871 Jocko Willink on Extreme Leadership and The Power of Self-Discipline

BE MILITARY MINDED. A lot of people think that leadership means having all the answers. Barking orders at your team, hoping they stay in line and obey. Pretending to know it all even when you don’t. True leadership is understanding human nature. What if leaders accepted responsibility for any mistakes made on their teams? We have to stop thinking of leadership as a destination. It is a journey where we listen, learn, and strategize with our teams, not for them. It’s not about ego; it’s about humility, balance, accountability, and execution. In today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the art of leadership with a retired Navy SEAL officer and a business consultant: Jocko Willink. Jocko Willink is a decorated retired Navy SEAL officer, author of the book ‘Extreme Ownership: How U. S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win,’ and co-founder of Echelon Front, where he is a leadership instructor, speaker, and executive coach. Jocko spent 20 years in the U. S. Navy SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising the ranks to become a SEAL officer. As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the U. S. Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War. Jocko returned from Iraq to serve as Officer-In-Charge of Training for all West Coast SEAL Teams. There he spearheaded the development of leadership training and personally instructed and mentored the next generation of SEAL leaders who have continued to perform with great success on the battlefield. In 2010, Jocko retired from the Navy and launched Echelon Front with Leif Babin, where he teaches the leadership principles he learned on the battlefield to help others lead and win. Jocko has put together leadership principles that will help you become a successful leader. So get ready to learn the art of strategy and leadership on Episode 871. Some Questions I Ask: What did you learn when you took on the leadership role as a Navy SEAL? (09:00) How do you make sure that your intent is felt all of the way down the chain of command? (17:30) Do you have a mission and mantra for your company? (23:00) Is there a connection between leadership and human nature? (36:30) How important is feedback from your team? (52:00) What’s the most important relationship we have in our lives? (1:10:30) In This Episode You Will Learn: The toughest challenges when becoming a Navy SEAL leader. (9:00) The most humbling moment on the battlefield. (11:45) How to take responsibility when you’re in a big organization. (19:30) Why leadership is about understanding human nature. (36:30) Two things leaders can do to improve immediately. (54:00) How to handle yourself when your ego wants to respond. (01:00:10) How to take ownership of your decisions in life. (1:02:30) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/871 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is episode number 871 with number one New York Times bestselling author Jocko Willink. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Ernest Hemingway said, "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self." Welcome to the School of Greatness. I am pumped. We've got Jocko Willink in the house. He's a retired US Navy SEAL officer and co-author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win, and the host of the top-ranked podcast Jocko Podcast. And Jocko spent 20 years in the SEAL teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become a SEAL officer.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  He's the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards. And upon retiring from the Navy, he co-founded and is CEO of Echelon Front, a premier leadership consulting company where he teaches the leadership principles he learned on the battlefield to help others lead and win. And Jocko also authored the New York Times bestseller, Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual, and the bestselling children's book series, Way of the Warrior Kid. And on his podcast, he talks about leadership in business, war, relationships, and everyday life. And I'll tell you what, this is probably one of the most disciplined human beings I've ever met.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  I was a little intimidated when I met him just because he was so focused. And I tried to ask him some different questions that he's never been asked, and he was curious about my questions that I had for him. So there's going to be some moments. Where we get some different stuff out of Jocko and we take it down a different path. So I hope you enjoy my questioning and I hope you enjoy the responses that Jaco gives in this interview. He is one of the most disciplined individuals and he's also so open minded. I love the way he thinks, I love the way he prepares himself and I love the way he acknowledges when he doesn't have the answers and he wants to learn.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  It's one of the characteristics of a great leader is always looking for more wisdom, always looking for more knowledge to grow and become better, to win the mission, whatever that mission might be. And if you're enjoying this, make sure to share with a friend while you're listening. You can send the link lewishouse.com/871 to a friend that you think would enjoy learning about extreme leadership, about designing your mission, becoming more disciplined and the power of true self-discipline. So again, you can copy and paste the link on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this, or just send the link lewishouse.com/871, text it to a couple of friends and ask them to listen along with you.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  All right, get ready, guys. One of the most disciplined individuals I've ever met, a little intimidating, but inspiring nonetheless. Give it up for the one and only Jaco Willink.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Welcome to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got Jaco in the house, my man. Thank you for coming here, being a part of this.

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  We're talking a little bit about your Navy SEAL training, how you said it actually isn't that hard, isn't that big a deal, but a lot of people seem to quit through the process. And you're saying, you were giving me context that it's not as hard as going to war and actually being in that real life experience.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't want to say, I don't want to make it sound like it's not hard because it certainly is hard. And especially for someone like myself, I wasn't the best athlete. You know, I was like an average high school athlete. And so physically. I had to, I had to go hard in order to pass all the evolutions. But yeah, I mean, compared to when you look at someone that was in the SEAL teams for a long time, they're not sitting there harking back to the days of remember how hard this training was. No, they're thinking about their deployments overseas and the things that they had to do.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  That's the real hard, that's the real hard stuff. I was with a SEAL this weekend, his name's Chad, and he was saying that, I said, what was the day where most people quit? Because it's a, it's a self eliminating process, right? Don't you quit yourself. They don't fire you from SEAL training, you give up.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  I would say 98% of the time. It's, well, yeah, it's, it's a really high percentage of people that quit, but there's also people that fail.

• 5:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  So if you fail, when I went through, and things change a little bit, but when I went through, if you failed one run, they were watching you. If you failed another run, you would get moved back to the next last, to the next class. Then if you failed another one, you were out. So.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean a run?

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  So a timed, four mile timed run.

• 5:20Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  Four mile timed run, or, and that's one example, because you have a four mile timed run, you have swims that are timed, you have obstacle courses that are timed, and then you have other, we call them evolutions, but you have underwater not tying. Life saving. So life saving is a good one, because what it is, is you have to go and rescue these SEAL instructors in the water. So it's sort of like what a lifeguard would do.

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  But it's pretty funny, because they're trying to drown you, like they're attacking you. When you jump into.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  They're punching you.

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  They're trying to drag you down to the bottom of the, of the pool. So if you fail that once, then you'll get another try. If you fail it again, you'll get rolled to the last class, to the next class. And if you fail there, then you're out. But you could fail, if you failed one run, one swim, one obstacle course, you could do that. And I did that. You know, I failed a run. I failed to swim, I failed an obstacle course. I don't know if I failed any, oh, I failed one water evolution called pool competency. I failed that one time. So, I was like a gray man in terms of, it was actually good. I wasn't great at anything, but I wasn't horrible at anything either.

• 6:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you were consistent.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  So that was a good place to be.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Shove, that's great. He told me, I don't know if this is too graphic, but I said, what was the hardest day where most people quit? When most people gave up in the six months of training? He said, towards the end of training, it's not as difficult. They're not trying to break you every day as in the first, I guess, two to four weeks. But I said, what was the hardest day for most people? And he said, I was, he said, I was in shock because it was when they played a video over and over. They made us watch a video. I'm not sure if it was the same video that you had to watch at your time.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  They didn't even have videos where I went through, so I don't know.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  He said, there was a video, and this might be too graphic to talk about, but he said, there was a video where an enemy was using a knife to cut off the head of an American. And they made you watch it over and over again. And they said, this is very real. If you get captured, they'll probably do something like this. You know, they were trying to psychologically break you down or train you to be afraid if this is it. And he said, for him, he got angry watching the video, whereas a lot of other people got afraid and they quit that day. Right afterwards, they all went and, not all of them, but a lot of them quit. How much of it was for you psychologically challenging versus physically challenging? And were there those moments that made you angry or more excited to dive in?

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Or were there any moments that made you question being a SEAL?

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  There was not any question for me. I knew what I wanted to do. I never thought about quitting at any moment in time. It's interesting that the video concept, we didn't, like I said, we didn't have, there wasn't videos like that that we could watch. But I think one, I think that's actually good that they show that video because these days you can get kids that they see, they see the SEAL teams and they think these guys are out, whatever, running around on the beach. And the fact of the matter is when you're in the SEAL teams, your, your mission and your job is to go and kill the enemy. And part of that job is putting yourself at risk with your friends of getting killed or wounded yourself. So, that's, that's good that they show them that because that's a good wake-up call. If you're going in the SEAL teams because you think you're gonna...

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, go to the bar and strut around with your chest out like that's not what the SEAL Teams is. The SEAL Teams is going to war. That's what we do.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Was there ever a time you were truly afraid, whether it be in training or in war?

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the biggest, the biggest amount of fear that I felt was absolutely without question. When I was on my last deployment to Ramadi and the feeling that you have, especially when you're in a leadership position, is you're afraid that something's gonna happen to one of your guys, one of your guys is gonna get wounded or killed. And so when you're, that's, that's the fear that I felt. And part of that is, part of that is because some people, myself included, and this is not uncommon for guys to think, oh, it probably won't, nothing's gonna happen to me. And so I had some of that for sure, but I, I also had the, just that fear. There's nothing worse than thinking about one of your guys, one of your friends, one of your brothers getting wounded or killed.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what I was afraid of.

• 9:36Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever think anything would happen to you? Where you're like, maybe this is the mission where some random bullet hits me or?

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  If I did think that, I didn't really care. You know, I think at some point you realize that there's a chance you can die and that's what you signed up for and that's what you dedicated your life to. And that's what you believe in, is that you're doing the right thing. So sure, you get the feeling, hey, today could be the day.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:01Jocko Willink?

  But there's also the fact that there's nothing you can do to, there's nothing you can do to really control that. So you've, beyond what you've already done, which is you've trained hard, you've prepared hard, you've, you've planned to the best of your ability. You've mitigated as much risk as you can through your operational planning process, through your standard operating procedures. And on top of all those things, you're at war. And so there's a chance that a bullet is gonna be, is gonna have your name on it. And, and the fact of the matter is, bullets don't have your name on it. Bullets say to whom it may concern and the bullet doesn't care who you are. They don't care how much training you've had. They don't care how well prepared you are. And if it's your day, it's your day. And so I think once you get to a point where you recognize and accept the fact that you could, you could die,

• 10:46Jocko Willink?

  then you can move past that. And I mean, I've felt like that for a long time. You know, I felt like that for a long time that. That was, that was my job and I didn't really care. So whether I thought about it on a daily basis or anything, I would say I didn't. It was just some part of the, part of my world that I accepted. You know, you might, you might die. I mean, you, you played football. You must have realized that you could get injured, right?

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Break your neck or.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you, you can't be out there being worried about that. And it might be in the back of your mind somewhere. But I don't know if you agree with this, but if that's what your primary concern is, your chances of that happening to you are probably greater than if you just say, put that in the back of your mind and go out and play aggressive ball. Same thing on the battlefield. You go out and you, you play aggressive. That's, to me, increases your probability of survival, not so much for yourself, but more importantly for your, your troops.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What did you learn when you took on that leadership role? Because I'm assuming you weren't leading teams your first two years as an Navy SEAL. But then the more you were in the program, you were then leading groups of guys for many years, right?

• 11:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest challenge for you from going as a, I wouldn't say a follower, but as a team member into then transitioning into leadership role of leading the team? What was the biggest challenge for you from that transition? From team member to player to player coach, let's say?

• 12:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, you actually, you're like not wanting to be, to call me a follower. Well, when you get into the SEAL teams and you're a new guy, you're absolutely following. You got, you don't know what you're doing. You don't understand the tactics. And so there's other people that have experience. You're listening to them. They're teaching you. And then as I got older and more experienced and eventually, I did move into leadership positions and became an officer in the SEAL teams. And then it was my time to step up and lead. And the amount of lessons that I learned are, are countless. And that's what I ended up writing a bunch of books about. I ended up writing a bunch of books about those leadership experiences that I had. Right out of the gate, you know, when you asked me what I learned, you know, one of the most important things that I talk about all the time is. You're gonna get humbled and you need to be humble. Right.

• 12:55Jocko Willink?

