471: Better K-9s and Better Humans. With Mike Ritland

>Join Jocko Underground< For Mike Ritland, the goal has always been to make an impact, and for most of his life, he has done just that, both personally and professionally. Born in suburban Waterloo, Iowa, Mike’s parents instilled a solid foundation of integrity, compassion, and hard work that carried him through his teen years into one of the most pivotal decisions of his life. After graduation, without a second thought, Mike decided he wanted to serve his country as a Navy SEAL. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 471 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I love this country. I love the principles that it was founded upon. I love the people who live here, the diverse mixed bag of hardworking, freedom-loving, independent individuals who make up our society. I love this land, from the mountains in Colorado to the wide-open cattle fields in Texas to the sun and waves of Southern California. I was born here, raised here. I offered my life to serve this nation and protect its peace people. But as I look ahead, I fear for our trajectory. I fear for the future we're creating for

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  the next generation. And that's why we need to talk. Because true change will only happen when honest, healthy, and thoughtful conversations take place. We live in a world inundated with noise. The sound of people shouting their opinions and sharing information from every imaginable outlet, screaming to have their voices heard surround us. But though we may be talking, shouting, cramming information into our minds like a football team with a stack of pizza boxes in front of them, no one is actually communicating. No one is sitting down and having real conversations. No one is really talking. And we sure as

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  hell aren't listening to each other. We've become a polarized and divided society that refuses to emerge from our echo chambers to listen to anyone with a differing opinion. We've grown so accustomed to the incessant noise created by biased news outlets, angry people convinced of their own assumptions, and an onslaught of information that we've lost the ability to have any type of substantial, positive conversations with our fellow man. As a result, we miss out on the power that comes from innovative, open minds tackling our world's problems from differing viewpoints and unique perspectives.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Unfuck America, written by Mike Ritland. And Mike Ritland is a former SEAL, dog handler, dog trainer, author of several other books, including K-9 Trident Warriors, Navy SEAL Dogs and Team Dog. He's the founder and owner of Tricos International, which trains dogs, sells dogs, offers training programs for dogs and fuels dogs with his Team Dog dog food, treats and supplements. He also runs the Warrior Dog Foundation, which takes care of retired working dogs

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  that would otherwise be euthanized. And finally, he is the host of the Mic Drop Podcast, no holds barred conversations with a wide variety of people to learn perspectives and expand horizons. He's been on this podcast before, over six years ago, episode 113, and he's back here to discuss some of his more recent lesson learned, things going on in this world. So there you go. Welcome back, dude.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me. Uh, one quick correction. I, uh, trainer, not a handler, which, uh, people in the, in the community are pretty particular about. So just as a heads up.

• 3:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cause I said you were a former dog handler and I should have said a former dog trainer.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean,

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Got it. Hey, yeah, we want to get it right. It's real. There's, it might not mean much to Echo Charles, who's like, hey, bro, handler.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Handler. What, what does mean?

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  If you're training them, aren't you, aren't you, aren't you handling them if you're training them?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  Um, so I was thinking about, this book came out in 2021.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  Uh, that was like, were you writing it during COVID?

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I was. I mean, that's really the, the reason it was written was, um, you know, the two weeks to stop the spread that turned into two years of fucking madness. Um, you know, I was sitting at home, the kids are, are home from school. You know, they basically went on spring break and then didn't go back. And so like, like, you know, everybody's kids. And so. You know, in, in my industry, a lot of things had slowed down. Um, in, in person stuff had, had kind of shut off. And so I found myself sitting at home and I was like, well, I can, go the way of a lot of people in Netflix and DoorDash, or I can, you know, do something productive. And, and this had actually been a project that, um, I had been approached by Penguin to do

• 4:32Speaker 01

  uh, on the heels of the Team Dog training book. Um, and basically it was a, hey, we love your podcast and there's all these different viewpoints and, you know, a lot of them are kind of hotbed political topics that our nation is faced with that, uh, causes a lot of, uh, debate and, and controversy and

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  So why don't you jump in the mix too?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  So yeah, why don't you get, get started on that? And, uh, you know, so for me, it was like, obviously they've done enough due diligence to say that they think it's a good idea. My concern with doing it with them or, or any big publishing house was they're going to stifle my voice and, and edit the shit out of it and, and make it to where it's not even really worth doing. So I was like, well, you know, I've already done three under major publishers, uh, why don't I just do it myself? And then I can do it at A, at my pace, B, it'll be completely up to me how it gets edited. And, uh, especially with a book like that, because it's pretty edgy that way. Um, you know, the last thing you want is a

• 5:32Speaker 01

  you know, multi-billion dollar publishing corporation and their HR team and lawyers going through something like that. So.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that would have been interesting.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would have been nine pages.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it would have been nine pages. Uh, and the title might've been changed.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  So I don't, I'm, I'm not going to read the whole book on the podcast, get the book, but one of the things you talk about here is you talk about America. And in this opening chapter, you call it the rich spoiled brat. And you go through that. I think that's a pretty obvious metaphor. Anyone could figure out what you write to explain that. But you talk about some of these freaking, uh, statistics. Mental health, on average, there are 132 suicides a day in the United States.

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  70,000, over 70,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2019.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, those, those numbers are significantly higher now in both categories.

• 6:29Jocko Willink?

  Um, opioid crisis.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  1999 to 2018, 450,000 people died from an overdose involving opioid. Like, that's insane.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's World War II numbers.

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  Um, alcoholism, it's funny because you and I were talking, you and you and I just did a podcast. You interviewed me for your podcast, but we were talking about alcohol and I, you were, you were, you were trying to pressure me, you're trying to peer pressure me into, into like the benefits of alcohol. And I literally have gone through this transition of, you know, when I was in the teams drank, when I was first got in the teams drank a ton, drank less the older and more senior I got. And then eventually when I retired, stopped drinking, but still, you know, I get it. Hey, I get it, you know, still, and I didn't stop drinking like immediately, but it's pretty quick.

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  And then it was like, well, I still get it, you know, I get it. Why the platoon boys are going out and having a beer. It's part of the thing, it's part of bonding and you know who your brothers are. And I went through that, like, I get it and still support it. And I was kind of like, well, hmm, and, and right now I've just gone.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  I've gone, I, I can't find anything good about it anymore. So you talk about alcohol in this thing and like, dude, it's excessive alcohol costs the economy, the US economy, $250 billion a year.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy to think about alcohol. This is literally a poison that you're going to put in your body. It's going to make you do crazy shit. I had a friend that was when I was growing up and he eventually did every drug, crack, heroin,

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  you know, pot, LSD, the whole nine yards.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  And he would say, the only drug that he thought should be illegal was alcohol. Because he ended up, he was in jail a couple of times. And the times he got put in jail wasn't because of heroin, wasn't from crack, it was from booze. He goes, nothing makes me do the more crazy shit than alcohol.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:39Jocko Willink?

  So, I don't know.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Well, I guess to clarify, I wasn't, my intent was not to.

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  You were exploring the bounds of my beliefs.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not, not in a, in a manner with which I am trying to highlight any benefits of alcohol. I guess I would say. You know, going further into it, I think like on the, on the platoon front, I, I think it's, it, it makes sense to do those outings occasionally, you know, I agree like three or four nights a week. No, even once a week, no, but you know, I think like almost like a not hell week, but almost like an FTX is that, hey, let's, let's send the boys out into fucking Beale Street on a trip and they all get shitfaced and see how they handle it. Like, I don't think it should be a regular thing, but I do see a benefit in seeing how guys handle themselves under the influence when they're around

• 9:29Speaker 01

  each other and there's that unknown of the civilian populace of other dickheads that are drinking and bouncers and, and the great unknown. I, I, you know, maybe it's just, I'll throw it on pay-per-view. I'd fuck, I don't know, but.

• 9:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no. If you want to get ratings on pay-per-view, you're, that's a brilliant idea. Give a bunch of freaking team guys booze on Beale Street. Oh yeah. Let's go. Give them a fistful of money.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Throw some chicks in the mix.

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You can see why I don't think this is a good idea. Cause we know this would make great reality television. Dude, how many team guys wrecked their careers and/or their lives?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  A bunch.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  And put a, a stain on the teams by doing dumb shit when drunk.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, like I said, I mean, I've never been a big drinker. Um, I couldn't tell you the last time I had any, like if, you know, if my dad's in town for Christmas or something, we'll have a bourbon together or something, but that's about it. I mean, otherwise I, I almost never drink. I just, I don't particularly like it. Uh, and I know what it's doing to your body. I mean, it is, it's, it's literal poison, you know? That's, that's how your body's treating it. And so, but to me, the, the biggest thing is the, the negative impacts that it has on society.

• 10:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no doubt.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Are just astronomical, you know, um, especially when you compare it to say marijuana as an example. I'm not, I'm not a fan of that either, but if I had to pick one or the other, I think, uh, I think weed would cause less problems than alcohol.

• 10:54Jocko Willink?

