212: 4 Years Sitting in a Little Room, Across The Table from Jocko Willink. What I Learned. With Echo Charles

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:42 - History, Jiu Jitsu, Extreme Ownership and how it applies EVERYWHERE. 2:16:00 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:20:00 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:47:28 - 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 212 with me Jocko Willink.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  The path of Jiu-Jitsu is hard.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  It is a hard path. You have ups and downs.

• 0:17Jocko Willink?

  And there are times when you've got to work and there are times when you get injured and there are times when you get mentally defeated and you feel like you don't want to do it anymore.

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  And those days go on and on and on.

• 0:36Jocko Willink?

  But if you do the right thing. And you stay on the path over time, you will move forward on that path. You will move forward on that path if you keep your nose to the grindstone.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  You move forward on that path if you have the humility to say, you know what?

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  I still have more to learn.

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's the same way it works with life. You're going to have ups and downs in life. Things are going to go wrong. You're going to lose businesses, you're going to lose jobs, you're going to break up.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  Things are going to go wrong.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  And what you need to do. Is to keep moving forward. No matter what happens, keep moving forward.

• 1:35Jocko Willink?

  And Jiu-Jitsu is representative of life.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  If you stay humble and you stay on that path. You will end up achieving your goal. That will happen.

• 1:55Jocko Willink?

  And it did happen. It happened to my friend here, Echo Charles, and those are the words that I said in August when he received the black belt.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  The black belt. He always referred to the black belt as if there's only one in the world. The black belt. He received the black belt.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  In jujitsu. And it was not an easy path. And there was much learned along the way, not just about jujitsu, but about life. And so I told Echo at that time, at some point, we would discuss that journey on the podcast. So. Here we are.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  Good evening, Echo.

• 2:45Echo Charles?

  Good evening.

• 2:48Jocko Willink?

  So we did, I did immediately say, well, probably not immediately, but a few hours after you got your black belt. And there was a lot, we were, a lot of people talking, you know, we're at Origin Camp. We were all talking about everyone getting their black belts. You get your black belt, what it's like to get your black belt, all the things that you had been through. And I said, you know what, we just gotta, just, we'll do, we need to do a podcast about this because it's a journey. And you know what's interesting too?

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking about this, our last guest, Joel Struthers. When he came in and before we started recording. He was, he was very humbled to be here, you know, he's like, man, he's like, I kind of feel.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  You know, you, here we are, we're having these guys that were from SOG, that were in Vietnam, Medal of Honor recipients. I mean, just really just esteemed guests on the podcast. And Joel was kind of like, you know, he's a humble guy. And what I, what I realized is, I said, well, you know, I'm thinking to myself, I'm still going to learn from you. You know, looking at Joel, I mean, he did some really cool stuff.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  Had a good six years in the French Foreign Legion, learned some cool lessons. I want to learn those lessons too. So. When I talk to you, like, I want to learn what you learned. I want to learn from you. And that's part of what makes makes me try and get better. That's what makes me get better is I'm I'm gonna learn from everyone. You know, you know, you hear someone say, you even learned something from a white belt.

• 4:23Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's like a saying. It's actually true. You hear you hear a SEAL say it. Oh, you could still learn something from a new guy. It's not just a saying. It's true.

• 4:33Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  So. With that. Also, some people have asked, you know, over the years, like, how did you and I meet? So I think that's probably a a good place to start because we did meet from jujitsu. So how do we meet? Go.

• 4:47Echo Charles?

  Well, met in jujitsu. Uh, actually, I remember it probably earlier than you do. But, you know, but when you say like how you can learn something from from anyone, right? Like how this, I think, I mean, you learning something from me or whatever, and I'll see it in your face every once in a while when I when I'll say something. It's almost like you're kind of computing and calculating like my interpretation of a certain like event or incident versus your interpretation of it. So it's kind of like, oh, it's almost like something's clicking in your eye, like think, okay, so that's what you saw during this, you know? Like, so you can almost kind of kind of formulate how you come off a little bit more accurately, you know? How you impress on onto like the world.

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. Getting feedback from someone on how they interpret what you're saying is absolutely.

• 5:36Echo Charles?

  Yeah, because you could be like, oh, yeah, like I'm I said that so well. You know, like, oh, I was so clear. It was so like, it even sounded dope the way I said it, you know? And then they're like, yeah, you, you know, you sounded kind of arrogant when you said that. And you're like, dang, you know, like, it's more accurate.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  Little miss.

• 5:53Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  Had a little one that was off.

• 5:55Echo Charles?

  You know? Whatever.

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  Overshot the target, undershot the target. If you don't communicate with the target, you don't know.

• 6:02Echo Charles?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 6:04Jocko Willink?

  So, all right, so.

• 6:05Echo Charles?

  Anyway, yeah, so we met, um, I, when I first met you was I was a white belt at the boxing club. He was like.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  I remember this zero.

• 6:14Echo Charles?

  Yeah, no, no, no.

• 6:15Jocko Willink?

  I don't remember meeting you at all.

• 6:15Echo Charles?

  I'm I'm literally thinking of like the look in your eye, thinking like you will not remember this at all, but. I knew of you, I seen you before over at, over at, uh, I remember kids. So Dean Lister opened a little spot. It was half of a martial, of a karate gym. So he kinda, I don't know if you saw.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  That was in Eastlake.

• 6:34Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 6:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Echo Charles?

  And he had half of it, he put this big curtain.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Echo Charles?

  It separated like the karate class and our class. So I was, I went down there, that's where I joined. And I saw you there. And I had heard about you from like Dean and some interviews that he did or whatever. And then, um, then that's when I seen you. But I didn't talk to you or nothing like that. And it was, it was like a weekend or something. And then, you know how we would go there to the boxing club, which is a different gym, it's more of a gym, a boxing gym with jiu-jitsu and MMA. So we'd go from there to the boxing club there and boxing, you know, we'd kinda be training at both.

• 7:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You were, I, I only trained at the place in Eastlake, like of probably 10 times because it was a far away.

• 7:14Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, by far away, I mean like 35 minutes or something like that, which is pretty far.

• 7:19Echo Charles?

  Well, yeah, compared to.

• 7:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The boxing club was pretty close.

• 7:22Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  Victory is the closest.

• 7:23Echo Charles?

  Yes, sir. Good strategic move there. Uh, but nonetheless, uh, when I first rolled with you was at the boxing club. When we were done with the, the, the south, the Chula Vista place, the Eastlake place. Um, and then, yeah, so I rolled with you and you, you, you know, I'm a white belt at this time. And yeah, you can, you know, beat me up, whatever. And then I remember you did this move that you still, you'll still try to do this move to me.

• 7:48Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 7:49Echo Charles?

  It, I don't remember it working anytime recently, but it's where you kinda.

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  It'll be working this afternoon.

• 7:57Echo Charles?

  You pin me down inside, mouth side control, and then you basically do a forearm across the neck.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:02Echo Charles?

  Kind of scenario. And if your head is facing a certain way, it's really hard to get out of.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  Yes. You're right.

• 8:07Echo Charles?

  So you did that to me, I think, one, maybe two times or something.

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  It's a real surprise move because no one thinks that they can get choked there. But you actually can get choked there. You can tap out. I tap out people with that move, yes.

• 8:18Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And me as a white belt, I didn't know, or I didn't have that preconceived notion that you can't get tapped out. I didn't even have that. I was brand new. And so you did it and I was like, oh, cool. Uh, and now in that, at that point, I was like, I was one of the, these guys who an, asked a lot of questions. Like a lot of questions. Like anything I, I saw for the first time, I'm like, hey, how'd you do that? How'd you do that? So I asked you, but you have to, you're still kinda like this where like when you meet someone like you don't. You don't, uh, how should I say, exchange pleasantries that much?

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true. I, I, you know, actually, I'm more conscious of it now when I meet people. Like, let's say, if I meet someone that's sort of like listens to the podcast, obviously, like, I'm cool doing because there's some kind of connection there, but for sure, never in my life have I been a person where I meet someone and I'm, you know, having some big, open conversation with them. That's not really. It's weird, cause, cause, you know, kind of what I do for a living now is basically talk. And, and I, not a big talker. In, if I don't know people, if I don't know people, if I go to a party, like, I would go to, like, let's say, some kind of a

• 9:31Jocko Willink?

  whatever, party with my wife and just not talk to anybody. Not, not, no, look, I'm not like standing a quarter, uh, brooding at people, being a jerk, but I'm not gonna make a big connection with a lot of people, right? Now, if someone's got cauliflower ear or something.

• 9:46Echo Charles?

  You might open up a little discord, yeah.

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 9:49Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, fully. Like, you're not the guy who's, you know, in the corner telling all the stories.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  Not looking to make friends, whatever.

• 9:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah, fully. And, and back then, you were, you were like that as well. So, even like, even like, when you make small talk nowadays, if you, if you kind of see someone and you're like, hey, you're whatever, even your small talk is like, and I'm comparing this to knowing you now for however long, you can, there's a huge disconnect, like a huge, and I don't mean it in a bad way, it's just more like you're, you're doing it kind of in this, almost like in an official way, you know, where it's like, you're not open kind of thing. And, and maybe me saying, even talking about it makes it seem like a bigger deal than it is, but it's there, big time. So, back then, oh, it was there huge time. So, you're like over there, you're like, yeah, like this blank look.

• 10:39Echo Charles?

  Kind of like, yeah, man, like, good, you know, whatever, strong, whatever, you know, giving, doing the, saying the correct stuff, that's cool, but like.

• 10:48Jocko Willink?

  Like a, like a shark with black eyes, there's no thought there.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  That's funny, because that's exactly how I feel.

• 10:56Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah. And that's what I heard too. So, that was like, and, and I'd, um, I'd kind of just admit Sarge, you know, at that point, and he was sort of the same way, but. It was you're you're kind of different level in that regard and so I was like hey how do you how oh what what'd you do there or whatever and you were like well it's like it's just what you saw you know side mount boom put your arm right there and just choke you

• 11:24Echo Charles?

  there was no big revelation it was like alright so I'm like cool man like this alright and I didn't I didn't get the impression that you like disliked me or nothing which I probably would have if you were anybody else but I knew that you were sort of like that so whatever Jock was like apparently you know what I thought he was and and that was sort of it and and I didn't like train with you or nothing like that I not that I remember anyway and then um so this that was probably like 2005 2006 and then um yeah I don't know if you were gone you know overseas or whatever I guess you were right

• 11:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah well I went overseas probably after I met you because I deployed in the summer of 2006 I left in like April for Ramadi

• 12:05Echo Charles?

  Yeah and then when did you come back

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  And I came back

• 12:08Echo Charles?

  And start training and stuff like that again

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  October or November of 2006

• 12:13Echo Charles?

  Six yeah so the when I reme the first like early memory of actually like seeing you again after that was um like well after purple belt so I got purple belt in 2007 and I was like competing and stuff and then you were there and I was like kind of training with you whatever not not that much but yeah I was compete I remember you being at the competition

• 12:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah yeah I remember coaching you sometimes

• 12:41Echo Charles?

  Yeah yeah and then well when you're when you were actually coaching me like on the um like right before I got injured and stuff like we were training a lot I was training with you a lot and then um it was funny because you're like the same way and with it this actually helped me at first I was like fuck Jocko doesn't care about me that much you know but

• 13:00Echo Charles?

  This is what I realized like pretty quick is like it's not that you don't care about me it's like Certain things are not a big deal. Which we all think are a big deal like to you they're just not a big deal. So like that that time when I uh it was the same tournament as I hurt my arm the first time. And I got gogo plotted remember and here's the thing when I was like when I was competing before that like I'd never Ever since I went cuz in okay so no gi it's not by belt back then it was not by belt it was like Uh if it was a big tournament it was like novice beginner intermediate advanced that's how it went. And then if it's a smaller tournament there's just beginner intermediate advanced so the when I started competing in advanced

• 13:43Echo Charles?

  Like that's when I was sort of training with you and at that point like I was doing really good I was training like a lot a lot and I never and I never lost. Never lost up until that that day right that I hurt myself so like a few matches before I hurt myself And he gets in it's Shawn Roberts by the way so you know who Shawn Roberts is right? He's like he ended up being a famous jujitsu guy.

• 14:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah Shawn Roberts that's Shawn it's got it.

• 14:06Echo Charles?

  So he uh I go against him and he gogo he finishes me with a gogo plata right? My wife's there you know my family's there everything you know they kinda expected me to win you know cuz it's

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  Champion of the family just got and they can't tell what that was. Gogo plata two is like a I'm not gonna say it's a it's a move of humiliation to have done to you but there is a level of

• 14:35Echo Charles?

  It's a highlight reel move.

• 14:36Jocko Willink?

  On the humiliation scale. It's not in the middle it's leaning towards humiliating because there's a lot of things that have to happen and it Yeah well you said a gogo plata right?

• 14:48Echo Charles?

  Gogo plata yeah so I would say this to evaluate a gogo plata if it's done to you you are the the the butt end of a highlight reel.

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  Yes you are.

• 14:58Echo Charles?

  Like pretty much under all circumstances you know what's up so and meanwhile Shawn Roberts is a thinner like more thin guy so when we when we face off it's like Oh this guy's gonna get smashed and Shawn oh man yeah and he totally got me with it like probably textbook like it would There was at no point in that match that I was like getting him or nothing he he ran through me and and tapped me out right? And then, so I'm like devastated, never lost in advanced competition. I'm like devastated. My, you know, my family's there or whatever. My wife's like, well, we weren't married at the time, but she's like, oh, like, oh, man, are you like, okay, like worried about how I'd handle it? So I'm like, whatever. Like, I wasn't that like broken up about it, but it was something. It was like a little shock. And then you're like across the arena, whatever, later,

• 15:42Echo Charles?

  and you text me, you go, ooh, you got caught with the go-go. That's gotta sting. I was like, bro.

• 15:49Echo Charles?

  My coach, my coach telling me this, you know, not like, hey, hey, shake it off, you know, like get back in there, nothing like that.

• 16:00Echo Charles?

  But strangely, it, that made me feel so much better when you did it, like when you said that, you know, because I was like, man, it's, it's not a big deal, man. This is not a big, you know, like, we're in this arena, you know, it's like, we're in a jujitsu, everyone's competing and it's like, you know, it's so not a big deal at the end of the day, but it feels like a huge deal, you know? So when, when I got that text, I was like, and meanwhile, I see you across the thing, like on your phone or whatever, I was like, oh, this guy. But I'm like, whatever. So, um, yeah, that was kind of like how the whole deal was. I ended up getting hurt. My, my first bicep tear, whatever. And so I was out for a little bit, but yeah, when I came back, we trained some more too.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  But, uh, before you tore your bicep, because there was a time period where we were training hard all the time. That was this time period, right?

• 16:46Echo Charles?

  Yes, yeah.

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  Like, I always need a alternate training partner for Dean, because Dean's traveling or Dean's hurt or whatever, and so I always have someone else, and some up and comer that's hungry, that doesn't mind training hard and wants to train a lot.

• 17:00Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, you and then Andy after. Andy's who it is right now.

• 17:06Echo Charles?

  Yeah, Andy was way after though.

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Andy's way after. But I'm just saying, like, at that time, you were training with me. Like, I remember we were, we'd go to other mats, we would train, you know, other mats in our gym, be like, oh, they're, they're over there, let's get, there's more room, we'll go over here.

• 17:19Echo Charles?

  Yeah. I remember actually when Victory First, it was called Throwdown Elite. And we went, um,

• 17:26Echo Charles?

  We you it wasn't even done yet.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Echo Charles?

  Everyone was training and we're like, hey, let's go downstairs like no one had ever touched these mats before. And that was and we rolled or whatever and the mats were still like weird slippery because they still had the little, you know.

• 17:38Jocko Willink?

  Layer of whatever. Factory juice on them or something.

• 17:42Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and you know, whatever. And it but I remember that's when you were like. He goes, hey, you know what a good fee? I forget your exact words, but it was something like this. You know what what feeling is really, really good? To have your own gym to train at whenever you want. I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that specifically. But yes, yeah, that that was um, yeah, that was when I was competing and yeah, training as much as possible.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  So uh, then you hurt your arm, whatever. And what at what point did you? Start? Because at this point you were a bouncer, whatever. Um. At what point did you start making videos? Because it was pretty early on.

• 18:21Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Jocko Willink?

  That you decided that you were going to become a. Videoographer?

• 18:26Echo Charles?

  Video maker.

• 18:27Jocko Willink?

  Maker?

• 18:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  Something?

• 18:29Echo Charles?

  Uh, yeah, so we I stopped being a bouncer and I started getting into web. With my brother. From scratch. I didn't know anything. So it's, you know, it's kind of like multimedia, you know, web development, graphic design, that kind of stuff. I always was sort of into that in one way or another, growing up. Since a little kid, where me and Jade, my brother. Were kind of standouts in that regard, like drawing. And in fact, I remember one time Jade, he was in in sixth grade. We did, you know how they used to have poster contests?

• 18:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Echo Charles?

  I'm sure they still have it in some.

• 19:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm sure they do.

• 19:01Echo Charles?

  But you basically, they give you a theme and then. You call you draw and color a big poster.

• 19:08Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 19:09Echo Charles?

  That does that's, you know, that follows that theme and Jade ended up winning it a national like it goes by love. So you win.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  It was a good poster.

• 19:18Echo Charles?

  Yeah, apparently it was about drunk uh drunk driving, mad mothers against drunk driving.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 19:23Echo Charles?

  So you know, you win the school. It was actually kind of dope. It was a. A car for the time, this is like, you know, sick, literally sixth grade. A car crashing into a big can of beer. That was it.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 19:37Echo Charles?

  But the way he did it was good and he, you know, we're real good at drawing too at that time. So he wins the school, he wins the island of Kauai. That and then it wins like the state. You know, then all the winners of the state got into the national, which one? And he freaking wins it thousand dollars.

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 19:52Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  So. That's a lot of money.

• 19:55Echo Charles?

  Oh yeah, a trip to like New York and like all this stuff. So it was kind of a big deal just for drawing. So anyway, the point is like we, we, we, we were always into artistic and drawing stuff. So web design and, and graphic design was kind of like, okay, that was good. And then kind of through that, um, I don't know. So you know, the idea, you watch a movie, right? Or a movie is going to come out and you watch the trailer and you're like, dang, the trip. Look, I can't wait to watch that movie. Then you watch the movie and you're like, okay, cool. Good movie, but man, the trailer was like way better. You know, got me way more fired up than like the movie. The movie kind of was a letdown kind of. So that whole idea, that whole phenomenon, like I really was interested in where like, who made that trailer?

• 20:38Echo Charles?

  Where he got the movie and chopped it up and got the cool parts and told almost like a little alternate story, you know? Like, and not necessarily alternate, but just.

• 20:45Jocko Willink?

  Remember what? Was there a specific trailer that kind of, what was it?

• 20:48Echo Charles?

  A bunch of them. So one of the ones that I always watched was Terminator Salvation. And it has, I think.

• 20:55Jocko Willink?

  Whenever you say a movie and then you give me this look of you're waiting for me to give you the nod of like, oh yeah.

• 21:01Echo Charles?

  I know that.

• 21:01Jocko Willink?

  And I'm just giving you a straight blank stare because I've seen Terminator one and two.

• 21:06Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 21:06Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know what comes after that, but apparently Salvation is one of them.

• 21:10Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, one of them. So it's Terminator one, which, okay. So Terminator one, Terminator two are the best by far. Like pretty much factually the best. Pretty much like it's not, it's not very much up for debate. But that's back in the day before trailers really kind of hit their stride as far as movie trailers go. So and there's Terminator three, which is a complete, complete flop, by the way. Side note. So anyway, Terminator four, Terminator Salvation, Christian Bale was in that one. Anyway, the trailer was like really well done in my opinion. And it had, I forget the group, I'm. Just drawing a blank, but I think it might have been like Nine Inch Nails or something like that. Where they did, they have the song called The Day The Whole World Went Away.

• 21:54Jocko Willink?

  You don't need to sing it for us, but we'll take your word for it.

• 21:57Echo Charles?

  Anyway, they use that song in the trailer. And then the, the way they did it, I was like, man, this, I, this is like, I wanna live my life like this trailer feels or whatever. As far as like, you know, the videos I wanna make. So there was that, there was like Clash of the Titans. That was a good one, I thought. Um, yeah, there's a bunch.

• 22:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so then you decided you're gonna start making trailers? What was the first video that you got paid to make?

• 22:23Echo Charles?

  That I got paid to make?

• 22:24Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 22:25Echo Charles?

  Was with you, bro.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  And what was it? Is the first, uh, was it Throwdown or was it Victory?

• 22:30Echo Charles?

  Nope, not even that, was before that.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  What was it?

• 22:33Echo Charles?

  So, the first video I made ever was like on a cruise, like, you know, now you can see them anywhere. Like you, you know, you basically take your camera, do the, you chop it up, put it with music. But the first video that I made for money was with you for like some teachers association.

• 22:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I made like a thing about the laws of combat. You filmed me, I sat there and talked about it. And then they instituted inside their organization for eighteen months or something.

