, to train brutally and without mercy, so we could fight brutally and without mercy. And by the way, that's what I used to say at trade at. And when a team would check in, I'd say, hey, we, we train brutally and without mercy so we can fight brutally and without mercy. That's what you need to do. That's how you need to prepare. Back to the book and the day came. We met the enemy on the battlefield. We were ready and we fought and we won. Then one day it was over.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  I was no longer a soldier, no longer a leader of men. I was no longer preparing myself or my men for war.

• 6:13Jocko Willink?

  So, what drives me now?

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  The answer is simple.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  The men that did not come home.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  Mark, and Mikey, and Ryan, but it's not only them. There are others, hundreds more, thousands more, countless more.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  Who fought and died to give me the gift of freedom. And for them, I will make every day, every minute, every second, I will make it all count. I will live to honor their sacrifice, a life worthy of the price they paid for me. For us.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  I will not let them down.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  So,

• 7:04Jocko Willink?

  that's a broad overarching driving force in life.

• 7:12Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a broad, in other words,

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  that's so deeply embedded, that's such a huge driver. That's almost like the, the psychological driver, you know, someone that, when they were growing up, they got picked on, and for the rest of their life, they're trying to succeed and do well because they to show everyone else that they got picked on, or they got abandoned, like whatever the, like, that's the kind of deep sort of, almost psychological driving force. I, I feel that. I feel that I have that.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Viktor Frankl. He said, and this is who was captured by the Nazis, you know, in, in the, in the concentration camp. Entire family killed, the only survivor was him. And he has a quote, that is, "Those who have a why to live can bear almost any how."

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  So you have to know why you're doing what you're doing. You have to know why you're doing what you're doing. And to me, this is your own personal strategic thinking, right? We talk about, we talk about on a mission, you've got to understand the long-term strategy that you're trying to achieve. You've got to, you've got to understand what the long-term goal is. You and I talk about this a lot. We've got to think strategic, we've got to think long-term. Short-term, have a donut, tastes good right now, instant gratification. Long-term strategy, you're fat, out of shape, unhealthy. So you've got to think long-term. Well, that, that's what this is, that's what we have to do.

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  We, we have to have something to reach back to. We have to have something to reach back to. And yeah, the steps, the steps can be hard. So sometimes when we are, sometimes when we need a little push for what we're doing right now, we've got to think about that long-term goal. We've got to think about that long-term destination. We've got to think about what it is we're trying to achieve.

• 9:22Jocko Willink?

  That's what we have to do.

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  Now, here's the thing, those big, giant, long-term sort of psychological strategic goals, which again, if you have them, great. You also have to make sure that those things are on point. Right? There's people that have bad, long-term strategic goals, right? The kids that rebels against their parents. Their parents were mean to them, so they're going to pay them back by being a failure, by being a druggie, by being, get sent to jail, but they want to like embarrass their parents. It's one of their goals. This happens, I've seen it happen.

• 10:08Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes it can be a positive thing. Oh, my parents were terrible to me. I'm gonna prove to them that I'm better. So I'm gonna go work my ass off. I'm gonna be successful. I'm gonna make money. I'm gonna be healthy, all those things. Sometimes that happens. Could go either way. I don't know what the percentage is. What do you think the percentage is?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  Tough to call?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Well, to be successful, very small. Usually, it's usually more of a damaging, toxic thing, but you know, I think if you hit that Goldilocks zone, you know, you got just enough of the good stuff and just enough of the, or a little bit more of just enough of the bad stuff, boom, that just a perfect imbalance. Yeah.

• 10:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I think, I think you're right. You need a little bit of both optimally. You gotta have struggle.

• 10:57Jocko Willink?