  I have friends that smoke weed every day, multiple times a day, and they are way better off than the friends that I have that drink every day.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  It's not even close. Echo Charles, assessment?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  He's from Hawaii. You know what he thinks.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. I would agree with that protocol for sure.

• 11:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, why is that?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Why is what?

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like, why is that? Cause my friend was right. That when he said that. Alcohol makes you do crazy things.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well.

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  Weed, do you do crazy stuff on weed?

• 11:28Speaker 02

  I, I don't know that that's true and known. I don't smoke weed, but. I've never heard of anyone in particular who did crazy, crazy stuff on weed. And I'll tell you why. Put simply, what alcohol does is to, you know, the two voices in your head, you know about this. The one that says, hey, yeah, yeah, do that, right? And then you have the regulatory brain voice that's like, no, no, no, don't do that because of these legitimate reasons, right? And that's, and then you play, you know, this, this dance as you go through life with that dance of those two voices. The alcohol just makes. The voice that says, hey, no, don't do that. The regulatory voice just makes that quieter and quieter, quieter. That's it.

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  And does it make the other one louder too?

• 12:04Speaker 02

  I guess by, I mean. As far as like, yeah, the, the result, yeah, it's louder. More prevalent, yeah. And that's the way it works.

• 12:12Jocko Willink?

  What do you get like when you're drunk, Echo Charles?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  It's the same deal, but I'm not like an aggressive person to go like start trouble in the public or nothing like that. So I just, but it's the same essential, um. Format where it's like, yeah, all the voices in my head. That say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that, that this is true. This is a good idea, you know?

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know what he does when he's drunk? He buys multiple URLs from godaddy.com.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Or like experimenting with stuff, yeah, with video or special effects or whatever. But I'll tell you this where, yeah, if I'm embracing the protocol, I'll be like. To be honest, it's true where, yeah, all my ideas seem like the best idea in the world. That's why I have all these URLs. Cause I'm like, bro, I could make this website and bro, I just see it being this massive success. Every, you know? The voice saying yes, yes, yes, is super loud and the voice saying no, no, no, is pretty much quiet. Then the next day. He wakes up and then the reality sets in. See what I'm saying? So what my. Drinking looks like is different than what maybe, I don't know, a general. Society person's drinking might look like.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When I used to drink, I used to, um. Be more Jocko. Extra, a lot more extra Jocko. Same dude, but like a lot more of it. It's, yeah, it's kind of fun, but not worth the damn squeeze.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Would you say that that's true though? And put very, very like fundamentally that that's true. The whole voice in your head, the one that's.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I think that's true, but but here's the other thing I noticed, like there's some people legitimately, when they drink, they get the in fights.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  There are some guys when they drink, they are laughing hysterically. There's some guys that slurs and fall down. And like, that's that. And you get to see all that in the SEAL teams. Like, hey, dude, watch out freaking Fred's drunk. Stand by, we're gonna be getting in a fight. Or Fred's drunk, help me carry him to the cab. Or Fred's drunk, dude, look at him, he's hilarious. You see what I'm saying?

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like, you know, like, because they're, you know, we know all the, all the, for like the common name or angry drunk, the lover drunk, like, you know, I feel like we all have, or these different characters, they're inside them, even when they're not drunk, they just have the regulatory voice that's saying, hey, that's not that appropriate right now, you know, or if you get in a fight which you want to, you're gonna get in trouble, right? You know how we all have the regulatory? So I think we're all, I mean, the angry drunk is inside, there, there's some anger in there. Just, but it's just being regulated really well, which is good. That's what being a mature person is, you know, right? You know, but then, yeah, when you start drinking, that voice that says, hey, no, don't freaking false that guy or whatever, it gets all quiet and then you're in a fight.

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  Gambling pornography, you talk about those addictions in this book. And then you get physical health, man. Obesity, heart disease, nutrition based issues. From 1999 through 2018, the prevalence of obesity increased from 30.5%, which is already freaking crazy, to 42.4%.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's almost half.

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  And the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.

• 15:22Jocko Willink?

  That's a problem.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  It's a huge problem. And you know, one of the things I talk about in there, which I think is the, the symptom of that problem is, you know, you hear about healthcare, like it's one of the most highly debated topics politically in our, in our society and, uh, you know, everybody's trying to find this formula for the fix, you know, but the reality of it is, is that health insurance only works if most people aren't sick. Like there, there is no formula that, that works when there's as many people sick as not, you know, it's just like with car insurance and like any type of insurance, you know, you're hinging or, or hedging your bet on the fact that most people aren't going to

• 16:04Speaker 01

  need it, you know, because with what it costs, even if you try to regulate costs, even if you, you know, subsidize stuff, even if you're, you know, importing things out.

• 16:14Jocko Willink?

  There's only so many people you can fit in a lifeboat.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:16Jocko Willink?

  Before the lifeboat's going down.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, you know, when people try to, politicians try to say, well, if we do this, like you guys aren't looking at the, at the problem, like the, the root cause of the problem is the fact that there's too many unhealthy people in this country.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  There, there is no fix.

• 16:32Jocko Willink?

  Why do you think RFK rolling into the, the health department's going to impact? And when he starts changing some of the ingredients that are allowed to be put in food?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  I, I just hope that he's able to, you know, that's my biggest concern is between lobbying and, you know, the amount of, of people in our, uh, political structure that are tied into being benefactors of, you know, big food, big pharma, et cetera. That's, that's going to be an uphill, uphill climb, you know, and, uh, and he's probably going to meet resistance at every turn. I hope that he can, that he can do it, uh, cause it severely needs to be done. Um, but he's got his work cut out for him.

• 17:10Jocko Willink?

  I think one of the things that's going to benefit this next administration, that's one is the communication platform of X.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:17Jocko Willink?

  Cause imagine when they start posting like what they, what Doge finds.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:22Jocko Willink?

  When they say, here's what your taxpayer money went to.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they've already started.

• 17:27Jocko Willink?

  And here's who's here's who's trying to stop us from, you know, removing this ingredient from food. Here's the lobby that's trying to do who here's who they're connected to. I think I think it's gonna be, I think the tools are in place to have impact like has never been made before.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And and to me, the the scary part is is the the one weak link there is if Elon Musk had not bought X.

• 17:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  It would have never happened, you know, there there would be no platform to expose that kind of stuff.

• 17:57Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever do something like when you were in the teams, like make some crazy midnight purchase like out at the bar? You know, I got a buddy one time and we, you know, we get up the next day and he comes rolling and he's wearing like an outfit. He had like, he had like cowboy boots on and like acid washed jeans and he had been drunk and like made some crazy purchase, you know? You ever seen that happen? Dude, what if your buddy rolled out and bought a a social media platform for forty four billion dollars?

• 18:32Jocko Willink?

  And it's just like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna do this. It's freaking epic.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  But, you know, I mean, as as big of a percentage of his net worth that that was at that time. Like, I think a lot of people at first saw, you know, the the decline in in shareholder value of it and whatever and thought that he had made a huge mistake. But you look at it now and I mean, his net worth since what in the last year is, you know, almost doubled, I think. I mean, like, it's just crazy, the amount of money he's he's made from from doing those things, you know? And it's not even, to me, the the brilliance and the beauty of it is that I don't think that it has anything to do with money for him, you know?

• 19:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I would say you're right, and especially because there's that interview with him where he's going, I don't care.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  I don't care. You can have it. I don't care. I don't care about this anymore.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  I mean, at a certain point, how many freaking Rolex watches are you gonna get?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, I mean, you're literally flying shit to Mars, bro. I don't know what else you're gonna do. You're in a pretty good spot. So he doesn't care anymore.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:35Jocko Willink?

  So he's a and and what I like about that is it's sort of the it's sort of the ultimate form of doing the right things for the right reasons and and winning.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And financially, being in a position to do it and truly not give a shit or be beholden to anybody.

• 19:53Jocko Willink?

  Damn, Doge coming in hot.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  And how freaking crazy is it that that's Doge? You know what I'm saying? It's crazy. All right, education system. You talk about that in here. The ranking was 38th. Our current ranking, despite United States having the second best education system in the world, consistently scores lower than many other countries in benchmarks such as math and science. And its education ranking was 38th in math scores and 24th in science. So we spend more money than anybody else and we're losers.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Department of Education. I mean, if you look at the correlation and the parallel between where we ranked as a society, education wise, the year before Department of Education became a thing.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  1979, I believe.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And where it is now, there is a one to one parallel that just nose dives.

• 20:45Jocko Willink?

  Nose dive. Imagine that. You create a bureaucratic freaking managerial system.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Jocko Willink?

  And things get worse.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Imagine.

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  What's funny is people on the surface, oh, we're going to eliminate the Department of Education. Oh, my gosh, why don't you care about education? No, we're just going to give the money back to the people that do the educating, the states. That's the plan. To me, like all day.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  There's got to be some nerves, some nervous people.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 21:19Jocko Willink?