  Because you don't know. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. As a leader, especially you step up into a leadership position, do you know everything? No. No, you don't know everything. If you act like you know everything, you're gonna get eaten alive. Humbled quickly. You're gonna get humbled and not only that, but your troops are gonna look at you and say, "Why are you... Who do you think we are? Do you think we're stupid?" So you're acting like you know everything. We actually know you don't know everything and you're acting that way, sir, their respect for you goes down. Whereas if you just say, "Hey, look, I just got into this job. I'm gonna do the best I can. I don't know everything. My mind is open. I'm here to listen. I'm here to learn. And if you guys can help me out, I'd appreciate it." Well, everyone sees you as a humble person that's ready to listen and ready to learn and their respect for you actually goes up.

• 13:37Jocko Willink?

  So I'm not saying you can walk in and say, "Hey, I don't know anything. I'm ignorant. I haven't done any preparation. I haven't studied anything. I don't know anything about my job." But you can only learn so much from books and from various documents, right? Eventually, you gotta start doing it. So you gotta... That's what I learned. Number one, you gotta be humble. Yeah. How long were you a leader of the teams? So I was enlisted in the SEAL teams for my first eight years and then I got a commission and became a SEAL officer. Okay. And how many years were you an officer for? 12 years. 12 years.

• 14:21Jocko Willink?

  I wanna take a moment with this interview and inspiring self-discipline interview with Jocko to talk about Thinkific. Now, Thinkific is the best platform to create, market, and sell your own online courses. I've been building online courses for almost a decade, guys, and it's been one of the most powerful ways to build my business, to impact more people, and to get my message out in the world. Now, if you're already sharing your expertise online, but you want to be able to package it into a course, it's an incredible way to scale your business and make an impact. So whether you've got a blog or a book, or you're training people one-on-one, or some group coaching...

• 15:02Speaker 00

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• 15:46Speaker 00

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• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  What was the most humbling experience you had as a leader in all 12 years? And was the 11th and 12th year easier than the first and second year as a team leader?

• 16:30Speaker 00

  So most humbling experience, there's, well, the most humbling experience you're going to experience on the battlefield is if you have your guys wounded or killed.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  And when that happens,

• 16:41Speaker 00

  there's nothing that's going to be worse than that for you as a person.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  Right. Because you feel responsible, you feel like it was your job.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  It's not just you feel responsible, you are responsible.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  You are in charge. And so when someone gets wounded or killed, you, if you're not shouldering that burden.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  Then you're lying to yourself. So that's number one. The story that I wrote about in Extreme Ownership, the opening chapter of Extreme Ownership is there was a blue on blue, a fratricide, meaning friendly forces killing friendly forces. And that happened when I was on a mission. It was actually a group of my SEALs with some Army soldiers and some Iraqi soldiers in a in a position and in a sniper position. And they got basically attacked by a friendly Iraqi element.

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  Your guys did?

• 17:33Jocko Willink?

  Yes, got into a gunfight with them. One of my guys killed an Iraqi soldier, wounded a couple more Iraqi soldiers. One of my guys got wounded. It was a nightmare because it's

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  You're on the same side. You're on the same team.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. So, yeah, and I was the guy in charge.

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:52Jocko Willink?

  So you want to talk about humbling? That's humbling. All these, you think you're so good. You think you've got tactics mastered and all that stuff. You think you're great at planning and all those things. And I wouldn't say that I thought that, but I definitely thought I was competent. And so when that unfolded, it's like, oh, guess whose fault this is? It's my fault.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Where do you go after that? How do you go back to a confident place of being able to lead people? Because you've got to have some confidence too. You can't just be, you know, concerned that something wrong is going to happen all the time, right? How do you transition back into a confident place?

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  Number one, take ownership of what went wrong.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  Extreme ownership.

• 18:30Jocko Willink?

  Take extreme ownership of it, right? Because it's the same thing I just said. If that would have happened and I would have said, hey, guys, that was my fault. It was his fault and here and his fault and his fault. People would have looked at me. They know the truth. The truth is I'm the guy in charge. So everyone's respect level for me would have gone down. And their confidence in me would have gone down. But when I go in and say, hey, guys, look, this is what went wrong. This is my fault because I'm the guy in charge and this is what we're gonna do to fix it. Well, now everyone says, okay, well, he's taken ownership of the problem and he's actually got some good solutions to make sure this doesn't happen again. Their confidence and the respect for me goes up and we can move forward. Right. How often did you have to take extreme ownership? Every single day. Every day? Oh, yeah. Of course. Wow.

• 19:12Jocko Willink?

  Of course. The minute that you're blaming anyone else for things that are going wrong, the moment that you do that, think about what it does to you. If I'm walking, if we go on a mission and something goes wrong and I go, that wasn't my fault, well, what am I doing to fix it now? What am I doing? Right. I'm not doing anything. Nothing. Because I don't think it's my fault, so I'm not gonna change anything. Then we'll make that same mistake again and then I'll say that wasn't my fault and we'll never make any progress. Whereas if I say, hey, this was my fault, here's what I'm gonna do to fix it, then we fix the problem. And by the way, when I point my finger at you and I say, hey, you know, this was your fault, what's your reaction to that? Uh, defensive? Yeah, you're gonna get defensive. Yeah, of course.

• 19:58Jocko Willink?

  And then what are you gonna do? No, it wasn't. I'm blaming this person, that person. They dropped the ball here, Jimmy did that, Johnny did this. And what are they all gonna do? Pointing back to you. So now what do we end up with? No solutions. No one taking ownership of any of the problems, the problems never get solved, we never progress. So how many times did you take extreme ownership of something that technically wasn't your fault? There is no thing. There is no thing? There is no thing. So you'll take ownership of everything, even if it wasn't directly? This is a question, a comment that I get from my consulting business, right? You know, we work with business leaders and someone will say, yeah, I get it, you know, but what should I do when it's really not my fault? But it is your fault. It's like, oh, yeah.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  I have yet to have somebody stump me with a question when I say, no, if you're in charge of something and something goes wrong, it's your fault. It's all your responsibility. It's all your responsibility because if I'm in charge of a platoon... And one of the machine gunners, that's four or five levels below me in the chain of command and is on a position that I'm not even at.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:03Jocko Willink?

  And he shoots his machine gun in the wrong direction, towards friendly forces. Whose fault is that?

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  It's your fault.

• 21:08Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it's my fault. I didn't train him well enough. I didn't make sure he understood his fields of fire, where he was allowed to shoot. I didn't make sure that he was being monitored correctly by his fire team leader to make sure that they all knew what was happening. And at the end of the line, if he's not competent and capable of doing his job, it's my fault that I let him be in that position.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:31Jocko Willink?

  So no matter what happens, it's my fault.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  So what do you tell CEOs or leaders of big companies that have multiple lines, you know, underneath them that don't have the time to train them personally, but they have someone underneath them to train, who's trained them, who's trained them? How do you coach?

• 21:48Jocko Willink?

  It's real easy. You know, the guy says to me, hey, you know, we failed this project. And I said, oh, why did we fail that project? Oh, because of Bill, the frontline manager. Oh, okay, who's in charge of Bill? It's Mike. Okay, who's in charge of Mike? Fred. Who's in charge of Fred?

• 22:06Lewis Howes?

  The leader, the CEO.

• 22:07Jocko Willink?

  I am. Yeah, that's right. You're in charge of Fred. So that means you need to make sure that your intent is felt all the way down through the chain of command.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  How do we do that?

• 22:20Jocko Willink?

  That's leadership. This is why I have a consulting business, because this is what you have to do. Because the larger a company gets, look, when I'm in charge of eight people.

• 22:29Lewis Howes?

  It's easier.

• 22:29Jocko Willink?

  Everybody knows what I'm thinking. I mean, I see them every day. I can sit in one room and talk to them all face to face. On the battlefield, you're in charge of a fire team. A fire team has four or five people in it. Even in combat, you can control four or five people. Eight people, you actually can't control anymore. In a firefight, you can't control eight people. That's why the army, the Marine Corps, around the whole world, it's like four or five people in a fire team. That's what the base unit is. In the corporate world, you can handle a little bit more than that because there's no explosions happening, there's no gunfire. So you can control eight people, 10 people, something like that. That's kind of it. Kind of what the normal corporate structure breaks out as. But the bigger you get, the more you have to rely on those subordinate leaders.

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  To spread the word, to understand what the mission is, to understand what the NSAID is. To understand why they're doing what they're doing. That's what you have to do as a leader. And when you do that, there was plenty of missions that I went on where I was the ground force commander. In charge of thirty or forty SEALs or a hundred. SEALs and Iraqi soldiers combined together, plenty of operations like that. You know how many people I talked to? I would talk to three. Right. I would talk to the two platoon commanders and the mobility commander. Yeah. And everybody, and then they would talk to their two or three people, and then their people would talk to their two or three people. So how do you get that message across to hundred or thousands if that's in your organization? There's a bunch of different ways. So in a big organization.

• 23:55Jocko Willink?

  This is something that we come across. I mean, we work with companies. I think the biggest company we worked with is a hundred and. Hundred and sixty seven thousand employees, hundred and sixty seven thousand employees global, right? So they're all over the place. So how do you get the message? Well, there's a bunch of things that you have to do. Number one, you have to make sure that your message is simple, clear and concise, right? Every, you gotta, you gotta communicate in a way that even that frontline trooper can understand what you're talking about. Now you have to translate that up and down the chain of command because. If you're my chief operating officer, obviously the level of detail that I go into with you. And, and the chief financial officer, that's going to be higher. You guys need to, we, we need to be. In a deeper level of conversation and understanding. But I need to make sure that you know how to translate that down to your next level.

• 24:40Jocko Willink?

  And then that person knows how to translate it down to their next level and all the way through the chain of command. There's companies where I'll go into the CEO and we'll be talking, I'll say. So how well does everyone understand? What your mission is here? And he'll say, oh, absolutely. I'll go to a frontline person and say, what's the mission of this company? No clue. They have no idea. They have no idea. And this can be a real problem. Yeah. This can be a real, I mean, obviously this can be a real problem, but it becomes a real problem when. If you're a frontline troop and you don't understand what the mission is, you can make bad decisions on the frontline. So, there are certain companies at certain stages where the most important thing they can do is is be cost effective. Save money. If a frontline troop needs to make a decision about, hey,

• 25:21Jocko Willink?

  should I redo this thing right now, which is going to cost us a little bit more money? Or should I just let it go with a little bit lower standard? Well, if what you're focused on is saving money, that guy says, okay, you know what? I'm gonna let this go even though the standard is a little bit lower. That's a decision that can get made. But what if you're focused right now, maybe you've got some bad reviews from consumers and so your focus is to make quality perfect, even if you have to expend a little bit more money. If the frontline troop knows that, he goes, wait a second, this isn't quite where we want it, so he redoes it, it costs a little bit more money, but we're now achieving the mission at that time. And guess what? As you can probably figure out, the mission changes because we work with a we will work with a company where, what are they trying to do right now? They're trying to maximize profits for this quarter because they're going public

• 26:05Jocko Willink?

  and they need four quarters in a row or six quarters in a row, where they see that increasing. So, okay, guess what kind of decisions they're making? Now, can you go too far with that? Absolutely. And now you get the frontline troop that goes, hey, I don't care. I'll put out as many as I possibly can. It's going to be dirt cheap and I save the company a bunch of money. But now we end up with bad quality out there and we will get a bad reputation and that will hurt us strategically. Right. So, how do you get that message out there? You have to, number one, make sure it's simple and then you communicate it. What's a simple message for like a? I guess it depends on the company, but. Depends on the company. Yeah. But should a simple message be like one sentence, you mean? Or should it be a simple to understand? Simple to understand. Yeah. The more, and what we'll do with companies is we'll do a drill where we'll record in their mission.

• 26:50Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of their mission statement, but then also their mantra. Or maybe a couple mantras where, in this case, hey, it's quality over quantity. Right. And now a frontline person's making decisions based on that, right? And so there's a couple mantras, two, three mantras that the people can refer back to that helps them guide their decision-making process. And then on top of that, they have like a little bit more detailed mission statement where they can say, wait a second. I know the mantra says this, but it also says we're supposed to take care of our customers and if I let this go, then my customers won't be taken care of. I need to, I need to adjust a little bit.