  But a little too much struggle, things go off the rails. You know, that's when you have some real problems. But with no struggle whatsoever, now you have a spoiled kid.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and it'll come as no surprise when you think about it. A lot of these quote unquote high achievers have some kind of a weird like thing about them, like something's imbalanced, you know? And it'll show itself in some other way, like maybe they have trouble with relationships or, you know, a lot of the time, I'm not talking about anyone specific, but to, to find that out about somebody when they're a high achiever comes as no surprise a lot of the time, you know? Where they'll have something else lacking. You know, they, there's some imbalance that shows itself in some other part of their life, so to speak. Um, that can be a thing as well. So that seems like it kind of lends credence to the idea of like, hey,

• 11:50Speaker 01

  there was something that was unfulfilled, you know, that's driving them and it just shows itself eh, in smaller ways, you know, in bad ways, but the main way it shows itself is in that driver for success.

• 12:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what we hope for. We hope it's not just downward spiral, which can certainly happen. So, you gotta check your kind of underlying psychological strategic goals.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  But the thing is, those things can also be so deep that they that they're just sort of, they're almost that you don't notice them, right? There's some people like a normal person maybe didn't have some big issue, but they got a little bit of issue and that's kind of what drives them, but it's not enough to really push them to excellence. It's also not enough to push them to chaos. So they just end up sort of going along with the flow. And then what you end up with is just like, okay, what, what, let's think about this in more just normal kind of, not day to day, but sort of normal sort of strategic goals that we might have as a human being. Uh, get stronger, uh, gain weight, lose weight, um, make more money, buy a car, buy a house,

• 13:04Jocko Willink?

  get good at guitar, get good at jazz, whatever. You, you pick a thing. You pick a thing, whatever those goals are. When you have, when you, when you think about those goals, you have to understand why they're important to you. You, you have to. If there's no, if you don't attach a, a meaningful why,

• 13:27Jocko Willink?

  you will not have the discipline that you need. You will not have, you will not have the discipline that you need. If you don't have a powerful why, your discipline will not be powerful. If you have a weak why, your discipline will be weak. If you have a medium why, your discipline will be medium. If you have a freaking hardcore why, your discipline will be hardcore. Like when you're in a movie, when, uh, you know, someone does something terrible and that other person has the revenge why, what a good, what a good, strong why. Or, you know, the boxer that the other boxer killed his brother or something. Now he's got to go fight him. How hard does that dude train? Hard as possible.

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  Hardest a human can train. Talk about kick boxer. Kickboxer, is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, Van Damme. Oh, kills his brother. There you go, right? How hard does Van Damme train then? Hardcore. So you got, the more hardcore your why is, the more hardcore your discipline is. So you got to figure that out. And listen, here's the thing, sometimes if you think about the why,

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  You'll realize that it's a lot more hardcore than than you thought. So, oh, I wanna, I wanna work out every day. Why? Well, you know, I kinda wanna get in shape. That's how, what are we getting there? What's the strength of that? One to 10?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Well, I just kinda, I just wanna get in shape. Oh, yeah, that's a one, that's a two, maybe.

• 14:55Jocko Willink?

  Maybe a three at best. A one to 10, maybe a three at best.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  But if you start thinking about, I wanna work out every day because I have kids and they're young. And I wanna be healthy enough to do things with them and healthy enough to walk my daughter down the aisle. I wanna be, you know what I'm saying?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:15Jocko Willink?

  All of a sudden, that's escalating.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Especially if you get an indicator that you could lose it all, like health wise. So like, you know, you get these guys have a, you know, uh, my cousin's husband, he had a heart attack. Young, young guy, like under 50, before he was 50, had a heart attack.

• 15:29Jocko Willink?

  How'd that why? What happened to that why?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Bro, that why went sky high. So, yeah, and it was the kind, he didn't like, it wasn't kind of massive heart attack. You know, the kind, you can have like a little mild heart attacks. So I guess it was like a medium heart attack. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Freaking right then and there in, and boom, life changed. Oh, yeah.

• 15:46Jocko Willink?

  Life changer. That why went from, eh, you know, I don't really know, I kinda like to enjoy myself.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz he wasn't like this big, like super sloppy. He was just a little heavy, you know, like most, you know, most people, I guess, in a way. Or so, yeah, just a little heavy. So that why was, was at about a three, I would say.

• 16:02Jocko Willink?

  So what happened to his discipline?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Still going, we'll say that.