  In those bureaucratic jobs right now.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, just looking at the, did you see the percentage of people that actually go into the office? That work for the government? What the percentage is?

• 21:32Jocko Willink?

  What is the percentage?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  It's 6% that go that go between nine to five, Monday through Friday. 6% of the US government does that.

• 21:40Jocko Willink?

  Now, does that include like a mailman?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Well, so here's the beauty of it. When you, when you remove security, police, you know, those types of shift jobs that are required for people to do that, it's less, it's 1%. So 1% of the US government goes into the office, five days a week, nine to five.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  There's going to be a reckoning.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Huge. I mean, you could, I think you could fire 80% of the US government and nobody would notice, except the people that lost their job.

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  That's what, that's what Elon did at Twitter. Of course, we've all heard that over and over again.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Jocko Willink?

  Twitter's not going to work anymore. It's going down. Got more efficient. Sometimes I think that about my podcast staff.

• 22:21Jocko Willink?

  I think that too sometimes.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  As long as we're in agreement.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I think I fired at least 50% and I should be good to go. Okay. Another chapter. How'd we get so fucked every, anyway? Um, overcorrection and the exaltation of victimhood. What's that all about, man?

• 22:41Speaker 01

  So again, kind of looking at the, we'll say the nineties as being the, the birth of political correctness on a larger scale. Going back to the, say the fifties where, you know, child rearing was pretty brutal. Um, and, and I think most people would agree or argue that, uh, we as a society were probably harder on children than, than we should have been. And there weren't enough programs to prevent things like that from happening CPS, et cetera. Enter the, the 1990s and there's this highlight on that type of stuff. And in conjunction with, um, speech and political correctness and things of that nature. And, and just like with a lot of things,

• 23:22Speaker 01

  the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Kind of mentality is that it's so bad. You see the same thing with like, whether it's, you know, BLM or certain trans rights things or whatever is, is that there, you see a problem and you, you fix it until it's broken the other way. Uh, you know, the, the classic government adage, adage, if it ain't broke, fix it till it is. I mean, that's, that's essentially what it is. But the, so the problem is you have an entire society that, you know, is now walking on eggshells and is so, um, overcorrected in terms of being politically, politically correct and not punishing kids for certain things or not, uh, allowing, you know, schools to punish children or,

• 24:04Speaker 01

  uh, you know, having certain consequences for bad behavior as kids grow up and no accountability. Parents are now suing teachers instead of, you know, corroborating or collaborating with them to say, hey, there's a problem with Johnny and we're going to fix it together. It's. You know, how dare you talk to my son that way and we're gonna sue you and you know, pull the kids out or what have you. And so now, fast forward a few decades and you have super self entitled, little selfish pricks that have never been corrected for anything, that you know, feel entitled to everything, have never been told no, you know, have never had consequences for being disrespectful to teachers or being unruly in schools. And you've come full swing, you know, the other way and now it's equally

• 24:49Speaker 01

  damaging, just in a different direction.

• 24:51Jocko Willink?

  Now, you know, kids these days, because you've got kids yourself, right? There's a lot of kids that are freaking really awesome and normal. Are you not seeing that?

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I don't know that I'd say that there's a lot of them. There are some.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  Whenever I get in this conversation with people, I always feel a little bit like a little bit of a bubble of some kind, because I look at the kind of the kids that are around my kids.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:15Jocko Willink?

  And I'm always like, eh, kids, you know, kids out there getting after it, doing what kids do. I don't see too much of the crazy, uh, you know, and like, go to a wrestling tournament. Like, kids are freaking, they're getting after it, man. They're training their asses off, they're hard, go to a, you know, a sporting event and the kids. Now, look, can you see the occasional kid that seems like a spoiled brat? Yeah. But, I don't know, I see less of it. And also, you think we've turned the corner a little bit on some of this political correctness? It seems like we certainly have.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  I think so, we have, again, this, you know, three or three and a half years ago, when the book was written, it was kind of at the

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  Apex.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  At the peak.

• 25:56Jocko Willink?

  No, maybe not, it was heading there, getting close.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  I would also say, you know,

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  Your book corrected the course.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  I like to think that. I don't want to say that, you said it. I think, you know, in your sample of kids that you're around too, if you think about it, wrestling, athletics, I mean, athletics in general, that's not a a very mean collective aggregate average of high school America, you know, I would say, go, go to a high school cafeteria at lunchtime and, and get a sense of, of where kids are at, or, or any classroom.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, next generation, because your kids are a little younger. Are you identifying yet? Are you seeing kids? Do they seem that much different?

• 26:41Speaker 02

  I think I'm in this in the same boat to a degree as you where I live in a bubble and the kids that consistently come around my kids. Now that's the key word consistently. Or I'm like, I can't, I don't see any entitlement at all or like spoiled. Maybe I see some like, hey, like, bro, I just said, what's up? Say what's up back kind of a thing, but the kid's eight years old, he's fired up, he's running and yelling and stuff like that. So it's like, whatever. So I don't see the entitlement. Except every once in a while, yeah, I will see it, but I think it's like one of those things where you kind of correct for that, you know? So if some kid who's spoiled, who's entitled is coming around, it won't be consistent. Cause I won't allow it to be consistent. So, so I've seen it. Yeah, yeah, I've seen it, but um.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  I mean, to me, for all three of us, technically it's all anecdotal, right?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, hundred percent.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  And, uh, uh, I'd say the, the overarching crux as to why I wrote that book was exactly that is that, you know, we all have our own experiences. What most people see as being, say, the top 10 problems in the United States are, are what? What's what you hear on the media? It's what you see on social media? It's what you hear people bitching about? But what does the data say? Cause to me, that, that's really what's reflective of what the problems are in between education and kids getting in trouble from a legal standpoint. As they become young adults, like those numbers have absolutely fucking skyrocketed. And so, you know, to me, like, yeah, I mean, my, all of the kids that are around my kids seem like pretty, pretty decent kids.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Just like, you know, um, some of the statistics that you see in the media a lot, uh, that aren't actually that big of a deal statistically and, and from a top 10 standpoint in terms of what's the most damaging or dangerous and threatening to the United States. They're not even in the top 50, but we hear about it all day long. Uh, and so to me, that, that was kind of the, the, the, uh, foundation behind the book was. We're always distracted and arguing about things that, you know, scientifically or data wise, don't really have that big of an impact on our society, but that's all we're focused on. You know, what are actually the biggest things? Well, it's being a fat ass, heart disease, depression, alcoholism, opioid addiction,

• 28:56Speaker 01

  eating like shit and dying from heart attacks or arthral scrotosus. I mean, there's all these different things that are killing hundreds of thousands of people that nobody talks about.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's great. I'm so glad that I covered my ass when I said I live in a bubble. Right? Because, because you're, you're right. I'm literally sitting here thinking about it. And I was about to counter you with the fact that a lot of young, a lot of young kids, again, that, that I have visibility on. Guess what? They don't sit around and watch TikTok videos. They sit around and watch Jordan Peterson, you know, talk about stuff. They don't, they don't waste their mind, mind on Brian, brain rot. You know what brain rot is?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. They're not doing the brain rot thing. They're doing like the Andrew Huberman thing, right? So there's, there's like a whole crew of people that are probably going to come out better, faster, stronger, smarter. And there's a whole crew of people that are going in the other direction and it's probably, you know, it's lopsided.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:01Jocko Willink?

  And your statistics that you point out in this book show that.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Also to the, you know, when you say anecdotal or whatever, which is like, that's a lot more significant than it might even feel sometimes. Cause like, and we talk about this every once in a while where like 40% or big percentage of America is like obese, right? Like, bro, how many obese people do you see in your day to day? Bro, kind of none.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  But what are you doing? You're working out in your own gym by yourself. You're going to jujitsu with other jujitsu people or Muay Thai or fit, you know, the fit you're going back and forth or whatever. Or surfing at the beach or whatever, all these active, active things. So it's kind of like, just by happenstance, your personal anecdotal experience, you're avoiding all of those people. See what I'm saying? So to you, they're like, no, there's no obesity, obesity problem.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I would encourage both of you to go to Lakeside Walmart and get your groceries tonight and see what the, the sample of caliber of person that's out there, you know? Probably going to be a little different.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  A little bit different, yeah.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  Um, one of the things that you throw in here is uh escaping the echo chamber, which I think is like, obviously, a very smart thing to do, escape the echo chamber. No offense to echo, our echo here.

• 31:19Jocko Willink?