• 22:58Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the one that the sound was off.

• 23:04Echo Charles?

  So the, the reason that's funny, obviously, to use that.

• 23:08Jocko Willink?

  So Ed, so just to let me fill in the listeners.

• 23:11Echo Charles?

  Please.

• 23:12Jocko Willink?

  This is like a, probably a one hour video, maybe, maybe, I don't know, forty-five minute video?

• 23:17Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  It's a forty-five minute video. I'm talking, I'm explaining the laws of combat, I'm talking about extreme ownership. I'm going through these things to this screen. And the, the audio is off by a half a second. So it looks like a weird old Chinese martial arts film with a voice dub over. And so I say to Echo, you know, I'm like, hey, it seems like, you know, it seems like my voice doesn't match my mouth. And I'm saying it sort of as a question, but like term, the first two Terminators being the factually, this was a factual situation, there was no debating. I was watching my lips move with no words coming out. And I'm like, this is not good. And you, you pushed back on me, actually.

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  That's what's really funny. That's, that actually made me suspect of your whole existence. Your whole, cuz you were like, you were trying to explain to me that that was somehow. Like you were, first of all, you tell me like, well, no, not really. I'm like, watch the lips move. See how there's no words coming out?

• 24:18Echo Charles?

  Wait, was that the time where you came over and we were watching it? Or were you texting me?

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  I think I started off texting you like, hey, can you sync these things? And your responses were like, well, it's not, it's not really that off. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And so I probably came to your house with a pistol and was like, okay, we're gonna fix this. But, but you had a serious, there was a problem.

• 24:40Echo Charles?

  So this is, this is, this is what happened.

• 24:42Jocko Willink?

  How did you think that was okay?

• 24:44Echo Charles?

  This is, this is, okay, so there's, there's three little elements to this whole equation that'll make it make sense.

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 24:49Echo Charles?

  So, okay, so first off, I wasn't necessarily acting like this. And I'm not saying I was trying to give the impression that I knew exactly what I was doing. Cause come on, let's face it, this is literally my first video that I've ever made that anyone's actually depending on me, right? So I'm like, all right, so yeah, I sync up the audio or whatever, and I don't know how to sync up audio. No idea. So I'm just winging it. So I sync up the audio, what I thought was like synced up.

• 25:17Jocko Willink?

  Give or take a half a second or two.

• 25:22Echo Charles?

  So editing it, and just like I said, but I'm used, the, the video, the one or two videos that I've ever made was like two minutes long. So editing a two minute video is like, okay, click, click, click, you edit, you edit. But man, 45 minutes of editing, your brain just, you know, like, so it can be off synced by a lot. And your brain will, will kind of connect the dots. It's weird. Like you ever watch a

• 25:44Jocko Willink?

  No, I get it. I get it.

• 25:45Echo Charles?

  So my brain essentially connected it and was interpreting it as sunk up. Good. So you're over here saying, hey, it's off synced. Look at this. And I'm like, looking at, I'm looking at it. And then I'm doing all these weird mental experiments, like to be like, okay, let me pause it right when he said, and it's all checking out in my brain. I get it. And that's when I was like, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. So finally you were like, bro, I'm like, I'm coming over and we're gonna get to the bottom of this. So I'm like, yeah, come, whatever. So you come and we're doing it and you're like, me and you were just seeing two different things at this point. Cause my brain is all whacked, all jammed up. Cause I remember like we were, I was trying to meet, we were trying to meet a deadline too.

• 26:25Echo Charles?

  That's the thing. So I was staying up like super late, not getting much sleep. So, so you come over, we're looking at it. We're seeing two different things until this one little part where you're like, you clap.

• 26:35Jocko Willink?

  I clap.

• 26:36Echo Charles?

  You did this. Yes. And then it was like, oh my gosh. So it's real clear when you clap and then the sound comes later. And you were like, yeah, look at that. And I'm like, it all like came crashing down like, man, I'm completely wrong. But that was good because I could be like, okay, now I'm going to sink the whole 45 minutes off of this one thing. You see what I'm saying? So that's, that's what happened there.

• 26:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So that was your first video, near failure.

• 26:57Echo Charles?

  Here's the thing about that first video too. That was like the beginning of Echelon Front, essentially.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that was.

• 27:03Echo Charles?

  Cause when you think, okay, so I revisited that video like last year, just going through.

• 27:06Jocko Willink?

  What year was that? Do you happen to remember?

• 27:08Echo Charles?

  Yeah, 2010.

• 27:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. So Echelon Front wasn't officially formed yet.

• 27:14Echo Charles?

  I think that was like right after you retired.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 27:17Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Man, I looked at it so a year ago. I look, I bring up the video looking over hard drives or whatever. I bring it up, I'm like, let me check this out. You're all young. So funny. It's like you're all young looking and you're saying all Echelon Front stuff. But super like early beginnings of it. You see what I'm saying? I was like, oh man, it's really interesting to watch. Now that like I know like all the content or whatever. It's funny, but yeah, that's what it was. Echelon Front 1.0.

• 27:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that is it right there.

• 27:46Echo Charles?

  First one. And the second video was with you as well. That was the victory, the throwdown. Was it victory? Yeah, it was victory at that time.

• 27:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was victory.

• 27:54Echo Charles?

  Yeah. You know.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  And which video was it? The outtakes from some of those videos are awesome.

• 28:00Echo Charles?

  Yeah, that was, that was later on. It was just like.

• 28:02Jocko Willink?

  There's one where Dean Nestor's like monkeys, giraffes, gorillas.

• 28:05Echo Charles?

  Yeah, that was the outtake.

• 28:06Jocko Willink?

  That cracks me up.

• 28:07Echo Charles?

  But that, I think that those, the victory ones, that's how like. People started to know around like here around San Diego that I did video. Because I did a series of them and that just kind of were like, I just tried to make them like kind of like movie trailer, kind of dramatic. And no one at that time was doing anything like that as far as like making videos for companies or whatever. And so you look at them now and they're like, they're pretty cheesy now. But back then it's kind of like, oh dang, you know.

• 28:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, those were like, those were really good videos for that time period.

• 28:41Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and I'd sort of put my name on them. Not sort of, I straight up put my name on them, you know, when I'd upload them or whatever. And that's how people were like, oh, you're Echo Charles, you're the one that does those videos. Like that, you know, I guess my name's kind of distinct or whatever. So that's how I kind of, kind of gained like, people started knowing.

• 28:59Jocko Willink?

  Some fame.

• 29:00Echo Charles?

  No, no, not fame, but people started knowing I made videos, you know, yeah.

• 29:05Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so now there's a chunk of time now we're talking. Because we didn't start this podcast until 2015. And these are easy dates for me to remember because Extreme Ownership came out in October of 2015. But I was on Tim Ferriss podcast. That came out like September 25th, 2015. And then I was on Rogan like December 8th or something, 2015. And then we started this two weeks later. This, this podcast, I remember, I was like, let's get it out before Christmas. And we did, we got it out like 22nd of December or something like that.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  So there's five years between, okay, you made the first Echelon Front 1.0 video.

• 29:54Jocko Willink?

  Between that time period and 2015, what were you doing? Okay, so you were making other videos. You had some, you actually had some pretty big. Pretty big videos, right? You did, well, let's just start with the Hinata Show, right?

• 30:07Echo Charles?

  Hinata Show, yeah.

• 30:08Jocko Willink?

  So the Hinata Show.

• 30:09Echo Charles?

  Yeah, so you, well, before, like after the victory, that was, started this cascade of like other people wanting me to do videos.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  Those were good videos.

• 30:18Echo Charles?

  So, which was perfect because I kinda got thrown into the mix, like, and had to like-

• 30:25Jocko Willink?

  You had to learn.

• 30:26Echo Charles?

  Yeah, like hard, like fast.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  There's no better way to learn than getting thrown in, well, I mean, there are better ways, but-

• 30:32Jocko Willink?

  That's a way, that's a way you're gonna have to learn.

• 30:34Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Jocko Willink?

  You gotta sink or swim, and you started swimming, crawl stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, side stroke.

• 30:39Echo Charles?

  Right, yeah, and like mistakes you make, like you really learn the lesson because it's not like, "Oh, I made the mistake in my freaking..."

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  What was your next, after, what was the next, like, big break after victory?

• 30:50Echo Charles?

  Um, I, a big one, I worked for a guy Blake Mallon, and that was like, as far as content goes, he was like, okay, it was kinda, you know, corporate and stuff like that, um, compared to the stuff I do now.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  When you would make early, which, what is what I noticed, when you make, when those early videos that I was in, when I watch them, I'm like, this is the same thing we're doing right now, almost.

• 31:11Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:11Jocko Willink?

  Like the same, especially you see the, well, like you said, like the thing that I, the things I'm saying then, it was like, oh, yeah, we, if we would've known then, we'd just say, okay, let's just start making more videos right now.

• 31:22Echo Charles?

  And really, when you think about the whole thing as a big picture, it's, that's literally what happened. So like, when you, like, when we're making the victory videos, right, there's so many outtakes, like, and most of them are me and you, cuz you're messing with me the way you always mess with me, like, you're like, there's this one where you're like, cuz, okay, and you, you, you're kinda smart, you, like, you, and I don't mean smart, like, you're, uh, observant, you're more observant than the normal person. So, I'm new to video, and I figured out really early, when I do shoots with people, I just press record, cuz a lot of the good stuff you can get with people is when they don't know you're recording, right? When I'm talking to them, directing them, um, they're doing something else, they say something, they're trying to at least loosen up, and they're doing whatever, and there's a lot of good stuff come from there, right?

• 32:07Echo Charles?

  And you picked up on that pretty quick and you're like, you're recording, aren't you? And I'm like, he's like, I saw you press the button. Oh man, like, but the way you said it was like, bro, that's literally the same stuff you do now.

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  You know what else is funny? You got that one video of our old CrossFit instructor. And he's saying, he's saying, I'm gonna try and summon my inner Jocko. Which is weird, cause how did he, had he even seen me before? Where did that come from?

• 32:34Echo Charles?

  Hey man, everybody knew, man.

• 32:36Jocko Willink?

  That was random. That was random.

• 32:38Echo Charles?

  But yes, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, yeah, I did some, some of that, then yeah, working with Blake. Cause that was, it's like an ongoing thing, which that's what I really liked about like doing video or the, the type of videos I like to do is like ongoing ones. Stuff where I could like think of like cool little themes for the next one, you know, kind of thing. So I did that for a while and then, um, and then I tried to, and then I wanted to make like movies and stuff like I think like anyone who does video.

• 33:04Jocko Willink?

  You did, uh, you did some martial arts, some grappling stuff too. Those were some pretty good videos. And you were actually traveling to do those videos.

• 33:12Echo Charles?

  Which ones?

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  Like Metamorphosis?

• 33:14Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:15Jocko Willink?

  You did some really cool Metamorphosis videos. They were kind of, uh, pre-fight.

• 33:20Echo Charles?

  Right, yeah, like kinda like a countdown.

• 33:22Jocko Willink?

  Countdown type videos, thirty for thirty or whatever.

• 33:26Echo Charles?

  Yeah, kinda like little mini documentaries, like about the person in the fight coming up. Yeah, yeah. And that actually doing those a lot, that's how I met a lot of the big jujitsu players. And how, even more how that spread like through the jujitsu community outside of San Diego, like, okay, that guy makes like videos or whatever. So I did that. And at the same time, I met Rasan, who is Henato Laranja. I met him. And I was like, brother, this guy needs like a show. So we, we made a show with him and.

• 33:55Jocko Willink?

  How many episodes?

• 33:56Echo Charles?

  Uh, I think six. Six altogether.

• 34:00Jocko Willink?

  Those are hilarious.

• 34:01Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:02Jocko Willink?

  Those are epic.

• 34:03Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Jocko Willink?

  And those are on FlexPoint TV?

• 34:05Echo Charles?

  Oh, they're on YouTube, yeah.

• 34:06Jocko Willink?

  But I, where on YouTube?

• 34:09Echo Charles?

  Uh, just, just go Henato Laranja show, or yeah, FlexPoint.tv, they're on there. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Um, but we had, that one, that's a hard one to, that was hard to make, given where I was in my career, we'll say, because.

• 34:25Echo Charles?

  It's like, okay, I can do, if I was just doing that full time, which I kinda was at a little pocket, I was just doing that full time, you could do it. But, because consider what you gotta do, as just, you know, I don't have this huge production studio with people like arranging everything. So, we gotta basically arrange my schedule, because I still gotta work and stuff. Like, I was, we were, me and Jade were putting money into it. We were spending money to produce this show. So, there's that, and then there's, I've gotta work, right? I have other stuff to do, so I gotta schedule with myself. And we filmed in LA, which is two hours away.

• 34:58Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you, what space did you use?

• 34:59Echo Charles?

  It's called the Dream Factory LA.

• 35:01Jocko Willink?

  Someplace that you were paying to use their space?

• 35:03Echo Charles?

  Yeah, you rent out the studio, yeah, it's a little set there, it was pretty dope though. It was, it was really cool. And then, so my schedule, the Dream Factory schedule, which that wasn't too bad, because, you know, you can schedule it in advance or whatever, but Hinato's schedule, and then the celeb, because the guests are celebrity types, Bas Rutin, Frank Shamrock, like, Hanner, like, all these, so you gotta schedule with them as well. Like, Kenny Florian was the first one, guys, that was a really fun show. But it was really hard to get together and put on.

• 35:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Echo Charles?

  So, when, when I had a career, and then, towards the end of us filming that, my career started to go up and up even more, so it's like, man, I, I can't do it. I just couldn't do it, we couldn't do it. So, yeah, so it stopped, but that's a funny one. All, every once in a while, I'd like watch them again, and it's freaking, it's funny.

• 35:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, he's, he's a hilarious guy, it was a, it's a good show, great show. And then, meanwhile, you and I are still training hard. I mean, we're training hard this whole time. You were one of my primary training partners this entire time.

• 36:04Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 36:05Jocko Willink?

  And then, at, at, like I just kinda told part of the story, but, I go on Tim Ferriss's podcast, and he tells me to start a podcast. And you reminded me of this. We actually had talked about it a little bit. Wait, were you trying to convince me to do one?

• 36:25Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Jocko Willink?

  So you told me that we should do a podcast that you could figure it out or whatever.

• 36:30Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Jocko Willink?

  And, and then I was on Rogan and that's why at the end of the first time I was on Rogan's show, I said, Echo, get it, you know, get ready because in the middle of Rogan's show, he says, hey, you should have a podcast, which come to find out Joe Rogan tells everybody that.

• 36:44Echo Charles?

  Yeah, everyone who should have one. Oh, yeah.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, but I listened thankfully and it was, you know, both hearing it from Tim and Joe was, was, was convincing. And I mean, I would have done it just off of Tim, but the book, it was like I was on Tim, then the book came out. Then I was doing that thing and just barely got done doing kind of the, the book promotions in New York City. When I came home and that's when Rogan, so it all happened pretty quick, but yeah, having both those guys say it. So then, but I do remember this conversation for sure. I came back from Rogan and I said, hey, we're gonna do a podcast. Are you good? You know, can, can you make it? Can you make it?

• 37:30Jocko Willink?

  And you said, I'll tell you tomorrow. Cause I remember you specifically said, I'll tell you tomorrow. You could, you didn't have an answer for me right then. The next day you come in a train, I come in a train and you, you said, hey, I know I can do the podcast. I figured it all out. I know what I gotta do. And then you said, let me be on it too. And I said, what are you gonna do? And you said, I'll be normal and you be you. And I thought that was a pretty good idea. And, and plus more important, I didn't wanna sit and talk to myself. I'd rather talk to, to you. And, cause you and I would talk on the mat anyways. And oftentimes we're talking about subjects that we would, that we're interested in.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  So why not be able to sit there and talk to someone? And you're a super humble guy. I was like, yeah, I could, you know, we hang out all the time. So if there's one person that I can see that can sit there and listen and not feel like, hey, I gotta throw my two cents in on every, it's like, okay, cool. Like let's do this. So, uh, that's how we ended up doing this.

• 38:40Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Yeah. And the, in the, yeah, the timeline a little bit, okay. So you. And just from my perspective, I remember very clearly too, by the way, when you were on Tim Ferriss, like, okay, so most of us-

• 38:52Jocko Willink?

  Did you listen to me on Tim Ferriss?

• 38:53Echo Charles?

  Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, right when it came out, that was good. Even, and I knew you for a long time, but that was a really good one, that was really good.

• 38:59Jocko Willink?

  That was a great podcast, Tim was, think about Tim, Tim, I, I mean, you think about the caliber of people that Tim Ferriss has on his podcast, and it was my buddy Kirk Parsley, who introduced me to Peter Attia, with the purpose, like Kirk was trying to, trying to hook me up. And, and Peter, when I talked to Peter, who I'm now, you know, good friends with Peter too, but you know, it was the same thing, like they're trying to decipher if I would be a person that would be interesting-

• 39:31Echo Charles?

  Right.

• 39:32Jocko Willink?

  -to listen to, so, so awesome, you know?

• 39:35Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  Like I said, Kirk hooked me up with Peter, Peter called Tim and said, you should have this guy on your podcast, and that was the first, first interview I ever did-

• 39:46Echo Charles?

  No, that's great.

• 39:47Jocko Willink?

  -in my life.

• 39:48Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Jocko Willink?

  Sitting in Tim Ferriss's house in the San Francisco Bay area, which he doesn't own anymore,

• 39:57Jocko Willink?

  because he moved to Austin, Texas, but just that, like I went up there on a, I flew up there, that was a good call, because he said, we can do it over remote, and I said, no, I'll come up.

• 40:06Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, because I, I wanted, communicating over the phone, and there's gaps, and there's pauses, you can't see the person, so thankfully, I went up there and, you know, met with him, actually stayed the night, it was, it was awesome, man, Tim's just was super cool. And then, so that podcast happened, so you listened to that one?

• 40:24Echo Charles?

  Oh yeah, that's interesting that you sort of figured that, that communication thing, because that's a huge deal, like if you can go, if you have the option to go in person or, or over Skype, of course, you can choose in person, that kind of seems obvious, but I feel like people don't understand how much of a difference that, that makes, like, it's night and day, it's a night and day situation.

• 40:46Jocko Willink?

  I was working for the Admiral, in charge of all the SEALs, and there was a meeting happening in DC, like at the Pentagon, and the Admiral had a small, a small decision was being made, and he had an opinion on it, and someone else had another opinion on it, and he talked to the guy that was making the decision, it was like, hey, you know, do you want me to come out here for this meeting? And the guy's like, well, you don't have to. And the admiral's like, okay, cool. Cause it for the admiral and I, you know, that meant us getting on the, you know, on a flight, flying six hours, not like we have a jet, like we're gonna get on a commercial flight, we're gonna stay the night in some random hotel, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 41:28Jocko Willink?

  So he goes, okay, well, you understand my perspective, boss. Sounds good. If you don't need me out there, I won't come. So we did a, it was a video teleconference. And I'm sitting in there and the decision goes the other way. And the admiral goes, he, soon as we got off, he looked at me, he said, I should have gone to that meeting.

• 41:47Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, Roger that, boss.

• 41:49Echo Charles?

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  You, you, face to face is a big deal.

• 41:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  Especially if there's no relationship established.

• 41:58Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Jocko Willink?

  If you, if you don't have a relationship with someone, you need to go build it, you need to build it as much as you possibly can face to face.

• 42:04Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Yeah. And there's, and there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of over obvious stuff, you know, be, you know, to, to figure that. When you figure that, it's like, okay, these, for these obvious reasons or whatever, but the not so obvious reasons are just the little teeny tiny, almost subconscious subtleties of being there with someone, even like split seconds in a conversation can like, can make a difference between like, if it, if it's like cohesive or feels cohesive.

• 42:27Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 42:27Echo Charles?

  And that's not, and that's of course from person to person, but from people listening as well. So like that, that's why like, I think that was a good, good move for you to just make that, make that sacrifice and go up there.

• 42:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Echo Charles?

  And be there with them.

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it was awesome. And Tim was pretty in the groove at that time. Like he, he knew how to do it.

• 42:48Jocko Willink?

  And he, and also the format of his podcast was like, you knew kind of what, I kind of knew what he was gonna ask about. And, and yet you could veer off and talk about other subjects. So it was like a really nice way to kick things off. And now that I've done a bunch of television interviews. Podcasts are just infinitely more comfortable for me. So some people, they don't want to get trapped in some long-term conversation and have to remember what they just said and formulate thoughts fresh on the, on the spot, on the moment. Whereas, because the TV, people that are doing TV interviews,

• 43:27Jocko Willink?

  they, they're not formulating thoughts at that moment. They go into that with a preconceived statement. They got four sentences that they're gonna say, and that's what they're gonna say. It doesn't really matter what they get asked. So some people would prefer to do that. Some people would prefer to do a long. I don't mind doing either, but it's infinitely more fun and thought provoking and intellectually stimulating to actually go have a legitimate conversation with, and with, with Tim, which was, which was awesome. So that was a, a very cool way for me to kick things off. Very lucky.