• 27:24Lewis Howes?

  Right. What would you say is your mission and the mantras you use for your, your business brand?

• 27:29Jocko Willink?

  So I have a bunch of different businesses, you know, for Echelon Front, our, our consulting business. Our mission is to be the premier organization for leadership consultant consultancy in the world. That's what we're trying to do.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  And we're doing great at it, you know, we're doing great at it. How do we do that? What are the mantras? Well, number one, like we just said, what do we want to do? We want to make our clients and customers happy. How do we do that? We provide them great service and we actually improve their game. We actually can look at their metrics and say, hey, look, we're glad you brought us on board. Here's what we said we were going to do and here's how it worked. So that's, and the, one of the other things that we say is, look, we don't want to be a permanent crutch that people have to rely on. So a lot of consultant company, consultancies, they, they want to go in and, and hook into a company for an extended period of time and we don't want to do that. We want to work with you for six months, 12 months, 18 months, depending on the size of the company.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  And let you go, yeah.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  We do have some companies that are growing rapidly. And so what we do is as they acquire new companies or as they bring in lots of new people, we're there to help train them and kind of onboard them. So that has turned into some longer term contracts, but that's one of the mantras is we don't want to be embedded with you forever. If we're with you for too long, we failed.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:53Jocko Willink?

  So those are the kind of things we do.

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  And what about your personal mission with the, the content you do and all, and all the books? Is there a missions there that you have as well?

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to take the lessons that I was lucky enough to learn and get them to as many people as I can, so they don't have to suffer through the same mistakes that I made.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is your biggest insecurity? Do you have any insecurities?

• 29:15Jocko Willink?

  My biggest insecurity?

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Because from the outside looking in, you feel like it seems like you have no fear. You're extremely successful in business. Everything you put out is really successful. You've been through 20 years of training and combat. You've seen the worst in the world. You've seen the best. And it doesn't seem like you have many insecurities. So I'm just, I'm curious if you face any today after all the lessons you've gone through.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I would say like anybody else, I don't want to fail at things.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  And for me, like I said, if there's people out there that could use the lessons that I've learned and I haven't gotten it to them, to me, that's a failure.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Jocko Willink?

  So that, that's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. The other thing from that perspective is, you know, you, you look at, you say, you know, you've seen a lot, you've been through a lot. And, and I have, I've been through a decent amount. There's, there's many, many people that have been through infinitely worse than me. But for what I'm insecure about, for what I worry about, is I worry about missing out on opportunities that I have. Because I got friends that will never get the chance to execute on opportunities because they didn't come home.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  And so for me to squander any moment, any second of my life, my, my life is a gift, your life is a gift. I know that for a fact. And for me to squander that is something that, that definitely, definitely haunts me. It haunts me every day and I won't let it happen.

• 30:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm assuming you got a lot of friends that didn't make it back or people you were with or trained or?

• 31:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Jocko Willink?

  All of the above.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  So do you feel like you have this responsibility to make sure you take on every opportunity or the opportunities that come to you? You've got to at least give them your best shot, even if you kind of quote unquote fail at it?

• 31:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a.

• 31:20Jocko Willink?

  What you just said, I mean, even you know, as you said it, it's an unrealistic statement. Hey, every opportunity that comes your way, I'm gonna take on. No, that's not true. Every opportunity that I have, prioritize and execute, you know, which is one of the laws of combat. It's like, hey, you're gonna get opportunities, but I'm gonna look at them, assess them, and move forward. But really, I'm talking about the real things that I'm trying to do, that I have the opportunity to do. I'm gonna do them to the best of my ability.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Is there anything you regret in your 20 years of being a SEAL?

• 31:53Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you're always gonna have regret.

• 31:55Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that you still hold on to, that you haven't like processed and let go of? Or taken, been okay with, I guess, like the regrets that you dealt with?

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, I don't spend a lot of time with regret.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, because there's not much that you can do about it. It's happened.

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  It's something, yeah.

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  So what, the way I look at regret is what did I learn from it? What did I learn from whatever thing I'm looking at that I know I could have done a better job, could have done different? Sure, there's a million things like that, but I don't sit there and think about them all day long. What I think is like, hey, here's the lessons that I learned from them. I won't make those mistakes again and move forward.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Was it challenging, because you have four kids, did you say?

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  Four kids.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  Four kids. Was it challenging at times, being a father and going off to war? And thinking about kids and missing out on kids, was that challenging for you? Or did you know, this is what I signed up for, and it's all gonna be okay? I'm gonna come home eventually and spend more to quality time with them? Or did you struggle with being a father and being away a lot at the same time?

• 33:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah. When you have kids and you go away to war and you don't know if you're gonna come back, that's horrible.

• 33:10Lewis Howes?

  How do you handle that emotionally or mentally?

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  I think I did a lot of compartmentalization.

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 33:17Jocko Willink?

  And so, like, here's a, for instance, I was in Ramadi, my last deployment to Iraq, and my wife asked me to send a picture of where I slept at night. Because my kids, she said, oh, the kids want to see where you're sleeping. We were in an old regime kind of palace on the wall. Not quite a palace, but a mansion. And of course, it's all now boarded up, and there's sandbags in the windows, and there are machine gun nests on it, and the whole nine yards. But that's where we were living. And I had a little bedroom in there with a plywood bed that, you know, we'd built. And there was some kind of a crappy mattress on it.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  A little cushion, yeah.

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that's where I slept. And so I was going to take a picture of it, so I could send it to my wife on an email. And when I took the picture, I looked at it, and I realized that there was something wrong with the picture. So I opened up a drawer, pulled out a little file, a little folder, took some pictures of my wife and kids, and put them up around the bed.

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  And then I took a picture of it. And then I took all those things back down, I put them back in the folder, I put them back in the drawer. Because the last thing I needed to be thinking about while I was away on deployment was thinking about my wife and kids.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:29Jocko Willink?

  What I needed to be thinking about was the guys that were with me, that were counting on me to make the right decisions. And so I didn't want to be thinking about my wife and kids. So I compartmentalized them. I would talk to my wife maybe once a week, call her, check in. I would tell her everything's great, everything's fine. And she would tell me the same thing, you know? Doesn't matter what was going on at home, as far as she was gonna tell me.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  You can't be worrying about her.

• 34:52Jocko Willink?

  She didn't want me worrying about her or the kids. So as far as I knew, everything was good, and as far as she knew, everything was good. And that was what seemed to work well.

• 35:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Did they teach you that? Or is that what a lot of SEALs did?

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  That just kind of sounds like you had to.

• 35:07Jocko Willink?

  I think some, and not just SEALs, but I think most human beings will, will figure that that's probably the best thing to do is focus on your job at hand and, and, and put those thoughts and feelings aside. But I'll tell you what, you know, you talked about being scared. And I said, you know, for me being scared of, of one of my guys getting hurt, the last thing in the world I wanted to be thinking about while I was on deployment was my wife and kids at home and would I ever see them again and any of that? I'm not thinking about that. That's not, that's not happening.

• 35:41Lewis Howes?

  Then you're making the wrong moves.

• 35:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because then you're, then you're, then what you're doing is you're hesitating. And if you're hesitating.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  That's when you get hurt.

• 35:48Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get killed. So.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Man, that's crazy. That's a story right there. So when she saw the photo, was she happy to see the family photos around?

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's nice.

• 36:01Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy, but you couldn't sleep at night looking at those photos?

• 36:04Jocko Willink?

  I didn't want to.

• 36:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Did other guys do the same thing or some of them have?

• 36:08Jocko Willink?

  I, I don't know. You know, if some guys fueled them, that's fine. You know, not everyone's the same.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:13Jocko Willink?

  You know, some guys I'm sure would look at their, look at the picture of their, of their wife or their kids and, and.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Give them energy.

• 36:20Jocko Willink?

  Feel motivated by it and give them something to look forward to. For me, I did not want to think about that.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man. That's crazy. Was once a week enough for you to keep that connection going and to keep the?

• 36:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I've been married for a long time. I've been married for a long time, for 20 something years.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  Do you believe in God too?

• 36:40Jocko Willink?

  I think when you're overseas in a combat situation, you know, whether you, depending on what your version of, of, of God is gonna be. But what I will say is this, you will see absolute pure evil overseas. You'll see it. You know, what we saw in the, in the battle of Ramadi was. Abhorrent behavior by forces of evil that seem to be non-human in many ways. And then the other side of the spectrum, when you're in combat, you're gonna see some level

• 37:18Jocko Willink?

  of good and pure goodness that when, you know, when, when one person will sacrifice their life to save other people, that's not normal, right? That's not a human instinct. It's a instinct beyond being human. And so whatever your, whatever that word means, good, evil, God, Satan.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Jocko Willink?

  I've seen it.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Did you, what were your beliefs as a SEAL and have they changed since you're, since you've been home? Did you, did you believe in a higher power or God or, or, you know, spiritual belief during that time and has it shifted or changed?

• 38:03Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I say the feelings that I had going in, I would say, you know, what I just explained about seeing good and evil, like when you see good and evil like that, that extreme, it, it just reinforced the fact that there's, like I said, wherever you put these ideas, wherever you think those ideas are rooted, I've seen them spring up into the world with my own eyes.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what's your belief then? Is it, do you believe in a higher power guiding you or do you believe there is a God, there isn't a God?

• 38:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, there, there has to be some, there's something inside, there's something in the world.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Jocko Willink?

  Whether it's inside people's heads, whether it's external, I don't know. And I'm, I'm a person that looks at the world and thinks, when I hear people saying God doesn't exist, then, or God 100% exists. Guess what? I don't know. When I say I don't know, I don't, I don't claim to understand the mysteries of the universe at all. But I will say this, when you look and you see the actions of human beings, whether that force is external or internal. They are there. And so.

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:24Jocko Willink?

  I've seen them.

• 39:25Lewis Howes?

  You currently explore those questions about the mysteries of the world, if there is a God, if there isn't a God, do you think about that often? Or is that not something you're thinking about? Because for me, I'm constantly questioning everything. There's some days where I believe firmly there's a God, other days I feel like, I don't know. So I'm just curious, is that something that you're asking? You're not asking those questions or curious about that?

• 39:49Jocko Willink?

  Not really. But like I said, there's good in the world.

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  And there's evil.

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And whether that, whether that's a some unifying thing inside of people's brains, or whether it's external, you can think whatever you want, I'm telling you it's there. I'm telling you it's there. And, and I don't try and convince people one way or the other.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You've just seen it, you've experienced both.

• 40:10Jocko Willink?

  I've experienced it. And that's good enough for me.

• 40:13Lewis Howes?

  What's the question you feel like you haven't been able to answer for yourself? Is there a question you're seeking to, to learn more about, answers to? If it's not God or the world, is there something else around leadership, around people, or around something else that you're seeking?

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  So you're asking me if there's a question that I think about all the time that I'm looking for?

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  You're looking for an answer for you. Is there something that you're like, I'm really curious about this thing? Whether it's about yourself, about other people, about the world, about leadership, is there something that you're currently looking for an answer for?

• 40:45Jocko Willink?

  Who's weird is that I literally sit around all day and talk about leadership, I think about leadership. And what leadership to me, it boils down to understanding human nature. So for me, trying to better understand human nature is what I'm constantly trying to do, is just gather a better understanding of human nature and how that applies to everything in the world.

• 41:12Lewis Howes?

  Human nature, meaning the way we think, the way, why we do certain things, why we respond.

• 41:16Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Emotionally, mentally, physically to ideas or people or reactions.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  That's what I mean. How can I understand human nature? People, everything you just said, how can I understand that better? And that's what I'm always looking to do.

• 41:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What has given you the best information around understanding people better?

• 41:34Jocko Willink?