  Tell me about this echo chamber. I mean, we're all freaking locked in there. Yeah, so your algorithm is set up for it. Your phone is made to get you trapped in there.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Well, and I think if you look at uh this current, or this, you know, previous past current election,

• 31:37Speaker 01

  look at the, from a media standpoint, the echo chamber that exists within the Democratic Party and or the liberal side is pretty significant. Now, if you look at the two candidates on the right, they were constantly challenging themselves, going on, you know, heated debate, either whether it's podcasts or interviews with mainstream media that's liberal or left-leaning. There's zero of that on the other side. So you've got four years of media, politicians, candidates that are all just sitting in that echo chamber, agreeing with each other, never having to defend their positions, never being argued with, just basically complaining about all the same shit and it being kind of corroborated internally.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  And then, once you get to, you know, the last few weeks of the campaign, where people are actually arguing and debating, and it's laughable. You know, there's an inability to even answer simple questions because of that, because they haven't had to do that. And so, the problem, obviously, is that, one, one of the things I talk about in there is coming to the conversation with an open mind, which is a lot easier said than done, but it's crucial. You can't have an open mind and have a discussion with somebody if you're only living in an echo chamber. And also, you're never going to have good ideas if they're not being challenged. You know, like, if you should welcome debate and welcome having your ideas challenged, for that matter, even welcome having your mind changed.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  I do. I mean, there's things I've certainly changed my mind that I was pretty adamant about, but over time, and, you know, people making their case and challenging a certain position, and me thinking through it, like, no, you know what, you're right, I actually agree with that, and have changed my position on several things, but... If you're never having to do that, that's never gonna happen, you know, so it's a very stagnant mentality. That that a good portion of our society, even if it's not somebody that's in politics, but let's just say you're on Facebook and Instagram and Tik Tok or whatever. But to your point, you know, your algorithm is such to where all you get is the things you agree with, the things that already piss you off, that everybody else you know. It pisses them off and you guys get around each other and you complain about it.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Uh, and that's all you you surround yourself with, then you never go anywhere.

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  Dude, it was crazy in going up into the election to watch the other side.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:02Jocko Willink?

  Just be totally like 100% convinced that, oh, you know, Kamala is gonna win in Iowa, she's gonna sweep like. It was, it was crazy to see that.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:14Jocko Willink?

  Not to be that confident about things was very strange to watch.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and I think that's why is that, you know, they spent four years patting each other on the back, you know, and even lying to the American people. I don't know if they actually believed it or, you know, it's a snow job or what, but you know, it's the, no, the economy is great. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 34:33Jocko Willink?

  That was.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Joe Biden, sharp as a tack, smartest fucking guy in the room. Like, who the fuck do you think you're convincing that?

• 34:39Jocko Willink?

  That was crazy, right?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  But, you know.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Crazy echo, Charles? Sometimes it seemed a bit crazy, yeah.

• 34:46Jocko Willink?

  Didn't seem a lot crazy sometimes?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  It depends on what you mean, because you asked me my opinion on it.

• 34:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  I think that that's how, I think this whole thing is entertainment, by the way, I've said that many, many times. So under those circumstances, no, it's not crazy. What's he, what, what else are they gonna say is what I would ask and only in the spirit of you asking me if I think it's crazy.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  I see what they're doing and I agree with you that that's what I believe that they're doing as well, but what else are they gonna say? And be like, oh yeah, Joe Biden, he seems off, he's kind of losing it cognitively. What are they gonna say? Oh, you know what? You're right. You guys are right about that. They're not gonna say that? That would be kind of crazy, I think, for them to say that.

• 35:23Jocko Willink?

  Dude, it's like saying the sky is green, though.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy talk.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  But if that's the show, that's the show. That's how I see it. So, yeah, no, I mean, I guess, under certain circumstances, yes, crazy, but no, the show is crazy. How about that? Yeah, it's the Truman Show in real life.

• 35:39Jocko Willink?

  So we got your methodologies to, uh, escape the echo chamber. Um, maintain independent thought. Number one, take it upon yourself to discern what is bullshit and what is not. Be open to the fact that you may already be deep knee in, knee deep in bullshit and don't even know it. Be honest and don't practice blind allegiance to a political party or news outlet that you can't smell the stench of what you stepped in.

• 36:04Jocko Willink?

  It, to, to this day, like even in the past several hours, the past couple of days. Uh, I don't even know what the date is today. It is the 12th of, or the 10th of December, 2024. There were some things that happened in the past, like little while where I thought, I, I didn't even fathom a, an alternative view, I like a, a non-unified view. For instance, the CEO of a major healthcare insurer gets gunned down and killed.

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I thought, wow, you know, gun violence, like assassination, lawlessness. Wow, that's, that's crazy. It'll, you know, uh, I'm sure, I didn't even, I didn't have the thought of, I wonder what the division will be on this. I didn't have that thought. I didn't have it. I just thought, oh, you know, Amer- you know, the world will see this and go, wow, oh, crazy person has lost their mind and committed a murder.

• 37:14Jocko Willink?

  And it didn't take but hours before people were saying, yeah, but this healthcare company, they're bad.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:23Jocko Willink?

  And they are responsible for people's deaths as well. And therefore this guy is a hero. Not just like, hey, I understand it. He's probably got some, been through some real, I mean, as soon as I saw the health insurance thing, I was like, oh, this is a guy that either lost a family member or he's in some kind of pain himself and he's going out, but he's gonna, but even with that, you go, that's terrible. You know, horrible. reprehensible thing to do. But no, it didn't take long. There's a complete, there's another branch of people out there that are going, this guy is a hero.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  I saw a little clip of a professor at the Penn where this guy went to college. Never been prouder to be a Penn professor.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  That's crazy, man.

• 38:12Jocko Willink?

  What? What?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  That's an Ivy League professor.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  That's insane.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. You can be so deep in this that you can find something like that happening and you go, oh.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, blinded by your allegiance and both sides are guilty. I think, you know, something as simple as flying flags with politicians' names on them, I think is a problem. I really do. Now, do I think it should be illegal? Of course not. But I think, you know, what it does is it speaks to that idolizing of a political candidate. And I think, you know, one of the chapters in there, Jay-Z isn't Jesus, is speaking to that is that, you know, we've idolized our politicians, you know, and put them on pedestals as though they are rock stars or A-list actors or, you know, entertainers, what have you. And it needs to be the exact opposite. Like, we all need to realize, hey,

• 39:12Speaker 01

  fuckwad, you work for us. Like, we're gonna hold you accountable, not the other way around. Like, you're not gonna tell us how things need to be. We're putting the people in those positions that reflect how we feel things should be run. And it doesn't really work that way, you know, whether, and I think social media does play a big and negative role, whether it's AOC on one side, or, you know, pick, you know, some of the people on the right that that fall into that same category with big followings that are posting shit on TikTok and Instagram that's funny. You know, it's always, you know, putting funny memes up or little skits that they do and shit like that. I think that's a mistake.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  While I understand people are trying to gain traction and following and influence and get reelected, the reality of it is, is that that position should be considered, you know, A, an honor and B, something where, again, you're working for the American people, not the other way around. And it just doesn't seem like most politicians feel that way.

• 40:16Jocko Willink?

  Another step to avoiding the echo chamber. Spend as much time researching, corroborating, and verifying the information you receive as you do taking it in. Don't just believe something because you want to believe it or because you like the person who is telling you to believe it. If you want to believe it, or you really like the person telling you to believe it, you should be researching even harder, knowing your own propensity towards bias.

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's a whole legitimate proven bias that we have. If we like, if I like Mike and he tells me something, I like, I like your idea.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I don't blame you on that one, but yeah, I mean, it's the same echo chamber, you know, if all you watch is one, one media outlet and you never see anybody else's perspective. I mean, if you want to see a kind of classic example of that being highlighted, especially like on election night, or anytime something politically divisive is going on, it's like it's a breaking story. Switch back and forth between Fox and CNN, you know, and it's like, am I on the same fucking planet right now?

• 41:18Jocko Willink?

  Two different movies are being watched.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, it's crazy. It's like watching two people, you know, that are dancing together, but to two different fucking songs, you know, it's like, the fuck's going on? You know, but that's unfortunately the, the reality in the world that we live in where, you know, if I, if I want it to be true, then I'm, I'm going to think that it is and where I'm not going to take a lot of consideration or convincing to, to believe it.

• 41:47Jocko Willink?

  Next one, listen, watch and read news from varied sources and outlets. It's important to have as much well-rounded perspective as possible. It won't be perfect or unbiased, but it'll be far better than being glued to one fucking channel or media outlet and spoon fed information without taking a deeper look into what's being presented to you. Yeah, this is on my, I picked this up in the military. Like you want to get different sources of intel before you go and hit a freaking target. Uh, vote with your wallet. If you fundamentally disagree with the basis of a platform, stop using it. Don't engage it and don't take part, part in creating a demand for it. Hold media outlets accountable and call them out for their dishonesty. Have you gone on to, uh, Blue Sky?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 42:29Jocko Willink?

