Jocko Willink and the New Rules of War: Putin, Gaza, and America’s Fall | PT 2

Picking up where part one left off, Tom Bilyeu and Jocko Willink continue their far-reaching conversation, diving even deeper into the foundations of leadership, cultural transformation, and the surprising optimism Jocko sees for America’s youth. Jocko shares behind-the-scenes stories about translating hard-won military discipline into bestselling children’s books and a soon-to-be-released feature film—highlighting his belief that storytelling is a critical weapon for shaping culture and values. The dialogue expands to explore the realities of military and corporate leadership, the dangers of arrogance and ego within teams, and the mechanics of power in both politics and business. Tom and Jocko dissect the process behind leadership development, examine the “Machiavellian” truths of power dynamics, and reflect on the lived realities of command in combat. Listeners will gain fresh perspectives on humility, accountability, and what it truly means to step up as a leader—both in war and everyday life. SHOWNOTES 27:48 Jocko’s Cultural Optimism—Why America’s Next Generation Will Thrive 30:35 The Reality Behind Grit, Hard Work, and Unsung Heroes 33:21 Warrior Kid Podcast, Working with Kids, and Building a Brand That Resonates 35:23 Jocko’s Creative Side—Music, Art, and the Story Behind the Warrior Kid Movie 38:38 From Book to Film: How Jocko’s Storyland Became a Feature Starring Chris Pratt 46:16 The Mind of a Warrior-Writer: Capturing and Processing the Chaos of Combat 54:52 The Limits of Memory: Why Jocko Didn't Journal at War & His Singular Focus 57:33 What Makes Great Leaders? Comparing Politics, Military, and Corporate Worlds 59:40 Power, Ego, and the Real Chain of Command 1:04:12 Leadership Factories, Promotions, and Avoiding the Trap of Incompetence 1:11:06 How Teams Survive “Dumb” or Egotistical Leaders 1:13:22 The Role of Ego—Why Teams Self-Destruct Under Bad Leadership 1:15:22 Building Alliances—Managing Hostile Environments in High-Stakes Roles 1:20:13 Machiavellian Truths and Staying Positive When Facing Dark Realities 1:24:03 How to Find & Connect with Jocko Willink CONNECT WITH JOCKO WILLINK Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jockowillink/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jockowillink YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JockoPodcast Website: https://jocko.com CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Vital Proteins: Get 20% off by going to ⁠https://www.vitalproteins.com⁠ https://www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code IMPACT at check out ButcherBox: New users that sign up for ButcherBox will receive their choice between steak tips, salmon, or chicken breast in every box for a year + $20 off their first box at ⁠https://butcherbox.com/impact⁠ https://butcherbox.com/impact Monarch Money: Use code THEORY at ⁠https://monarchmoney.com⁠ https://monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at ⁠https://shopify.com/impact⁠ https://shopify.com/impact iTrust Capital: Use code IMPACTGO when you sign up and fund your account to get a $100 bonus at ⁠https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu⁠ https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu Jerry: Stop needlessly overpaying for car insurance - download the Jerry app or head to ⁠https://jerry.ai/impact⁠ https://jerry.ai/impact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:07Speaker 01

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• 1:52Speaker 01

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• 2:08Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm Tom Bilyeu and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Jocko Willink. Let's get right into it. One of the ways that the world works is that psychological influence, to put the nicest spin on it, works and works very well. I see you as somebody who's moving into the world of cultural influence. Tell the story, if you don't mind, of what made you decide to write your first book? And then what it was you're trying to help parents teach their kids?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went and got a book at the bookstore for my son. And it was like a pirate book and it had a pretty cool cover. It looked like a pirate book and the pirate book ended up being like the weakest, most pathetic pirates ever. And I was disappointed. And so I just thought to myself, I'm going to write books so that I can convey the type of values and lessons learned that I would want my kids to have. And I would want, you know, my neighbor's kids to have and my friends' kids to have. And so that's why I wrote the books.

• 3:08Tom Bilyeu?

  And so what are those values?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  It's hard work. It's helping other people out. It's studying hard. It's doing the best that you can in whatever endeavor you're undertaking. It's all those things.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  And one of, I think, the most important underlying messages, and probably the most important underlying message is that you can decide who you want to become and you can become that person. So, you know, in the book, the kid is weak, can't do any pull ups, doesn't know how to swim, doesn't know his times tables, and he's getting picked on by the school bully.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  That's a rough place to be in for a 10 year old kid. And what his uncle teaches him is you don't have to be weak. You can work out and you can become stronger. You can eat better foods. You can study and you can become smarter. You can learn how to swim and you can learn how to fight and defend yourself. And so you can actually become. Through hard work and through discipline, you can become who you want to become. So that's the message that I wanted to get to my kids. And by the time it came out, my kids were pretty much a little too old for it. But luckily they've they've absorbed that message message in other ways.