  Well, on, on my podcast, it's really a podcast about human nature and it's human nature through the lens of war and atrocities, really. Because when you start looking to reveal human nature.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  The place where human nature gets revealed most clearly is in chaotic situations.

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, life and death situations.

• 41:56Jocko Willink?

  Life and death situations. Whether it's war, whether it's a concentration camp,

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  Whether it's a prison camp, whatever that is, that's where you start to see what people, how people react.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Survival situations, yeah.

• 42:08Jocko Willink?

  And so, for me, that, that constant trek down that road of uncovering what, how this person reacted, how this group of people reacted, how that other group of people reacted. Understanding that and seeing that and allowing that to unfold in my world has been, that's, that's my, that's, that's my road I'm on.

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  Why do people react the most, just in life, whether it's prison camp or war, or you're just walking down the street and someone cuts you off? Is there similarities between those situations where it might be just a normal day, but there's something that offends you or triggers you? And also in a, in a time of life or death situation, are there any similarities?

• 42:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there's absolute similarities.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  What are the, what are those things that?

• 42:54Jocko Willink?

  There's similarities across the board. That's what makes it so interesting to me.

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:58Jocko Willink?

  Is because I get to see the way that things happen in wartime, and then you get to see

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  That you live it, yeah.

• 43:03Jocko Willink?

  how that compares to how it works in a, in a corporate setting.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why are we triggered to react or be defensive or guarded? Or in this kind of survival mode when life isn't actually threatening us? In a corporate setting or?

• 43:19Jocko Willink?

  Well, the thing that's driving in a corporate setting often is your ego. Which, by the way, is the same thing that drives a lot of things that unfold, the same things that unfold in a combat scenario. It's like, oh, your ego's involved. Hey, I think we should do this plan this way. And then you think you should do it, you think we should do it a different way. My plan's better. You think your plan's better. We bang heads. Like, that's bad. That happens in war and it happens in the corporate society as well.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Ego.

• 43:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, ego. Ego drives all kinds of...

• 43:50Jocko Willink?

  Decisions that you make, bad decisions. It drives some good decisions too.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Jocko Willink?

  Right? I mean, it does. You're ignorant not to admit that, you know? Like, I like to win at things, right? Cool, what's driving that? It's 100% ego. You know what I mean? You like to win at things. You like to do well.

• 44:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  Cool. What's driving that? It's ego. There's some level of ego. Now, if it goes overboard and you start making decisions so that you can win, but you're stepping on the backs of other people, that means you've let your ego get out of control. Now, you're making mistakes and that's gonna end up in your downfall eventually. It might not, you might, you might get pretty far. You might get pretty far allowing your ego to smash other people and abuse other people. You might get pretty far, but eventually it's gonna come back on you. I guarantee it's gonna come back on you.

• 44:36Lewis Howes?

  How do you manage your own ego with the success you get? You know, you've had success in multiple areas of your career, from a SEAL to an author, to a business leader, to an executive coach, a leadership coach. How do you manage it when you are training CEOs from companies that have 100,000 plus employees? And you're number one on the list and top podcasts? How do you manage it daily?

• 44:58Jocko Willink?

  Because I've seen over and over again through my own experiences, through the books that I cover on my podcast, the books I've read in my life. If you want to open yourself up for a massive downfall, just let your ego get out of control.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  If you want to let that happen, yeah, let your ego get out of control. So every single day for me, it starts at, you know, ground zero. I've gotta go forward with an open mind, with a humble mind, looking at the world. You know, it's classic, like when I get asked a question, I don't think to myself, oh, I know the answer to this. And I get asked questions all the time.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:34Jocko Willink?

  And generally, when I hear a question, 99% of those questions that I hear, I've heard in some form before.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  But I don't go, I've heard this before, I know the answer. I say, okay, well, let me, let me hear this. What, what detail is this person talking about? What angle is this person coming at it from? What can I learn from this question? How can I assess this question? So, everything that I look at, I try and look at from a humble perspective. And if you don't do that, it's gonna be a problem. I mean, even when you're asking me questions about God, you're asking me questions about my beliefs. It's like, hey, here's my beliefs. I'm humble and I'm listening and my mind is open. And this is what I've seen and this is what I can tell you about it.

• 46:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 46:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm not sitting here jumping up and down saying you should believe this or you should believe that. I'm saying you should stay humble. You should keep an open mind about what's going on in the world. I am. I think you should do the same thing.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's a mindset every morning you wake up with an open mind.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I don't want to get in this whole like morning routine where I go and look in the mirror and say be humble. No, I don't do that. Like, I'm not, that's not me, but when, you know, you wake up and I'm just saying that the way I go about my business and my life is to say, say to myself, okay, well, I could be wrong about that. I could be wrong about this, you know? Even the book that I wrote, Follow On to Extreme Ownership. The book is called The Dichotomy of Leadership. And what's interesting about this book, so the dichotomy of leadership is like, you can't be extreme in one direction or the other, right? You can't be, if you're in a leadership position, you can't talk all the time, right? Obviously, as a boss, you need to communicate, you need to talk to your people. But if you talk too much, guess what happens?

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  People start, stop listening to you, you're putting out too much information. They don't know what's important and what's not. So that's bad. You can't go too far in that direction. The other direction is you can't not talk enough and now no one knows what's going on, no one knows what's happening. So you have to be balanced and that's the whole idea of the dichotomy of leadership. But probably the first dichotomy in leadership that I had to say to myself, you know what? There's another side to this is I used to tell the young SEAL officers that you have to be aggressive. You gotta be default aggressive, that's how you gotta be. Because when something's going on, you gotta be aggressive to make that, get that problem solved. And if you're not being aggressive, then you're hesitating, well, then you can get killed. Okay, so there you go. And that's what I used to tell guys.

• 47:52Lewis Howes?

  That's extreme, that's an extreme.

• 47:54Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that's the problem with it. And so the question is, can you be too aggressive?

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely. You can, hey, there's a machine gun nest over there, let's attack it. So you charge up the hill and everyone dies. You've, you've been too aggressive. So what you have to do is you have to be balanced and that's probably even as I had these kind of mantras, like default aggressive, can you do too much of that? Yes, you can. So you end up with this, what do you end up? Can you be too passive? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, now we're not making any progress, now we're getting crushed by the enemy because we didn't maneuver. Okay, so that's bad. So where do you want to be? You want to be balanced. Even the idea of extreme ownership. Can you take too much ownership? Yes. Yes, you can. Really? Yes, you can. I thought you said you need to take ownership of everything. Two different things. Listen to this. If you're working for me, and I say, okay,

• 48:43Jocko Willink?

  here's the mission that I want you to accomplish tonight. Here's the people I want you to take. Here's the weapons I want you to bring. Here's the vehicles I want you to bring. Here's the route I want you to use to get to the target. Here's the method I want you to use to secure the target. Here's the route I want you to do to get back. So, that's the plan. Now, you take ownership and go execute. Now, can you really take ownership of that plan? If someone else gave you the whole thing? I mean, I gave you the whole thing, right? Is that your plan? No. No. It's your plan, yeah. It's my plan. So, when you go in the field, and now you come up against an obstacle, and you're executing my plan, what's your attitude? Well, it's not my plan. Yeah, and you're at an obstacle now, and you're like, hey, Jocko didn't think of this. Right, right. So, his plans are... So, now you just back away, and you come back and you say, hey,

• 49:27Jocko Willink?

  we failed the mission because you didn't think of this. You didn't think of this option, yeah, yeah. Right. So, that's me taking too much ownership. So, what I need to do is I say, hey, here's the plan, or here's the mission. How do you want to do it? And now, if you're a good leader, you'll go get with your people, and you'll say, oh, hey, guys, here's the plan, or here's the mission that we have to accomplish. How do you guys want to do it? Now, you all come up with a good plan, and you come back to me, and you say, here's the plan. And I say, that looks pretty good. Go execute. And now, when you hit an obstacle in the field, what's your attitude? I need to adapt, and I need to adjust. It's your plan, you'll make it win. Came up with this, yeah. Yes. So, can you take too much ownership? The answer is, yes, you can. So, with just about every... You can name a trait, right? You can name a trait

• 50:10Jocko Willink?

  from a leadership perspective that you think is a positive trait, and you'll immediately see that if you go too far with it, it'll become bad. It'll become bad. So, you have to be balanced. So, even as I came up with the dichotomy of leadership, I had to be humble enough to say to myself, you know what? Being aggressive is really, really good most of the time, but if you're too aggressive, that's not good. Yeah. So, like you said earlier, you're constantly questioning everything. And to me, what that is, that's humility. That's you being humble enough to say, you know what? I really don't understand this that well. And there's some things in my life that I don't get. Whereas opposed to you walking around saying, I already got this figured out. I already know what I'm doing. I already know where I'm going. I already know what God is specifically. I already know what's going to happen to me when I die.

• 50:55Jocko Willink?

  All those things. But instead you're questioning everything, which in my mind is a positive thing.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good to know. Is there anything that is missing in your life? You feel like something's missing?

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  I know, I feel like I'm living a pretty good life right now. I mean, I'm totally blessed. I mean, I got a great family, I got great kids, I got a great company, I got working with great people. No, healthy, you know, I get to work out, train. I'm feeling good.

• 51:24Lewis Howes?

  Living the dream, man.

• 51:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, living the dream.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  So you never feel like there's something missing for you right now? If there is, you're working towards it, you're working on the next book, you're building the business.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, there's a difference between something missing and am I satisfied? Right? Because I'm not satisfied. I mean, I always want to go, like, I never, I never get done with the end of the day and go, "Cool, mission accomplished." Like, it's like, yeah.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so you're not satisfied, but you feel like nothing's missing?

• 51:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's a fair statement.

• 51:54Lewis Howes?

  What brings you the most joy in your life and makes you smile the most?

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I mean, my kids, my kids are cool. They're funny, you know, my, my wife and kids. Yeah, my, my wife and kids are cool and funny and, and we have a good time and lots of inside jokes and all that.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  You know, and I, and I train jiu-jitsu and that, that's very fun. And surf, that's fun.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  Play guitar, that's fun.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  How old are your kids again?

• 52:20Jocko Willink?

  Twenty, eighteen, sixteen, and ten.

• 52:24Lewis Howes?

  And what's the biggest lesson you learned about being, about yourself being a father to them?

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  Your kids are not going to be who you want them to be.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  You can't train them to be.

• 52:34Jocko Willink?

  They're going to be who they are. And you can give them some course corrections a little bit, but they're going to be who they, who they are. And the more you try and force them into what you want them to be, the harder they're going to push back and rebel.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:52Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Did you learn that the hard way or did you get?

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  So you tried to train them in a certain way or?

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, somewhat. And it's pretty obvious, like, from my perspective, I was, I was having a similar conversation with a bunch of executives. And, and they were, we were talking, we, you know, we went down the road because we're having dinner now. So we're done talking about work, but now everyone wants to ask me about, you know, parenting and everything else and. At the table, I'm like, hey, who here ended up doing exactly what their parents wanted them to do? And there's like one guy out of 10, right? Because most people, you know, your parents are wanting you to do this thing, then you do something else. I mean, I joined the Navy when I was 18 years old. Like, that's, that probably wasn't even on the checklist of top 20 things that my parents wanted me to do. Not even in the same ballpark, right?

• 53:36Lewis Howes?

  They didn't want you to go to war.

• 53:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they didn't want that, so here you go. Yeah, see ya. That's... So, the more you try and kind of pigeonhole your kids into being something that you want them to be, the worse off it's gonna be. It's the same thing with leadership. It's the same thing with leadership. If I'm, if I'm trying to force my plan down my team's throat, the more resistance I'm gonna get from it. Whereas, if I plant the seed and I allow that plan to grow with them, the better it's gonna be received. Like, when people ask me, "How do you get people to buy in?" Well, you, you allow them to come up with, come up with a plan yourself.

• 54:12Lewis Howes?

  What if in your mind, you're like, "You really know that plan's not that good"?

• 54:16Jocko Willink?