• 44:01Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And, and me, I was just like, probably millions of people who like, knew about Joe Rogan, listened to Joe Rogan's podcast, which that's kind of like the, the standard, you know, that, that top standard of podcasts. But here's the thing about it. It's like, since it's so conversational, where he's like, just talking. In the, in the early days of Joe Rogan podcast, he, um, he would just talk to like Red Band and like his friends and they're just talking about stuff, you know? Um, now it's like, there's a lot more to it, for sure. But, um, back then it was like, oh, these are just guys cruising down in their basement or some cool room that they're just, basically what we all sort of do anyway, and talk shit with, with each other, with friends. And

• 44:43Echo Charles?

  so I think me, like millions of other people were like, man, that'd be so cool to be able to do that, do a podcast like that, you know, just talking with my friends or whatever. And then, so being in jujitsu, I think that a lot of people are in this same boat where they know the guy who like, when he's kind of talking, everyone sort of just listens and likes to chime in and whatever, right? So like with us in jujitsu was like you. And even Dean, when he'd talk about jujitsu or stories or whatever, like there, there's a lot of cool conversations that go on, on the mat afterward before jujitsu, whatever. And that, those things would always go on. Those are the things were going on way before Tim Ferriss interview, right? So before the whole podcast idea,

• 45:22Echo Charles?

  uh, we already had, I think I was like a lot of people, we already had, kind of for lack of a better way of putting it, like dreams of doing some cool podcasts. Like everyone had that thought. Not that we were ever gonna pursue it or nothing like that, but the thought like, wouldn't that be so cool if we could have a podcast like Joe Rogan does? And have it be like a good, you know, successful one. A lot of people and you get even nowadays, people even like all the time saying like, oh yeah, like I want to start my own podcast. I want to start my own podcast, right? Cause it's like, when you listen to two people talking, it's like, man, that's your job, man. That's the coolest thing in the world. So I already had that in my brain. So when you went on Tim Ferriss, I was like, man, when he was like, hey, you should do a podcast. I was like, hell yeah, you should do, we should do a podcast. To me, that was like, we should do a podcast when he said that.

• 46:05Echo Charles?

  So that's actually, it was, I'm pretty sure it was before Joe Rogan. I was like, hey, we should do a podcast and you, you were like, yeah, you were like, we like, why would you be on like, it doesn't. I said, you should have me on and you were like, why? Like what? And it wasn't like, it'd be pretty easy for me to be like, dang, bro, like freaking, why you gotta say it like that? Why would you ever be on it? But I didn't take it like that. I, I don't feel like you're saying it like that.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's a legitimate question, like why, why would you be on it?

• 46:31Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Jocko Willink?

  That didn't make sense to me.

• 46:33Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And I had it in my brain, just like I said, where, bro, I'll just be the person you're talking to. I'll just be normal, be a normal person, you know? And if I have questions, I ask questions, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to just, you be talking to somebody rather than talking to the microphone or talking to the screen by yourself or whatever. Which, you know, that's fine too, but it's just, and so I was essentially like thinking of Joe Rogan's podcast where he's like talking to somebody the whole time. Someone's there listening and chiming in whenever. That's my, that was my little engineered, perceived or conceived.

• 47:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you know, you know what, what I was thinking about, I've told you this before, when it comes to having multiple people on the same podcast, like on our podcast. We don't, haven't had many episodes where we've had more than one person to interview.

• 47:17Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 47:19Jocko Willink?

  One of the reasons is like, I already talked about and we already talked about. If there's a bunch of people talking, I won't talk.

• 47:25Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 47:26Jocko Willink?

  And so what I was thinking to myself, well, when I'm getting interviewed by Tim Ferriss, he's asking me questions. Okay, I answer them because I'm being, you know, I'm being asked a question, so I'm going to answer it. Joe Rogan's asking me questions, I'm going to answer them. But if you put me into a situation where there's multiple people. And they want to talk, I'll just let them talk. I'll listen. So in my mind, I was like thinking, well, if I have someone else on there, then I'll just sit there and listen to them talk. And well, if people, if Tim Ferriss is telling me to have a podcast, he's not telling me to have a podcast. So I can sit there and listen to someone else. I should be talking. Okay, got it. So for me, I had to get over the, the idea of like, oh, well, and then I thought you,

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  like I said earlier, you're not a person that, you know, when we're having a normal conversation, you're not one of these people that's like, hold on, wait, listen to my viewpoint. You're a person that goes, oh, that's cool. Interesting. You're, you, you will listen as much as I will. And so that's why I thought, okay, cool. Yeah, makes sense. Good call, Echo Charles.

• 48:24Echo Charles?

  Yeah, fully. And keep in mind too, yes, it was like partially my selfish reasons. Like I wanted to be on a podcast for sure, but not at any moment was I being like, hey, so I can be a star too. It was, but I didn't have that at all. Like I knew what I was getting into it. I knew why I could do it. Not because I have all these cool things to say, because I don't really like in my mind, like I'm, that's not what I'm thinking. Especially compared to you. I'm like, I just listened to Tim for that interview with Tim Ferriss. Like, bro, I literally could, could never bring anything like this to the table. But if you're over here talking about like stuff, stuff, and, and I have just little detailed questions about that, just to clarify what you're saying or whatever, like I think that I could facilitate in that way.

• 49:07Echo Charles?

  And not to mention, just technically, I could make the whole thing happen. And I have my own little creative ideas as well with that. So I'm figuring, yeah, that's it. But yeah, it never even entered my mind that like, it's my podcast. I'm going to talk, you know? If you're going to sort of listen to me sometimes.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  So you did have a vision for the podcast. Because the podcast number one, I had a vision too. My vision was basically what the podcast is right now. That's what I had the vision of. Hey. We're gonna execute this thing like a military operation. Boom. It's good. And the first podcast starts off with your vision, which is, you know, we're kind of talking and then we kind of, we kind of drift into the beginning of the podcast and then we kind of drift. And, and actually, you know, as you know, me and my kind of leadership principles at this time, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I was right. I just thought to myself, this is what it'll be. And then you had a different idea and then we didn't really talk about it until the next podcast. And then I came in and was like, because I listened to it and I was like, yeah, that's not,

• 50:08Jocko Willink?

  we, we shouldn't do it that way. In my mind, I was like, well, I don't think we should do it that way. I think this thing should start. And one thing that I wanted it to do was like, start.

• 50:17Echo Charles?

  Right.

• 50:17Jocko Willink?

  Like when you press play, yeah, when you press, I, I wanted people, when they put their headphones on and press play, they were like, okay, here it comes. And that means no intro music. That means no advertisements rolling in. It's like, hey, this is Jocko Podcast number four. Here we go. Rock and roll. And, and so that's what we started doing on podcast number two.

• 50:43Echo Charles?

  What's funny is like that, um, so the, so there was two kinds of thoughts and I didn't think it out fully, but I just sort of felt like, you know, create, it was like a creative feeling, I guess, maybe that drove that decision to make, to be like, oh yeah, just sort of roll into it casually. Because you know, like certain movies, like movies start in all kinds of different ways, right? Some movies start just the way how you were saying, like you wanted to start like it begins. And then some movies just sort of start. Yeah, they don't know credits, no nothing, but it just sort of like, people are just sort of doing something. And you're like, wait, what are they doing? Okay, let me see, you know, boom. And it sort of slowly develops into this thing. Then it maybe hits you with something and boom, boom, boom. So I remember like, I vaguely remember editing it and being like, when should I start?

• 51:26Echo Charles?

  Cause we're talking a bunch before that too. And then, so when should I just roll into this? And then it was like, Me talking, actually, it was like, what is that pomegranate, pomegranate chai? Tea, cuz you're drinking the white tea and you're like, white tea, yeah. And then, man, I remember thinking that, I was like, yeah, that was cool. But then, yeah, you shut it down real quick. You were like, that is wack.

• 51:50Echo Charles?

  But you, I think, even thinking back on it, the way you, and given what you wound up talking about and stuff like that, it's, yours is way better, way better.

• 52:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I just did a bad job of out of the gate, kind of explaining, hey, this is where, yeah, we didn't talk about it. But what's interesting too is, uh, I think it was, you know, Brandon Pickworth?

• 52:11Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 52:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so he, he was talking, it was a while ago, he was like, saying that, out of the gate with this podcast, it's, you know, when you hear people, you go, oh, listen to Joe Rogan's first podcast, or listen to Tim, even Tim Ferriss will say, listen to my first podcast, I know what I was doing, it's mono, it's this, it's that. And it takes a while for people to kind of figure out where they're going. I mean, it might take twenty, thirty, a hundred episodes, or whatever, at least thirty, forty, fifty of people trying, where they kind of find their groove. And Brandon was like, out of the gate, your podcast hasn't even changed that much. I mean, it's, we did make, you know, I, I mean, I think we've improved, we've improved our audio, we'd probably speak better now, but it wasn't like, it's not this drastic turnaround from,

• 52:55Jocko Willink?

  we were doing something radically different. The, the podcast is essentially the same now as it was on episode one. It's essentially the same thing.

• 53:06Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Jocko Willink?

  And so, I, and I think that did, that is based on what I thought the podcast was going to be like. And I should have done a better job of saying, hey, here's what we're doing.

• 53:15Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't, you know, I didn't.

• 53:18Echo Charles?

  If you remember, if you, and even think about it right now, you, we don't, like, especially like creative stuff, like, you don't, we don't really talk, you're just like, you just do it. And then if I, if I go off the rails in one way or another, then you'll tighten me back up, whatever. But, yeah, we never did. Like, it was like, you said like, one thing, like, hey, we should do it in black and white. Actually, did you even say that?

• 53:41Jocko Willink?

  Yes, of course I did.

• 53:43Echo Charles?

  And that was sort of it. And then we talked about like the inter like the ideal look would be like an interrogation room. I mean, I use the term interrogation room, but just like super simple or whatever. But yeah, other than that, we're just, you just sort of like, let me do whatever with varying levels of success, I guess.

• 53:59Jocko Willink?

  And so then that that came out of the gate was we got really lucky. I mean, at the time, there wasn't a lot of podcast. There was, there was a lot of podcasts, but there wasn't even close to the number of podcasts that there are now. And that went, that went forward pretty quick. And next thing you know, we were like on, it was, it was happening. I mean, it was happening, meaning,

• 54:24Jocko Willink?

  meaning this idea of, of, hey, this is, this will be cool to try. It went from this will be cool to try to like, we, this is what we're doing. It went to that in two or three episodes. Yeah. I mean, maybe it was even one episode. I mean, the first episode came out and it was like, okay, everyone said more. And had we, did we know? Yeah, we did know we were gonna, I told you we were gonna do one a week. I think, I think that was from the beginning. It was like, hey, we're gonna do one a week. And there was a time when I wavered for a little while, probably forty episodes in or something. I was like, I don't know if I can keep, I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can get this much content read. I don't know if I can do this. So we might have to go to one every two weeks and I got shut down by the people.

• 55:08Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 55:11Echo Charles?

  Yeah, I forget when that was, but yes, I remember that happening.

• 55:13Jocko Willink?

  I told, I told a couple of people that Echelon Front was working with, one guy named Mike, great guy. I was going to a job site with him and I just, we were driving. And I said, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about going to like, maybe putting the podcast once every two weeks.

• 55:30Jocko Willink?

  It was, yeah, it was like I told him that, you know, there was a disease, you know, it was like really bad. And and he that seeing his reaction, there was one other person I told the same thing and it got the same exact reaction, which was like they were almost, he was almost like lost for words, you know, because this was early. So there was still, it wasn't like you could go, oh, well, I'll just listen to one that I haven't listened to or one I haven't heard in a while. This was, hey, there's only this many episodes and I'm waiting for the next one.

• 56:01Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, I remember him being, you, you know, you, you should think about that. And I remember when he said, he said, uh, he said, because there's people that are waiting for these to come out.

• 56:10Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Jocko Willink?

  And I said to myself, ooh, okay, I gotta, I gotta get, I gotta work harder.

• 56:15Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and I could, and I, it makes sense. Yeah. Just work harder, dude. Um, it makes sense too, because of how like, you know, you were pretty at like engaged with the people too. And I, and I was too, like where people would be like, hey, that was this and that was that. And you'd be engaged like online on Twitter and stuff like that. So it kind of like, it really felt like in, in a lot of ways, it still does feel like we were sort of all in this together. Like everyone, like me and you doing it and then everyone, whoever was listening, like they were kind of in it too, you know?

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  It still feels like that.

• 56:46Echo Charles?

  Yeah, fully.

• 56:48Jocko Willink?

  And what's crazy is you go to Australia where we just were and it's the same way. We're literally the other side of the world and people are asking me about, hey, when you said this in episode forty eight, did you think, and I'm like, yes, I did think that I could tell, you know, people are that into it.

• 57:05Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Jocko Willink?

  Which is awesome.

• 57:07Echo Charles?

  But back in the day, when it's when you first sort of start, you're, that feeling is so on the front of your mind. Like it feels like we're just all doing it. People are giving me input because I'm trying to, I mean, I don't know about you, but I was trying to figure out a lot of stuff early on as well. Like how to get certain things done or accomplish or whatever. And people were trying, you know, jumping out of the woodwork, kind of like, hey, you should do this better. You know, you should compress the audio, you should do, so I'm taking advice. I mean, you know, so we're all sort of in it together. And there was one episode, I forget what episode it was, when it sort of hit a, a point where there were so many downloads that it crashed our website and the like, the podcast, like the hosting, right? And it, um. Because you know, when you start, I don't know about that. I don't know about that kind of stuff like where.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  It seems crazy too to think that.

• 57:52Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 57:53Jocko Willink?

  It seemed crazy to think that we would have enough downloads that it would crash the system.

• 57:57Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah. So and so of course, I mean, whether that whether or not that came across my mind, you know, maybe, maybe not, but it wasn't like a worry. I wasn't concerned about that at all. I was like, no, this is a it's a computer, like whatever. So you know, you have this host for this and the website and this and that. Um, and the the the moment that I was like, okay, there's a lot of people like depending on this, for lack of a better way of putting it, is when it crashed on the day that I, you know, released the podcast, it crashes. Says like, you know, whatever. It says technically I gotta do all this stuff and just Twitter, Facebook, like emails, like through the website, my personal email, like coming in like, where's the podcast?

• 58:42Echo Charles?

  And it was probably way less of a deal than than it seemed like to me at the time, but still, when you get like essentially, let's face it, strangers, people I don't know, like just by the hundreds, just saying, where's the podcast? Where's the podcast? It's kind of like them saying, hey, where's our, where's our dinner? You know, like, where's our podcast? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm like freaking all worried then at the end of that, like worried about you. Like, oh, man, if I'm feeling this and I'm not even the star of the podcast, what the hell is Jocko thinking? And he's gonna kill me and all this stuff and regret even doing this with me. Should have did it with some professional guy out and all this stuff. And then every once in a while, you'd text me, hey, so how how's it going? So to me, the the way that the way I interpreted that, how's it going? Is like, what the hell? Like, you're freaking. But then you'd call every once in a while.

• 59:27Echo Charles?

  Because this was a a matter of days, like days are going on still.

• 59:30Jocko Willink?

  Wait, this is this is when the podcast crashed.

• 59:34Echo Charles?

  When it crashed.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  And I would text you like, hey.

• 59:36Echo Charles?

  Yeah, like, how's it coming?

• 59:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, are we making any progress?

• 59:38Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:41Jocko Willink?

  I remember I was on an op. I was in Iraq. I was on my first deployment. And we were traveling a far distance to the south of Iraq. There was some mayhem going on. We're traveling through this city. There's eerie. There's people whistling. It's just, it's the middle of the night. And we get lost and we're driving around and I'm I'm tracking and so finally we stop and I go up to the Lead Nav who's a great guy in the lead vehicle and I look at him and I I could see the look in his eyes like we're lost. He doesn't know where we are and I go, I go, how's it going, bro?

• 1:00:24Jocko Willink?

  And and like just that right there, like he is just his look of panic. When I said, hey, how's it, how's it going, bro? His look of panic went down a little bit and he goes, I don't know where we are. And I go, okay, cool. This is I literally said, I go, okay, cool. We're gonna set a perimeter. Take your time, figure out where we're at and how we can get back on track. Let me know when you're ready. And he goes, Roger that. And and then it allowed him to actually decompress for a second and figure out where we were and it took him a minute, two minutes and then he, you know, we did it. So

• 1:01:03Jocko Willink?

  that idea of instead of texting you, where is this podcast? People are waiting for it. Hey, how's it going? We making any progress?

• 1:01:12Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Yeah. And so that became clear when you actually like would call and be like, hey, you'd be like same. I think you even said the same thing. Hey, how's it going? Like in that way?

• 1:01:24Echo Charles?

  And you're right, man. It's like, because, bro, I'm not used to that. You know, like when something's

• 1:01:29Jocko Willink?

  That was pressure. You're not work. Yeah, you're not used to pressure.

• 1:01:32Echo Charles?

  Well, no, no, no. I'm used to some pressure. I mean, let's face it. I'm from quiet. Not that much pressure, but we're, you know, working for people in the deadline and hurry up and you know, like this and you know, where are we with it? Something going wrong and stuff like that. I that, okay, I'm no stranger to that, but the reaction for the people who I'm working quote unquote for. I'm not used to them being so cool about it. Usually them saying, where are we? You know, their frustration is now, you know, kind of part of my world, my added or stress or whatever. So when you came with that with, hey, how's it going, bro? It was like, I was like, dang, this is like, it really helped, really helped a lot. So

• 1:02:12Echo Charles?

  meanwhile, but still the problem is still there. Meanwhile, I'm not getting that level of coolness from the general public. Our people.

• 1:02:21Echo Charles?

  And it, you know, it morphed into jokes about Echo, how he's, I don't know, cruising too hard and like all this stuff, which is kinda cool, I guess is funny. But anyway, then our savior Brady Lantor comes and is like, hey, I can, I can help you with this. And all that all knows all this technical background stuff, which I knew like a little bit from web development, but he knew like the real tech side. And man, he basically took my hand and held my hand and called some people and boom, boom, you gotta do this. Hey, we gotta spend a little bit more money to do this, but we can, we can patch it up. And man, he got it. He got it rolling and like literally solved that problem forever. So man, but point is there where that's when I, I knew that, yeah, like,

• 1:03:04Echo Charles?

  how you say, like, you can't really do it twice or once every two weeks because people are like, hey, we kinda need this thing. That's when it was clear to me that, yeah, man, it's, we kinda have, like, we're all kinda in this together and you can't just bust out once every two weeks.

• 1:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you also can't, I mean, I always feel this way about everything too, but you also can't be like, oh, you know what? We'll just throw something together and put it out there. Like, that's not happening. So it has to be a real effort 100% of the time.

• 1:03:31Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Or it's a failure. All right. So that's cool. You get some technical knowledge from just the function of being the guy that's putting this stuff together. What about just from sitting across the table for,

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  what are we almost four years?

• 1:03:54Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 1:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, almost four years. What are the lessons learned from a broader perspective, life wise?

• 1:04:02Echo Charles?

  Well, they, yeah, it started quick too. So, okay. So remember, okay, well, the early episodes, like I would, I would drink, I would have a drink going, you know, I wouldn't get hammered or nothing like that.

• 1:04:14Jocko Willink?

  And when you say drink, you mean alcoholic beverage. We're not talking a Jocko Discipline Go or a Jocko White Tea. Or maybe a little hit, Discipline Hitter. You're talking, you're drinking, what did you used to drink? Vodka and?

• 1:04:26Echo Charles?

  Soda water.

• 1:04:27Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:04:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah, or sometimes a beer, whatever. But it was like, that was one of those things, and not that I was like nervous doing it, but I was like kind of nervous going into it kind of thing. And it was just, yeah, like a little comfort thing or whatever. And it was one of those things where you didn't necessarily tell me, like, hey, you don't need to do that. You know, like you, or that's weak or not. You didn't tell me that, but there was always like this feeling of it, you know? And it kind of hit me where.

• 1:04:53Jocko Willink?

  That's like ESP, right?

• 1:04:56Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  What is ESP then?

• 1:04:58Echo Charles?

  Extra sensory perception.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's like me just kind of willing, like thoughts into your head.

• 1:05:06Echo Charles?

  I guess, but there's, I'd say one of the early things that you said, and not necessarily to me, but just on the podcast that, you know, like you say a lot of stuff and it's kind of like, and you are essentially talking to me, right? You're sitting across talking to me. But one of the things you said was, you already know the right thing to do. You just have to do it. Then I'm like, oh yeah, I'm thinking like, okay, I heard that before, but, but you start to think about it. Like, oh man, that's true, huh? You just, you just, you know, already, it's not like a big, like mystery, like you know, so it's like, what are? Cause it's kind of lame to know the right thing to do and not do it.

• 1:05:41Jocko Willink?

  There has to be something too with the fact that you're not just hearing me say the words, but you are a person that actually sees what I'm doing on a daily basis in a way.

• 1:05:53Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm doing.