• 4:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Was that like a sort of intimate decision where it was like, I wanted something for my kids. And so I did it and it felt intimate. Or is there a sense of like, I think I can actually nudge culture in a direction. The culture is hungry for this kind of story. I bet there's a lot of parents just like me that have kids going through the same thing. Like, do you think at that level, like, I want to bump culture in a certain direction? Or is it a much more local decision for you?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  When I was writing the first book, I was typing and I felt like I was looking over my shoulder,

• 4:57Speaker 02

  thinking to myself, I hope no one sees what I'm doing because this is the best idea ever. Like, the world needs this right now. I need it. The world needs it. I can't believe no one's written this yet. And so, yeah, I felt like people were going to go, that's it. That's what we've been looking for. And they were. So it worked. But I definitely had that feeling. Yep, I was, yep. Writing that book, I was thinking people are gonna, kids are gonna want this book and parents are gonna want this, the kids to have that book.

• 5:24Tom Bilyeu?

  How far are you, like, how deeply do you want that to take root? For me, when I'm doing the, especially the lives that talk a lot about like, America needs to refine that thing that we had when I was a kid where it was, you wanted to be tough, you believed that you could do anything. You had Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme. You know, just so many guys playing like this really tough guy role. And I get how to a modern audience, that probably looks super cheesy. But at the time, it felt so cool.

• 6:01Tom Bilyeu?

  And I really want to see America re-embrace that. Now, I take it to an extreme. I think that we are on the precipice of something exceedingly dangerous for, I think countries go broke all the time. I think countries go from number one to middle of the pack faster than you can snap your fingers. If anybody wants a lesson in that, look at Argentina, was at the absolute top of the South American pile, only to find themselves hyper inflating their currency and going to absolutely nothing and struggling. And the only way to begin the process of coming back is to go through so much pain and suffering. Whenever your debt gets to the level that we have debt at, basically it ends in war, bloodshed of some kind. You can have your French version, where you're just lopping people's heads off in the streets, or you can go to war like England

• 6:44Tom Bilyeu?

  did. But none of those seem like good outcomes to me. So I'm like, all right, how do you attack this problem? You attack it at the cultural level, you focus on kids, you give them this message. And so every time I see you, for people that don't know, you have a movie that's going to be coming out, would love to hear more about that. But do you have any sense of urgency? It sounds like you do understand this was a huge vacuum, but do you have a sense of urgency for America? Or do you think I'm sort of overstating the problem?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  You know, it's one of those things where I have kids, right? And I see what my kids are doing. And I see what their friends are doing. And I see them hanging out and what they're doing. And I don't, I'm not despaired at all. I'm kind of like, pretty stoked, you know? Kids are out there. I think they're healthier right now than they ever have been. There's, the kids aren't drinking as much as they used to. I don't know what it was like when you were a kid, but when I was a kid, and when I say a kid, but when I was in the SEAL teams, like alcohol was everywhere. And kids are drinking less, less drugs, they're more healthy. I think they've

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Uh, started to embrace things like the idea of extreme ownership of the first book that I wrote, which wasn't aimed at kids, it's aimed at adults, but like people want to take ownership of their life. People want to be responsible for what's going on in their world. And I think that's happening more and more. And I think there's a meme world of, of, uh, you know, the boomers, right? The boomers bought their house for $6,000, you know, and then now, you know, no one can afford a house. It's like, okay, so there's some, there's some young people that say, you, you, the boomers got their houses for $6,000 and we have to pay a half a million for a one bedroom, whatever. And, and so there's, there's that, but there's also people that are like, oh yeah, that's what it costs for a house. Now, cool. What do I need to do to make it happen? And also,

• 8:42Speaker 02

  you know what? The market goes up and down and we'll, I'll find a way and they'll figure it out. So I think there's a little bit of both, but I'm not overwhelmingly

• 8:53Speaker 02

  dis- like, like overwhelmingly fearing that the younger generation is not going to step up and do good things, do positive things. And when I work with military, like you work with young military people, they're young military people. They're, they're ready to rock and roll. They're ready to get something like that's what they're ready to do. So, yeah. And, and same thing with like, I work with big companies with construction companies and there's 22 year old kids that are working construction, kids, 22 year old, young men that are out there working construction. They're, they're iron workers. They're pouring concrete. Like they're