  It depends on how bad it is. How bad is it? Or what's at stake? If you're working for me and you're going to meet with a client, and you have a bad pitch that you're gonna give them, and the client is some tiny client that I think is a low probability of us working with, and the contract doesn't really matter, I'd be like, "Hey, hey, give it a shot. Here's a couple. I might give you a couple adjustments, and, and give you some coaching on it." And then you go and you do your thing, and you come back, and you're like, "Oh, no, we didn't land it." And I say, "Well, what do you think? Let's debrief." And now we talk about it. I said, "You know, you said this, and you said that. Here's some other ways to go about it." I might even actually have you do it to me. So then I could sit there and take some notes and say, "Hey, here's some other things that might have worked." Now, if you were going to meet with a big client that really was gonna have value to our company,

• 55:01Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna either...

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  Step in, yeah.

• 55:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm gonna step in and be like, "Okay, let's think about that. What's their reaction gonna be?" And, and by the way, that's when I'm not gonna say, "No, don't do it that way." I'm gonna say, "Give me that, tell me that again, and let me hear, let me give you some objections that you might hear from them." And all of a sudden, I'll let you come up with the solutions. Even though I'm sitting there going, "Yeah, what he needs to say is this." No, I'll let you come up with the solution. So then you're kind of going in there like you got this dialed. And then you're gonna feel like you won, which you did.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 55:28Jocko Willink?

  Which is great.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  Gives you more ownership, more respect in yourself, confidence, belief. How important is, is feedback for leaders? Getting feedback from peers, coaches, or employees, team members?

• 55:41Jocko Willink?

  Feedback is how you get better. No feedback, no improvement. So, and if you're not humble, you're not looking for feedback and you're not listening to it. So if you think you know everything, you're not listening, you're not asking for it, even when it gets told to you, you don't, you don't listen to it. So, feedback is, is built upon being humble.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is in your way to getting to the next level? What feedback do you think you need to hear or receive from your team or people in order to reach the next goals that you have?

• 56:09Jocko Willink?

  The weird thing about me is, even though you might think, look at me and think, oh, who's gonna tell this guy anything, right? The reality is, if anyone of my friends, my team, anyone that works for me up and down the chain of command, if they think I'm wrong, everyone will say, hey, I don't know if that's a good plan. So, even, you know, when I was a task unit commander, and so I'm in charge, and I'm the head seal for this 40 SEALs, I'm the main guy. Anyone in that chain of command, those guys would all come to me and say, hey, I don't know if this is a good way to do it. And you know what I'd say? Why not? What do you think? What are you thinking? How do you think we should do it? My mind is open. If my plan is bad, please tell me, they would know that.

• 56:49Jocko Willink?

  So, my friends, my family, they'll tell me when I'm doing something wrong all day long.

• 56:55Lewis Howes?

  They're not intimidated or scared of you?

• 56:57Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 56:58Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  So how does a leader cultivate that with his family, friends, team, in order to welcome the feedback of the information?

• 57:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what you do is, when somebody gives you feedback, you listen to it. This is like, you know, just the other day, we have a, we have a, a leadership event that we do two or three times a year. But the thing that I was telling this group of people was, as a leader, you should be listening 98% of the time and talking 2% of the time. So, every time you come to me and you say, hey Jocko, I don't like this plan. I don't say, shut up and do it my way, no. I say, I say, how would you wanna do it? Tell me what you don't like about it, and then tell me how you wanna do it. So therefore, the next time you have an objection, you're like, you know the door's open, you know that I'm gonna be open-minded and listen to you, and that's how you build it.

• 57:48Jocko Willink?

  Every time you shut someone down from, from speaking their mind, you actually are creating a negative environment where you're not gonna get the feedback. And if there's no feedback, as we just said, you're not gonna improve.

• 57:59Lewis Howes?

  What are two things?

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  That any leader could do to improve their leadership skills. Right off the bat, two things you can think of. And what are two things that wannabe leaders do that hold them back from being great leaders? So what are the two things they could add?

• 58:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, two things that you have. Number one is listen, which, which we just talked about, so that's fresh on my mind. And you'd be surprised about how many leaders are thinking that because they're in a leadership position, they should be talking all the time. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. I'll sit through a meeting with a client or with one of my companies and I'll listen for 38 minutes. And at the end of those 38 minutes, I'll have already thought through every discussion that's been had. You know, you want to argue with him and he's arguing with her. And guess what? I get to sit there and assess those arguments and see which one is the most important. Meanwhile, you're expending all your ammunition. She's expending all her ammunition. He's given up everything he's got. I'm learning all their thought patterns. I'm learning the, the pros and cons of each one of their arguments. And I do that for 38 minutes.

• 59:01Jocko Willink?

  And in the 39th minute, I say, hey, here's what I think we should do. And guess what? Because I've done an accurate assessment and listened, I'm actually going to be able to make the best decision.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:14Jocko Willink?

  It wasn't because I was smarter. It wasn't because I had better tactical understanding. It's because I actually shut my mouth, listened to everyone spill their guts, learned everything that they knew and did a good detached assessment of, of what the right thing to do was. So listen, and the other one is the word that I just used, which is detach, which is not getting emotional. Not getting into the weeds about stuff that doesn't matter. If you can take a step back and look around, you're going to see infinitely more than you can when you're in the weeds, staring the firefight in the face, looking down the sights of your weapon, shooting. If you're doing that, you can't see anything else. Just think about that metaphor right there.

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  If I'm looking down the sights of my weapon and I'm shooting, my world is this big. The minute that I stop shooting, point my weapon at high port, take a step back and actually look around, I can see infinitely more. So, apply that to a meet, this is the meeting that we just talked about, a 38-minute meeting, all this chaos is happening. Sure, I'm the boss, I could jump in there and start arguing and giving my opinion, but what am I really doing then? What I'm really doing then is I'm in the weeds and I'm not able to assess what is actually happening. So there you apply it there. To your personal life, if you and I are arguing, you're my friend and you did something and now we're starting to escalate an argument and I'm starting to get emotional, am I able to listen to

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  you anymore? Am I able to logically figure out what's going on? If I'm talking to my wife and she did something that made me mad and now I'm starting to raise my voice, is that whole situation going in the right direction? No. No, it's not. It's not. So what I need to do is take a step back, detach, calm down, listen to what she's saying, and then try and assemble a logical thing to say back without, without saying, "You need to calm down," or "You're too emotional." No, no, no, no, no. Because if, if you come to me and you're mad about something, you come to me, whether it's, whether it's my wife or whether you're a business partner, you come to me and you say, "The dang, the supply department didn't give me the stuff I needed."

• 1:01:27Jocko Willink?

  If I say, "Hey, calm down," right? If that's my reaction, then you realize that I'm against you, right? I don't get it. And so now it's me and the supply department against you. No one understands. No one understands. So, I do a little technique. What is that? I call, I call it, "Reflect and diminish." So I'm gonna reflect your emotions back to you, but I'm gonna diminish them a little bit so that we're not escalating the situation. How would you do this with your wife? So if you, well, if you come to me and you go, "The supply department's been late, they're two weeks late on this stuff." I don't say, "Calm down." I say, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Two weeks?" And you go, "Yeah, can you believe it? Ah, that's horrible. We

• 1:02:11Jocko Willink?

  gotta put a solution, we gotta get that figured out." In the meantime, what do we need to do right now to get the problem solved, right? So we already, now we're on the same team so we can work together to find a solution. We bonded on the pain. Yes, yes. You felt the pain. Yes. We're on the same team. Okay, my wife, what's gonna make my wife mad? Um, "The ice machine's not working." Right, the ice machine's not working.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  It's your fault.

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Whether it's my fault, but we don't know. The ice machine's not working. By the way, this is a real story. This is happening today. The ice machine's not working. She didn't get mad about it, but the ice machine's not working. If I go, hey.

• 1:02:45Lewis Howes?

  Chill out.

• 1:02:45Jocko Willink?

  You have a refrigerator and a house and we.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  We're on the beach.

• 1:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Just calm down, right? Is that, how's that gonna go? It's not gonna go good. Now she's gonna get mad. Now it's me against her. You know, so instead, the ice machine's not working. Ah, man, that thing is junk. Have you called the, the repair guy? You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden, we're on the same team. And she's like, well, no, I haven't, but I'm about to. Okay, cool. Or as opposed to, the ice machine's not working. Well, okay, do you want me to have ice shipped in from Alaska there, princess? Right? That's not gonna go over well. So.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  So what did you call it?

• 1:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Reflect and diminish.

• 1:03:21Lewis Howes?

  Reflect and diminish. What if someone's coming after you and attacking you? Not like the supply chain or the ice machine, but it's like, you didn't do this.

• 1:03:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  This is your fault.

• 1:03:30Jocko Willink?

  I want you to guess what I'm gonna do.

• 1:03:33Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  What do you guess I'm gonna do? Like, if you come and attack me and tell me something's my fault, what do you think I'm gonna do?

• 1:03:39Lewis Howes?

  You personally?

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  You would, you would listen?

• 1:03:42Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  Reflect and diminish.

• 1:03:44Jocko Willink?

  I would actually.

• 1:03:45Lewis Howes?

  Detach.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Detach, yes.

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  How do you detach your emotions from someone coming after you emotionally? If it, even if it was or it wasn't your fault?

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's a couple of things that you've asked me now in the last couple of minutes. No, it's all good, cuz it's all.

• 1:03:57Lewis Howes?

  It's exciting.

• 1:03:57Jocko Willink?

  Cuz I can see like your, your, your mind is spinning here. You're, you're absorbing and you're like, oh, this makes sense. If you're attacking my ego, immediately, as soon as I feel frustrated, angry, defensive, all three of those things are red flags to me that that's my ego. I immediately know, I go, when you, when, when I feel the, my bristling.

• 1:04:20Lewis Howes?

  You wanna.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when I feel that, I know it's, I, I guarantees 99% is just my ego that I'm mad.

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  So what are you doing in that moment?

• 1:04:26Jocko Willink?

  Immediately go, oh, that's your ego, you idiot. Listen to what he's got to say, let's, let's win. Let's win. So how do I win? Do I win by attacking you? No. No, I don't win by attacking. If you're the only winner, you both lose. Yes. So when you attack me- Both need to win. And you say, whatever your attack is, you say, "This is your fault." I go, "You know what? Absolutely. This is my fault. Here's the mistake that I made." And I know it affected you in a negative way. Here's the things that I'm working on right now to remedy it. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna yell at me more? Are you gonna say, are you gonna tell me it's my fault again? Like I just- A crazy person might say it a couple more times. And a crazy person, I'll be like, "Yeah, I know." You know, I get this. This is another question I get when it's sort of like similar to what you said earlier. When you said, "Yeah, but what if it's not really your fault?" Right?

• 1:05:11Jocko Willink?

  The other one I get a lot is if you say, "Hey, listen, Louis, this is my fault that this happened." You go, "You're right, it is your fault." And then people say, "What do I do then? What do I do then? If the person's blaming me, how do I take ownership then?" And I'm like, "That's the whole point. That's the whole point." The whole point of taking ownership is when you look at me and you point your finger and you say, "This is all your fault." I say, "Yes, I know. That's what I just said. This is absolutely my fault. I'm the one that's in charge and these are the things that I'm gonna do to fix it." That's where we're gonna start. Wow. So when someone blames you, yes, take ownership. Now, if you have in the back of your mind, like you did earlier, like, "Hey, maybe this isn't really my fault." Like, if you have that in the back of your mind, you're actually wrong. You're actually wrong. You're in charge.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  And that applies to your life as well. That applies to your life as well. How you, you know, you gotta take ownership of what's going on in your life. When you're not where you wanna be and you say it's because the boss doesn't like you or it's because the girl treated you this way or the guy did this. Like, all those things, you gotta take ownership of. Yeah. And if you're blaming all these other external things, you're not gonna make any changes. And that's gonna be a problem.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay, let's talk about relationships with this. I want to stay with this for a second.

• 1:06:25Jocko Willink?