• 1:05:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm doing. So when I'm saying that, it's not like, oh, you, uh, whatever. Uh, what's that word? Drifted through, uh, what's that called? Scrolled through your Instagram feed? And someone said, you already know what to do, just do it. You're actually watching me and saying, oh yeah, he's, he knows what he's supposed to do and he's doing.

• 1:06:18Echo Charles?

  Yes. So, and, and here's, here's when that part became clear where the first time, okay, so, okay. So I'm recording a podcast, let's say five episodes in, we'll just say, I don't know, maybe it was more, maybe it was less, but. Five episodes in, it's like, okay, that's five weeks. Every week now, you're, and we were recording in my house at this time and you'd come up and it was like at night.

• 1:06:39Jocko Willink?

  Yep, we have to do it after Prezi was asleep.

• 1:06:41Echo Charles?

  Yeah, after everyone's going to sleep and, and you'd come up. We'd record, I'm like, cool. And then one time I'm like, shoot, this is like, again, again, again. And then you're coming in with your notes and all this stuff. I'm like, man, this guy is like, bruh, this guy's no quit. Cause it was like, you can be doing the coolest, funnest thing, but when it's like coming again and again and again, you're like, whoa, let me, let me take a rest between sets here a little bit, you know? But nope, not you. You're just rolling in. And then after a while, when, when I started getting used to it, that's when I'd like sort of reflect like, man, if you weren't here doing this right now, if I, let's say I had fulfilled my own little weirdo dream of having a podcast and, and that's my job.

• 1:07:22Echo Charles?

  I don't think I would have, I don't think I would have done it as mu- as often for sure. I would have started like slowing down or whatever, because there would be times where I'd be like, man, maybe we should just take this week off kind of thing. And it's not like it's this crazy hard work. I'm just, it's just, that's sort of how it is, but it seemed like that didn't faze you at all.

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  I remember one time I had a gig on the East Coast and I flew, and then I had another gig on the East Coast and I had whatever, a day in between and we, and we owed a podcast and I flew back to San Diego. We went, recorded the podcast and I flew back out to the East Coast.

• 1:07:58Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  And I said, hmm, that's what we're doing here. We're getting this podcast done.

• 1:08:03Echo Charles?

  Yeah, man. And that's, it's like, that is so, such a, for lack of a better term, like I'm so lucky in that way because like that, that's not like a rare thing where you're hanging around with someone and they rub off on you, you know? Where you knew all this stuff, but since the person right next to you is doing it, then you start to do it, you know? It's like, like jujitsu, you know, you hear about jujitsu, we know about jujitsu, whatever, but it's like, what if like your brother starts doing jujitsu or whatever, or the people at work start doing jujitsu, then you know, let me go check this out. It like, it, it kind of influences you, you know, in that way. So it's lucky that like, and this is every week. Not to mention all the training jujitsu, so I'm around you more and we're talking about it and it's new and exciting. So we're always talking about, so, oh yeah, man. I was just primed for influence at that time. So.

• 1:08:48Echo Charles?

  At that point, I was like, yeah, man, he's really doing it. And going back to you already know the right thing to do. You just have to do it. Meaning, so I'm like, okay. And then I see you doing it. So that influenced me to like, really take that into consideration as far as like daily conscious thought, you know? So.

• 1:09:05Jocko Willink?

  So then what did that, what did that actually turn into as far as action wise?

• 1:09:10Echo Charles?

  Okay, first I stopped drinking and here's the thing, I didn't stop drinking, but I stopped drinking where that was like a habit. So I stopped that and.

• 1:09:18Jocko Willink?

  So you went from, did you used to drink every day?

• 1:09:21Echo Charles?

  Every day, yeah.

• 1:09:22Jocko Willink?

  How often do you drink now?

• 1:09:25Echo Charles?

  There's no like often, like sometimes I'll drink, sometimes I won't, but yeah.

• 1:09:29Jocko Willink?

  Once a month, once a week?

• 1:09:31Echo Charles?

  Some, yes, like sometimes none a month, zero a month, but then sometimes like three times a week, whatever. And this is just how it shook itself out. Like now it's not a habitual thing every night, you know? It's just, it's more of a, yeah, I can maneuver my way through any like drinking scenario, you know? And I don't even know if I was like addicted, like an alcoholic. I mean, maybe technically on paper or something, maybe. But it was the kind and it was basically this, if I had three, and I think I told you this before, where there was three factors with me drinking a lot. And that was if I was undisturbed, meaning by like my family or any like obligations, you know? Like I gotta drive somewhere or, or take care of the kids or whatever, undisturbed.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Meaning if you had no responsibility at a certain time?

• 1:10:18Echo Charles?

  At a certain time, yeah.

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  So that's an opportunity to drink and a likelihood to drink.

• 1:10:21Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:10:22Echo Charles?

  That was a factor, put it that way. And then, um, the other one was, uh, obviously alcohol present, right? And then the third one was being in front of my computer. That was it. If any of those, if one or more of those three factors were not there, like I wouldn't drink. I'm not compelled to drink at all, you know? Like I'm not against drinking, like I'll go out and drink sake or something, EDC or whatever. But it was a non-factor. But if you get those three, especially back then, if I had those three present, which was essentially every night, the kids go to bed. You know, I don't have to wake up early for something specific or whatever. My computer and it's weird because it wasn't my laptop when I'm traveling or something like that. It was like my home computer.

• 1:11:05Echo Charles?

  It's weird, but if those three things are present, like it was, it was pretty much uncontrollable.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  So then what was it that broke that?

• 1:11:13Echo Charles?

  That, that thing, like your thing, where it's like you know the right thing to do, you just gotta do, you know how like, and this is, I think always gonna be the case, I'm sure it's something has to do with your brain, but

• 1:11:27Echo Charles?

  like you can know the right thing to do, you can do, you know how, but you, it's almost like you oversimplify it. You're like, hey, how do you wake up early? Wake up early, you know? But a real person will be like, how do I wake up early? Okay, yeah, I wake up early. Yeah, that's where I wanna get. How do I do that? You're like, yeah, just do it. It's like you're skipping all these like mental hoops and acrobatics that normal people do on like emotions and habits and like all this like stuff that we have to sort of go through to get there, you know, cause we like certain comforts. In fact, not only do we like them, it's like we sort of need them in a, in a little bit, a little bit of a way.

• 1:12:02Jocko Willink?

  Tell yourself you need them.

• 1:12:03Echo Charles?

  Right, exactly, right. And you kind of oversimplify it. So coming from someone just telling you that, oh yeah, just wake up early. You're like, okay, like I shouldn't even have asked you, cause that's essentially, in a way, it's not really what I'm asking. Like I know that part. Like how do I get there? How do I make that part like more accessible or that ability more accessible to, to myself? That's kind of what they're asking. But meanwhile, like I'm watching you do all these things and it's kind of like that's how you are, you just oversimplify it kind of thing. Like you just, alright, I'm just gonna do it. Granted, there's more to it, but like what I'm seeing, you just do it. So I'm like, I guess I'm just gonna do it then. And then you do it, then it's kind of like, oh, bro, I should have done that like 10 years ago.

• 1:12:49Echo Charles?

  That is literally how simple it is. Granted, it'll make, it'll be just as simple or just as complex and hard and, and you know, slippery of a situation as, as you make it.

• 1:12:58Jocko Willink?

  As you allow it to be.

• 1:13:00Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and.

• 1:13:02Echo Charles?

  Allow it, yeah, but when you kind of, when I think back on it for myself, I'm like making it complicated, like putting effort into making it, and I still do it.

• 1:13:14Jocko Willink?

  That's one step further. It's one step further than allowing it to be, it's actually making it complicated.

• 1:13:18Echo Charles?

  I think that's how most of us are. That's the thing. So, okay, so here's another thing that I, that I learned when you're like, and it, it does go back to just, you know, the right thing to just do it, regardless of how you feel about like working out, right? So, I, working out, I liked working out, weightlifting and stuff. I, I sort of liked it, you know, sort of one of those things look forward to. But, you know, as you get older, you have other responsibilities, all this stuff, you don't necessarily like it as much, but you know it's good for you and all this stuff. So, there was a point where it was really easy to justify and skip workouts. Let's do it tomorrow, whatever. Because I don't feel like it. I didn't get enough rest, or I'm doing this other thing, or whatever, right? But if you're just like, hey, you know, it needs to be done, you just do it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

• 1:14:00Echo Charles?

  But that's not really how my brain worked. My brain worked where I was, I was kind of dependent on that, that, that good feeling of looking forward to working out, getting fired up and working out. I was kind of dependent on that feeling. You don't realize it, but it's there fully, where you're dependent on it. So, you're just like, yeah, you just don't think about it, just do it. But I'm like, wait, but I, but I really don't feel like it. You know, like, that's just a given. I don't feel like, like, that's a given part of the equation. So then what I would do is, okay, I'll just do it, but not do it like I just do it as in workout. I just do it as in, try to get fired up and try to get myself motivated, get, get fired up to do this stuff. But that's not, that's not how it works. You just get, you don't, you don't work harder to get that unnecessary part of it into the equation.

• 1:14:43Echo Charles?

  I mean, you can if it works for you, but, but that's not the point you were, that I took from it. The point is, you skip that. Like, you just go work out, just do it, you know, kind of thing. It's like, it's so simple when I'm like saying it out loud. It's like, eh, it seems so obvious.

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  That's a good connection to make. That's a good connection to make. When, when it's like, just go do the activity. It's not just, it's not, hey, just force yourself to get fired up. Just force yourself. No, because you can't even do that.

• 1:15:13Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  I guess you could try, but why waste the energy on that? Just go do the activity that you're supposed to do.

• 1:15:18Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And then another thing is like you make a good point. It's like a lot of this stuff is just sort of there and you're just there to like grab my hand and like be like, here, see the, see the thing you've been seeing this whole time.

• 1:15:29Jocko Willink?

  You know what's crazy? Okay. So when you're learning Jiu Jitsu, have you ever learned something in Jiu Jitsu? Where you cannot believe that you couldn't figure that out, that you didn't figure that out. I'll give you an example. Here's a real simple example. You're mounted on someone and they start to push your knee or with their hand or their elbow to start an elbow escape. I remember like people would do this to me. I mean, I'm, I'm a white belt, maybe even I'm a blue belt. And I think I asked Dean, I'm like, hey Dean, what do you do when they start pushing? And he goes, oh, so he does it to me. Or he, you know, he, he mounts me and he goes, here, push my knee. So I start pushing his knee. He reaches down with his hand and pulls it off.

• 1:16:13Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and the answer was so obvious. And this is one of hundreds of examples. And I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm not that stupid either. And for me to not be able to figure out certain things. It shows you that if you can't, it shows you that there's certain things that can be right in front of your face and you just don't see them. And I think that's what you're talking about. Like, I'm not holding your hand, but I'm just going, hey, no, no, no, wait, let me show you exactly what to do here. You just do this. And it's like, and there's a lot, you know, there's, I've heard many people have told me that that's what they got from the podcast or that that's what they got from extreme ownership or the dichotomy leadership or the discipline equals freedom field manual. They're like, I always thought that. I always knew that.

• 1:16:59Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I was just with a Australian, when we were at the monster, you know, an Australian guy that was in the military for a long time. And he said, yeah, when I read, when I read your book, I was like, yes, you just put into words what I, the way I've been trying to lead. And the good thing about that is you have the idea in your head of what's good, but you don't necessarily codify it where you can now say, yes, this is the answer. So that's a, it's a big step. It's like occasionally you randomly pull the hand that's getting you in the mouth. You might do it occasionally, but you don't actually know it and identify it as something you can do. Whereas once you go, oh, when someone's doing that, here's the reaction, boom, do. So there's, there's a definite plus to that.

• 1:17:39Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And, and that. Rabbit hole of like revelations like that is is endless. Keeps like going and going and going and and certain things you sort of forget to, you know, because you know, a human being. We're all human beings with habits and stuff like that. So you forget certain ones or whatever, but man, it's like they're everywhere. Everywhere. So even like the whole, just the whole concept of.

• 1:18:04Echo Charles?

  If you don't feel like doing it, but you need, you know that it has to get, needs to get done or whatever, or even just that you want it to be done. But you don't feel like it, just the, just excluding the part that you don't feel like it, just doing that. Seems like super simple and easy, or it seems easy. It is very simple. It seems like pretty easy when you say it. And then when you go through it, it's, it seems so hard. But the weird thing, and this is nothing new, where once you, once you get it done, like, okay, so an email, right? You may or may not go through this, but a lot of us go through this where it's like you have this nagging email. Of someone that you have to respond to someone and to respond to them, you need certain information and to get that information, you gotta go reopen some files and stuff like that.

• 1:18:47Echo Charles?

  It'll take two minutes, two minutes, probably not even two minutes, but you gotta. Your brain has to stop thinking this way and has to pivot and change these weird directions and do all this other stuff, right? So you just, man, I don't feel like doing that right now. I'm doing this other stuff or I'm just not doing that right now. I'll do it tomorrow, do it later today, whatever. And then it winds up being like weeks and meanwhile, it's still there. The email's still there.

• 1:19:10Jocko Willink?

  Hanging over your head.

• 1:19:11Echo Charles?

  Hanging over your head. Then you're like.

• 1:19:13Jocko Willink?

  I just had to talk about that on the Warrior Kid Podcast, letting your homework hang over your head. I did, actually, there's some kids that probably didn't know what hang over your head. I kind of, I kind of explain what that means.

• 1:19:22Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:19:23Jocko Willink?

  Because when something's hanging over your head, what are you waiting? You're waiting for that thing to hit you in the head. So you don't want that. You got, when you get home from school, do your homework. Don't let it hang over you. It ruins your whole night. So that email is going to ruin your whole night.

• 1:19:36Echo Charles?

  Your whole thing, your whole life.

• 1:19:38Jocko Willink?

  Your whole life.

• 1:19:38Echo Charles?

  So I mean, not in this huge way, but it'll be nagging. It's like, you know, it's kind of like when, when you're sleeping and you gotta use the bathroom and you're like, oh. Just go use the bathroom. You don't want to get stand up. Just go, just do it. Anyway, so meanwhile, okay, then finally you're like, you know what? Finally, I feel like it or finally I can't take it anymore. Finally, it's irritating. It's irritating me enough, so I'll do it. You go in the email, you take care of the thing, you do it. It takes two minutes or whatever. You're done and you're like. Why didn't I just do that a long time ago? I wouldn't have felt any of that stress or whatever. And so, but habitually going into that mode where it's like, okay, this needs to get done. I don't care how I feel. I'm just gonna do it real quick. Like that in and of itself is a habit, is a way, you know, is a way of thinking at the very least.

• 1:20:20Echo Charles?

  So if that was something that I got better at as well.

• 1:20:27Jocko Willink?

  The other thing that's been interesting, well, interesting from my perspective is that you are de facto detached during this whole thing. So you get to be, I mean, first of all, even when, if I'm covering a book, I mean, you're listening, but you get to kind of observe me reading the book, thinking about the book, talking about the book. When we have guests on, a lot of times you don't say anything and you're just completely getting to observe this whole thing unfold from the outside. So you, I know we've gotten done with some podcasts and someone would ask me, say like, well, how was that? Like one of our guests would say, how was it? And I'll look at you and say, how was it? Cause I'm in it.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  And you have a better perspective because you are literally detached and watching it. I mean, I'm somewhat detached, but I'm also reading, writing, thinking, engaging, answering. So I'm doing all those things and I'm detached from that enough, you know, I'm detached from it enough that I can guide the conversation. I'm detached from enough that I'm not getting too emotional or too stuck on something. Or, I mean, let's, let's face it, there's been some danger close calls where those emotions are creeping up, you know? Sitting across from a, from a guy that's, you know, been through whatever and you're bringing those emotions back out of them. And I mean, it can get danger close for sure. And sometimes I gotta do a little detachment to keep it real.

• 1:21:54Jocko Willink?

  But you are, and sometimes I do a better job of detaching than you do. Cause, cause you'll be over in the corner or you'll be sitting in your chair, you know? And I gotta, I gotta try and keep it together. Yeah. Cause you're not. So, but that's sometimes. Sometimes you get wrapped up in the emotions of the story yourself, especially if it has to do with kids. You kind of lose the bubble. And, but other than those moments, a lot of times you're sitting there just listening and you're detached. So you kind of get to. You kind of get a great perspective of it, which is nice.

• 1:22:31Echo Charles?

  Yes, sir. Yeah, I'd say I'm like maybe sixty percent, maybe fifty percent detached. Because I'm like, I'm the audience member, just like everybody else, really. Like when you're talking about stuff and or when you're interviewing someone like, man, I'm enjoying the show like everybody else. But I'm like in the show as well, you know, so as an audience member, we'll say, uh, that's how I can evaluate, hey, that was a good show. Or like, bro, what are you guys even talking about right now kind of thing? I'm not saying that it's ever happened. I'm not saying it has, you know, but um, and that's why it is, you know? So yeah, I will be affected by these things and but then I'll be affected even more because yes, I am part of it.

• 1:23:14Echo Charles?

  Like I'm in it, you know, I'm sitting here across from you guys. Um, but yes, yeah, because when you're talking, um, whether you or even like, let's say when I'm I'm talking even right now. Like there's a few things sort of rolling in my brain like, okay, sure, I say what I'm gonna say, my little idea and it comes out. But then there's like a post-talk thought as well, like dang, yeah, exactly. Like a little assessment, like shit, am I saying the right thing, you know? Or did that sound dumb? It's like, it's just a constant like small like humming evaluation kind of process that's going on. And then it's like, okay, like, do I want to interrupt at this point because I have a thought, but no, I couldn't. So I'm sort of minding my Ps and Qs as well, you know, so there's all these little things that hold you in

• 1:23:55Echo Charles?

  and not it won't, it'll kind of keep you from being detached, but I don't have that when I'm not saying anything, you know? But yeah, even you, I mean, I would imagine you're you kind of have the same thing, you know? You have to run this, you have to, you know?

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  I gotta think about what I'm saying at the same time. This is, this is the dichotomy of that. If you think about what you're saying too much, it's not gonna be good. Just like jujitsu, right? If you're thinking about a move, it's too late. If you're, if you're analyzing what you're gonna say before it comes out of your mouth to make sure that's the right thing, well, you, you're, it's not, not the right thing to do. At the same time, you can't just go verbal diarrhea and just start spewing stuff out. Because now you, now you may say some stuff that you shouldn't say. So there's a, a little, a little game that you have to play. You have to, you have to kind of assess that stuff. You have to be detached when you're doing it to make sure that you don't say something stupid. And you can say stupid stuff. I mean, I.

• 1:24:47Jocko Willink?

  I think about the amount of interviews I've done and just like you never know when it's gonna come. I'm sure at some point I'm gonna say something and go, oof, I wish I wouldn't have said that. I should have never said that. You know, it is what it is.

• 1:25:02Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and you could, I mean, and it makes sense too where you can, you can have a certain thought. And then there's like, how do you say that thought, right? Like, how do you, how do you articulate your thoughts? Right? And to expect or to think that like, if you have a thought, it'll be perfectly articulated or whatever. Those don't go hand in hand. Some people are super good at it. Like, in fact, you're like, you're one of the better people that I've witnessed anyway that at that. Probably, you know, probably because you keep things pretty simple most of the time, but at the same time, like, you're not immune to that, you know? So sometimes like your articulation of a certain thought will come off like different, you know, it'll come off like, it might even be accurate. But then the way it'll land on people will be like, okay, and I'm not saying this necessarily has happened.

• 1:25:47Echo Charles?

  I'm saying this, this type of stuff can't happen. So it'll be like, oh, yeah, you came off as like insensitive or you don't understand or, or you're racist. Or you're, you know, like all these interpretations that seem like reasonable interpretations, given the words that you said. But it's like, man, that was just, I shouldn't have said it that way because it's not quite as accurate as what I think, you know? So, yeah, you've got to constantly monitor, monitor that. So it'll jam you up.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful of that. What about in terms of relationships, like your wife? What have you taken away?

• 1:26:19Echo Charles?

  Just taken, oh, man.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  Does your wife, does your wife like you more now?

• 1:26:24Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:24Jocko Willink?

  Or before?

• 1:26:26Echo Charles?

  I think, I think she likes me more now. Put it this way, like I, I like our relationship better now. And that's saying a lot because like we have a good, we already had a good relationship, you know? Like I was one of these, we were like these people who we knew each other before we started dating, like we knew it. So there was no like.

• 1:26:50Echo Charles?

  You can you can get in you can jam yourself up. I think sometimes like if you jump into a dating situation like super early and then a marriage situation super early and whatever like you can jam yourself up. I'm saying those happens, but you can. And I'm not saying if you know someone for a long time and take it slow. I'm not saying that's a perfect like solution. I'm not saying that. But in our case, we took it like super slow. So there was like, we had a solid foundation, have a solid foundation. So the point there, we had a good relationship, but you know, like in your relationship, there's like arguments and you know, misunderstanding. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that, you know, there's like way less of that like, because I know like habitually how to how to act, you know? So, okay, so extreme ownership, right? Extreme ownership.

• 1:27:34Jocko Willink?

  Heard of it.

• 1:27:35Echo Charles?