• 9:34Speaker 02

  doing like, we have lights on in this place right now. Cause a lineman was out there two days ago in the wind or whatever, repairing the power lines that give us power. This stuff is happening. That's not a 70 year old guy from the greatest era of, you know, Vietnam. No, it's a kid. It's a guy that went to lineman school and he's a lineman now. So as much as I, I hear a lot of, you know, when you look at social media, when I look at social media, who are we seeing? We're seeing the kids that are on social media. A lot of kids that are not posting themselves because they're not at the nightclub with champagne, because they're hanging from a, a power line, reinstalling a, a wire. That's what's happening and, and that's awesome. So I, I see a lot of the world.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Beyond what what is presented via social media. And what I see is Americans that are out there working really hard to make things happen. Build companies, create things, work hard, save their money, be healthy. I see that a lot. I don't have a pessimistic, a pessimistic view of America. Now, I'll tell you, maybe three or four years ago, I might have been slightly more pessimistic. But even then, I was talking to guys that were 23 years old, working on an oil rig, saving money, making money, going to school to figure out how to get that next level.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Like, I think they're out there. I, I know they're out there. I talked to them. So I don't have a pessimistic view. And I also think that our lives have not been affected greatly in terms of like the, the way that we live in America from a war since World War II. Like, in the Korean War, obviously, if you were, if you were a, a family member or your Gold Star family, or you had people overseas, it affected you. But most Americans, they were still doing what normal Americans do. When I was in Iraq, most Americans were at Starbucks ordering of double latte, whatever those things are that they order. They were driving their car, their nice car, they were surfing the internet.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  All those things were happening while we were at war. So we haven't had a war, or even an, uh, maybe I guess you could say COVID kind of impact, COVID impacted us en masse, but it was also one of those things where we were looking around like, wait a second, what's, what's going on here? It took us a while to figure out, hold on, what is actually happening? So everyone kind of went, oh, wait, this is, this seems weird. Wait, if, I think if something like that happened again today, America would be a lot different. America would be a lot different in the way we respond. Americans, our American populace would be a lot different in the way that we responded as a group. The, the government really lost a lot of trust on that, and the media lost a lot of trust. And so I don't see that happening again.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  I don't see something like that happening again. So, but, but by and large. The values that I put out in the way of the Warrior Kid, there's a reason why that book sells like crazy. There's a reason why kids listen, I have a Warrior Kid podcast, kids listen to that over and over and over again, and their parents play it for them on their way to jujitsu class. There's a reason because they want to be like that. And more important, they recognize that those things are true. That those things are true. That's what they recognize. It resonates with them, just like a good song.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  When you hear a good song, there's something inherent in the, in the chords that are put together on the guitar that are inherent that resonate with us, that resonate with people. And there's truths in that book that resonate with people. And they, when they read it, they go, oh, yeah, this is it. This is what we should be doing. This is what my kids should be doing. And, and that's why I think I'm, I'm not,

• 13:37Speaker 02

  I, I'm, to use your word, optimistic.

• 13:41Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it. The Warrior Kid podcast, is that you talking to kids?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  It's just me, I'll talk about, I'll read stories. I'll, actually, a lot of them are me just answering, answering questions for kids. You know, I'm, I'm in fifth grade and this, there's a kid that's mean to me. What should I do? You know, just those kind of standard things that kids go through.

• 14:02Tom Bilyeu?

  That is incredible that you've built a brand that can reach down to kids. Do they find you through their parents or through the Warrior Kid book? How?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  I think both.

• 14:11Tom Bilyeu?

  That's really interesting, man. You seem like you would scare the life out of somebody in the fifth grade.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  But I'm, I'm, I'm horrifying to a child. Like, I am, I mean, I am one scary looking human to a child, for sure. And, and

• 14:26Tom Bilyeu?

  But it sounds like they get it.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, they get it because I, you know, I, believe it or not, even though I look scary, I'm, I'll, I'll interact really well with kids. I, I interact with kids better than I interact with adults because I think I relate to them more. Kids are cooler and more honest and, and yeah, I have more, more fun interactions with kids than I do with adults.

• 14:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Stay tuned, we've got more with Jocko coming right up.

• 14:55Tom Bilyeu?

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• 15:39Tom Bilyeu?

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• 17:05Tom Bilyeu?

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• 17:10Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, let's dive right back in. We were talking off camera. It is really, really, really interesting to me about how creative you are, how much of that side of your personality exists. You've got so much, um, to be fancy, bona fides from the be tough, be strong, whether it's the military, which obviously is unbelievable. Uh, what you've gone through, seen, done, the level that you performed at, all of that. Uh, jujitsu, the continued strength into your, um, I don't know how old you are, but, uh, certainly.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Fifty-three.