  Get some.

• 1:06:26Lewis Howes?

  Say you're... Say that you're... I'm trying to think of a situation.

• 1:06:31Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you're really thinking long and hard.

• 1:06:34Lewis Howes?

  But I'm sure you've had many experiences with your wife, right? Over the... How many years you been married or?

• 1:06:39Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-two.

• 1:06:41Lewis Howes?

  So I'm sure there's many times where you've expressed your dislike about something with her and she's expressed dislike of something about you. Is that fair to say?

• 1:06:49Jocko Willink?

  Not really.

• 1:06:49Lewis Howes?

  No?

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  No. What am I gaining from telling my wife something I dislike about her?

• 1:06:54Lewis Howes?

  Or about a situation or something she's unhappy with that you forgot to do? Or are you guys not like that?

• 1:07:00Jocko Willink?

  I don't really play into that whole bickering thing, right?

• 1:07:02Lewis Howes?

  That's great. That's amazing.

• 1:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm immediately just de-escalating, right?

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  You de-escalate all the time.

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Just de-escalate. Like what am I gonna gain? Am I gonna win an argument? Here's a question. Am I gonna win an argument with my wife?

• 1:07:14Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:07:14Jocko Willink?

  No. I might win a short-term battle with my wife.

• 1:07:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  What's that gonna do for me for the next week? It's gonna be... It's gonna be bad.

• 1:07:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna suffer more. So I'm not looking to win an argument. I'm looking to resolve a problem.

• 1:07:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:07:28Jocko Willink?

  And that's what allows... I mean, the SEAL Teams has like a 90% divorce rate.

• 1:07:33Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 1:07:35Jocko Willink?

  Because you're gone all the time. You're under a lot of stress. You detach emotionally. You come home. You... You just... That's what happens. It's a hard environment to... I mean, let's face it, normal people have like a 50% divorce rate.

• 1:07:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  So... You put that, you put normal people, you put them in massive stress and you go on six-month deployments, eight-month deployments, back-to-back-to-back-to-back, yeah.

• 1:07:58Lewis Howes?

  So how do you detach your ego? I guess your wife doesn't come at you negatively.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  No, my wife will do that all day long.

• 1:08:05Lewis Howes?

  Really? So she's coming at you or attacking little things here and there? How do you not let it affect you emotionally where you're like, "Don't you see how hard I'm working?" Or "Don't you see what I'm providing?" Or "Don't you see that I'm showing up every day consistently?"

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  "Don't you see that my ego is out of control and I'm looking to fight you right now?" No, I'm not gonna play that game.

• 1:08:22Lewis Howes?

  So you just detach instantly?

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  If someone's coming at you with a wife or...

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful because if you're unemotional, that's not good either, right? There's a balance.

• 1:08:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  Because if you just go... If you just sit back and you show no emotions, well, try that sometime with your girlfriend, right? When they get mad at you, just go, "Uh, what's for dinner?" See how that works? No, no, no, you can't do that.

• 1:08:45Lewis Howes?

  You've got to reflect.

• 1:08:47Jocko Willink?

  You have to be balanced. But yes, your ego is what plays into... Your ego drives all kinds of stupid things that you do.

• 1:08:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  And here's what's interesting.

• 1:08:57Jocko Willink?

  When you're truly confident, when you truly are confident, it allows you to be able to say, you know what? Like if you and I are working together and I've been doing this for 20 years and you've been doing it for four, or three, or two, and you come to me and say, "Hey, I want to try this a different way." If I'm really confident, I'll be able to say, "You know what? That plan sounds better than mine, actually." Why don't you go and execute that?

• 1:09:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:20Jocko Willink?

  Now, what do you think of me when I say that?

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Awesome.

• 1:09:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you think, "Oh, that's cool."

• 1:09:24Lewis Howes?

  He's a cool leader.

• 1:09:25Jocko Willink?

  He's a cool leader.

• 1:09:25Lewis Howes?

  He gets me.

• 1:09:26Jocko Willink?

  He trusts me. He trusts me.

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  He respects me.

• 1:09:29Jocko Willink?

  He respects me, and he's got confidence. Now, if you come to me with a plan, which, by the way, you can tell that your plan's better than mine. I mean, it's evident, for whatever reason.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:37Jocko Willink?

  You come to me with that plan and I go, "No, we're not doing it that way. Do it my way."

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I'd be like, "This guy sucks."

• 1:09:42Jocko Willink?

  This guy sucks. Not only that, but you realize that I don't even have the confidence to trust you and let you move forward.

• 1:09:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's an egomaniac.

• 1:09:51Jocko Willink?

  He's an egomaniac. It's gotta be his way. There you go, all those things. So, I don't play that game.

• 1:09:55Lewis Howes?

  With friends, with business partners, with your wife, you don't play a game anywhere?

• 1:10:00Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't play that game.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn that? To like attach your triggers, like emotional triggers?

• 1:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Over and over and over again. Saw it over and over again, so...

• 1:10:10Lewis Howes?

  Did you used to be that way? And you saw it, or you just saw it from other people?

• 1:10:12Jocko Willink?

  Luckily for me, I was able to observe a lot. And I had this situation unfold. So I got a new book coming out, which is... And I explain this situation. I was in a SEAL platoon. I was a follower, so I was like... I was a one cruise wonder, so I'd been on one deployment, but still not super experienced, but... And we had a platoon commander that was very inexperienced.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  And had a massive ego. And so this is a bad combination. Scary. So what did he do? He would say, we're doing it this way. This is who we're gonna take. This is the mission. This is the plan we're gonna use. He would force all of that down our throats. Not just mine, but everyone. Even guys that were experienced, even guys that had way more experience than him. They would just, he would force these plans down, down our throats. And what do you think our attitude is? The attitude that you just explained earlier. We were totally, hey, this guy sucks. This guy's got a big ego. He doesn't listen to anyone else. He's horrible. You didn't respect him, yeah. And eventually, we had a mutiny against that guy. Wow. We had a mutiny. We rebelled against him and said, we're not gonna work for this guy. Really? How often does that happen in Navy? Never. Hardly ever. Holy crap. I mean, that's the only mutiny that I, that I saw in my 20 years. It was that bad, though.

• 1:11:27Jocko Willink?

  Was that, was that situation. So we have this mutiny. And that was bad. And you know, at the time, I was sitting there looking. And I actually had an okay relationship with the boss, you know? Because I'm a person that even as a new SEAL, I realized, oh, you gotta build a relationship with the guy that you're working with. You gotta make sure that, that you're, that you can talk to them, that they'll talk to you, that you understand what they want. It's like, you gotta do that. Baseline of like and respect. Smart thing to do. Yeah. So this unfolds. And of course, even though I had a relationship with a guy I didn't wanna work with for him, because he was horrible. Right. So he gets fired. And I'm watching and going, wow, that was weird. Because why did we hate that guy so much? Well, the reason was because he didn't listen to anyone. He, everything was his way. He didn't treat us with respect.

• 1:12:12Jocko Willink?

  He was one of those guys that like, you take out the garbage. Hey, when we, when we're traveling in a van, the front seat is left open for me. That was like one of his things, right? So all of us like, what are you talking about? So none of us wanted to follow him. And that was, that stood out very starkly to me. Then when he got fired, a new platoon commander came in to take his place. And this platoon commander that came in to take his place was, was an awesome guy, had this great reputation as being a badass SEAL. And I didn't know him, but everyone knew his name. Wow. And he came in to take over. And I was kinda like, oh dang, we're about to get tightened up, you know? The guy's getting sent in here to fix us.

• 1:12:55Jocko Willink?

  So he shows up and I'm expecting this total beast to come in. And he's this super, he's not a huge guy. He's got like a nice smile on his face. Very, not quiet, but not loud, just kind of a humble guy. And he says something along those lines, "Hey, I'm looking forward to working with you guys."

• 1:13:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:12Jocko Willink?

  And I'm like, "Well, that's weird." And well, then it turns out when we got a mission to a training mission that we were gonna go on, like the very first one, he's like, "Hey, you guys, here's the mission. You guys come up with a plan." And we're like, "Wow."

• 1:13:26Lewis Howes?

  Well, you're supposed to tell us the plan, right?

• 1:13:28Jocko Willink?

  Yep, cuz that's what we've been used to. And by the way, this guy had incredible experience, combat experience. He'd had just about every job in a SEAL platoon that you can have. And there he was telling us to come up with a plan. And we love this guy and we would do anything for him. So when I saw that stark contrast between these two leaders, one of them who was arrogant and one of them who was humble, that left a mark on me that never went away.

• 1:13:51Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:13:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Lewis Howes?

  What is the most important relationship every person has in the world? Is it with their intimate partner, their best friend, their boss, their parents, their kids? What do you think is the most important relationship that we all are going to face?

• 1:14:10Jocko Willink?

  I think that's a weird question.

• 1:14:12Lewis Howes?

  Sorry for the weird dish.

• 1:14:13Jocko Willink?

  It's just a weird question cuz as I was thinking about the context of it, all these relationships that you have, obviously you've got your spouse, right? That's who you're gonna live with forever. That's, that's okay. So that's, that's a big one. Guess what? You're working, how long are you working every day? People are working 10 hours a day. If they don't have good relationships with the people they're working with, that's a problem. So I don't think it's mutually exclusive that you need to have a great relationship and none of the other relationships matter. It's like, no, you have a bunch of relationships and you should nurture and build those relationships with everyone because that's what's important, right? That is what's important. When you talk about whatever you were saying earlier about the hole and all this stuff, it's like, hey, if you have good relations, that's the big hole.

• 1:14:56Jocko Willink?

  If you don't have any relationships with people, then you don't really have anything. I mean, what are you gonna be alone in with a nice car, right? That's great. It's cool. You're gonna be alone in a nice house? That's great, but you, you won't be, you won't be... Happy.

• 1:15:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Right? That you got a, cool, you got a nice car. That's fun for like a week.

• 1:15:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  So I think all those, all those relationships are important.

• 1:15:21Lewis Howes?

  What about the relationship with ourselves? How, how do we develop a stronger bond or relationship with ourself? Again, it might be a weird question, but.

• 1:15:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're coming at me with weird questions.

• 1:15:31Lewis Howes?

  I know. I'd just like to go out there, right? How do you build a relationship with your own self? Personally? How do you build it with yourself? Do you have conversations with yourself? To build a relationship with you? Do you reflect on?

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink?

  What do you mean by relationship with you?

• 1:15:45Lewis Howes?

  Well, we have relationships with other people.

• 1:15:47Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:15:47Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like we also have conversations and a relationship with ourself. The way we feel about ourself, the way we talk to ourself, the way we show up for our needs, our emotions. Is that something you think about or am I?

• 1:15:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to understand.

• 1:16:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:02Jocko Willink?

  This is just a concept. I don't, I don't, I don't think about this concept a lot.

• 1:16:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Now, there might be something that I should be thinking about, right?

• 1:16:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm curious. Do you have, do you have a conversation with yourself daily or weekly or monthly where you check in? And you ask yourself? Am I okay? Am I doing the things I want to do? Am I enjoying this process? Am I loving who I am? Do I respect myself? You know, the relationship and the conversation with self? Do you ever think about that?

• 1:16:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure that I think about those things in a formal way. And part of this, because I, I understand, I, I think I understand where you're going with this. So, so let me explain this to you. When you're in charge of a military unit, you have something called commander's intent, which is, hey, on this mission, the overall thing that I'm trying to get accomplished is this. Is this thing, whatever that thing is. It's called, it's called commander's intent. And it's really the most important thing that, you know, everyone needs to understand. And when I was a leader of a SEAL platoon or a leader of a task unit.

• 1:17:08Jocko Willink?