  That goes deep, bro. It's that's a concept like that rabbit hole right there is like you've at first, when you first like get introduced to it like, oh yeah, everything. And you're like, yeah, okay, makes sense.

• 1:27:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cool. I got that. Yeah, I get the concept.

• 1:27:48Echo Charles?

  Take ownership, don't blame. I get it, right? But there's like so many levels of blaming, so many. There's like the overt like, hey, you should have done this, like blaming, right? The kind of I think it, I say it, I'm blaming hundred percent. Then there's like, oh, you know, it's not your fault, but inside your head, you're like, it's your fault, you know? So that'll drive certain other like subsequent like behavior, you know? Then there's like, okay, I know I'm supposed to take, your thinking is near it. I'm supposed to take extreme ownership. So I'm not going to blame them. So it's not your, it's my fault, you know? But meanwhile, your behavior doesn't like take full responsibility because kind of sort of quote unquote, deep down, you know, it's not fully your fault. You know, it's kind of, and it just goes deeper and deeper, deeper, deeper.

• 1:28:30Echo Charles?

  And then you find out all these little pockets of like non-extreme ownership, you know, that you have. And to me, granted, you know, my life is very specific, but with your wife or I guess kids, but that's different, but with your wife is a good, it's a good battlefield to to to test that out and to learn about it because it can get so emotional, you know, like and you don't really have a break from it. You know, it's like at work, it's like, cool, that didn't work. Even if I messed up, I can still go home to my lovely family or go out to the bar. I have a break from it, you know? With your wife, it's like you don't have a break from it. It's like you, you gotta perform, you know, like you gotta, it kinda means a lot. It matters a lot. So I think it, it works good.

• 1:29:13Echo Charles?

  But at the same time, you guys both have a commitment to be there. So it's like, you can get cut some slack, most of the time. Obviously it depends on your wife, but in my case, that's how it was. So what I sort of discovered and continue to discover, like just how good it works. How good, like extreme ownership just and everything that comes with it, you know, like not blaming um, all the little tips that you'll say like, um, what is the one where like,

• 1:29:42Echo Charles?

  what do you say, absorbing something, you know, when they come at you with something that happened to them, like, can you believe?

• 1:29:46Jocko Willink?

  Reflect and diminish.

• 1:29:47Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that. Oh, man, man. Gold, golden ticket right there, man. So good. Even like, and that reflect and diminish.

• 1:29:58Echo Charles?

  In fact, you can even use it in like, you can just reflect.

• 1:30:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:30:01Echo Charles?

  You don't even have to diminish, just jump on her, if it doesn't mean anything, you know, just jump on her side right now, you know?

• 1:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, you can jump on the side. The thing is, the reason that diminish is important on reflect and diminish is because if you can fuel the fire even more, what you wanna move towards is a solution. You wanna, you wanna, you wanna deescalate the situation.

• 1:30:19Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  But the best way to do that is to reflect the emotions that they're showing and then diminish them a little bit. So that they come, so that they're on your side, yes, but then they start to calm down.

• 1:30:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah. So you can like, um, you can ref, so the, the, when I, when I just said that, I'm thinking of like a few different scenarios. Where I'll just reflect, I won't even diminish until like the next day or something, you know? So it's essentially it's reflecting, but I'll just reflect.

• 1:30:43Jocko Willink?

  Extended reflect.

• 1:30:44Echo Charles?

  Oh, man, you know how, how much it does for your, your, well, I'm speaking about myself, so I don't know, but.

• 1:30:50Jocko Willink?

  No, it's true. And, and by the way, you're talking about this from a marriage perspective. I'm talking about it from a, from a leadership perspective, but, and they're the same thing. They're the same thing. But what's interesting is you just said, you know how good this is? And you're right. And you know what? You gotta be careful of that. Because it's an easy way to bond with someone, is they come in and say, the boss sucks. And you go, yeah, the boss sucks. That's actually not the right thing to do, right? Want to disparage your boss. What you want to say is, you know, you want it, but you don't want to say, no, the boss is awesome. Because now you're enemies, right? But when a person says, oh, the boss sucks. And you say, you know, I'm not really sure where they're making this decision from. Oh, okay.

• 1:31:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, now you're talking about decision. So you're you're giving them a little bit of reflection, but you're diminishing a little bit. So you can have a real conversation about what's going on.

• 1:31:38Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Yeah. So there's a certain scenario that that is comes up a lot. This scenario literally means nothing at the end of the day. So and you'll get the, well, in my life, I'll get these from time to time where. So, for example, my wife, like many wives, watch reality TV from time to time. And you know, it's the Real Housewives of this or Married to Medicine or whatever, right?

• 1:32:04Jocko Willink?

  These are TV shows.

• 1:32:07Echo Charles?

  And they're like the, depends on your opinion, but you know, they're, in my opinion, one of the most, like the lamest type of show, but whatever. It's real. It's these girls, they throw them together and they're all rich and super immature and doing dumb stuff, yelling and blah, blah, blah.

• 1:32:21Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like awesome.

• 1:32:25Echo Charles?

  So, but here's the thing, you know, when there's like a sort of, you know, when we're just sort of cruising, relaxing or whatever and and it's on. This is what I used to do back in the day where I'd be like, like, what is this? This show is dumb.

• 1:32:39Jocko Willink?

  You disparage her, uh, the thing that she likes.

• 1:32:43Echo Charles?

  Right. And I didn't mean, that's not what I'm meaning to do.

• 1:32:46Jocko Willink?

  You're disparaging her.

• 1:32:48Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I didn't mean to do that. I'm more like, I'm talking about the show, you know?

• 1:32:53Jocko Willink?

  Just being truthful.

• 1:32:54Echo Charles?

  You're being truthful. Exactly right.

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink?

  You're just using radical candor.

• 1:32:58Echo Charles?

  Exactly. But meanwhile, she'd get, I mean, she wouldn't get mad, but every once in a while she'd be like, hey, just leave me alone, you know, like, I don't, I don't. You know, talk trash about your shows, you know, I don't give you, she, she was like, I don't insult you, you know, about your shows or whatever. Meanwhile, I'm thinking like. Keep in mind, I sometimes watch MacGyver and these types of shows, right? So I don't really have much of a leg to stand on. But in my head, I'm like, yeah, because my shows are awesome. Kind of thing, you know? And the thing is, I'm not doing anything to her. I'm talking about the show, you know, kind of thing. But just like you said, it's like I'm disparaging her taste and show, her choices, like basically

• 1:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Her whole life.

• 1:33:35Echo Charles?

  Her whole, her whole thing. So, so I started, started to realize that or whatever. So I did the whole reflect, no diminish. Cause it's meaningless. The show is me, like I can disparage your show and her all, which she's still gonna like the show. You know, it's not like she bases her life on it. This is literally meaningless. So now she'll be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe like this lady did that. I'm in the room, so of course it could literally be a cat in the room. She'd probably say the same thing. Like she's just saying it to someone, right? This is where I can't believe, I can't believe she did this. And she'll like rewind it or whatever. But like, hell yeah. Yeah, she's so stupid, like kind of like I'm into the show, you know? Every once in a while she'll catch it. She'd be like, you don't like this show or whatever. But and the thing is I don't, but it's kind of fun to do. And at the same time, it's like, consider the difference, you know?

• 1:34:19Echo Charles?

  Consider the difference of me saying, oh my gosh, don't, you don't, don't rewind it. I don't care about that, you know? So it's like that kind of stuff as well, man. Where it's like, you kind of look at in, you look at the whole situation as far as like the big picture. You know, where it's like, did, do I, do I make it a point to make a point right now?

• 1:34:39Jocko Willink?

  Let me answer that question for you. No.

• 1:34:43Jocko Willink?

  So when you look broadly, what's, what's like your most valuable?

• 1:34:52Jocko Willink?

  Thing that you've kind of adopted into your life since we started recording this podcast?

• 1:34:59Echo Charles?

  Okay, there's, there, at first there was one, but there's two things and they might play off each other, I guess, but. The main one is the long game versus the short game. And, and you said that to me early on that I was like, like, I would have never thought of that. Given what you said it about back then. But the long game versus the short game. So I was like, man. So that stuck with my head and since then I realized every little move you make, literally, like in life. I don't care if it's like you're going to the store to go buy some, I don't know, paper towels or something. It's like, there's always a long game and a short game in play right now. So anything, and if you think about it, anything that you're successful at, it's like you're at least playing the long game. Some things in life, people just aren't even playing the game. They're just going minute to minute, you know? And that's a, that's short play, you know?

• 1:35:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, you know, you, you caught this at one of the musters, a guy asked, how often are you thinking strategically? Which thinking strategically is thinking the long game. And you, you caught a clip of me getting a little bit fired up of, of saying, you know, I'm thinking strategic all the time. That's, and that's the truth. That is the way you should look at every decision that you make. Why would you make a decision based on the short-term outcome? Being positive if it has a negative long-term effect. You just shouldn't do that. You gotta play the long game. And I'll tell you, like, I am thinking strategic all the time.

• 1:36:27Echo Charles?

  So good, man.

• 1:36:28Jocko Willink?

  And that is so beneficial. It's so beneficial in everything that you do. And yet, it's easy to get suckered in to making short-term decisions based on short-term gratification, based on the ease of movement, based on the path of least resistance, based on what's going to feel good right now, based on even what's going to produce good results right now.

• 1:36:52Jocko Willink?

  Look, we hope that our immediate results are aligned with our long-term results and something that benefits us right now will benefit, benefit us in the long run. That's a great opportunity. That does happen sometimes. But sometimes, oftentimes, short-term gains will result in long-term losses. So you gotta think through this. In everything that you do.

• 1:37:16Echo Charles?

  Yeah, and I remember when that guy asked that question. And I remember thinking to myself, hmm, that's interesting. It kind of became clear why that's not so obvious. And there's obvious reasons why it's not so obvious. Because when he asked the question, he's like, how? Because even when you put it in those terms, like strategic versus tactical, right? Tactical is the short-term game. Strategic is the long-term game. Even so, when you use those specific words, like, hey, so, how often are you thinking strategic? It's almost like he gives this feeling. It's a feeling that you're like plotting, you know? How often are you plotting? Meaning you have a certain plot in mind, you know? Like, but it doesn't mean that.

• 1:37:57Echo Charles?

  Like, that's one maybe possible way of seeing it, but I'm not talking about that. Like, everything is like a game. Like, you're moving through life, you know? So where's your aim going to kind of sort of be? And those aims, those goals, for lack of a better term, are literally everything you do. Like, otherwise, what are you even doing? Why would you even move a muscle, you know? If you don't have like an aim to do it or whatever? And that aim is going to be either long-term or short-term. It can be both, can be both for sure. And that's like, that's rare, but that's really a good opportunity, as you put it. But even if like you're sitting there, right? Not moving a muscle, right? We'll say, let's go extreme example. And you're like, okay, I gotta move a muscle, right?

• 1:38:41Echo Charles?

  Maybe because I'm getting stiff or whatever. There's always some like goal that you gotta sort of achieve.

• 1:38:48Echo Charles?

  And if you look at everything like that and you consider, okay, what's the ultimate outcome that I want? You know, and you could just keep that in mind? Man, that is like a life, life-changing thing when you can really understand that, I think.

• 1:39:01Jocko Willink?

  That is a good one. Another thing that I told a story one time on this podcast and you mentioned it to me. I was talking about how when I was young, I was in a SEAL platoon and I was thinking I was all awesome. And all of a sudden, like, other guys were getting promoted. Other guys were moving into better positions than me. And I've kind of looked at myself and I said, if you're so smart... Then why aren't you winning? And that was a big step for me to come to that realization. And, and what's good about it is that's another kind of early indicator of taking ownership. Because instead of me saying, look, I'm, I'm smart and I'm not winning because everyone else is against me.

• 1:39:45Jocko Willink?

  Because this guy's that and this guy's an ass kisser and this guy, you know, all that. Could have done that. Instead, I looked at myself and said, wait a second. If you're so smart, and, and luckily for me, some of the guys around me were good guys. They were my friends. I knew that they, I couldn't blame anything on them. But if I was so smart, why wasn't I winning?

• 1:40:01Echo Charles?

  Yeah, that's the other thing that.

• 1:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's the other, that's the other.

• 1:40:04Echo Charles?

  Hundred percent. And, you know, you see it in people and like, like a lot of these things, just like extreme ownership. Like you can see it in other people super clear, you know, like. This guy's talking a lot of trash for being a loser, you know, kind of thing, you know, like, you know, the old thing where it's like, oh yeah, I'm getting. This guy's giving me relationship advice when he's like a single person, you know, he doesn't have a successful relationship or whatever. You know, it's like that kind of stuff. It's super easy to see that in other people. But for yourself, it's like, yeah, man, I have this cool idea that you probably got from someone else or whatever. And you have this cool idea and you're so quick to be, to tell people about it and to correct this person, you know, because it's so obvious they're doing it wrong. Right? So you're going to correct them and boom, boom. And you have your arguments and debates all like formulated perfectly.

• 1:40:48Echo Charles?

  Win any debate. Meanwhile, you're not doing anything, you know, and if you're just like sort of.

• 1:40:55Echo Charles?

  So that is a big deal. Like, well, I realized that that's a huge deal. Like, and it's way better just to be quiet, man. You got it. And it, and it kind of like how you guys talk about at the monster, you and Dave Burke. They'll, good deal, Dave. You'll talk about like, uh, taking action, right? So it's like, the taking action part is like the hardest part or whatever, right? It's like the guy who goes to school so much, so much. And then he's like, but he can't really function in the real world. Cause his whole focus on, is on going to school. Or the person watching like a bunch of motivational videos. And he's just, all he's motivated to do is watch more motivational videos. You know, he doesn't take any action or whatever.

• 1:41:29Jocko Willink?

  Do you get dopamine from a one motivational video?

• 1:41:33Echo Charles?

  Do I?

• 1:41:34Jocko Willink?

  Do people?

• 1:41:35Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's what, that's what makes him gonna want to go watch another one?

• 1:41:39Echo Charles?

  Watch more. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. There are like two things, you know, like two separate, separate things. But nonetheless, it, um.

• 1:41:49Echo Charles?

  It kinda brings all that into perspective, you know, like you, you, if you're not, or if you're so smart, why aren't you winning? So, the why aren't you winning part, that's the most important part. You know, like, it's almost like, bro, who cares how smart that person is? You ever, you ever hear someone hate on someone like, oh, they're just dumb or whatever, like, uh, who's the one? The, uh, the, uh, Kim Kardashian, right? You know, people hate on her, they're like, I'm not even saying necessarily that I feel this way, but I'm saying this is what plays out a lot of times. They'll hate on her, she's so dumb, and they're so dumb, or whatever, and then it's like, alright, but if you're so not dumb, like, why is she, like, winning, you know, and you're sorta not, you know, kinda thing? It's like, that whole idea is, is, got put into perspective, very much.

• 1:42:34Echo Charles?

  So it's like, that's always on my mind too, like, before I open my mouth or whatever. It's like, bro, you, before you open your mouth, you should really work on a bunch of stuff first. You see what I'm saying? So that's a, yeah, that's a big one, and it helps a lot too, because you start to focus on doing, rather than blabbing, you know? And, and, I don't mean just blabbing, I mean, everywhere, like, on social media, all these people having their strong opinions, you know?

• 1:42:56Jocko Willink?

  Bro, it's crazy, I, you know, I, I, I see that happen, right? You know, like, when I was on with Joe Rogan and Tulsi Gabbard.

• 1:43:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, obviously, there was, there's, she's a, she's literally running for president of the United States of America? Okay, cool, and there's, obviously, we, we touched on, we didn't really, like, have a debate by any stretch. I mean, we, we both, we both kinda talked about things, and we all kinda talked about things as human beings that were, whatever, you know, it was pretty straightforward, right? But the, the conversations that took place on Twitter after that?

• 1:43:38Jocko Willink?

  I mean, we're talking just, I, I, I was- I was like, man, is this the best place for this random person to have this major debate with some other random person about whatever topic had come up that was either, you know, they didn't agree with or they agreed with. So, like, it's a little crazy sometimes.

• 1:44:03Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:05Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I hear people say, you know, that Twitter is just the most horrible thing to participate in, right? And I don't really think it's a horrible thing. In fact, I've gotten great interactions on Twitter. I've gotten incredible feedback. I've met people. I mean, the whole reason that I was on with Joe and Tulsi was because of Twitter. But books, I've linked up with people, we've had people on the podcast that I never would have heard of or never would have been introduced to, that, that are American heroes, that have incredible stories, that that's all through Twitter. I've gotten great feedback. I've gotten adjustments. I've gotten correct.

• 1:44:48Jocko Willink?

  So, that's all good. But yeah, if you're gonna go down the hole of like, hey, let's debate this hot, controversial topic.

• 1:45:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's hard for me to, to, to reflect on that in a positive way. You know, it's like hard for me to look at someone and go, man, this is what you, you know, you just sent out nine tweets, like linked, you know, you can link tweets together. And someone will send out nine tweets about some topic. And it just worries me because I think there's more productive things that people could do with their time. Like if you, if you want to put those things together in an organized way and you want to make those statements and, and almost always they're attacking like in a super aggressive, personal attack as well. So anyways, it's just interesting.

• 1:45:46Echo Charles?

  Yeah, a lot of times it, it says a lot, like the words say what they say, but like the fact that those words are there like says a whole nother thing, you know, like, you know, the old, nothing new where it's like, man. You don't have anything better to do than to like express and it's not like a lot any by any logical means they'd come to the conclusion that yeah, what I say is gonna like solve whatever problem it is that I'm addressing or whatever like there's no reason to think that.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I I guess I'm trying to think of a good metaphor. For me, this is like a metaphor. If you saw someone that was having a that was shouting at a at a toilet at the top of their lungs. And and they walk out of that stall kinda like

• 1:46:38Echo Charles?

  Hell yeah.

• 1:46:38Jocko Willink?

  You know, kinda like, yeah. And and I'm thinking, man, you just you just yelled because that's what that's what it is, right? You're yelling at a toilet because whoever doesn't want to listen, he isn't even gonna read the little things that you wrote. So what's once again, that's why it's more what's more important is like why not find some common ground with someone from a leadership from just from a leadership perspective, right? From a leadership perspective, I want to find common ground with someone. I want to figure out what it is that they think what their perspective is so that I can understand their perspective so that I can actually give them a logical argument.

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Or at least show them what I believe to be valid points so that they can then give me feedback on those points and I can learn from them and either adjust my position or adjust their position. You can't get that done when you're yelling at a toilet, which is what a lot of people end up doing. So.

• 1:47:36Echo Charles?

  But yeah, that and also that reminds me as well and another is a little bit more of a detail than anything, but like how you how you do the the whole at the monsters, you call it being a tactical genius, where you just be quiet and let everyone else talk kinda thing. And this like I find way more prevalent when I hear two people talk when they're talking or debating and there's little differences and differences. And then you can kinda, you know, like you're detached from it, right? But you actively because man, before. I was strongly compelled to like jump in and like correct you, you're wrong here and let me correct you, right? Cause I'm smart, right? I gotta prove it to these people. I'm down, down for this whole thing. I'm smart, right? So I was so quick to like jump in and be like, yeah,

• 1:48:19Echo Charles?

  you know, that's wrong or that's correct. And let me expand on that kind of thing, you know, and it's fun to do, you know, it's all, you know, you're having conversations, whatever, I dig it. But there's a bigger picture, you know? So if you don't say anything, you can see that bigger picture. You can be like, bro, you know how annoying you're being right now? Like you're, I think you're saying like truthful stuff or whatever, but you're being, there's a bigger picture with what you're doing. So

• 1:48:40Jocko Willink?

  Your tactics might be good, your strategy is awful.

• 1:48:43Echo Charles?

  It's way off.

• 1:48:44Jocko Willink?

  Your long game is weak. You're gonna win this argument and you're gonna make this person dig in deeper. That's what's gonna happen.

• 1:48:50Echo Charles?

  Not to mention like you less.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:52Echo Charles?

  After this. Like you think you're impressing them with the, and I'm thinking of like very specific conversations that I'm remembering right now, whether it be friends or whatever, friend, family. But you, you kind of think to yourself, man, like, I, I used to talk to my brother about this idea where it's like, man, what you're saying is correct in your little debate, but bro, what you're doing is wrong. You know, you can't do that. Um, or you can, but you're gonna lose your war or whatever. So yeah, so one, the, one of the things I learned that's just with me right now, it's with me hardcore, is just don't say anything. Just be the tactical genius. So when they ask you, or when they look at you, or when you do for whatever, like strategic reason, wanna chime in. Yeah. You're like,

• 1:49:35Echo Charles?

  you're way more um, in a position of the, that you wanna be in, you know? And you, you don't run the risk of being all sucked in and alienating people and doing all the things that, that you run the risk of doing when you're, you know, trying to impress them with how smart you are and how good your position is, you know?

• 1:49:55Jocko Willink?

  All right. So let's get to your black belt.

• 1:49:57Echo Charles?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:49:59Jocko Willink?

  You were surprised.