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  So when you got strong, so you need to look at your why and you need to figure out how to reinforce your why. You need to reinforce your why. Sometimes, a lot of times, oftentimes, that means taking a more strategic look at your why. A more long-term look, not like just like, well, you know, summer's coming. And I'm going to that pool party in July, July 4th pool party. I wanna be looking good.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  That's actually a pretty good short to medium term.

• 16:35Jocko Willink?

  It's a good short to medium term. It's a good short to medium term, but.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  If you had a heart attack and you realized you might not live anymore. So, so start thinking about that. So yeah, take that short to medium term. Take the 4th of July pool party. At the Charles residence, we're gonna go there, we're gonna be looking good, right? Take that, but then add to that, strengthen that, reinforce that. With an even more powerful why, which is your health is what your family depends on.

• 17:06Jocko Willink?

  Strengthen that why. Um, oh, you wanna get, you wanna save money. Well, why do you wanna save money? Well, cuz I, I, I'd really like to look flashy when I go down to the club in a new car or whatever. Right? That's, sure, like you said, that's a, that's a pretty, that could be a medium. You know, coming from Mr. Cadillac over here.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  When you're a little kid and you wanna save some money for the freaking Optimus Prime action figure.

• 17:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Bro, it works.

• 17:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, those things were kind of a big deal back. They could transform, literally.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I agree. And just, but you know, you just, that translates over to a bunch of stuff you wanna save for that. And those new Gucci sunglasses, like how you say you wanna flex in this event or in general, whatever. Like it, bro, it works straight up.

• 17:53Jocko Willink?

  It does, but you can reinforce that why by saying, hey, I'm not saving for a pair of Gucci sunglasses or a flashy car. I'm saving for a house so that I can have stability and freedom and security for me and my family. All of a sudden, that why is reinforced. Then maybe that Gucci bag doesn't look so good. Then maybe that flashy car, maybe we don't need to get the Cadillac, maybe we can get the Yukon. You know what I'm saying? The GMC version.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  Because you realize, hey, I'm gonna strengthen my discipline because my why has been reinforced and is more powerful.

• 18:37Jocko Willink?

  Now, that being says, that being said, sometimes the, the dream can be too far away. You know what I mean? Yeah. The dream can be too far away. Like dude, I won't be able to get a house for, because when you start saving for a house, when you're, when you're 20 years old, you might have six years of saving. Yeah. Before you can get a house, six years and six years when you're like, well, you know, it is the week. So it's, if it's today and I'm 20 years old and I'm like, in six years, I've done my calculations. I make, I make $32,000 a year. I'm going to save whatever 10%. It's going to take me this much time. It's going to take me six years to save up my down payment for my $280,000 house. So in six years, I'm going to be able to buy my house that I want.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  And then tonight, someone's like, yo, you want to go to the club? Let's, let's throw some money down. And out come the hundos, right? Yep. So you lose track of that long-term goal. That's why it's good, as you said, to have some intermediate goals, some more short-term goals. About what, how much money I'm trying to save this month. And then what you do is you say, listen, as long as I save, whatever that number is, if I'm going to, I'm going to save a thousand bucks this month. As long as I do that, I'm going to save 900, 800, $700. As long as I do that, I'm going to, I'm going to have $180. I'm going to blow on a Friday night. That's going to be my reward for saving. So that, what does that mean? Means I'm not going to buy the Starbucks coffee that costs $8 every day for this month.

• 20:04Jocko Willink?

  It means I'm not going to waste my money on this, that. Means I'm going to cancel my subscription to whatever freaking streaming service is coming in at $18 a month. You're going to make moves so that you can get a short-term reward, but you're still going to have the discipline maintained for your long-term reward. You're going to focus on the thing right in front of you and do it.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  So that you can eventually accomplish your long-term goal. And that is the discipline.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  And if you want some more discipline, go to thedefreset.com. If you need fuel, go to JacoFuel.com. Gear, go to OriginUSA.com or JacoStore.com. And leadership, go to EchelonFront.com. That's what we're doing. Stay disciplined. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.