• 17:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, Jesus. So you're in better shape in fifty-three than most twenty-three years are, twenty-three year olds are. Just, yeah, most people, uh, never get into your kind of shape. Most people, by the time they're their forties are making excuses. So, uh, it's absolutely incredible. But then I hear that you also do music, you're writing kids books. Um, you've now written your first screenplay, which I hear has been optioned. But before we get to that, your book, your children's book has been turned into a feature film. Walk us through that process, which is incredible. I mean, this is like you're living my fantasy. Um, so I am, I am really blown away at the, um, dexterity of your mind, the breadth of your personality. It's really inspiring.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  I would say, uh, very, very lucky, beyond anything else. Very, very lucky. I've been lucky and I got lucky with that whole thing. Um, the story of the movie is I wrote the books and there's a guy that I did not know at the time. His name is Ben Everard and Ben has a couple of kids and he walked into his kids' bedroom one day and they were doing pushups. And he says, what are you guys doing? And they hold up this book, we want to be warrior kids.

• 18:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you know how they found the book?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think they got it from school. I think they got it from school library. And you know, Ben, who's a, happens to be a movie producer. He was like, what is happening? How did a book make my kids do pushups? I can't even get my kids to, you know, make their bed. And here they are doing pushups. So he reads the book and he's like, oh my gosh, I gotta make this into a movie. Friend of a friend, he, he had known a guy, I had known a guy. He reached out to that guy like, you worked with this guy? Yep. Ben set up a meeting with me, drove down to my gym in San Diego and presented me his.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  His vision, but also his understanding, like I'd been, I'd had quite a few, not quite a few, but I probably had four or five offers over the years of buying Warrior Kid to make it into a movie, but he's the guy that sat down and said, I see it. So you turned all those down? Yeah, but, but I don't want to glamorize that too much. I'd have people say, you know, we're interested in turning this, they didn't, they didn't, you know, they send me an email, they'd, they'd call me up or something like that, but no one, like he was read, fully understood the book, understood the impact on his kids and came down and said, I can, I see it. I see how this becomes what it deserves to become. And I said, okay, cool. Let's go. And so we

• 20:18Speaker 02

  started kind of formulating the idea behind the movie. Next thing you know, we needed, uh, the next thing he wanted to do was a screenplay. And so he said, look, you know, if we want to bring this to market, we got to put together a package. Part of the package is screenplay. And I said, cool. You know, I'll, I'll write the screenplay. And he said, we should hire someone to read, write the screenplay. And I was kind of like, well, you know, hey, all due respect, I've written a dozen books. I've written a bunch of New York Times bestsellers. Uh, I, I know how to write. I'll write the screenplay. And, you know, he said, look, it's not the same. It's, it's a movie. It's a different medium. It's a different skill.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  And we should hire someone. And luckily talking earlier about being humble, I wasn't like, no, I got this. I was like, okay, you know what? This guy's a pro. He's aligned with me. He wants the movie to do well. Right? He want, he has this vision. We're aligned on the vision. And so I know that what he's making, he's, he's saying this, not to undermine me, but because he has the same vision. He wants to do well. So I said, okay, cool. So we hire, we, uh, interview a few screenwriters and we finally land on this guy named Will Staples, who's, who's, whose dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, which to me was like, okay, you're, you're in, but.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  This was right before, again Hollywood, well, we're in Hollywood right now. So Hollywood screenwriting or, or strike was gonna happen, writing strike was gonna happen. So we wanted him to write the screenplay before this strike was coming. And so we said, yup, let's make that happen. And then Ben said to me, okay, I'm gonna find investors to pay for the screenplay. And I was kinda like, well, well, like, how much is it? And he told me how much it was. And I said, well, what if I just pay for it? And he was kinda like, you wanna pay for it? And I said, well, yeah. And what I didn't realize at the time, and what Ben didn't tell

• 22:21Speaker 02

  me is, and you know this, point zero zero zero one percent of screenplays get turned into a movie. Right? So you're putting, you're putting money towards something that the likelihood of success is almost zero. Yeah. I didn't even know that. In my mind, of course, everything is awesome. Right? In my mind, I'm thinking, oh yeah, of course, of course I'll pay for the screenplay because then I'll own the screenplay. And then when a movie company studio buys it, then I'll just make more money. Great. Cool. No risk. In my mind, there was no risk. In his mind, it was all risk. But, you know, and he hinted at like, hey, these, you know, there's no guarantee on this. I said, okay, cool. So I paid for the screenplay, wrote the screenplay.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Screenplay was just, and, and we did it in three weeks. You know, he's sending us a draft, we're sending adjustments back, change this, make this happen. And the screenplay was, was, was beautiful. It was just beautiful. Wow. So as that's happening, on another part of my world, Jocko Fuel and Origin USA, Jocko Fuel Supplement Company, Origin USA Clothing Company, all 100% manufactured and made in America with American-made materials. As that's happening, Chris Pratt, who's friends or was in a series called The Terminal List, which was written by a friend of mine named Jack Carr, who's another SEAL. So they had obviously a relationship. And then another