  I haven't gone on. I actually, I've looked at a couple, um, profiles on it. But just hearing the things that are going on, it seems like it's totally insane. Do you know what Blue Sky is? I guess the guy from Twitter went and created something else, but now he's gone from it. And it's just the level 12 version opposite of X. X is just like free speech. Do what you want. Freaking, don't hurt anyone. And Blue Sky is like, you better be on board with everything and say the right things and you'll get banned. But what's crazy is it's like, you know, uh,

• 43:12Jocko Willink?

  perverted stuff happening and well, that's what, you know, that's my thing. And so therefore it's okay for me to post this craziness. Like tolerance gone wild? Yeah, tolerance gone wild. Tolerance gone wild. Yeah. But zero tolerance for no, no tolerance or for lack of tolerance. Yeah, yeah. Which is a crazy thing. You know what you need to have in a game? Rules? Rules.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Ranks. Referee.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have, you gotta have some rules to the game, man. And if you don't, if you're, if you just, if you stay within the rules, bro, it's good. You can kind of do what you want within the rules. Once you go outside the rules though, you gotta get told, don't do that.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  Don't do that thing. That's not, and I've gone off about this one other time. Just be normal, like do normal. This is not, what you're doing is not normal and normal can be really big, really wide and have a lot of things in it. But then you go across a certain line. Now this is not, what you're doing is not normal. You can't do that thing.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  I feel like the bumper sticker for that is just read the room.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Get some T-shirts made up. I mean, whatever.

• 44:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, read the room, man. Take a look around.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:30Jocko Willink?

  One of these things is not like the other.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm different. Okay, you can be a little bit different.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's the issue with the normal thing. It's like, well, what's normal, blah, blah, blah, you know? But I do what you're saying.

• 44:44Jocko Willink?

  There is like a certain like bell curve you could put together.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully.

• 44:49Jocko Willink?

  You can do from here to here, but you can't go over there and you can't go over there.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Well, at what point, I guess, and I'm not asking this, I'm saying this is kind of the question, I guess, is at what point did you go past the guardrails? You know, like, I know you, Brad, you believe in guardrails, but your guardrails is pretty lax. Let's face it. I know that you know that, but it's like, well, what's the, you know, prescriptive guardrail positioning for everyone?

• 45:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  And so it's got to be kind of flexible in some way. And then who's to say, wait a second, he can flex that much, but I can't flex like this much. Like, what's the difference, you know, kind of a thing. And then it's like, well, it kind of degenerates from there.

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but you gotta be like, no, that that thing you just did, that's over the line.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And actually, which kind of gives a lot more credence even, which I know, I know you're, you're at least partially serious with the read the room thing. Where it kind of is that.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Cause there's a lot of stuff like that you can kind of say in certain rooms and it's like, who cares or whatever. And it's all good. And it can be pretty inflammatory, but in other rooms, you can say way less inflammatory stuff. And it's like, Brad, you shouldn't have said that, bro. It's not appropriate. See what I'm saying?

• 45:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  So, yeah, you gotta read the room. You gotta be knowledgeable in that way. You see what I'm saying?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like what you guys talk about before the camera's on versus when the camera's on.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Very good example, sir.

• 46:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, don't take it upon yourself to regurgitate everything you hear. I really like this one. Don't hit the share or forward button. Within 30 seconds of skimming an article or watching a video, doing so only furthers a biased agenda and creates more of a divide. Some things need to be said, some information needs to be shared, but a whole shitload of it doesn't. Be discerning. Dude, people like to just freaking hit, share, say-

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, before they even finish reading the article. It's like the not reading the instructions or directions on a high school test or whatever, that like the last thing says, "Don't even fucking fill this thing out," you know, and nobody did it and they filled the whole thing out and, you know. Yeah, it's just, you know, again, it goes back to, similarly to the echo chamber, I think, is, and the corroboration of things is, you know, if you, if it's one, one site that's like, Sky News Network, fucking Underground, you know, whatever, dot com, and that's your source, it's probably bullshit, you know, like, I'm not saying that even mainstream media doesn't perpetuate bullshit, but you know, if, if you're only getting it from one thing and you're not really looking into

• 47:12Speaker 01

  it and you just share it, like, all that's doing is, is furthering the problem.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  Hmm. One thing that this makes me think about is the idea that people think that they have to have a formulated and solidified opinion about everything that's freaking going on.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:29Jocko Willink?

  I'm, there's so many things where I have an idea, but it's not fully formulated and it's certainly not solidified about what's happening. And there's, there's a temptation to get in that game of like, "Oh, something happened? Let me tell you what I think. Let me tell you what I know." And it's like, dude, what, what do you know right now? What does anybody know? There's another thing I brought back from like combat. "Oh, reports are coming in that whatever." It's like, cool, that's the first report and it's about to change 19 times before we know what the hell is going on.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I think it begs the bigger question of, of why are people like that? You know, is, you know, why, why do so many people feel so starved to be heard for certain things that, if you kind of think about it, it's like, who gives a shit what, what you think or even what anybody thinks about this? And I think, you know, unfortunately, we're a victim of our own success as a society and even as a species, really, if you think about human history as, as we know it, you know, I mean, who knows, fucking pyramids and before, you know, whatever, but we'll say from, from when the Greeks were at the height until present day.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  The human experience is by far the easiest it's ever been right now in terms of survival, threats, predators, food scarcity, disease. And so, you know, I think that the human experience, condition, what have you, is designed to struggle, to need something to overcome, to need something to be fighting against and, you know, be challenged over. If that doesn't exist.

• 49:16Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna make it up.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  You will fucking make it up, you know, even if it's in your own twisted fucking brain. And I think when you couple that with physically not doing shit because you don't need to, and being raised on red dye number five and high fructose corn syrup, like that perfect storm of horribleness is why you have people that are that batshit crazy about things that don't even make sense, let alone, you know, really warrant somebody being upset about. Because they don't have anything else to feel passionate about, you know, and, I mean, we've, I know I've had plenty of guests on, I know you have too, when you talk about the transitions from the military, and it's not the experiences that guys usually struggle

• 50:01Speaker 01

  with, it's going through those things and then now being in a vacuum of purpose, of having no real reason to get up every day, and then that's when you get depressed and when experiences that you've been through manifest into problematic mind frames. And so when you have, you know, all of those things kind of going on together, you have, again, just this perfect storm of a Petri dish of horribleness from our society. And, you know, so I think if people just had a reason to get up and be passionate about something that didn't involve pronouns, or, you know, fucking blue hair, or, I mean,

• 50:46Speaker 01

  whatever, abortion, I mean, like, there's so many things that... That, you know, I find myself thinking like, if that's the worst part of your fucking day, things really aren't that bad, you know, like if somebody isn't calling you by whatever fucking pronoun you you need to be called by like that, that's your oppression. Or, you know, the the thing that you're fighting against. You got things pretty fucking easy, like you were born with a winning lottery ticket in your mouth, and you should probably just shut up and be grateful.

• 51:16Jocko Willink?

  So when it comes to the next chapter in this book, it's about parenting and it's called, Who the Hell Raised These Kids?

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Not you two, apparently.

• 51:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Your daughters are all, what?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Nineteen and eighteen right now.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I I was very cautious because Ben, when we start this podcast, eight years ago? Something like that, nine? Nine years ago. So like, when we started this podcast, my oldest kid was like fourteen. Or no, sorry, sixteen. And youngest was freaking six. And so I was real cautious about saying anything about parenting because I was like, dude, the jury ain't out yet, bro, like, who knows what's gonna happen? These kids, you know, you don't know what's gonna happen. But yeah, I think you can, you can, at your kids' age, eighteen and twenty, my oldest is twenty-five. You you get a pretty good feel for the trajectory of their lives.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, obviously, when, uh, when, when you put this book together, you got, you start talking about some of the rules that you set up and, or some of the guidance that you you give. And I think, start with this one right here. Give kids independence and let them fall on their ass sometimes. So, thing that I say is, let your kids brush up against the guardrails of failure. The car's gonna get a little dinged up, no one's gonna get hurt, they're gonna learn how to drive.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:52Jocko Willink?

  I also tell people a lot. Treat your kids as adult as you possibly can. So like as much as you can let them do, the more responsibility you give them, the more responsible they become. You let them make that peanut butter and jelly sandwich when they're five years old, and it's gonna take 20 minutes. And there's gonna be freaking jelly on the counter, and there's gonna be peanut butter on the floor, and it's just gonna be a mess. And then it's gonna take them 20 minutes to clean up. So it's a 40 minute evolution, which you could have done with one hand in like, one minute, and be cleaning and carry on with the day. You're giving them so much more education in life, and so much more self reliance. And you start doing that, not just with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  but with the laundry, and with the freaking school lunch, and the breakfast in the morning, and the taking out the garbage. Like, all those little things that you allow them the responsibility, is gonna make them that much better off. And sometimes they're gonna mess it up. And that's gonna be cool.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  I agree. And I would kind of dovetail onto your second Platoon OIC's lesson of, yeah, we don't have to do it, but is it the right thing to do? Like, that, I think, is parenting 101. Now, granted, they have to get to a certain age before you can implement that. But once they do, I think you should all the time. You know, it's like, I don't really feel like going to school today. Maybe that's not the best example, but but as a hypothetical, it's like, you could not go. Is it the right thing to do? Do you think that that's gonna serve you well? Yeah, okay. Do it then. Stay home. See what happens. Would I necessarily do that? Maybe. Maybe I have, you know?