• 1:50:00Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:50:01Jocko Willink?

  We did a good job of keeping it under wraps.

• 1:50:03Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Jocko Willink?

  But had you at this point just surrendered the fact that you maybe just were gonna be a brown belt for a really long time?

• 1:50:10Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And part of this, part of it was like, I'm glad I thought of it this way. And part of it is like, man, I should, you know, you always think back on things like how you should have handled things or whatever. So, so moving up in ranks and, and I say this, Kinda in a way as advice to maybe people who can fall into these psychological traps with the belt, right? They want a belt, they want that stripe or the blue belt or the purple, you know, they want, they wanna get promoted, right? Cause they wanna, part of it is because they wanna wear that belt and it doesn't, keep in mind, it does not help. Jiu Jitsu doesn't help.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  Jiu Jitsu does not get better.

• 1:50:47Echo Charles?

  Currently does not help uh thi- this particular situation where, you know, when uh in our school, we don't really do them.

• 1:50:53Jocko Willink?

  I thought you were saying it does not help, like, like, no, no, no. I thought you were saying, hey, getting your black belt, by the way, it does not help your Jiu Jitsu, which I was like, that is true. I was like, that's a great statement. Black belt does not make your Jiu Jitsu any better.

• 1:51:08Echo Charles?

  Nope, it might even introduce the idea that it's not nearly as good as you thought it was. But yes, oh, yeah, I'll tell you about that too, by the way. But I'm saying the culture of Jiu Jitsu doesn't help your think, your mindset about this. Especially like our school doesn't do this a lot where, you know how they line, everyone line up at the end or the beginning of class? And they're like, hey, my belt, you white belts, you go in the back.

• 1:51:30Jocko Willink?

  Go in the back.

• 1:51:31Echo Charles?

  Go suckers, you know?

• 1:51:32Jocko Willink?

  Losers.

• 1:51:33Echo Charles?

  Yeah, man, subhuman, bro, whatever you guys.

• 1:51:35Jocko Willink?

  Savages.

• 1:51:36Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah. And oh, the, oh, the black belts, not, not even in the front row, in front of everybody, facing them. You know, you guys bow down in front of us kinda thing, right? And then, okay, if you're a brown belt, you're almost here, so you can come close, right? Everyone else in the back, you know? So it's like, I dig it, man. I did, the Jiu Jitsu culture does not help. But if you can kinda get past that, um, this is how ideally, I would have tried to think about it. Where you, like, okay, so you, the belt doesn't matter, okay. So when I, when I was coming up, I didn't know there was belts. Like, I, I didn't really know. I watched UFC one, two, three, four, you know, those ones? And sure, high school, you're wearing a belt, but I joined no G V D, so we don't wear belts, therefore no belts.

• 1:52:21Echo Charles?

  I don't know, I'm thinking back, I didn't think about this, but I, I'm. Thinking that that's probably my subconscious thought. So, one day Brent, remember Brent? He was one of the trainers or whatever. He was like, you guys are about white belts here. And it was me in a group and I was like, white belts? I was like, hmm, I never thought of that, you know? So, doing tournaments and competition and stuff like that. After it was a year, like 12, 13 months, right? Jimmy, remember Jimmy Sanchez, right? He was like, hey, uh, come to class tomorrow. And I was like, I was like, no, I can't come tomorrow. It was at six or whatever. I work, I work at night. So, I can't come. And he was like, no, no, no, come tomorrow, come tomorrow. You have to come tomorrow. And I'm like, I can't come tomorrow. I don't know how else to tell you.

• 1:53:06Echo Charles?

  Like, I can't come tomorrow. I'm not training tomorrow. And he's like, no, no, no. We're having promotions tomorrow. So, I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm not thinking belt promotions. I don't know about that yet. So, he's like-

• 1:53:18Jocko Willink?

  You still didn't realize?

• 1:53:19Echo Charles?

  Nope, had no idea. And he, and he goes, uh, he's like, no, we're having promotions. But I'm thinking, you know how like promotions, like a tap out is coming in to promote their brand?

• 1:53:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:30Echo Charles?

  It's like a show and you can buy-

• 1:53:31Jocko Willink?

  Like a promotion.

• 1:53:32Echo Charles?

  A promotion, that's what I'm thinking. So, and everyone comes and it's a fun thing. I thought it was like a team thing or something. And I'm like, that's cool. And I, man, if I didn't work, that'd be cool and I would've come. And he's like, bro. It's like, what, I gotta tell? I was like, you're getting, he goes, you're getting promoted tomorrow to blue belt. And I was like, huh, blue belt? Cause I never wore gi before, I was all no gi. So, it just didn't dawn on me. So, I was like, okay. That was only after like 13 months or whatever. So, I was just focused on training and learning cool new moves. And oh my gosh, I can do this now and all that, you know? Getting better and that's what I was focused on learning and stuff. Then I got a blue belt, I was like, cool, but still no gi. I was competing. So, it's like the belt never really, I'm just, I just wanna win. I just wanna get better and win. Cause if I don't win, I lose tournaments and that, that part sucks. Doesn't matter what belt.

• 1:54:17Echo Charles?

  Plus it no gi, like I said, it's it's not belt driven, it's you know, time. So. And then I got purple belt like another year, like super fast. And it was like a surprise. It was like Elias was there. Joel Tudor was there. He was like, we're rolling. And I did a little bit of gi at this time and I was, we're doing gi and then Elias just bust out a purple belt and he's like giving it to me or whatever. And I was like, huh. This is pretty kind of surprising and kind of crazy. But I started to do more gi and then I I got hurt like at the end of purple belt and and. You know, people were starting to look at me like, hey, when are you getting to get your brown belt? And it started getting introduced to me. So then my mindset kind of started to shift. Then I stopped competing too.

• 1:54:57Echo Charles?

  So now like just competing to win wasn't really part of it. It was it was all about walking in the training room. Or this crept into my into my mind. So walk in the training room, you know, I'm a purple belt. But I've been a purple belt for a while. So like, I want to be a brown belt. Well, I'm better than that guy, you know, like I tapped that guy out. I should be, I should be. Wearing the brown belt, standing up front a little bit more, you know, it's that starts to creep in. Meanwhile, all the stuff that got. Got you there, you know, like focusing on like learning new moves, getting better at your moves and and being effective or whatever. That is like sort of secondary, you know, you kind of focus like. Oh, my instructor's here now. Let me um, I better not get caught. I better not experiment. I better like show them I'm good, you know, it's like that and it jams you up.

• 1:55:41Echo Charles?

  So and then that's not to mention the frustration when it doesn't happen day after day, week after week. And don't let there be a promotion and you not get promoted.

• 1:55:51Echo Charles?

  Harsh man, harsh. Luckily that never happened to me, but like. I seen people like behave in ways that you should never behave in Jiu Jitsu after that happens to them. You know, the kind of like a promotion goes on, everyone gets promoted and they don't.

• 1:56:05Echo Charles?

  So anyway, but I so I can imagine the feeling, right? And then it and it jammed me up. I felt like my learning just didn't was like I plateaued like pretty hardcore. What year is this? This is like end of purple belt. Which what year is that? I got my brown belt in twelve, twenty twelve. Okay. So there is that. And then, you know, after you kind of get promoted, then everything starts to come into perspective, you know, like, man, I shouldn't have wasted my time thinking like that, all this stuff. But you're kind of easy now that you have the brown belt that you wanted the whole time kind of thing, right? So you kind of let it go. And then

• 1:56:41Jocko Willink?

  Especially because brown belt is kind of legit.

• 1:56:44Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  Like, I mean, brown belt is legit. Like, you're a complete, um, you know.

• 1:56:51Echo Charles?

  Yeah, you're, you're, yeah.

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, it's a real thing.

• 1:56:54Echo Charles?

  Yeah, it's like, I think.

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  You're seriously in the game.

• 1:56:57Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  You have game.

• 1:56:59Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 1:57:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, you can technically be a purple belt and really maybe not have that great. I mean, look, there's purple belts out there that are murderers for sure.

• 1:57:08Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  But you can, you can be a purple belt and be like, eh, you know? And of course, there's cases where this is completely untrue, but usually a brown belt is legit. Like 90, I guess for every belt, it goes up like a percentage of what the, what the, what the, how legit? What the chances are that this person is totally, is legit and has really good jujitsu. At brown belt, there's a really high probability that you're legit and you have really good jujitsu.

• 1:57:37Echo Charles?

  Yeah, that's a good way of putting it where it's like for every, cause it, it always feels that way. When you're a white belt and you get promoted to blue belt, um, you're like, man, that's like, that's legit. That's a big, huge deal. And then when you get promoted to purple belt, it's so much of a bigger deal that it's like, oh, my blue belt promotion was awesome. But like nothing compared to this purple belt. And then purple belt to brown is almost like you're becoming an adult kind of thing, you know? So it's like way bigger. It's like cool purple belt, but brown belt, you know? And then of course brown belt to black belt is even bigger, you know? Um, plus is like an added little thing to the black belt. But, um, so, you know, it's easier to have clear thoughts on that.

• 1:58:18Jocko Willink?

  What added little thing to the?

• 1:58:19Echo Charles?

  To being a black belt?

• 1:58:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20Echo Charles?

  Well, you get to stand up front and face the people now, you know?

• 1:58:25Jocko Willink?

  So that's the thing?

• 1:58:26Echo Charles?

  No, I, there's a lot more to it.

• 1:58:28Jocko Willink?

  One thing is when you're a black belt, now the percentage of people that are, that have, that don't really have good jujitsu that are black belts is very, very small. It's very, very small. Having a black belt in jujitsu means there's a 99% chance that you are good at jujitsu.

• 1:58:44Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:45Jocko Willink?

  Cause there's some people that whatever, I don't even know where they got their belts from or whatever. Cause what I don't want to do is just blanket say everyone that's a black belt is awesome. Cause that's not true.

• 1:58:53Echo Charles?

  Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:54Jocko Willink?

  But there's a really good chance that you've got some good jujitsu if you're a black belt.

• 1:58:58Echo Charles?

  Yeah, fully. And so anyway, the, so the point, and then I ne- I never really ran into that at brown belt, even though I was a brown belt for a long time, like 17 years I was a brown belt. That was more because I had like career and I let myself like not focus on jujitsu, you know, for a while, then you know, I got hurt again, like all this, all this stuff.

• 1:59:19Jocko Willink?

  You know who was always campaigning for you to get your black belt?

• 1:59:21Echo Charles?

  Who?

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  Greg Train.

• 1:59:22Echo Charles?

  Yeah, okay. Good, my man.

• 1:59:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, he would. And he's, you're, you're the guy that he'd be like, hey, right?

• 1:59:32Jocko Willink?

  He'd be like, I was feeling good. And I go, yeah, yeah. And he's, that was the classic, that's where my joke came from, is when do you think he should get his black belt? And I go, probably another six months. And then he probably asked me that five times, you know, for two years, for two years. Yeah, maybe even longer. He was like, hey, what do you think? And then honestly, part of it was you'd get hurt.

• 1:59:51Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:51Jocko Willink?

  You got, you got hurt at some really bad timing to get hurt.

• 1:59:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:55Jocko Willink?

  Meaning it was really close. Like, okay, we, we, you know, it was like, okay, we're almost in, I personally was almost in the planning stages of like, okay, time to give him his black belt.

• 2:00:06Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  And I probably reached that planning phase. I might've reached that planning phase. I don't know. Have you been hurt three times?

• 2:00:13Echo Charles?

  There bit, there, well, major injury was by, at brown belt, bicep, my knee, I was out for a while.

• 2:00:23Echo Charles?

  Just probably my bicep and my knee. As far as hurt injuries go, yeah.

• 2:00:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so there's probably

• 2:00:26Echo Charles?

  That I can remember.

• 2:00:27Jocko Willink?

  Two times in there where it was, I was probably in the planning phase of, okay, we need to make this happen.

• 2:00:33Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:33Jocko Willink?

  And when you get hurt, I'd be like, well, it's not happening now.

• 2:00:35Echo Charles?

  Yeah, you know what's, what's, I guess could be frustrating, but I, I didn't feel it at the time when I was in, that happened with purple belt as well. Cause that day when I got hurt,

• 2:00:46Echo Charles?

  Elias told me, hey, you got it. I was really into no gi and no gi, uh, competition. So I didn't want to do the gi part of it. That was like an all day competition. They had gi in the day and then no gi at night. And, uh, Elias was like, hey, do the gi part of it. And I was like, no, no, that's not where my goals lie.

• 2:01:02Jocko Willink?

  And he's like, no.

• 2:01:03Echo Charles?

  Giving the speech, he was like, no, no, no, you should really do the gi, it'll help your game, all this stuff. So like, I'd be like, cool, man, I respect you and you're the man. But my goals don't lie, you know, giving him this sort of technical speech. And he's like, kind of like how Jimmy did it, did me a long time ago. He's like, bro, do the gi, cause this gi competition is your brown belt test. Straight up told me, cause he wanted to, so I'm like, cool, won, I won the purple belt.

• 2:01:28Echo Charles?

  Got hurt in the no gi. No purple belt, years and years and years go by. No purple belt, so same deal, man, like right before.

• 2:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Wait, that was, he told you brown belt or purple belt?

• 2:01:38Echo Charles?

  I was a purple belt, that was the, that gi competition.

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:41Echo Charles?

  He didn't say if I won or not, he just said, that's your test for, to get your brown belt.

• 2:01:45Jocko Willink?

  To get brown belt, yeah, he just changed it to, to a purple belt when you, when you retold the story.

• 2:01:50Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01:50Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 2:01:51Echo Charles?

  Yeah, so that was the test, um, and yeah.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  Passed the test, no promotion.

• 2:01:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah, cause I got hurt, so same deal. But it's, yeah, it's part of the game, but in brown, in brown belt, even though it was a longer time. And you know what, now that I'm thinking of it, and I had to stop before you, the, the, the introduction, I guess it wasn't an introduction, but the introduction of you taking a little bit more like control over what belt I had. Like when we're, um, I don't know when exactly that was, but there is a time where I'm, where I'm thinking. In fact, someone even told me, maybe told someone who eventually told me that like, oh yeah, they're gonna promote actually a brown belt, but Jocko's standing in the way, like Jocko won't let it happen. Like the kind Dean was said like, okay, and Jocko was like, no, that's what someone told me.

• 2:02:39Jocko Willink?

  That might be a little bit of a, that might be a little bit of, uh, I mean, the bottom line is we, we have a pretty.

• 2:02:46Echo Charles?

  Actually, someone did tell me that exact thing and I know who it is, it doesn't matter.

• 2:02:49Jocko Willink?

  Pretty, pretty democratic. promotional system here because we have so many black belts. Everybody knows different sides of people's games. So generally there'll be like a hey, what do you think? I mean, for the lower belts, it's sort of, you know, the individual black belt instructor be like, hey, I promoted this guy, this guy. But when it comes to black belt, there's going to be some consensus.

• 2:03:12Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Now, I will say I am probably the biggest hurdle. When it comes to black belt, right? Because it's a big deal. So I'm not over here throwing out black belts on people and going, yup, yup, good to go. So, yeah, I mean, there were some times I don't, you know, whether I was the only guy standing in the way. And part of it is just the whole dynamics of the situation, which is, you know, someone throws it out there, not like, hey, I think, but someone being like, hey, you think Echo is ready? My standard answer is going to be like, no, not ready. Probably, probably like six months.

• 2:03:50Echo Charles?

  Right.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Probably pretty standard answer, whether that was you or whoever. So, yeah, there's probably some facts to me being the road, roadblock.

• 2:04:01Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  But not because, not because I was like, I don't want to give Echo his black belt. That wasn't it at all. It's like, I want Echo to be, to deserve his black belt.

• 2:04:15Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:04:16Echo Charles?

  That's what I always felt too.

• 2:04:17Jocko Willink?

  And you weren't ready.

• 2:04:19Echo Charles?

  Yeah, well, put simply, you had a specific standard that wasn't a, that was not a flimsy standard. That was like for the, the real deal. And so I figured that and with varying levels and mixed emotions about that because, you know, the immature side of me is like, like, man, just, just let it go, bro. You know, like, why you gotta be so, just a hard ass all the time kind of attitude? And then the other side is like, man, the, it's almost like logical where. Man, who would you rather be like a medium or not so good black belt? Or like the best brown belt? Like who would you, as far as that kind of thinking goes, innocent like man? I'd rather be the good brown belt, really, you know? Cause you're rolling around with your, but like everyone knows the black belt is not that good, you know? And you don't want to be that guy.

• 2:05:04Echo Charles?

  It's if you think, if you're thinking like that, you know? So it's like, you know, I, I get it. I make sense. And then of course, if you can get to the maturity level to think, well, when it, if it does happen, I'm going to be so happy that it happened this way. If you can get there, then it's like, okay, that'll make you feel better too. And that's again, if you're even focusing on that, that belt situation. So when I even thought about it and when I'd hear all this stuff that like, yeah, like these people want to like promote you, but then Jocko like doesn't, you know, kind of thing? Then I'd be, then that, when I think about it, it'd be like, I think to myself, yeah, I'd basically have to tap Jocko out. Like not even once to like the guy, like I'd have to, I'd have to tap him out a few times for him to like consider giving. That's what I just figured.

• 2:05:48Jocko Willink?

  You just kind of got to that place in your mind.

• 2:05:50Echo Charles?

  Yeah. So that was it. And then, so it's in a way, it's easy to, to get, or it, it made it easier for me to not even focus on it anymore. It's kind of like, did you tap out Jocko today? No? Okay. Then let's move on kind of thing in your own mind, you know? But let's say, let's say I did tap you out though. That would throw me right back into the downward spiral focusing on belts. So that's kind of the bad, you know, thinking like that. So eventually I came to the conclusion, this is probably like leading up, like the months or year maybe leading up to it is like, Jocko might give me a black belt when he's on his deathbed and we're done with this life and, or he's done with this life. Hopefully I don't die before him and he'll be like, oh, by the way, and give, you know, boom, I have a black belt. And I for real had that thought, like you, whatever.

• 2:06:35Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, okay, I'm okay with it. Okay, he's holding up for a little while to, okay, I gotta tap him out before he's going to give it to me. Okay. So he's just, I'm never going to get it.

• 2:06:43Echo Charles?

  Never. Yeah.

• 2:06:46Echo Charles?

  And keep in mind, I'm not thinking this every single day. I'm saying when I did think about that, or when people would be like, hey, when are you getting your black belt or your black belt? Those are the thoughts that would go in my mind.

• 2:06:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, I, this was years ago. I had a conversation with James Nielsen about this, because I forget who we were looking at promoting to black belt. But I was like, yeah, you know, maybe in like six months. And then they were like, you know, James was like, bro, he's good, or she's good.

• 2:07:14Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, yeah, and I, I think I said like, hey, that person's never even passed my guard before.

• 2:07:19Echo Charles?

  Right.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  You know, it might have even been about you, but I don't think it was. I think it was an earlier black belt. I think it was maybe like Craig or someone in that group. And James is like, hey, we're much better than we were when we got our black belts. Which is, so, you know, I got my black belt a long time ago, right?

• 2:07:43Echo Charles?

  2005.

• 2:07:44Jocko Willink?

  2005.

• 2:07:44Echo Charles?

  Right before I started.

• 2:07:45Jocko Willink?

  Right. So that's like, what, 14 years ago? So 14 years ago, I, I've had my black belt for 14 years. So how much better? I've done so much training. I mean, I've done more training as a black belt than I did without a black belt, for sure. And high level training. So you can't think, oh, I can't compare you. Because I don't, I mean, the same thing, right? If I held the standard of you of like, well, Echo's never tapped me out, so I'm never giving, I'm giving this black belt when he taps me out. That's an unfair standard. Because I'm way better than I was 14 years ago when I got my black belt. So that's not a fair standard. So yeah, that's, that's, that's not a good.

• 2:08:29Echo Charles?

  But it's not apples to apples though, in that way, because like, there are certain people where it's like, like Andy, for example, he, his skill rose so fast that, wait, I mean, did he, has he ever tapped you out before he got his black belt?

• 2:08:46Echo Charles?

  I think he did.

• 2:08:47Jocko Willink?

  I think he got me, I think he got me like one time, but I think it was like as a purple belt. And it had no influence on a black belt.

• 2:08:57Echo Charles?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:08:59Echo Charles?

  It just seemed like with Andy and whether this was the case or not, it just seemed like this could be a possibility in this type of equation. Where they rise so fast and they get so good so fast. Um, that it's like, bro, like I have no choice but to give this guy a black belt. He's straight up, he's tapping me out and I've been a black belt for 15 years, you know, it's, it's kind of like that kind of, kind of attitude. But yeah, so it's not like a, a, the apples to apples two way street in that way, I guess, but, but it's true though. Yeah, you're right.

• 2:09:27Jocko Willink?

  So I could, I couldn't be like, oh, well, well, I'm just gonna have to wait until Echo taps me out to get his black belt. Cause when is that gonna happen, right? Could it happen today? Sure. It could happen today. But you might not tap me out for another two years. Right? I mean, like that's, that's the re- reality of the situation. You might tap me out tonight, right? I make a mistake. You get a good move. It can happen. But it might take a long time. I mean, there's people that have never tapped me out. And, you know, it just happens.