• 23:50Speaker 02

  friend of mine named Jared, who's another SEAL, trained Chris Pratt for The Terminal List. And while he was training Chris Pratt for The Terminal List to get in shape and be a stud, he gave him Jocko Fuel. And he'd given him a bunch of different supplements. And Chris liked Jocko Fuel. And so he started taking Jocko Fuel all the time. And so he gets in great shape.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  And he eventually reaches out to me. This was prior to the screenplay, prior to that. Chris Pratt says, you know, I had really liked to, I love what you're making and I love what you're doing with Origin USA. Cause he's a patriotic guy. And he says, cool. Um, I would really like to do something. So we start having, so we kind of say, yeah, let's do something together. And then our business, you know, counterparts start talking, right? What would this look like? And meanwhile, Ben says, you know, like, hey, you should, you should show this, this script to Chris Pratt. And I'm like, dude, I'm not showing this thing to Chris Pratt. I mean, I, I, I can't do that. The guy is a super nice guy. He wants to do, he, he wants to do a different project.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  And now I'm gonna go and, you know, hey, by the way, I've got this screenplay. It just, it just, I couldn't do it. Yeah. Chris is too nice of a guy. He was too like open and too, uh, uh, just, just too nice of a guy for me to be like, and by the way, I'd like to sneak this business deal. I just couldn't do it. So I said, look, man, I'm not, I'm not doing it. But what happened was is our business people were having the conversation. My business people were like, well, you know, Jocko's working on that movie. And his business people were like, what movie? Oh, it's a kid's movie based on this warrior kid book. And they said, well, send us the screenplay. So my people sent Chris's people the screenplay. And they read it and went, oh, my God. This is awesome. They give it to Chris's film agent.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  And this is woman, they call her Dr. No, because she says no to everything. Yep. And when I met her for the first time, she said, it's great to meet you. She said, I read this script. I wiped the tears from my eyes when I got done reading it. And I called Chris and said, you better make this movie. Wow. So that was at our first big meeting. Nonetheless, once Chris got the script, Chris read it. He said, I read it one sitting, same thing. Tears, like this is epic. We're gonna make this movie. And so then we had. We had a package because we also brought on the director McG, who is awesome. Like just such a great guy, uh, came up through the music video world, but then eventually did Charlie's Angels,

• 26:23Speaker 02

  you know, and just blew up from there and has a bunch of epic stuff going on. So that was the package and that's what we kind of brought to the market. We want to make this movie and eventually, Skydance and Apple came in and said, we want it.

• 26:38Tom Bilyeu?

  It's incredible.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 26:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Did you guys make the whole film before you sold it to Skydance and Apple? Okay. So they actually foot the bill.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  They foot the bill.

• 26:45Tom Bilyeu?

  That's incredible.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  They paid for it.

• 26:47Tom Bilyeu?

  That's so exciting.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  It was crazy.

• 26:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Have you, did you have ambitions like, I know one day I'm going to write fiction or did that take you by surprise?

• 26:56Speaker 02

  You know, I always wrote a lot and.

• 26:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Fiction stuff?

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Everything.

• 27:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And I was actually, I found an old story that I wrote the other day and I was like, this is, and I probably wrote it when I was like 15 or 16. And it's freaking awesome. And I was like, dude, this is so cool.

• 27:13Tom Bilyeu?

  I love this.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  I'll tell you the story real quick. It was like a short story and there was this, there was these, um, like an old lumber town. And there was a train that left the lumberyard and, and, and drove down these tracks out of, and it came out of a tunnel. And depending on where it was going to go, it would be on one of three tracks. And these young kids got this idea where they would, it was like playing Russian roulette. They'd stand above this tunnel.

• 27:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Whoa.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  And jump down as the train was coming out. And if they picked the right track, they'd be okay. And if they picked the wrong track, they would die.

• 27:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  And it's just a whole story about where it goes from there, but.

• 27:54Tom Bilyeu?

  That's interesting.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Like, talk about like, I was 15 or 16 years old. That's a totally fictional story that I made up.

• 27:58Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  So yes, I've been writing for a long time.

• 28:00Tom Bilyeu?