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you, one part of my parenting advice that I tell people all the time is if you can get your kids out of school for some reason, do it. If you can take them to work, if you can take them on a trip, if you can take them to the thing, whatever, you gotta go downtown and get permits from the city about the fence that you're gonna build in the backyard, and you can take your kids, go do that. Go do it. Get them out of that school. And if you can take them to do something cool, even better. And that's gonna be awesome. And to, but to the point that you're making, I think a lot of times what kids mess up, or what kids don't connect, is they don't connect what's happening right now to their future. Because they think, you know, what I'm doing right now, eventually, everything's gonna be cool.

• 55:18Jocko Willink?

  So, I did a, I did a career day.

• 55:25Jocko Willink?

  I did career day back in the day, many moons ago. And, you know, I was gonna talk about being in the Navy. Like, okay, this is what you do. And dude, who doesn't want to hear about being in the Navy, being a SEAL? About going to war, about carrying a machine gun, about shooting machine guns, about blowing things up, about jumping out of airplanes, about scuba, I got my slideshow, it's got scuba, it's got freaking draggers, it's got parachuting, it's got, you know, cool stuff. Hype, hype. So I roll in there and these kids were, I guess the ages maybe around sixth grade. It's like 12, maybe seventh grade.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  So I roll in there and by the way, you know, I like, I'm in the team, so I'm talking to people on a regular basis. All good. I'm not like a boring speaker, right?

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  So I roll in there and I had to do it five times. So they broke career day up and like they were going to their classroom and come in for 20 minutes or 25 minutes or something. I present to the little class, present to the little class, present to the little class.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  And I'm in the same classroom the whole time. The first one I do, I'm sitting there like, all right, everyone. My name is Lieutenant Commander Jocka Willink. I'm in the SEAL Teams, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 56:44Jocko Willink?

  I, I'm looking at the crowd, I'm reading the room. Dude, they don't give a shit. They don't care about anything that I'm saying. Like even the one kid that has like a Marines T-shirt on or something, he's like, doesn't care. No one cares. And I'm, okay, next slide, parachuting. Like no one cares. And so I do the first one and I'm trying to explain to them, no, no one really cares. I escalate the next one, you know, like, well, what are you gonna do? What do you want to do with your life? By the time I get to the last one of the day, I'm saying, hey, listen up, kids, here's the deal.

• 57:20Jocko Willink?

  There's 20, there's 30 of you in this room.

• 57:25Jocko Willink?

  You fast forward 15 years from right now,

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  some of you kids are gonna own three houses. One in the mountains, one by the beach and one out in the desert. You're gonna spend time wherever you want.

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  Three of you are gonna have one house. You're lucky. You can be here in San Diego. You're gonna, you have a good job. You're gonna have a house. Some of you are going to be have a condo. Some of you can have an apartment. Some of you aren't gonna have an apartment. Some of you are gonna still be living at home. Some of you are gonna be living in a car. And there's two of you kids in this room right now. They're gonna be living under the bridge down in Mission Bay.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  At 12.

• 58:07Jocko Willink?

  And it all starts with the decisions that you're making right now. This is where it starts. The decisions that you're making right now. So that's my point is that kids don't recognize that the decisions that they're making right now connects to where they're gonna end up in the future.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  For sure. And I, and I think that's the, the litmus that I, even if it's subconsciously uses, if it's a, if it's a decision, it's gonna be a detriment to their future. Like, I'm not gonna let you fuck that up.

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, yep.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  You know, if it's something that, you know, yeah, it may, it may be a pain in your ass, or, you know, maybe embarrassing, or, you know, whatever, then, yeah, I'll, I'll ask you, hey, do you really think that's a good idea? Can you, you know, can you sell me on why that's a good idea? Okay, well, do it then, and we'll see what happens, you know? Uh, but yeah, I, I think there's, there's too much helicoptering and, and not enough. I mean, look, the, the reality is like, I would rather my kids make these mistakes while I can keep them between those guardrails and they can learn from it versus the first time they've ever had the autonomy to make a bad decision is when they're 19 and living somewhere else. And now the, the repercussions are fucking astronomical, you know, uh, that I don't want, you know? And I think too many, too many parents raise their kids that way.

• 59:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you're gonna learn that through those consequences, right? If your kids are doing, if they're, if your kids are making mistakes and there's no consequences for them, it's gonna be a problem. And the examples that you were talking about, like, oh, your kid, you know, is in school and they get in trouble with the teacher and they come home, you know, oh, I- You know, I got, I got a zero on this test. Well, why? Well, you know, we, she didn't tell us about the test. Are you serious? She didn't tell you about the test? I'm gonna go in there and talk to her and we'll get you that grade upgraded. Instead of being like, oh, well, you didn't hear about the test? You're telling me that she get, you're telling me the whole class, no one knew about the test? That's what's happening. Like, well, no. Okay. So what do you gotta do? Cause what's your grade right now? It's a C minus.

• 1:00:03Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So what do you get when you get a C minus? Like, how's your world look when you get a C minus? Are there privileges that you lose? It's another nice thing I learned in boot camp. And officer candidate school. Privileges. You don't realize what privileges are. Echo Charles, when you're a kid. You don't realize, you don't give me that look. You don't realize that there's privileges that you have when you're a kid. You don't realize that it's a privilege. Yeah. You don't realize. The depth. You don't realize the depth, you don't realize that a light in your room is privileged. You don't realize that a TV is privileged. You don't realize that, uh, an iPad is privileged. You don't realize that. Hair. Hair. You heard, you heard the story. Hair is a privilege. That you don't necessarily, you are not necessarily granted that hair. And boy, I caught some shit for that.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Somebody clipped up that, uh, thing of me saying. I don't doubt it. Telling a story. But they clipped it out in a way. Cause when I said that to my daughter, my daughter had already been in trouble. Yeah. And it wasn't, again, she didn't do anything freaking crazy. But she had gone outside the, the bounds. And I tightened her up. She was, she was in trouble. And so then as I was, took away privileges from her. You know, phone privilege, cause she was probably fourteen, fifteen. So she had the phone. Took away the phone privilege. You know, took away the computer in your room privilege. Took away the, uh, no curfew privilege. Cause I didn't have curfews for my kids. And, you know, and whatever, a couple of other things, right? But then, and then later I'm joking with her.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  You know, as the privileges are coming back and I'm like, okay, well, you know, hey. Like, remember.

• 1:01:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, and this was, you know, pretty harsh, but it could be much worse. Well, how could it be worse, Dad? Well, you still have a door on your room, which I think was awesome, right? A door on your room is a privilege, a mattress, you know, bedding, a pillow. And then, you know, jokingly I said, and hair, you know, and my daughter laughed and got the message.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause it really is. It is a privilege. Like all the, everything in life when you're a kid is a privilege. So when you can utilize those things to be removed from the situation, you can be in a pretty rough.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Jocko Willink?

  You can be in a pretty rough spot and you can realize, oh, I am thankful and I have gratitude for these things that I have. But you can utilize those as a parent to help them learn lessons, take away some of those privileges. And the privileges can be given back, but those things happen in life. And if, like you said, you can do, you can make mistakes when you're 19 years old, where you can give up the privilege of freedom. You can give up the privilege of a future. You can give up the, the privilege of being able to walk.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Jocko Willink?

  By doing dumb shit.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I think to that, I think the key with communicating that to kids and, and really, I think anybody is, is staying calm, you know, is where I think a lot of parents and myself, when they were younger, absolutely fell into that category is, is raising your voice, losing your temper, like becoming visibly angry about it. Uh, cause that's when they stop fucking listening, you know, whereas is if you're like completely unemotional and you're like, okay, well, I guess I'm taking this from you. And if you get this, then you'll get it back. Any questions? Nope. All right. Like if you say it that calmly, it's like, fuck, like he's not yelling at me. He's not mad. Like he, he's indifferent, you know?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  It's like, that's the best way to, to communicate that. Cause they'll, they'll actually listen and then now they're not taking it personal. And they'll actually hear it and reflect on it.

• 1:03:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So we got asked on underground podcast, somebody asked about spanking kids, right? And so I was like looking at the questions and I was at home and I was looking at the questions. I was like, oh, well, no, I don't really spank my kids and then spank my kids. And then my kids were home. I was like, wait, I want to make sure, you know, confirm, because I don't want to be out here lying to the masses. And so my wife and my kids were sitting around downstairs and, and I came downstairs and I was like, hey, I, I've got asked if I spanked, but I didn't spank you guys, right? And they're all like, nope, nope. My wife's like, nope. And then they started with like, and my son ended up saying, I wished you would have spent this. It would have been easier. It would have been less psychologically damaging and we were all laughing because I would like just either.

• 1:04:14Jocko Willink?