  I didn't always have to say what the commander's intent was because I knew and they knew. They knew me well enough that if we were doing this type of mission, they knew what the most important thing was. So I should still say it, but everybody knew. My guys could not hear a word from me go out on a mission and know what overall was important to me. So the reason I say that is because I feel like I have the same thing with myself where I don't need to reinforce the fact that, "Hey, I'm here. Am I doing a good job?" I know what I'm trying to do. I know that, I know what I expect of myself. So I'm not having that conversation every day. I will say, you know, to your point, if I felt like I was looking around saying, "Wait a second,

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  something's wrong here," right? Something's wrong. If I had a SEAL platoon that did something on a mission that I didn't want them to do, the next mission I'd be like, "Okay, guys, here's the most important thing."

• 1:18:05Lewis Howes?

  All right. They weren't, they weren't clear.

• 1:18:06Jocko Willink?

  They weren't clear. So I think if I found myself in a position where I was waking up every day going, "Man, this is, this is not where I want to be," or, "Man, this is, I don't feel good about this." Then I would say, "Okay, what's my intent right now? What is the intent? What's the goal? What am I trying to get? Who am I trying to be?" Then I might have to go back and kind of reestablish those things. So, does that make sense to you? Because again, this isn't something that, that I think about it. And I guess what I'm trying to say, it's so deeply embedded in me.

• 1:18:39Lewis Howes?

  You don't have to say it to yourself.

• 1:18:39Jocko Willink?

  That I'm not saying it to myself.

• 1:18:41Lewis Howes?

  When you transition from SEAL to, I mean, let me make sure I'm saying the terms right. Are you transitioning from SEAL to, is it former SEAL? What's the actual language?

• 1:18:51Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I just retired. I'm not like one of these people that says like, "I'm a..."

• 1:18:55Lewis Howes?

  I'll make sure.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  "How dare you?" No, it's all good.

• 1:18:57Lewis Howes?

  So retired SEAL, did you have any challenge with identity or a clear mission after you retired of what you were going to be doing? Was that a struggle for you in that six months, year, two-year period?

• 1:19:08Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:19:09Lewis Howes?

  It was simple, it was clear?

• 1:19:10Jocko Willink?

  No, I started working with companies about six months before I retired.

• 1:19:16Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 1:19:16Jocko Willink?

  And if that wouldn't have happened, I was gonna be surfing and doing jujitsu. I own a gym in San Diego and I was gonna be doing that, which was totally good with me. I was stoked to be doing that and hanging out with my family a bunch. Then this whole thing started to unfold and as that unfolded, I did get on board. Now, what's good about your question, I'm sorry for criticizing you a couple of times on weird questions, but what's good about your question is, is I talk about this with veterans all the time, is when you get out of the military, you need a new mission, right? You need a new, I don't know if it's a new identity, but yes, yes, I believe you're right. Like, people can wrap too much of themselves around their identity as an athlete, right? I played arena football, that's me. Like, that's not you, right?

• 1:20:01Jocko Willink?

  Is it?

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  A lot of guys, I struggled with this for about a year and a half.

• 1:20:04Jocko Willink?

  So there you go.

• 1:20:05Lewis Howes?

  And a lot of guys that were friends of mine, they lived on the glory days. So I'm assuming there's a lot of SEALs, retired SEALs who probably have lived on like glory days.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you gotta, you gotta look at it and be like, okay. And, and if that's what you wanna do, like I had a friend when I was at SEAL Team Two, and he was getting closer to retirement, and I was like, what are you gonna do when you retire? He's like, I'm gonna be the fat retired guy down the street talking about what it was like. Glory days, yeah, yeah. And I was like, that's awesome. Like, that's what he wanted to do. Hang out with his family and, you know, he did what he wanted to do with his life. That's cool. Like, good, good. But, what's bad is if you don't, that, cause that's a mission, right? The mission is, I'm gonna hang out with my family, I'm gonna, you know, enjoy, that's cool. That's a mission. What's not a mission is like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what my meaning is, I don't know what my purpose is. That can be a problem. So, to your point, yes, identifying what your new mission is gonna be, you should do that.

• 1:20:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  And then people say, well, what if I can't think of a new mission? Then my answer is, well, go help someone.

• 1:21:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's a good one.

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, thank you. If you, if you, if you're-

• 1:21:04Lewis Howes?

  Be in service.

• 1:21:05Jocko Willink?

  If you're can't, if you get out of the military, you get done with a job, or you get done playing arena football, and you don't know what else to do? Because, let's face it, there's some other things that are coming. Like, when you got done playing arena football, all of a sudden you're like, okay, I need money. I need a house, I need, you know. So, so, like, that becomes a mission, right? But, let's say, like, when you retire from the military, you got a retirement check coming in, you're not rich, but you know, you can survive, or you make a bunch of money doing something, then you, you get, yeah. You can't let yourself float around in that arena. You gotta figure out what your new mission is. And if you don't, can't figure out what your new mission is. The other thing that can happen is, well, I got money because I got this job that I don't like, but that's not my mission. Okay, if you can't think of what your mission is gonna be, go help someone. Go find someone to help.

• 1:21:50Jocko Willink?

  And that will become your mission. And in that mission, you'll find, not only will you benefit a group of people or a person or some other human beings in the world, but you'll start to recognize where you can improve yourself and bigger parts of the world.

• 1:22:06Lewis Howes?

  Love that. What do you think is, what is the biggest challenge that most people are facing right now in our world of why they have anger, resentment, frustration that they're not on the mission that they want to be doing? What is the challenge that most people are facing internally or emotionally or mentally that holds them back from having a clear sense of purpose, fulfillment?

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Do you think it's weird to ask a question about most people? Like what's holding most people back? It seems like I talk to so many people, and I know you do too, and like different people have different things that are problematic for them.

• 1:22:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:22:46Jocko Willink?

  That if you, if you wanted me to answer that question to the best of my ability, I would say what is preventing most people from moving in the direction that they want to move is a lack of discipline.

• 1:23:03Jocko Willink?

  And no one wants to hear that answer. It's the harshest answer.

• 1:23:06Lewis Howes?

  It's not sexy.

• 1:23:08Jocko Willink?

  It's not. Yeah, it's not, it's not cool. It's not good clickbait. Because the reason it's not good clickbait is because, well, you can put this as clickbait. The one reason most people don't succeed.

• 1:23:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:23:22Jocko Willink?

  Right? But then as soon as they, you click on that clickbait and then it says discipline, they all, they don't even read it.

• 1:23:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:27Jocko Willink?

  Because they don't want to hear it.

• 1:23:28Lewis Howes?

  But then with the easy way.

• 1:23:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because what they actually, actually, when they see that word discipline, it's actually slapped in the face because they know it's true. They actually know it's true.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  Discipline in what ways of their life?

• 1:23:38Jocko Willink?

  Discipline in your life. This, what, in what, not, in which way should we not have discipline?

• 1:23:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:23:44Jocko Willink?

  Right? If you want to make progress in your life, you gotta have discipline. That's how you get there. Discipline is the root of all good qualities.

• 1:23:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Jocko Willink?

  I mean, what are you gonna get without discipline? Are you gonna be in good physical shape without discipline? Are you gonna be financially successful without discipline? Are you gonna, are you gonna become more intellectually powerful without discipline?

• 1:24:06Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Can you think of any other goals that I could possibly achieve without discipline? If you have them, please let me know, because I'm gonna jump into them.

• 1:24:13Lewis Howes?

  I also think discipline gives you the most self-respect, belief in yourself, confidence.

• 1:24:17Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:24:18Lewis Howes?

  It builds those qualities of like, yeah, I got this. I can do something hard consistently and I can resist temptation or delay gratification.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  Very true. That's true, and that's a very interesting point that you bring up because when you take a military unit, or a corp, or any team of any kind, you take a team of any kind and you want to give them more confidence and give them more pride, what do you do? You put them in challenging situations that require them to come together and be disciplined as a team, and then they become stronger and they become better and they develop pride and confidence. Those are all positive things. So what do you do as an individual human being? It's the same exact thing. The tougher things you go through, the more confidence you're gonna have, the more confidence you have, the better you're gonna get. Can you go too far with that? Yes, you can. You can let your ego get out of control and you can believe all the crap that you're being told. Hey, that was great. You did great.

• 1:25:12Jocko Willink?

  It's like, no, actually, I did okay.

• 1:25:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:14Jocko Willink?

  But I'm gonna work and try and make myself better.

• 1:25:16Lewis Howes?

  So there's extreme discipline?

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes, there is absolutely extreme discipline. There's people that are so disciplined that...

• 1:25:25Lewis Howes?

  They have no joy.

• 1:25:26Jocko Willink?

  They have no, they have no joy. They can't have fun anymore. That is the minority.

• 1:25:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  The minority is, hey, I have so much discipline that I'm unhappy. Right? That's a minority.

• 1:25:39Lewis Howes?

  There are a few people like that.

• 1:25:40Jocko Willink?

  There are a few people like that. I'm sure, I know some, I'm sure you know some. The other end of the spectrum is like, I have so much freedom, but I, you know, my life is a disaster because I do whatever I want. You know who does whatever they want? Homeless people on the streets that are addicted to drugs.

• 1:25:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, lazy people.

• 1:25:56Jocko Willink?

  They're doing whatever they want.

• 1:25:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  They have total freedom, but they've become a slave. They've become a slave to their addiction. They've become a slave to their financial situation. They've become a slave to their emotions. All those things are negative. The right place is the balance and what most people, the majority of people, need a little bit more discipline in their life. So if you were to ask me and I wasn't to attack you about asking me a weird question, what's the number one thing? Discipline. That's why I wrote the Discipline Equals Freedom field manual. Discipline equals freedom. You want freedom in your life? You want to achieve what it is you want to achieve? How do you do that? You do it through discipline. You do it through hard work. You do it by knowing what it is you're supposed to do and then actually doing it.

• 1:26:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you, and I'm assuming you're gonna say that yes, to apply discipline in every area of your life. It's not just I'm disciplined in my nutrition and fitness, but discipline in relationships, discipline in finance, discipline. So it's learning and mastering multiple skills that you're gonna be disciplined at is what I'm...

• 1:26:55Jocko Willink?

  I agree with everything you just said except for the word mastering.

• 1:26:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:26:58Jocko Willink?

  Because we're not gonna master anything, right? We're not gonna master anything. It's very difficult. Like, you know, somebody asked me that on social media. How do you master discipline? I'm like, you don't.

• 1:27:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:07Jocko Willink?

  You don't. You keep working at it, though.

• 1:27:09Lewis Howes?

  Every day?

• 1:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:27:11Lewis Howes?

  Continue to improve and grow.

• 1:27:12Jocko Willink?

  You better.

• 1:27:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Jocko Willink?

  You got the opportunity.

• 1:27:15Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we stop being disciplined in our life? If we think we've made it, we think we've achieved something and we stop repeating the discipline patterns that got us there?

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  This is a rhetorical question because we all know the answer. You stop being disciplined, you're gonna start to devolve and become less and become worse and become weaker and become lazier and become more pathetic as a human being.

• 1:27:41Lewis Howes?

  Do you become more disciplined year after year? Or do you just say, okay, I'd stay consistent with my discipline?

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  Personally, I think I'm pretty consistent with my discipline. I think what you said earlier about getting more discipline here, more discipline there. I might ramp it up in some area.

• 1:27:57Lewis Howes?

  Two things, yeah.

• 1:27:58Jocko Willink?

  And where I can focus, like, oh, I need to get more discipline in this, cool. Make a run at it. Like, like, here's a good one, like, I write books, you write books. Can you write a book without discipline?

• 1:28:08Lewis Howes?

  Uh, it's very hard.

• 1:28:09Jocko Willink?

  Very hard.

• 1:28:10Lewis Howes?

  Very hard.

• 1:28:10Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that book doesn't write itself.

• 1:28:11Lewis Howes?

  Very hard.

• 1:28:12Jocko Willink?

  And it, and how often are you like, oh, super cool, I'm gonna go write today?

• 1:28:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:16Jocko Willink?

  Like, it's not, it's not a joy every, sometimes it is, sometimes it feels good. And I get that, but generally, writing is, for me, generally, writing is not the premier thing that I'm looking to do every day. So, how am I gonna write a book? I have to have the discipline to say, yep, I'm, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go write this. That's what I'm gonna do.