  That's really interesting. Um, have you seen the movie Contact?

• 28:05Tom Bilyeu?

  No. Oh my God. So, uh, Movie Contact, the book was written by Carl Sagan. Okay. And, uh, for people that don't know, um, I think he was an astrophysicist, but certainly was, he was like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of his day, but I would say much more famous and dare I say respected. But he, um, writes this book and in it, this woman ends up, they, they get from aliens, they get instructions on how to build, uh, it's not time travel, but because it bends space and time might as well be. So they build this device that's going to allow her to explore the cosmos.

• 28:48Tom Bilyeu?

  They end up sending her because of her, it doesn't matter why, but they end up sending her, she's a scientist. And as she's going through the wormhole, she's describing back to NASA or whatever, like what she sees and all this stuff. And, uh, she goes, they should have sent a poet. And I always thought that was a phenomenal line. Now, hearing you talk about this, I realize that we sent a writer to war. And I now want to see what it's like to be on the ground because I, and Jocko, you may have told me this stuff before, like it rings a dis and bell, the music thing, but I, I didn't update my mental map of who you are.

• 29:27Tom Bilyeu?

  But today, when we were talking, I've been following the story stuff closely because I'm so impressed by it. And it's so in line with the kind of thing I want to do. Uh, so just am completely blown away by that. And so today, for some reason, I was just like, hold on a second. We've got this guy. He's in one package. But inside there is, um, leadership is so on brand with the physicality. That one didn't jar me. But this is like writing stories from the time you were a kid. You told me that you won an art contest at your high school, which is like a pretty big deal. Um, musician. Now dude, you're a published author of kids' stories, but like that's sell.

• 30:09Tom Bilyeu?

  Not like, hey, I wrote a thing and I printed it for six people, like, and then it got turned into a movie. Chris Pratt, I mean, one of the most famous human beings on planet Earth. It's not small time. And there's a damn good reason for it. Yeah, like this is like, you've really like, you're, you're doing a thing that I saw Kobe do. And I was so mortified when he died, never met him, never interviewed him. Certainly blown away by the Mamba mentality, but more importantly, he went from being a basketball player and then won an Academy Award for filmmaking. And I was like, whoa, it's very rare that someone can take that thing, whatever that thing is, that discipline, that focus, but the creativity of it all, and then pointed at something else and be successful. You've now done that with receipts on both sides that are so extreme.

• 30:53Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay. Anyway, I say all of that because now I, now that I feel like I have a better map of how your mind actually works, are, are you shifting gears? Like you put, I've heard you talk about, like you put the night vision goggles on and it's just different. You're just there. But are, is that creative mind processing the world? Like, are you having moments where you feel the either profundity of war or the absurdity of war? Or are you narrating to yourself like what it means to put so much trust in another person? Like, what are the insights that you can feed us back? As somebody with your ability to capture a story, tell a story, paint a picture?

• 31:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Like, give me some of that insight. More with Jocko Willink after this break. You're probably paying two salespeople to do one salesperson's job. That's where today's sponsor, Pipe Drive, comes in. An intelligent AI-powered sales CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipe Drive just launched meeting intelligence built right into the CRM. Before every call, it pulls deal history and past conversations into one brief. During the call, it records and takes notes. After it, it drafts your CRM. Updates to review and approve. So there's less admin and more selling.

• 32:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipe Drive. My link gets you an exclusive 30 days free instead of the usual 14 day trial. There's no credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/impact to get started. Again, that's pipedrive.com/impact and you can be up and running in minutes. And we're back. Let's pick up right where we left off.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I did not ever think I would be doing this stuff. When I was in Iraq, I did not, I was, I was like only doing one thing. And that was trying to accomplish the mission and keep my guys alive. And that was the only thing I thought about. I, I didn't think about any after the military. I didn't have any concept of after the military. I didn't think about after the military. I only thought about the SEAL teams. That's the only thing I thought about. That's the only thing I cared about and nothing else really mattered to me.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  And, you know, it's funny, I, I, if I, if I knew the trajectory I was going to be on, or I guess I should say, an indicator of me not knowing the trajectory of my life, was that I have, I have almost no pictures of me in the SEAL teams. Like, I have almost no pictures. So instead of me saying, oh, here I am in Iraq and here I am doing this and here I am doing that, or a journal.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  I wish I had a journal. I don't have a journal. The closest thing I have to a journal is from my last deployment to Ramadi. I have notebooks like this that only and all they're filled. There's no human insight whatsoever in those. There is only, you know, hey, make sure to make sure to tell the guys to watch out for this. Hey, this mission is going to go down tomorrow night. We're supporting this group. Like it's only notes, operational notes. I had no other thoughts in my mind. I was only there to to fight. And that was my whole