  I had a couple of protocols. I mean, obviously the privileges, but the other thing I was just like not talk to them. Like one of my kids, if my kids were out of line, it would just be like, you know, you did the perfectly calm thing. I would just be like totally shun them for three days.

• 1:04:28Jocko Willink?

  It's I don't recommend the three days worth of shunning. I think it's too much.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Maybe one day.

• 1:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, maybe a day worth of shunning, but there's, I would like be at the dinner table. And you know, the salt would be on the other side of the kid that's being shunned. And I would ask the other kid, you know, hey, pass me the salt and just like act like they're not there. Total asshole. Sorry, kids.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  I wish you would have whipped us.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  Uh, and you, you mentioned this whole idea and in a section, create an environment for learning life lessons at home. That's what we just talked about. Don't raise a victim. How do you prevent that?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  So, I mean, to me, the, there's a couple of things. I mean, number one is, um, don't reinforce it, you know, if you coddle and, set up an environment and reinforce that type of behavior, then you know, one of, one of my favorite quotes by, the godfather of operant conditioning, B F Skinner, as it relates to dog training is anything that's reinforced is likely to occur again. It's true everywhere, not just in dog training, but you know, so if you create an environment where, people are rewarded for being a victim, you know, and then there's no consequence for doing anything wrong.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  You're, you're creating that, you know, I mean, you're, you're reinforcing that, that victim mentality and that's just going to carry further and further into adult life where, there's going to come a time where it's going to be the shitter, get off the pot moment and, uh, and nobody's going to give a shit. You know, what they went through growing up or, you know, what they had to deal with at, at this point in their life, or, you know, what, person broke their heart or what financial, you know, hardships they're having or what have you. And, uh, and I think the sooner you do that, um, the better off the, the kid's going to be. And there's never going to be that almost purgatory of, of entitlement.

• 1:06:19Jocko Willink?

  There is a certain, you gotta figure out that time in life where you realize that you have agency and can take control of what's happening. And look, there's gonna be some things that are not in your control. We get that. But at a certain point, you go, oh, I made this mistake and this is why I'm in this situation right now. I'll tell you what, the US Navy drives that home real loud and clear. In even something as simple as bootcamp, you're like, oh, I made this mistake. Now I am paying the man. And that just escalates through SEAL training is like, oh, I made this mistake and now I'm paying the man. Or I prepared, I planned, I was ready, we executed, got the job done. Now I'm in a good spot.

• 1:07:04Jocko Willink?

  And that applies to everything in life.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Jocko Willink?

  And so if you can set conditions like that for your kid, so that when they do the right thing, the good outcomes and you let them know that the outcome is because they were prepared and put forth effort. And when things don't go their way, it's like, oh, oh, you didn't know about the test, huh? And that's the teacher's fault. Nope, it's not the teacher's fault. That is 100% your fault. And even if it is the teacher's fault, what can you do about it? You gonna petition to have the teacher fired? The teacher's not getting fired. The teachers' union owns the state. It's not happening. So what are you gonna do? You gonna continue with a bad grade? No, you have to figure out what you can do to fix this situation.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  And to me, there's a really critical component of that consequence part, which is being consistent and following through. Cause that's where I see a lot of people and I've been in situations with my kids in their teenage years where I'm not gonna say that I'm better than than other parents, but I would just say that most parents would have folded and said, okay, no, you know what? Stop, let's figure this out. Like, come here. And not let them do what they were saying. Fuck it, I'll do this then. Okay.

• 1:08:18Jocko Willink?

  Give me a good example.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I'll do it off, off. There's too much personal information to share it, so I'll share it.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Leif Babin has a good example of that where his, he was telling his daughter, like, they were in Texas somewhere where there's like little stickers in the grass or in the yard. And his daughter's like, you know, he's like, hey, put your, put your flip flops on. I don't want to. Hey, put your flip flops on. I don't want to. Like, put your flip flops on right now. No. Okay. And Liberty's little girl goes running across the yard and sure enough, she made it whatever it was, five steps. It's like, hey, so that's a perfect example. She's not gonna die. She's not even gonna get injured. She's gonna have some little pain, but she's gonna get that lesson learned.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and I think, you know, an older example where where there's gonna be more of that, like, in that case, not that it's not a good example, but there's really no skin in the game for Leif. Like, he's not losing anything by that. Let's say, fast forward to, hey, if something happens and if it continues, or you don't remedy this, you're not going to prom. It's like, okay, well, I want you to go to prom. Like, I want you to have that experience. I would love for there to be pictures, like, I want you to have that as part of your high school experience, you know. So something happens to where the deal was, if you don't satisfy this requirement, you're not going to prom. That doesn't happen. A lot of times, well, fuck. Okay, but we'll figure something else out. But, you know,

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  it's like, no, you don't get to go. I will use one example for that. My kids were probably seven and nine, at the height of Halloween, being fucking varsity, varsity activity.

• 1:10:03Jocko Willink?

  Damn, dude.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  They're dressed up, we're ready to fucking go. Halloween's canceled. Sit the fuck back down. You're not going out because you lied to your mom and I, like, straight to our face about something important. So we're gonna sit here and have a come to Jesus for 20 minutes. You can take the shit off and we're not going out. Like, that sucked. You know, like, there's, I mean, I love Halloween, love going out with the kids, especially at that age, when it's magic. And we didn't, you know. I will say, there's times where, like, I still feel bad about that. But, you know, it's like, you know, and so I would say, let that also caution you is that don't have a consequence be something that's gonna kick you in the dick so much, to where if you have to follow through with it, you're like, man. And you regret it, you know. So, you know, be strategic.

• 1:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. One time, my son did something that was not approved.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink?

  And he was a little, pretty little kid and I went a little too hard in the paint and I put him on a very Spartan protocol for life. And it was very, very Spartan and he was maybe six or seven.

• 1:11:10Jocko Willink?

  And it was like very strict wake up protocols, you know, room inspections. Like I really went hard on him. And removed basically all privileges as a child. And in it, you hurt, it sucked, you know, like, but I was doing it. And so then he slowly, and so. I had said to him like, look, I have to be strict with you because you know, this is, this is not going to be good for you in the long run. I gotta be strict with you. And so little kid, you know, uh, he understood, okay, this is what strict is. And then as, as I, as he earned privileges back and, you know, got his stuff back and. Started living a more normal childhood life. And then something happened.

• 1:11:56Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 1:11:58Jocko Willink?

  And you know, he did something a little bit, you know, brushing up against the guardrails a little bit. And I was like, hey, listen. Do you want me to have to be strict again? And he looked at me, little kid, and he goes. Maybe that's what's going to be best for me. And I was like, oh my God. I was like, oh no. This poor kid, I created a freaking monster. Maybe that's what's best for me.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  Oh, that's great. God, it's six.

• 1:12:26Jocko Willink?

  That was like the first time I, he asked for a haircut and I, so I shaved his head and, and I got done. And he, I go, okay, all done. And he goes, he looks at me, he goes, do I look more like a soldier now? And I was like.

• 1:12:40Jocko Willink?

  I got a tear in my non-shooting eye.

• 1:12:43Jocko Willink?

  That was classic. Uh, all right. So you go through, um. You, you already talked about the Jay-Z, Jay-Z isn't Jesus type stuff, but you go into this personal protocol and this is sort of the meat of the book. And I don't want to get into every subject that you cover, but you cover this protocol for assessing. Important.

• 1:13:06Jocko Willink?

  Issues and subjects. And so I don't want to go through all of them, but I want to talk about your, uh, your, your protocol that you use. You say, I offer, I'd like to offer four cornerstone principles that can be used as a guide for assessing and approaching any important subject, issue or problem. If every individual implemented the practice of utilizing these principles, I think we'd see a lot of change. It's a four step process. Here's how it works. Number one, remove emotions. Number two, remove politics. Number three, mind your own fucking business. And number four, hold yourself to the same or higher standard that you hold others to.

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  That's it. So, so talk to me a little bit about this protocol. What are we doing with this protocol?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Well, you know, so the, I would say the backbone of it is, is removing the, the predispositions that I think inhibit us to be able to have conversations with people that we disagree with, or that we're trying to, you know, raise, you know, children wise, et cetera. If you look at, you know, all of the divisive things that take place in our country, and you, you follow those four things, like how many of those actually are problems that people are arguing about now? Like pick any political hotbed topic that you've seen in the last, say, six or eight months, leading up to the, the election, and put them through that, that ringer first. And, and do you still have an argument?