• 2:10:02Echo Charles?

  Right.

• 2:10:02Jocko Willink?

  Like this, it's.

• 2:10:03Echo Charles?

  Doesn't mean that they're not worthy of, you know.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. Doesn't matter. Doesn't mean, mean that. So that's one of those things where I had to kind of recognize that, you know, we're better now than we were then, but to counter that argument, everyone's better now than we were then. So probably a good purple belt right now would be able to beat me as a black belt 14 years ago. Right? A modern purple belt.

• 2:10:28Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  A modern purple, like, do you watch the Worlds? Did you, I mean, you watch the kids at the Worlds? The, the, the purple belts at the Worlds are savages, right? When you compare them especially to a, a black belt from 14 years ago. 14 years ago is a long time ago. The game has evolved a lot.

• 2:10:48Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 2:10:50Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  So you were not expecting it all when we were able to do that, you know, I, so what I did was I ran it, ran it because you were ready and I was like, okay, you know, Echo's, Echo's good to go. He should be having his blackboard. I will watch you roll. That's another thing I would evaluate is how you roll with other people, not just with me, because that's not fair either, right? Because how does your game match up with me?

• 2:11:14Echo Charles?

  Not very well.

• 2:11:14Jocko Willink?

  Not the best way, you know, and I would watch you roll with someone that's good with me and I'm like, you're doing better against that person. So then I, you know, it's the same thing with everyone. Like you watch them roll and you go, ah, you know, you should, you're killing this person or you're killing that person. And even though you're not killing me, that person's giving me a hard time. So therefore it's just your game doesn't match well with with me, which doesn't mean that you're not ready. Just means it's a bad matchup.

• 2:11:43Echo Charles?

  Yeah, that's, yeah, it's not linear like that for sure.

• 2:11:47Jocko Willink?

  So, uh, yeah, so it was awesome to have that go down. I know it was a, a long haul. We're not into making stuff easy.

• 2:11:56Echo Charles?

  No, sir, you're not.

• 2:11:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So what's the future hold for Echo Charles at this time?

• 2:12:02Echo Charles?

  Oh, man, for what? For Jiu Jitsu, uh, the same. I feel like it's like, so Jiu Jitsu, it, and thinking back on it, and I kind of had these feelings even kind of coming up for 14 years. Where white belt, you're just like a toddler, kindergarten, you know, kind of, you know, and then you get through blue belt and purple belt. You're like, you know, elementary, junior high, high school, and then uh, brown belt is kind of like college, you know, you sort of feel like you're an adult and you're, you're in there. You can do some good things, you know, have an impact on the world in college, talking about in college.

• 2:12:40Echo Charles?

  And then, but you're just learning, you should be learning in there and then, um, Then you get black belt is like you graduated from college. Now you gotta go function in the real world now, you know, so it's like, man, in a way, people say, oh, jujitsu just begins at black belt. And yeah, in that way, it totally does. And that's not to mention all the little superficial things that kind of come, good and bad, by the way, that come with it, like, when you, when you're a black belt, take, okay, so if you're not a black belt and you tap out a black belt, that's, that's a good feeling. You know, it's like one of those little things in your mind that you're like, I tapped out of black belt before, you know, kind of thing. So now you have that kind of target on your back, if you want to put it that way.

• 2:13:20Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna give other people that good feeling.

• 2:13:22Echo Charles?

  Yes, you're a target for that. So people, you can tell people's attitude when they roll with you is a little bit different. Well, it might be an illusion, but I feel like it's different, like physically. And then that's not to mention, like, you know, the stuff that maybe the other black belts might have, like, ooh, I could black belt, like, I don't know if it's them expecting me to like, I'm a black belt now, so I'm gonna put it on you, or what, but every once in a while, I'll feel a little something like, oh, you, you seem like this role means a little bit more now than it does before. It's like, I get that feeling sometimes. Not all the time, but there's that. But yeah, like how we were talking yesterday, whatever, it's like, it doesn't really change anything, you know, like, just because, ooh, my belt happens to be a different color. It's like, you're as good as you are.

• 2:14:08Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't make your jujitsu game any better.

• 2:14:10Echo Charles?

  No, sir, it does not. But, uh, the future, yeah, no, I just keep training, you know, I guess. I mean, there's, in most ways, I feel like the pressure is sort of off. And more so than it's off, it's more like, I don't, I'm not susceptible to that, that wacky way of thinking, like, oh, when am I gonna get promoted? Oh, did I, did, did I perform well? So Dean and Jocko saw, you know?

• 2:14:33Jocko Willink?

  The pressure that I feel, which is a good pressure, is like, when you're a black belt, man, you gotta maintain. Yeah, you gotta maintain, you gotta train, you gotta maintain, you don't want to be rolling, you don't want to put a black belt on.

• 2:14:44Echo Charles?

  And not represent.

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  And not have the skills, man.

• 2:14:48Echo Charles?

  Hundred percent. So.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  Now, look, you're not, it doesn't mean you're gonna win every time. Like, there's people that are training more than you and you're doing stuff. And it's like, yeah, but you should have black belt level skills. Yeah. Period. End of story. Yeah. Period. End of story.

• 2:15:01Echo Charles?

  And I think that that makes it in. I guess it depends on what you mean, but I I think that makes it easier for you like how you say it's good pressure. It's like it's it's not even it's more of like it's like it's like a cool little push, you know, like it's almost like um like, you know, these celebrities or whatever, like an actor or something, right? When he he has to play Wolverine, so he has to work out, you know? It's like, bro, you gotta be Wolverine on this movie, so work out. He's like, okay, of course, you know, kind of thing. Rather than let's say you didn't have the movie, but you still gotta work out. It's you know, it's kind of different. So, yeah, like tr- training more and maintaining kind of the, you know, the standard or whatever. I feel like it's like easier.

• 2:15:43Jocko Willink?

  Akbar?

• 2:15:44Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 2:15:44Jocko Willink?

  Akbar?

• 2:15:45Echo Charles?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:15:45Jocko Willink?

  For those of you that don't know Akbar, he's this a- awesome fighter and crazy jujitsu. Um, he was in, he was, you know, he fought in the UFC, um, never really, you know, he never performed to the level of his capability, unfortunately, you know, he, you know, he's just incredibly skilled and he just didn't put it together right. You know, circumstances, things happened, you know, his opponents did things that were good, you know, it's like that's the way it is.

• 2:16:13Echo Charles?

  But he did pretty good in the, like,

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, he did great. He did great.

• 2:16:16Echo Charles?

  Had some good stuff.

• 2:16:17Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, he he's but anyways, um, he's awesome to train with, but like I always had a rule with him. We had a rule with each other. If if you want, if you want to train, we're gonna train like so there's no, because both of us kind of know it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a crushing role. It's gonna be, it's gonna be gnarly. And I, you know, we had the, we had the rule. At first it was an unwritten rule. And then one day I just said, I was like, hey, no matter what, you want to roll, we're rolling. And and he's like, hey, if you want to roll, we're rolling.

• 2:16:49Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  So he but he he just, he just like came, started training again.

• 2:16:54Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:54Jocko Willink?

  Training with me, he's so savage.

• 2:16:56Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Freaking hard worker.

• 2:16:57Echo Charles?

  When he rolls, he rolls.

• 2:16:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, he's going for it, bro. He's gonna bring it.

• 2:17:01Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna bring it. And, uh,

• 2:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Videos, you're gonna start making some more videos?

• 2:17:08Echo Charles?

  Yeah, you know, videos hard because like especially now that videos are. I don't even know if I told you this fully, but like videos are so common now.

• 2:17:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:20Echo Charles?

  That like back when I made the victory videos, it was like.

• 2:17:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:23Echo Charles?

  Try watch those.

• 2:17:24Jocko Willink?

  You were ahead of your time.

• 2:17:25Echo Charles?

  Way ahead. That's the thing. And looking at them now, you're like, oh, that's part kinda cheesy, kinda funny, not fun. They're like, cool. But it's like.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  You should post those on the Jocko Podcast channel so people can watch them.

• 2:17:36Echo Charles?

  Yeah, okay. But watching those videos now, like those videos would not make a mark right now.

• 2:17:41Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, just be another one.

• 2:17:42Echo Charles?

  Because they're good or not good or nothing like that. I'm just saying like videos are, they're just so much everywhere. So it starts to become like a wash of just many, many millions of videos. So granted, sure, like there's you and, and you know, all our people, they, they, they watch our videos regardless of, of what they are, whatever. No, I mean, not regardless, but um, like we do have an advantage as far as eyeballs, as far as videos or people caring about the videos. To me, the, the ocean of videos, like it's hard to get people to care about videos. So you kinda gotta be selective, I think. So if I put like a bunch of videos out, I don't want people to, our people to be like, oh, cool. And sorta get bored with them, you know? So it's like.

• 2:18:26Jocko Willink?

  You wanna leave a mark.

• 2:18:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah. So I mean, it causes me to be a little bit apprehensive with like just flooding, you know? The place with videos.

• 2:18:35Jocko Willink?

  The cool thing is there's people making all kinds of videos anyways with us in them.

• 2:18:39Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:18:40Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:40Jocko Willink?

  They're out there.

• 2:18:41Echo Charles?

  Yeah. But yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's weird. It's but keep in mind too, though, I'm like the opposite of you in this way where I'm like, like way more like hesitant, like I'm also worried about that, you know? Probably to the point where I shouldn't be worried about that quite yet. I don't know. We'll, yeah, we'll make some videos about that.

• 2:19:00Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:19:01Echo Charles?

  You know?

• 2:19:02Jocko Willink?

  Def core.

• 2:19:03Echo Charles?

  Def core dude.

• 2:19:04Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Anything else, man?

• 2:19:06Echo Charles?

  That's it. Thank you.

• 2:19:07Jocko Willink?

  Thank you for giving us your history.

• 2:19:09Echo Charles?

  Yeah, man.

• 2:19:10Jocko Willink?

  It's actually seems like a good place to wrap it up. People have been asking for a while for some more Echo Charles. They got it. They kinda get it on the grounded podcast too. The other podcast that we have.

• 2:19:22Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, a little bit. It's um.

• 2:19:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah, you, uh, yeah, it's a little bit more represent, and then again, I don't know, sometimes in the support part, it's kind of-

• 2:19:35Jocko Willink?

  Of this podcast?

• 2:19:36Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, it's like representative of kind of back, like, you know, okay, if we're done training or something, right, and, well, I don't know, me or Greg or somebody brings some, something up, like some subject, some topic, some question for you or each other, whatever, and you start talking about it, and then I start talking about it, then you're talking trash to me, like you're, you know, like, all, just that whole thing or whatever.

• 2:19:58Jocko Willink?

  It's a little more casual conversation.

• 2:20:00Echo Charles?

  Yeah, the grounded kind is more skewed, like, in that regard.

• 2:20:04Jocko Willink?

  Well, check, well, speaking of conversations, I'm gonna be having some live conversations with people. Now, you're gonna come to some of the shows, I'm not sure what, which ones, but we're, even though, um, as people have pointed out, I told everyone that, you know, Echelon Front is not a rock band, and we're not going on tour.

• 2:20:23Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, I am going on tour. It's not Echelon Front, it's just me, and I am going to multiple cities, so I guess that does make it a tour, live gigs, January 6th in DC, January 11th in Austin, which was the first one that sold out, January 16th in New York, January 20th in LA, January 27th in Seattle, and January 28th in SF. So, at those gigs, if you're wondering what I am going to do, I am going to talk, I'm gonna dive into some subjects, I am going

• 2:21:07Jocko Willink?

  to do some Q and A from the crowd, live, which is enjoyable for me, and I'm just going to go deep on some subjects. Um, the only, I've only done one live event from, that would be closest, and that was the live podcast that we did in New York City. Number 160 and this isn't going to be a podcast and I'm not gonna, well, we might turn these into podcasts. We might take a compilation of some of the questions or take a compilation of some of the things that I cover and make them into a podcast, but not all of it will be in a podcast. And I'm don't, the reason that I didn't want to do a podcast is I don't want to put any framework around this.

• 2:21:52Jocko Willink?

  I want to be able to really just go and get after it with no, um, no framework. And just be able to get after it hard. And I, I know that's, I have no real other way of saying it. That's what I want to do is I want to go hard on these, on these events and with no framework and, and make it happen. So that's what I'm doing. Go to jockalive.com if you want to come to those. And Echo, so, so you've been talking today about kind of some of the things that you've done to improve your life?

• 2:22:29Jocko Willink?

  Get yourself, we'll say on a tighter, a tighter sort of spance of the path.

• 2:22:40Echo Charles?

  Sure.

• 2:22:42Jocko Willink?

  And there's good ways to do this in life.

• 2:22:46Jocko Willink?

  And not to mention, you can do that while you're supporting this podcast.

• 2:22:51Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:52Jocko Willink?

  If you want to.

• 2:22:54Echo Charles?

  It's true.

• 2:22:54Jocko Willink?

  You can support yourself for sure. We're highly recommended.

• 2:22:58Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 2:22:58Jocko Willink?

  You can support the podcast too, if you want to.

• 2:23:00Echo Charles?

  If you like.

• 2:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Up to you.

• 2:23:01Echo Charles?

  Good.

• 2:23:04Jocko Willink?

  Cause this podcast doesn't start off with 12 minutes of advertisements.

• 2:23:08Echo Charles?

  No, it does not.

• 2:23:11Jocko Willink?

  And we're not beholden to our sponsors.

• 2:23:18Echo Charles?

  Why you gotta say it like that?

• 2:23:20Jocko Willink?

  Because.

• 2:23:21Echo Charles?

  That's just how I dig it.

• 2:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Cause we're not, we don't, we don't actually have sponsors. And you can press stop right now, cause you know what we're going to talk about.

• 2:23:28Echo Charles?

  We're talking about staying on the path, representing while we're on the path, tips and I don't want to say tricks, cause there's no trick.

• 2:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:34Echo Charles?

  No trick. We'll say guidelines to maybe help you along the way. Help everyone along the way.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:41Echo Charles?

  Help you, your husband or wife, kids, everything, the whole gig.

• 2:23:46Jocko Willink?

  I like it.

• 2:23:47Echo Charles?

  First thing you can do, jujitsu, talked about it a little bit today.

• 2:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Little bit.

• 2:23:51Echo Charles?

  A life-changing activity, by the way. You ever think about who you'd be without, if you didn't do jujitsu?

• 2:23:55Jocko Willink?

  I would, I've told you this. I've told everyone this because I've been on this podcast and the thread that connected things for me was jujitsu. Now, what's interesting is you did jujitsu, you didn't have the other pieces. Jujitsu had, you didn't have the other pieces. But jujitsu allowed, once you saw the other pieces, it's like, oh, there's the thread. There's how these things connect. For me, I had the other pieces, no jujitsu, no connection.

• 2:24:18Echo Charles?

  Got you.

• 2:24:18Jocko Willink?

  Got jujitsu, got connection. You were the opposite, had jujitsu, no other pieces. Oh, cool. Got, got the other pieces, now I see the connection.

• 2:24:26Echo Charles?

  Interesting. So.

• 2:24:28Jocko Willink?

  So we want to do jujitsu.

• 2:24:29Echo Charles?

  We do. Without jujitsu, Jocko ceases to exist.

• 2:24:32Jocko Willink?

  Ceases to exist.

• 2:24:33Echo Charles?

  As we know it.

• 2:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Do you know that in a SEAL platoon,

• 2:24:40Jocko Willink?

  there's a pecking order?

• 2:24:43Echo Charles?

  That makes sense.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  That pecking order, straight up, it's based on like, hey, who's gonna win in a fight? That's the way it is.

• 2:24:52Echo Charles?

  Makes sense.

• 2:24:52Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it is. And, and you know what? That is not only in a SEAL platoon. There's just like that underlying current. So what's nice is if you know jujitsu, you're gonna move up in that pecking order a little bit.

• 2:25:04Echo Charles?

  That is true. That's interesting how you put that into words that way. I, man, I agree with that. That's true.

• 2:25:13Echo Charles?

  It applies to a lot of situations that, in a way, I almost don't even want to say them, but we kind of already know, you know, that it, that pecking order, structure, hierarchy, whatever, that, let's just say it exists, alright? And yes, jujitsu helps you in that. I'm not saying that's the main benefit.

• 2:25:29Jocko Willink?

  What's cool about a SEAL platoon, the reason I can start by saying a SEAL platoon, is because in a SEAL platoon, that pecking order is not always theoretical. So there's times you get some van fights, right? That's gonna happen.

• 2:25:41Echo Charles?

  Right, right.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  There's gonna be a van brawl. And, and all of a sudden, the pecking order is revealed.

• 2:25:46Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:25:47Jocko Willink?

  And so you feel it, but then when you get to see it, you go, yeah, I was right. There's a little, little, little pecking order here.

• 2:25:53Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:53Jocko Willink?

  And it has nothing to do with your rank.

• 2:25:55Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:55Jocko Willink?

  It's like, here's what it is. And so when you see it, when you see it in the, In the under current, in the under beneath the surface, when you kind of think it's there in a seal platoon, and then it gets revealed and you're like, oh yeah, it was there. Then you see it everywhere and you go, oh yeah, it's over there too. Oh yeah, it's over there too. You can just see it. And it's a real thing. So why not elevate yourself?

• 2:26:21Echo Charles?

  Elevate yourself, yeah.

• 2:26:22Jocko Willink?

  On that little hierarchy a little bit with some jujitsu. Doesn't mean you're running around choking people out.

• 2:26:26Echo Charles?

  Nope.

• 2:26:27Jocko Willink?

  But you can.

• 2:26:28Echo Charles?

  You can if you want to, yeah. Well, you know, yeah. So when you're doing jujitsu, you need a gi, get an origin gi.

• 2:26:33Jocko Willink?

  This is the thing. People are gonna hear that right there. They can replay that and say, you know, someone's gonna go, oh yeah, I see what this is. This is like a macho bully thing, right? It's like, hey, I'm sorry to break the news to you. This is a reality.

• 2:26:46Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:46Jocko Willink?

  This is a reality.

• 2:26:47Echo Charles?

  Yeah. And that's a good point where like, yeah, I think that

• 2:26:53Echo Charles?

  when you think about it, yeah, I think that someone could come to, could get, I don't want to say triggered. I'm not gonna use the word triggered, but someone could get

• 2:27:04Echo Charles?

  moved into thinking that. But whether that's the case or not, it's like you can say that about anything.

• 2:27:11Jocko Willink?

  This is the thing. I'm not sitting here saying, I'm not sitting here saying, oh, well, this is what it should be like. Or this is what, this is a, this is how things have turned out. Or this is good or this is bad. I'm not saying any of those things. I'm just telling you what it is.

• 2:27:29Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  Factually.

• 2:27:31Echo Charles?

  Factually.

• 2:27:31Jocko Willink?

  This is just what it is.

• 2:27:32Echo Charles?

  Well, factually that applies to everything in life. Like, okay, you know, you

• 2:27:38Jocko Willink?

  And hey, check this out. Just by the way, you can be the best fighter in a seal platoon and everyone can hate you. Like, that doesn't mean you're a good operator. It doesn't mean anything. Well, I'm just saying it's there and it's, it's one of the many little, it's one of the many things that are being judged.

• 2:27:50Echo Charles?

  Yes, one of the

• 2:27:51Jocko Willink?

  It's one of the many things that are being judged. It's one of the many games that are being played. It's one of the many little hierarchies that are existing. So why not elevate yourself in that game? That's my question. The reason, the reason to not elevate, there are no good reasons to not elevate. Because when you elevate yourself in that game, it actually will elevate you in other games in your life. So train jujitsu, people.

• 2:28:16Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:16Jocko Willink?

  This isn't, by the way, this isn't 1995 when I started jujitsu and you had to, you were lucky if there was a jujitsu school somewhere around you. This is America in 2020.

• 2:28:28Jocko Willink?

  And there are jiu-jitsu schools everywhere, or you can go online and you can go to YouTube for free and watch jiu-jitsu and get some of your friends to roll around on the carpet. And you can learn some jiu-jitsu, learn some jiu-jitsu. Get yourself an origin gi.

• 2:28:42Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're gonna need one for jiu-jitsu.

• 2:28:44Echo Charles?

  Yep. Yeah, it was funny because you know, I don't train gi as much, right? So it's been a while when we're involved in the promotion of Andy Burke. Well, to get his first degree.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  First degree.

• 2:28:58Echo Charles?

  Degree on his black belt.

• 2:28:59Jocko Willink?

  On. The black belt.

• 2:29:02Echo Charles?

  The black belt, yes. Uh, you know, I put back on the rift.

• 2:29:08Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:29:08Echo Charles?

  Gi, let's face it.

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  When I grabbed, I came out with my rift on and I said, this is the nicest thing. When you put it on, it's a completely different scenario that's just going on.

• 2:29:20Echo Charles?

  So good. I kind of felt and I'm, I'm admitting this to you and whoever's listening because we're real close like that and I trust you guys a lot, but I'm going to admit this. I felt a little bit like elevated, like kind of better than everyone.