• 34:49Speaker 02

  and and death was accepted as well of, hey, this is, this is what this is, this is, we're ready. I'm, I'm okay. I don't need, I'm, I'm, I might not come home and that's fine. I get it. This is what we're doing. This is what I'm doing. Assessing the situation on the ground from a creative perspective, a hundred percent. Interacting with other people

• 35:20Speaker 02

  in a creative way, a hundred percent. Talking to other people, a hundred percent. Like, I, I, I actually will look back now and you know, when you go watch a movie where the freaking, the battalion commander stands up and gives a speech and you're like, hell, yeah. You, you, you've seen movies like that, right? Of course. Or the, the, the, the high school football coach or the whatever they get. I did that. Like I really did that. I really got to like, for lack of a better word, give speeches to my guys. I never thought about the fact that I was giving speeches. I never that I never thought of them as speeches, but now I look back and I say, oh yeah,

• 36:04Speaker 02

  I remember when I said that. I remember when I did that. I remember what I was doing was I had a message that I needed to convey to the, to the boys and.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  I had to be as articulate as I could. I had to convey this message. It can be hard to make people understand things. So was there creativity in all those aspects? Yes. Did I think about capturing one iota of that in a journal of any kind? No, I did not. I did not at all. The only thing that I cared about and the only thing that I thought about was war and the SEAL teams, and I didn't care about anything else. And I don't even know if that's healthy. It's probably not. But that I felt like that was my one benefit I had of being older when I went to war

• 36:56Speaker 02

  was I knew every moment that I was there, I knew that this was, this was the apex of my life. This was everything that I had ever wanted to do. This was everything that I ever dreamt of doing. And this is, I am at the moment in time where I am needed to do what I am supposed to do. And then that's where I was.

• 37:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you think you'll ever write about the war?

• 37:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I've written about it, obviously, in extreme ownership, dichotomy of leadership, leadership strategy and tactics. I've written about components about it. But um, as far as

• 37:32Speaker 02

  going back and telling that story, maybe at some point, maybe at some point, but you know, it's funny because you know, whenever I tell people I wrote a novel, you know, their immediate question is almost like, well, what war is it about? And it's like, no, it's not. It's about a laundromat. And so it's like, what?

• 37:50Tom Bilyeu?

  I admittedly did not see that coming.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, so I think, I think, you know, if we were to try and dissect my, my brain a little bit, you know, the time that I was in the military, I think I applied the creative, the creative bend that I have in my, in my brain. I think I just used it for military purposes. And, and just was, that's what I focused on. You know, I went to school, I went to college while I was in the military, and I studied English. And when I studied English in school, the reason I studied English was that I could write better concept of operations, was that I could write better evaluations for my guys. That's why I did it. And it worked. Like, I was very good at that. And that's what I used it for.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  When I retired, I did not think for one second that I would write a book. I did not think that at all. There was a moment where that future is just unknown. And I, it didn't make sense to me. I never thought to myself, otherwise I'd have a bunch of pictures. Right? If I would have had any iota, or I would have kept a journal. I would have kept a journal. I would have kept a journal. Hey, on this date, we did this operation. Here's what happened. Hey, we had casualties today. Here's what thoughts are going through my mind. You know, I, I was telling my wife, and I was talking to my daughter the other day. And I have, you know, one thing that's beautiful about emails is, you know, they're, they're permanent.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  And you can scan them very quickly. And I was, on Memorial Day, I was going back. And I was seeing what I wrote my wife. After my friend and my brother, Mark Lee, first seal killed in Iraq. What did I write my wife? On, he, he died August 2nd, 2006. What did I write my wife on August 2nd, on August 3rd, on August 4th? I, I went and read those emails. And it's like, hey, checking in. Hope school's going well. Not a mention. Not a mention. What about August? Cause there's a time where you're not allowed to say anything, but then that time passes. Nothing. So, so compartmentalized.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  And only focused on one thing. It's like, yep, the family, gotta make sure the family's doing good to go. Gotta make sure that the team is good to go. Those two things do not touch each other. They do not touch each other. And, and so that's just a, a little bit of a snapshot into what I was thinking about. Was I thinking about poetry? Negative. Was I thinking about songs? Negative. I was thinking about war.

• 40:31Tom Bilyeu?

  What environment do you think outputs the best leaders? Politics, corporations, or the military?