• 1:28:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Jocko Willink?

  So, when I'm writing a book, back to your question, I have to impose discipline in that area. Cause I've got a due date, either I made it up, or my publisher made it up, or whatever. Here's where I want this done by. Cool, I'm gonna write a thousand words a day. That takes me about an hour a day. If I don't write a thousand words a day, I look up in a month, and I gotta write thirty thousand words. And that takes thirty hours, and you can't, my brain doesn't like to do that. I'd rather just write a thousand words a day.

• 1:29:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Jocko Willink?

  So, I'll focus my discipline on some, that doesn't mean that when I'm focusing on writing, I'm, you know, laying on the couch until...

• 1:29:11Lewis Howes?

  Eating potato chips.

• 1:29:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, eating potato chips, that's not happening.

• 1:29:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so you stay disciplined in all areas of your life?

• 1:29:16Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:29:16Lewis Howes?

  If you wanna be successful in every area?

• 1:29:17Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:29:18Lewis Howes?

  Pretty basic concept, huh?

• 1:29:19Jocko Willink?

  I know, it's, it's incredible.

• 1:29:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I wish there was something more magic about it. Uh, you've got a number of books, uh, the dichotomy of leadership. You've got Extreme Ownership, you've got a few others, some kids' books as well. You've got a new book coming out soon. What's it called again?

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  January, January twenty twenty, it's called Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

• 1:29:37Lewis Howes?

  And they can preorder it now, assuming, right?

• 1:29:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes, they can preorder it now.

• 1:29:41Lewis Howes?

  Now, get the book.

• 1:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing you're most excited about in your life? Is it the books, is it the consulting, is it being a dad, is it surfing on the beach?

• 1:29:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, the, it's wintertime, so the winter waves are coming, which is nice to be able to...

• 1:29:55Lewis Howes?

  Are they bigger waves? I don't know.

• 1:29:57Jocko Willink?

  In the wintertime?

• 1:29:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:29:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:29:59Lewis Howes?

  I'm not, I'm not a...

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  So, in the wintertime, you get, you get the, the swells from the big storms. So, that's, that's always exciting.

• 1:30:05Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I'm, I'm, what am I excited about? I'm excited in the fact that I'm here. I have today, I have tomorrow, and there's plenty of men and women that have sacrificed to give us this opportunity to be here. And so I'm gonna take advantage of it.

• 1:30:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love that. There's a couple of questions I want to ask you to wrap this up. This is a question I ask everyone at the end, it's called the three truths. So again, another weird question for you, we'll roll with it. So imagine many years from now, it's your last day. You get to pick the day, and you get to be as old as you want. And you've achieved everything you want, it's a hypothetical world, right? You've achieved everything, you've gone after all your dreams, you've had failures and successes, but most of the things you wanted to accomplish, you made them come true. And it's your last day, and you've got to turn the lights off, and you go somewhere else afterwards. But this world, this body is gone. And for whatever reason, all the things you've created, the books, the bestsellers, all this work,

• 1:31:04Lewis Howes?

  it's gotta go with you to wherever you go. So no one else has access to this content, information anymore. The videos, all this stuff is gone, it's with you somewhere else. But you get to leave behind three lessons that you know to be true from your experience in this world and this life, that you would share with the rest of us. Three, three things you know to be true, or lessons you would want us to learn. What would you say are those three truths for you?

• 1:31:29Jocko Willink?

  That should be a super hard, complex question, but it's actually very straightforward and simple for me. Number one is take ownership of everything that's going on in your world. That's extreme ownership, that's what it is. I wrote a book about it with my buddy Leif Babin, there you go. Number two, discipline equals freedom. That was my second book. Why did I write that book? Because if you want to have freedom in your life, then you gotta have discipline. And lastly, you gotta be balanced. That's the dichotomy of leadership. If you go too far in one direction or the other, you're gonna screw things up. So balance the dichotomy of your life.

• 1:32:00Lewis Howes?

  The trilogy of books, there you go, the three truths. I love it, man.

• 1:32:03Jocko Willink?

  I'm sorry, but

• 1:32:05Lewis Howes?

  That's perfect.

• 1:32:05Jocko Willink?

  It's, there's a reason why those books, that there's a reason why I wrote those books, there's a reason why those titles are what they are. When you asked me earlier, you know, what do you What are you trying to do? What's your mission? My mission is to teach people the lessons that I've learned, right? So in trying to teach the lessons that I've learned, the biggest lessons that I've learned, I put them into books. They're actually in order of the way I believe them, right? The first one is take ownership, that's everything that's going on in your world. The second is discipline equals freedom. And the third one is the dichotomy of leadership, be balanced.

• 1:32:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's powerful. You're doing it, man. I love it. What's something that you're very proud of that most people maybe don't know about you?

• 1:32:48Jocko Willink?

  Something that I'm very proud of?

• 1:32:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, maybe something you're proud of that maybe a lot of people, they don't talk about that much, or maybe people wouldn't think about that you've done, or that you haven't done.

• 1:33:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, obviously, I got four kids and my kids are pretty awesome.

• 1:33:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06Jocko Willink?

  So it's weird, when I, I've had my podcast for almost four years. And when my podcast first came out, like, my oldest daughter was 16, and then, you know, 14, and then 12, and then six. And people would ask me questions about parenting, and I said, "Listen, the jury ain't out yet on these kids, right? I don't know how they're gonna turn out. I don't know if they're gonna be successful or not. And also, I don't even know how you're defining successful. If I have my kid that has made a bunch of money and owns a bunch of property, but is miserable, how successful are they? They're not. And how successful was I as a dad? Not very. So as my kids have gotten older now, it's been four years, four critical years, you know,

• 1:33:51Jocko Willink?

  going from high school through into college for two of them, and then, you know, the other ones growing up.

• 1:33:57Lewis Howes?

  Middle school to high school, yeah.

• 1:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Right, so I can, I'm assessing them now, and I go, "Yeah, you know what? Those kids, those kids are good to go." And so if there's something that I was proud of, it's the fact that my kids are, right now. seem to be on a good trajectory in their lives.

• 1:34:12Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Which which feels good.

• 1:34:14Lewis Howes?

  That's great to be proud of that. That's powerful, man.

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and my my wife, who was around for all those years when I was gone all the time, she's the one that was raising them, you know? She's the one that instilled in them a lot of the values that they have. So even though I I could say I'm proud of it, it should really be my wife saying that, not me.

• 1:34:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's cool though. Well, you gotta take ownership, right?

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  Extreme ownership. Well, that's another thing is when when good when good things happen, you you don't take ownership of that. When the team does something well and the boss says, hey, Jocko, good job with your team. I don't say that wasn't me, it was the team.

• 1:34:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so when good things happen, you put it on other people. When bad things happen, you take extreme ownership.

• 1:34:53Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:34:53Lewis Howes?

  That's a good leadership quality, too.

• 1:34:55Jocko Willink?

  It is indeed.

• 1:34:56Lewis Howes?

  Well, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for showing us the way. Because you are a straightforward guy. I love that you were the way you respond to me and my weird questions for you. And I really acknowledge you for the way you've transitioned from your mission of being service to this country and to humanity, the way that you did for 20 years, two decades, and transitioning into serving in a different way into the corporate world and to just everyone that's a listener or a reader of your content. You're really in service in a big way as well. And I would say probably a bigger way because you can reach more people now. And I really acknowledge you for sharing these wisdoms with us, the truth with us, the lessons that you learned from combat and allowing us to apply it in our life.

• 1:35:41Lewis Howes?

  I think it's really important that you're doing this. And I appreciate it very much and acknowledge you for it. So thanks for for all that you do. Make sure you guys pick up the books. You preorder the the newest book or get one of the previous ones, Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership. Make sure you check them out. Check out your podcast. And where's the best site to go and learn about all this stuff? Where they can follow you online and?

• 1:36:03Jocko Willink?

  So JacoPodcast.com is the podcast, Echelon Front.

• 1:36:09Jocko Willink?

  Dot com is my leadership consultancy and then Origin Maine. Origin Maine is I have a company up in Maine where we manufacture. Well, we manufacture clothing, we manufacture jiu jitsu gis, we manufacture jeans, which I'm wearing right now. We manufacture boots, which I'm wearing right now, and we manufacture jiu jitsu gis, which is the uniform that you train jiu jitsu in.

• 1:36:33Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:36:33Jocko Willink?

  And we do it all in America. So we've, we've, we've got, we've taken an industry, which I grew up in New England and that used to be sort of the, the center for textiles in America and, and really one of them the world. And it all went away, it all went overseas. And so over the past few years, myself and a friend of mine, business partner, we've been rebuilding that and these, these towns up there have been ravaged by the, by the industry going overseas.

• 1:37:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, bringing it back.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  We, we literally are bringing it back. We literally bought looms. We've, we, we found our first loom in a, it was about a 500,000 square foot abandoned factory in Lewiston, Maine and took that loom, which hadn't been, hadn't been used in probably 30 years. Found the old timers that knew how to work on them, refurbished it and started weaving our own material with, with American cotton. And now we've got looms that we've brought back from overseas. We started with our building boots as well. So it's really cool what we're doing up there. We, we started off obviously with no employees. We have close to 60 folks up there in the factory. Craftsman, craftswomen, a lot of them are female and it's, it's, we're rebuilding the economy

• 1:37:52Jocko Willink?

  of that town and we're bringing manufacturing back to America where it belongs.

• 1:37:58Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man.

• 1:37:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:59Lewis Howes?

  Uh, but you've got all that at jockelpodcast.com as well. There's links to these other places.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  Yep, links to these other places. So that's what we're doing, man.

• 1:38:07Lewis Howes?

  You're doing great stuff. I appreciate it.

• 1:38:08Jocko Willink?

  We're working on it.

• 1:38:09Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate you. A final question.

• 1:38:11Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:38:11Lewis Howes?

  What's your definition of greatness?

• 1:38:13Jocko Willink?

  My definition, what is my definition?

• 1:38:16Lewis Howes?

  Of greatness.

• 1:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Of greatness is to help out other people.

• 1:38:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there you go. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, brother.

• 1:38:22Jocko Willink?

  Thank you.

• 1:38:22Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, man.

• 1:38:27Speaker 00

  There you have it, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this powerful interview. I was a little nervous, sweating because of how disciplined and powerful Jaco's presence was. He has such a unique presence because of everything he's been through, of how disciplined his life is. It's pretty incredible to see what he's created and how he impacts people. And I love also the way he was curious about my questions. I mean, I was trying to dig in and he was curious about the questions and I loved that. And I love that he was willing to explain himself on some of these things. So for me, really powerful. If you enjoyed it, share it with one friend. You can be a hero, you can be a champion to one friend,

• 1:39:11Speaker 00

  or share it to many friends in a WhatsApp group message or a group text message. And just send the link, lewishouse.com/871 to a person right now that you think would enjoy this. Just text them the link. Share it with me on Instagram stories. Tag Jaco as well over on Instagram as I'm sure he would love to hear from you and learn more about you. We have the ability to continue to grow and we need to kill off our future self every single day. The things that aren't serving us, the things that aren't supporting us, the things that are holding us back, the things that are weighing us down. We have the ability to grow every single day, but we must kill off the past things that no longer support us in that growth.

• 1:39:56Speaker 00

  And Ernest Hemingway said, "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man." True nobility is being superior to your former self. When you look at the things that don't work for you, imagine yourself staring at you, your former self, and reflect on all the things that aren't working and say, "It's time to let these things go. It's time to let these beliefs go, these way of beings, these lack of self-disciplines, whatever it may be, these relationships, these unhealthy choices, with nutrition, with decision-making. It's time to let them go and it's time to move forward anymore."

• 1:40:35Speaker 00

  Powerful way and kill off your former self so you can grow into the person you were born to become. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm looking forward to hearing how it impacted you. Let me know over on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, at Lewis Howes. Share it with your friends. Subscribe to the podcast if this is your first time here. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.