• 2:29:34Echo Charles?

  Just a small, in a small way because of that gi, I mean, it's really good.

• 2:29:38Jocko Willink?

  You know what you have to do? Pete, the, the folks that made this gi. You have to give like legitimately say, yes, you elevated the game. This is a game changer. This is not normal. This isn't like, this isn't like, hey, we took a sports car and we put racing stripes on it.

• 2:29:58Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:58Jocko Willink?

  This isn't like, hey, we took a sports car and we put rims on it. This is you're driving a sports car. I'm flying by you in a raptor, in an F-22 raptor.

• 2:30:11Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:12Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 2:30:12Echo Charles?

  Yeah, very, very good. So yeah, get it, originmaine.com. That's where you get them. That's where you get them. Multitude of options, by the way, including rash guards when you do no gi, which I think is important.

• 2:30:24Jocko Willink?

  They're both important.

• 2:30:25Echo Charles?

  Right now I'm preferring no gi. Well, then again, I don't know. After last night, like I kind of want gi now.

• 2:30:30Jocko Willink?

  I saw you, wait, did you sweep Greg Train?

• 2:30:34Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 2:30:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 2:30:35Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:36Jocko Willink?

  I saw that little sweep. I was like, oh, because Greg Train's hard to sweep.

• 2:30:39Echo Charles?

  Yes.

• 2:30:39Jocko Willink?

  He's got that wrestling background.

• 2:30:41Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:42Jocko Willink?

  But you tied up that hand a little bit, over he went.

• 2:30:44Echo Charles?

  The gi, yeah.

• 2:30:45Jocko Willink?

  With that gi.

• 2:30:46Echo Charles?

  You go in phases, right? Gi, no gi. But yeah, so if you're doing no gi, boom, rash guards as well, all available, originmaine.com. They also have. Jeans.

• 2:30:56Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of elevating the game.

• 2:30:58Echo Charles?

  Yes, sir.

• 2:30:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna tell you right now. Get some Origin jeans and I will say this. The lightweight jeans, which are called Delta 68.

• 2:31:10Jocko Willink?

  Those are possibly the best leg coverings that exist. And I have to call them leg covering because you can include all kinds of things, right? We could be a kilt that covers your legs, right? We could be a wet suit bottom that could cover your legs. You know, we could be over. There's all kinds of things that can cover your legs. So I'm, I'm putting all leg covering. All leg covering in the world. And I'm saying Delta 68 Origin jeans are the best things you can cover your legs with. The world has ever known.

• 2:31:40Echo Charles?

  Straight up.

• 2:31:42Echo Charles?

  Alright, that's bold.

• 2:31:43Jocko Willink?

  I know.

• 2:31:44Echo Charles?

  Because technically, and not to go too deep into it, but whatever. So technically, you know, when you talk about wet suit bottoms, kilt, all these other things. Those are like circumstantial, like, you know, there's for certain scenarios, right? Like especially when we talk about wet suits or spats or something like this, right? So you're saying at the end of the day, net, net, as they say. I don't, I don't really like the expression net, net, but whatever, net, net. Meaning. Under the circumstances that you wear a wet suit bottom versus jeans under the circumstances you'd ever wear jeans or the like. Jeans best, 100% across the board.

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  What I just said is what I meant. Overall. In the world, which this is 2020. And I'm saying of everything that's been invented to put on your legs. This is the best thing that's been invented. Delta 68. Now, the, the heavyweight jeans, awesome too. And they're running that close second. But my legs don't get cold.

• 2:32:45Jocko Willink?

  So I don't need that little extra. Plus I live in Southern California.

• 2:32:48Echo Charles?

  Yeah, but that's true, Jocko.

• 2:32:50Jocko Willink?

  But. Delta 68.

• 2:32:52Echo Charles?

  That's the one.

• 2:32:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but heavyweight, the, the, they're not heavyweight, they're just normal jeans. They're normal jeans and they're awesome too.

• 2:33:01Jocko Willink?

  But. They're in second place.

• 2:33:03Echo Charles?

  Yeah, man, so I don't.

• 2:33:05Jocko Willink?

  But you know, for Pete, they're in first place.

• 2:33:06Echo Charles?

  What, the heavier ones?

• 2:33:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:08Echo Charles?

  Well, he's up in Maine, so.

• 2:33:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's up in Maine. He gets that little bit. If he was in Southern California, he might have a different opinion.

• 2:33:14Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, I'll be. It doesn't matter to me because my legs don't get cold. So it's not a factor. So there you go.

• 2:33:21Echo Charles?

  There you go.

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  We also have supplements there, by the way, if you knew that.

• 2:33:24Echo Charles?

  Oh wait, all this stuff is made in America. Did I mention that?

• 2:33:27Jocko Willink?

  The, it's like the little tiniest little tagline, made in America. Actually, the huge factor.

• 2:33:32Echo Charles?

  Huge. Yeah.

• 2:33:33Jocko Willink?

  Rebuilding America.

• 2:33:35Echo Charles?

  The materials are made in America. That's how made in America this made in America stuff is.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  Oh wait, we're gonna bring stuff in from other countries? No, no, no, no, no. We're gonna grow it here. American hands.

• 2:33:46Echo Charles?

  Yep. American hands. American economy.

• 2:33:48Jocko Willink?

  Everything made in America.

• 2:33:49Echo Charles?

  So yeah, also, yeah, joggers, you know, sweat stuff, good stuff. Supplements, though, yes. Like I said, important supplements. Joint supplements. Right, you can have all the creatine, uh, uh, mega mass, whatever in the world if your joints aren't working, right? You might, you're just spinning your wheels. You're not even spinning your wheels. Your wheels are locked up.

• 2:34:08Jocko Willink?

  Wheels are locked up like your elbow or like your shoulder.

• 2:34:11Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  No, don't allow that to happen. Get on the joint warfare, krill oil. Get yourself some discipline, go.

• 2:34:19Jocko Willink?

  Multiple choices. You got a, you got a pill. Right? A little go pill. You need that little, you're going into a meeting, you're getting ready to roll jiu-jitsu, whatever. You're doing something that needs a little extra cognitive boost? Boom, take one of those hitters.

• 2:34:35Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 2:34:37Jocko Willink?

  Get the go in a can.

• 2:34:38Echo Charles?

  Yep.

• 2:34:39Jocko Willink?

  Why? Because it's 2:44 in the afternoon. You're bent up early. It was leg day. You were up late. You're feeling a little bit of a drag. Cool. Crack that open and you're on fire, ready to destroy the world.

• 2:34:57Echo Charles?

  Dig it. Also, milk, protein, additional protein in the form of a lovely dessert. Said it. Yeah, good. There's some chocolate. Chocolate peanut butter. I think.

• 2:35:10Jocko Willink?

  Is that heavily in the rotation right now?

• 2:35:11Echo Charles?

  Heavily in the rotation.

• 2:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Somebody told me to mix strawberry and peanut butter. Have you done that? Was that you that told me to do that?

• 2:35:18Echo Charles?

  I have not done strawberry and peanut butter that I can remember.

• 2:35:20Jocko Willink?

  Peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

• 2:35:22Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna try it at some point.

• 2:35:24Echo Charles?

  No, well, I think what I did was I had chocolate with. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember. If I did, that was a long time ago and my mind's not even on that right now. I remember mixing a banana with a strawberry and that was something.

• 2:35:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's gonna be good.

• 2:35:37Echo Charles?

  Yeah. Either way, it's all good and, you know, some people, they prefer just the vanilla.

• 2:35:41Jocko Willink?

  My middle daughter is in college right now.

• 2:35:45Jocko Willink?

  And she, she sends me little videos or pictures.

• 2:35:50Echo Charles?

  Sure.

• 2:35:51Jocko Willink?

  And she's, and what, what, you know, she sends me one that says, literally a strawberry milkshake.

• 2:35:58Echo Charles?

  There you go.

• 2:35:59Jocko Willink?

  So anyways, that's my daughter.

• 2:36:01Echo Charles?

  Yep, and that's.

• 2:36:02Jocko Willink?

  And she's, she's in college studying nutrition. So what she's studying.

• 2:36:07Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:08Jocko Willink?

  STEM.

• 2:36:10Echo Charles?

  So the world makes sense, yeah. Wait, STEM, science?

• 2:36:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's right. Science.

• 2:36:17Echo Charles?

  You know, that thing. Okay, yeah, man, cool.

• 2:36:19Jocko Willink?

  It's in there. Studying that nutrition. So she's giving me feedback.

• 2:36:23Echo Charles?

  It's good.

• 2:36:24Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know what feedback she gives me? She's like, surprised that the ingredients are good.

• 2:36:30Echo Charles?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:36:31Jocko Willink?

  So you really do good, though. And I'm like.

• 2:36:33Echo Charles?

  All telling you.

• 2:36:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, as if I didn't make it.

• 2:36:37Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, no.

• 2:36:37Jocko Willink?

  She's surprised. That's what your kids, your kids think you're an idiot.

• 2:36:41Echo Charles?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:36:42Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, well, thank you, darling. Very nice of you.

• 2:36:45Echo Charles?

  Also Jocko White Tea. If you like deadlifting, or if you don't like deadlifting. You probably don't like deadlifting because you can't deadlift that much.

• 2:36:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. As soon as you can deadlift eight thousand pounds, you like it more.

• 2:36:54Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah, big time. Take it from me. But yeah, certified organic too, by the way. So yeah, get that, all that, orjamine.com. Also, Jocko is a store. It's called Jocko's store. You can get Jocko White Tea at this store too, by the way. But, or should I say, and the shirts, if you want to represent discipline equals freedom, good. Good is a good one. That one has like, like, that one, that one's one that won't ever go away. You need that concept, good, for the rest of your life.

• 2:37:23Jocko Willink?

  Some people have gotten tattoos that just say good.

• 2:37:25Echo Charles?

  And I understand. Hundred percent understand. I dig it. It was a good move. It was a good move.

• 2:37:31Jocko Willink?

  We also have hats. Trucker's hats. Beanie's.

• 2:37:35Echo Charles?

  Beanie's.

• 2:37:37Jocko Willink?

  Hoodies.

• 2:37:39Jocko Willink?

  Good stuff there.

• 2:37:40Echo Charles?

  Yeah, very good. So yeah, if you want to represent while you're on the path, JacoStore.com. Also subscribe if you haven't already on Stitcher and iTunes, Google Play, you know. Is it important to subscribe? Hey, you know what? You be the judge, whatever you like. But I think it's conducive to remaining on the path. I think so. Just subscribe, boom, click subscribe, boom.

• 2:38:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good question. Is it a good idea to, is it important to subscribe? Subscribe to the podcast so you know that it's out. Don't forget that we also have the Grounded Podcast.

• 2:38:16Jocko Willink?

  And we also have the Warrior Kid Podcast, which there's four new episodes right before Christmas were uploaded. So check out the Warrior Kid Podcast and you can also get some Warrior Kid Soap from Young Aiden, who's making soap on his farm so that you can stay clean.

• 2:38:38Echo Charles?

  Very nice. Actually, that's good soap too, which I haven't mentioned in a while. It's not this decorative table piece.

• 2:38:47Jocko Willink?

  No, it's functional.

• 2:38:48Echo Charles?

  It's actual for real soap that you use, you know? It's funny. I washed my boy with it.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  He's pretty good branding from Aiden, right?

• 2:38:59Echo Charles?

  We're not mad at the branding.

• 2:39:01Jocko Willink?

  Like he wraps them in these little burlap things.

• 2:39:03Echo Charles?

  Oh, yeah, it's legit.

• 2:39:04Jocko Willink?

  He's like, oh yeah, this came from a farm. A kid made this, a kid that's super squared away.

• 2:39:08Echo Charles?

  Yeah, it looks kind of rustic.

• 2:39:09Jocko Willink?

  You know how many, you know, you know how many, like, that's the reason I said branding in a funny way is because people talk about, hey, we need to work on our branding.

• 2:39:17Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:18Jocko Willink?

  You know what his branding is? Doing his job.

• 2:39:19Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:20Jocko Willink?

  Making the stuff that works and functionally is able, he's able to produce.

• 2:39:26Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:26Jocko Willink?

  That's what it is.

• 2:39:27Echo Charles?

  And he gets it to you. Boom, one shows up. Boom, good job, Aiden, keep it up. Yes, it is true. Yeah, I use that. That's heavy in the rotation too. Both kinds, Jocko and Trooper soap. What's the new, the one that is coming out or the antibacterial?

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's one that's coming out antibacterial, antimacrobrial, microbial. Microbial?

• 2:39:50Echo Charles?

  Yeah, microbeal.

• 2:39:51Jocko Willink?

  It's anti that.

• 2:39:53Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:54Jocko Willink?

  And, and it's got a really good name. Did I tell you the name?

• 2:40:00Echo Charles?

  You did. Uh, I'm drawing a blank, hitting me with it again.

• 2:40:03Jocko Willink?

  Killer Soap.

• 2:40:07Echo Charles?

  Oh yeah, killer soap.

• 2:40:08Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:40:09Echo Charles?

  Wait, killer, that's it?

• 2:40:10Jocko Willink?

  Killer soap.

• 2:40:11Echo Charles?

  Killer soap, alright, book it, yeah.

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  We're killing microbes.

• 2:40:14Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  We're killing fungus.

• 2:40:16Echo Charles?

  Yep, good idea.

• 2:40:17Jocko Willink?

  We're at least making a hard environment for them to survive in.

• 2:40:20Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, it'd be difficult.

• 2:40:21Jocko Willink?

  Cause killing it is, would take like, uh, chemicals that I'm not sure young Aiden could put into a soap.

• 2:40:27Echo Charles?

  Yeah, yeah, we're not down with that. We're putting this on our skin, so.

• 2:40:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:40:30Echo Charles?

  Makes sense. Also, YouTube, we do have a YouTube channel, official, it's a good one. Video version, some excerpts on there, varying, uh, lengths. We'll just leave it at that and, you know, some enhanced excerpts every once in a while too, it's good. It's cool YouTube, if you want to, you know, if that's how you listen to the podcast, or should I say, watch it? We do have a YouTube channel, so yeah. I would say subscribe now, but man, YouTube, actually, yeah, you want to subscribe?

• 2:40:56Jocko Willink?

  That seems like a good place to subscribe, cause then you have it in you. What it does then, then YouTube's kind of telling you, A, when a new podcast comes out, or a new video comes out. And B, it kind of involves that whole algorithm. So it's showing you like, oh, this video, here, you'll like this one.

• 2:41:13Echo Charles?

  Right, right.

• 2:41:14Jocko Willink?

  Which seems smart.

• 2:41:15Echo Charles?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:15Jocko Willink?

  Cause if you like the podcast, maybe you like some other thing that they figured out that other people are listening to.

• 2:41:20Echo Charles?

  Right, yeah, not to mention ease of access as well, if you're like, hey, lemme, you know, if you want to revisit one, or someone told you about like a video excerpt, it's like easy, you can kind of click on your little subscriptions or whatever, rather than going through YouTube, search, let me see, is that the one, is that the one, you know what I'm saying? Some, yeah, just subscribe to YouTube. But if you really want to be in the game and get alerted, there's that bell thing you can click on, click on the little bell, get alerted every time, boom, you really want to be alerted, do that, man.

• 2:41:45Jocko Willink?

  Psychological warfare, another, another opportunity to stay on the path. Cause when you, sometimes you're gonna slip off the path a little bit, you're gonna think about slipping off the path, you're gonna think that those donuts are looking good, no, press play on your MP3 phone. Player.

• 2:42:02Echo Charles?

  Whichever.

• 2:42:03Jocko Willink?

  Whichever. And listen to me telling you why you do not want that donut. Why you want to go to the gym, why you want to get up in the morning, why you want to complete that project, just a bunch of things that you can let slide, don't let it happen, get psychological warfare for yourself. And if you need a, a visual representation, check out flipsidecanvas.com for art. There you go, to hang on your wall, run by my brother Dakota Meyer. Also have some books, leadership strategy and tactics.

• 2:42:36Jocko Willink?

  It's coming out January 14th. So if you haven't ordered it, you best order it now. Otherwise, you're gonna be

• 2:42:47Jocko Willink?

  stained for life. Stig-stigmatized? Stigmatized with a second a dish. And I'll meet you and I'll thank you. But deep inside, we'll both know, not just me. If it was just me, don't worry about it, right? But you're gonna feel it too. You're gonna know that you got yourself that second a dish. You're gonna know that when you should have ordered, you hesitated at the moment of truth. Don't do it. Way the Warrior Kid Series, there's three of them, one, two, and three. Just awesome feedback from around the world on those books. So if you know a kid, you're around kids, you have kids, get your kids, get those kids,

• 2:43:30Jocko Willink?

  get these kids, get all kids this book, donate it to your library. I wish I had this, because I wish I could gift this book to every kid in the world right now.

• 2:43:43Jocko Willink?

  I need your help. Make it happen. This, this, this book is just...

• 2:43:49Jocko Willink?

  Look, it's not even my, it's not even my book. It's just everything I've learned from people throughout my whole life, captured into this book. So kids need it.

• 2:44:03Jocko Willink?

  Mikey and the Dragons, for the littler kids that are, that are, let's face it, when you're a kid, you're scared. The world is an imposing place. You need to learn how to overcome those fears. Mikey and the Dragons will teach you, teach your kids how to do that, but basically it'll teach you how to do it too. Pay attention. The Field Manual, Dispel Freedom Field Manual. It's a new year. This is the book you want to get someone for the new year. January, they already fell off their new uh their new year's resolution. Get them the field manual, discipline equals freedom field manual. Get some audio for yourself on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, all their MP3 platforms, get it there.

• 2:44:46Jocko Willink?

  And then of course, Extreme Ownership and the dichotomy of leadership that I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, where you will learn the fundamental principles of leadership. And then we also have Echelon Front, which is our leadership consulting company where we solve problems through leadership. If you want me or someone from the Echelon Front team to come and talk to your company, to come and work with your company, go to echelonfront.com. We also have EF Online, which is, look, leadership is a really complex there's thing. And yet it's simple. So how do you get information to people? Look, some people can read, I get it.

• 2:45:30Jocko Willink?

  Some people can grasp information from reading, but not everyone does. Sure, you can get everyone on your team, get them Extreme Ownership, get them the leadership strategy and tactics, get them the dichotomy of leadership, that's awesome. Some people aren't going to absorb it that way. And even if they do absorb it that way, they need repetition. They need to see it again from a different angle. They need to actually practice it. Go to EFOnline.com where you get repetition, you get to see different angles, and you get to practice leadership situations, interactive. EFOnline.com. If you want to come to a leadership event with us, go to ExtremeOwnership.com. This is a leadership event we do. We are doing it in 2020.

• 2:46:15Jocko Willink?

  We're doing it in Orlando, we're doing it in Dallas, and we're doing it in Phoenix. So if you want to come, keep checking ExtremeOwnership.com for details there. All of these events have sold out, and these are going to sell out too, so get in on it early. And last, we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion where we are taking, we are taking leaders from every level of the military and placing them into civilian companies so that they can use those leadership skills that they have. They can, they can learn the industry specifics when they show up, that's no factor.

• 2:46:57Jocko Willink?

  Military people are trainable, but these are folks that understand the principles of extreme ownership and the dichotomy leadership and the laws of combat, and they will help you and your company. Go to efoverwatch.com or eflegion.com. And then if you still want to hear more from Echo Charles and me, well, we are available on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on La Fasade.

• 2:47:34Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at EchoCharles and I am at Jocko Willinkin. Once again, thank you to Echo Charles for pressing record. But more important, thank you for being humble and for having my back and supporting this podcast. You do everything for the podcast, except for the little part that I do. So, everything on the backside is awesome. And I appreciate you covering all that so I can do my little piece upfront. And on top of that, the podcast would not be possible without

• 2:48:14Jocko Willink?

  everyone that is listening, supporting it. So, everyone that's listening and spreading the words, spreading the word about the podcast and telling your friends to listen and getting a Defqor t-shirt, or an Origin gi, or a pair of Delta 68 jeans. It's all of you that make this podcast possible. So, thank you for your support. And of course, this podcast is also possibly because of the sacred freedom that we enjoy, which is provided by the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marine who sacrifice their freedom and sometimes their lives for

• 2:48:56Jocko Willink?

  our freedom and our lives. So, thanks to all of you and to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service and all first responders. We are also here and able to do this podcast because of what you do. So, thanks to all of you for your service. And to everyone else out there, just remember.

• 2:49:25Jocko Willink?

  That it is a hard path in jiu-jitsu and in life. And there are ups and downs and you will get injured and you will get beat down and you will get tested.

• 2:49:39Jocko Willink?

  And those hard days will go on and on and on. But if you impose discipline in your life, if you play the long game and think strategic and if you stay on the path and keep moving forward, you will end up achieving what you want to achieve. That will happen.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  So put on that gi, step onto the mats of justice in jiu-jitsu and in life and keep getting after it.

• 2:50:22Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo Charles and Jocko.

• 2:50:29Jocko Willink?

  Out.