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Politics, I, I would say is the one where I don't really think that might be the best example. I don't think politics produces good leaders. Because, especially the way the system is now. When I went to officer candidate school. When I went to officer candidate school, you, you have to polish your belt buckle. Well. You actually had to polish the, you had to, you had to scrub your belt buckle with this chemical called Brasso. You had to scrub your belt buckle until the finish on the belt buckle was gone. So they put, if you, if you got a piece of brass belt buckle, they put a finish

• 41:17Speaker 02

  on it so that it doesn't uh get contaminated every single day. Well, when you go to OCS, they actually make you polish that finish off of, you remove the finish. And I remember just thinking to myself, it's a slow evolution where, you know, 30 years ago, someone said, hey, make sure your belt buckle doesn't have any, you know, smudges on it. And then it's like, well, make sure that you polish it. And then it's, we want you to polish this thing until it no longer has the finish on it that protects it. And it just goes totally astray, right? I think that's what happens with, with politicians. Like, they go into politics, they gotta behave a certain, you're like, okay, well, you're,

• 42:00Speaker 02

  you're gonna be a politician now, Tom. Be more professional. Okay. So you're like, I got it. And then, so you adjust your behavior a little bit. And then, well, we want you to adjust it a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more. And pretty soon, the person that you were is gone. Now you're just this weird uh articulation of a human being that you, that can move its mouth and say words that it's being programmed with. So I would say politicians probably not the best place to formulate leaders. But corporate world, obviously, I work with all kinds of corporations. There's some incredible leaders there. And then the same thing with the military, incredible leaders in the military. That being said, there's horrible leaders in the military, there's

• 42:45Speaker 02

  horrible leaders in the corporate world. So leadership is, is, it gets formulated from a bunch of different components. A lot of it is who you are as a human being. Just who are you as a human being? And where are you as a human being? Because depending on where you are as a human being, really depends what kind of leader you're going.

• 43:05Tom Bilyeu?

  When you say where, what do you mean?

• 43:07Speaker 02

  What is your goal? What do you care about? What do you value? Because if what you care about is you?

• 43:18Speaker 02

  That's going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem in the military for sure. It's going to be a problem in the civilian sector as well. If your number one concern, Tom, as a leader, is Tom, and it's not the team, and it's not the people, and it's not the mission, you, that things just aren't going to work well. So, but if your number one concern is taking care of your people, your number one concern is executing the mission, your number one concern is making sure that you create something of value for the world, that's going to be a person that's going to turn out being a better leader than someone that's focused on themselves. So, and then, by the way, you can be, you can be on the surface, like you know that if you look out for yourself, you're not going to get promoted

• 44:03Speaker 02

  because you'll look like you're an egotistical maniac, and so you'll play the game, and you can do that for a little while. But usually those, that, that core ego sleeps, slips out, and it will be problematic.

• 44:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you have a sense of what the political game is? So if it's this constant adjustment that makes somebody really sort of a caricature of a human, uh, why does that system optimize for that? When I think people, I mean, I would certainly say politicians should be the people leading the nation. That certainly, I think, the, the cover story that it has when people are voting, but it ends up not actually outputting that thing. So what is the essence of politics?

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Being able to conform to the machine and be able to execute what the machine wants.

• 44:55Tom Bilyeu?

  And is that a game of compromise? Because I'm watching what's going on right now with like Trump and Elon are falling apart. Or so that's how it's being portrayed, but Elon does seem pretty pissed about if I had to put words in his mouth, like I went and slept on the floor and did all this stuff trying to cut the budget, and now uh, you put out this big, beautiful bill that ups the ceiling of the debt, and like you just betrayed everything that we stood for. And so there's that friction of you have a guy that realizes, oh, you actually can't do this dance, because when I look at from the administration side, they're like, bro, we've got to get something passed. And so I get the ideology, but the reality is

• 45:36Tom Bilyeu?

  that we have this two-party system where people are just battering each other. And so it's like compromise, compromise, compromise to get something to move forward, and we all sort of. Tell a story and turn a blind eye to, in this case, a fiscal cliff that we're driving towards just because we have to get something that can be voted on.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  I would say that's a good assessment. That's a good assessment. There's, there's the ideal and there's reality and how those two, how you, how you sort of thread those two together. I think a politician, they're trying to do that and I think it's a really difficult situation that they're in and I don't think many of them do it very well.

• 46:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Jocko, this has been incredible. Uh, where can people connect with you, follow along, find the things you're doing?

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Um, I guess jockofuel.com, originusa.com, echelonfront.com, jocko.com and I'm on social media at Jocko Willink. That's where I'm at.

• 46:32Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it. Brother, thank you again for being here. Absolutely incredible. I appreciate every second of it.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  Good seeing you, man.

• 46:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Boys and girls, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense

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