• 1:14:36Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  No. You know, so, and, and I think not necessarily in that order, but number four, especially politically, you know? Now, all of them, I think are important, whether you're talking with neighbors, you know, again, kids, people in your community. The higher up you go, I think the more you kind of need to go in reverse order, but especially in politics, you know, and, and both sides are horribly guilty of this, is my guy did it, and I'm going to look the other way, and that's fine. But if the second your guy does it, like, we're going to shine a fucking interrogation lamp on him, and we're going to spend three weeks talking about it, you know, and it's like, you know, take, uh, I mean, pick, pick a topic, and that's the case, you know? So, uh, again, I just think like, i- if everybody

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  going into anything that they're pissed off about, or that they're, that they're trying to argue with somebody about, if you go through that checklist. A, nine times out of 10, you're not even gonna have the, the argument with somebody because that's gonna remove, you're gonna realize, nah, fuck, I'm wasting my time and I'm a hypocrite. If it does lead to that, you're at least going into it with all of those boxes checked, saying, okay, well, there's no, no emotion, there's no politics in it, um, you know, I'm, I'm holding my sta- my side to the same standard and, and, you know, that's gonna get rid of it. So even if you do end up still getting in an argument with somebody, you, you've kind of taken so much of the teeth out of it to where now you can just have an actual discussion about it and not sit there just screaming at each other where neither side is listening to one another.

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Don't get emotional about it, which is very difficult because some people are hyper emotional about things. And sometimes it's a good reason, you know, sometimes like some, uh, somebody was on welfare when they were a kid and so therefore welfare is a hugely important thing and they're super emotional about it. So you gotta be like, okay, gotta remove that emotion. Remove the political, well, I'm right wing and right wing is against welfare, so I'm against welfare. So let's get rid of that. Um, mind your own business. How is that applying to the welfare thing? I just?

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Well, so to me, I mean, I guess from a welfare standpoint, it's, you know, if it doesn't affect you, then don't worry about it, you know? Um, and again, how many, how many things, like take abortion as probably the, the most classic example of that is, you know, or gay marriage, or I mean, there's, uh, there are a litany of different things to where it's like, you know, take one step back, again, get rid of the emotion and politics, and then ask yourself, like, does this fucking matter to you? Like, does, does it really affect you? If it doesn't, if it's somebody else doing something that they, they like, they're passionate about and it doesn't impact you, then stop fucking worrying about it. You know, too many times people, you know, whether it's in communities or on a national

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  level, you know, whether it's your neighbor or, you know, at a federal level, is that people are pissed and worried about things that that don't really affect them.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  You know, but they'll die on that hill, they'll sit there and spend hours arguing with somebody about it, they'll get emotional about it, and they'll let it, you know, border on, control their life for something that that doesn't even have any relevance, you know. I actually got in trouble for telling somebody to mind his own business on, on social media a couple of years ago, which is a whole nother story, but it was funny because it, somebody, there's a ton of comments asking like, oh, where is it in your book where it says, mind your own fucking business, it was like, fucking page 91 on this paragraph, and, and, you know, that's a funny story, I'll share it with you after, after, after the show, probably.

• 1:18:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, one of the other things I was thinking about this as I was reading it was, really trying to understand what the other person's perspective is, and this, again, this is something I picked up, like, if you and I were planning for a mission and you were like, I think we should hit the target from the south.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Jocko Willink?

  And I'm like, I think we should hit it from the north. Instead of me thinking, I'm right, you're wrong, I'm like, okay, why does he want to, okay, why is you, why do you think it's better to hit it from the south? You're like, well, we're getting inserted over here, there's a possible ID over here, there's a bad terrain feature over here, and look at this, like, nice little, uh, high ground we can take to Overwatch as we move in from the south. I'm like, well, actually, that makes pretty good sense. Or I say, hey, you know what, that's all good, Mike, what I forgot to tell you is that there's going to be, uh, a fire mission that's going to be going to the south, I didn't tell you that, it's my fault. So we can't actually come, oh, okay, cool, so now we have a real conversation, but I actually want to know why you think that's better.

• 1:19:09Jocko Willink?

  And I think if you can do that, normally, you can at least find some level of, of understanding of that other person's perspective, all the way down to, you almost, I, I, I was kind of doing it a little bit when we were just talking about this killer, this murderer of the CEO of United Healthcare, because I immediately almost went into like, hey, listen, that guy probably has a family member that suffered, uh, this and that. The thing is, with that particular case, you go, even with that perspective, even with that perspective. I can't say yep, go ahead and murder the CEO of the company like it did. There's, it doesn't work.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  But most of the time, in many cases, unless the person is crazy, or like I've often said, like, hey, unless you're ISIS or like a dyed in the wool communist, like I'm gonna be able to figure out some little common ground that we have somewhere, right? Like, we're gonna be able to figure something out.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  But if you're, in this case, it's like, oh, now you're gonna murder a person in cold blood. That's, it's not okay. But most of the time, it's like, oh, here's what you think. Oh, you believe in welfare, or you believe in whatever the thing is, right? You believe in, whatever the thing. I often, okay, well, I understand. I at least have some comprehension of what you're, where you're coming from. And in my mind, I actually try and figure out how I can help make them right. I actually wanna believe what you're telling me. When you tell me some political opinion, and I'm like, dude, this guy's an idiot. I immediately know that that's my ego, it's my emotions, it's my politics. And I go, okay, stop, listen, and try and figure out how Mike can be right about this particular topic that he's talking about. How can I, how can I agree with him?

• 1:20:57Jocko Willink?

  And I work my ass off to try and figure that out. And most of the time, what I figured out was like, you know what? This opinion that I have, not fully formulated and probably shouldn't be stabilized yet. Probably shouldn't be poured concrete. There should probably be some room to breathe, because the world is a crazy, complex place. You know, you and I talked about on the podcast, your podcast, the amount of variables that are in war. And that's the same thing with so many complex topics that there are, that why would you pour your, your, your opinion into concrete and have no ability to maneuver?

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  One of the things I say in there, not on that page, but later in the book, is listen to understand, not to respond.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  You know, which is huge. And I think, I think Jordan Peterson does a, an exercise in his couples therapy, where he says, you know, if you're in an argument with your spouse, he'll have them flip sides, you know, and say, okay, now you're arguing her point to you and vice versa, you know, to really force you to understand where that other person is coming from, which is pretty, pretty brilliant. But I don't know how well it would work in some cases. I can see that going off the rails pretty quick. But, well, the reason I think that is because I'm a fucking idiot.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Like you start bagging on yourself.

• 1:22:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, listening is, is, uh, I always explain that listening is one of the absolute most underrated skills in being in leadership. And it's also the cornerstone of building relationships with people is listening to what they have to say. As a matter of fact, again, when I was on your podcast, one of the questions from the audience was, uh, you know, what do you do with someone that's not listening to you? And very quickly I responded, you listen to them. If someone's not listening, you need to listen to them. Find out what's going on. The more you listen to them, the more likely they are to listen to you. And 99% of the cases in the world, when you start listening to someone and taking notes on what they're saying and trying to incorporate their views into things, they will

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  eventually start listening to you. Is there one, there's a, it's not even 1%, it's like 0.001%. That's just a freaking lunatic. You probably don't, if you're listening to this right now and you're thinking, oh, you see, I knew it. I knew that guy was the guy that wasn't going to listen and I should just beat him down. Like, no, that you don't have that person. That person doesn't even function in society normally.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. For, for you in, in those environments, uh, is there a, a statement that you use typically to open that door to listen? Or is it just totally dependent on the person, the topic, the, the situation?

• 1:23:33Jocko Willink?

  I, I might say like, dude, what's, what's wrong? And I'll, I'll generally speaking, trying to take some kind of an ownership, ownership of the situation. Like, hey, Mike, I don't think I'm doing a good job of understanding your perspective. Can you tell me what you're thinking right now? If it's your kid. Hey, listen, kid, I, I can see that you're mad right now. Obviously, I'm not understanding what's going on. Can you explain to me what your viewpoint is? If it's your spouse? Hey, darling, I can see that this is, I, I'm not doing a good job of understanding what's happening. Can you, can you share with me? If it's your boss? Hey, boss, I, I obviously, I've done something that was out of line. I want to know what that is. Can you help me see it? Can

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  you tell me what I'm doing wrong? You see what I'm saying? It's just like asking and, and taking ownership of the fact that you're not comprehending what's going on.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:24:23Jocko Willink?

  And that's a. A good way to do that. And like then to your point, or I guess you made via Jordan Peterson, the intention of listening isn't then to come up with a response. The intention of listening is to nod your head, get out your freaking notebook. Dude, I used to do that when I was in the teams. Like somebody comes to me with some problem, I'm getting out my notebook. Get out my notebook, I'm gonna write down what the hell you're saying. And you're gonna know like, damn dude, the boss is taking notes on what's going on. That's a pretty positive thing, isn't it? Yeah. So, I really like these protocols, uh, running through, running things through these protocols so that you can actually freaking calm down and understand things better. And, uh, and you do it, dude. You apply this methodology in the book.

• 1:25:06Jocko Willink?

  You cover a bunch of topics from borders to guns, to the economy, to a bunch of social issues, to foreign policy, to environment. You, you cover it all. And you kind of break it down and show these different perspectives. And I think that's a good methodology for actually teaching people how to do this when they get to watch you do it throughout the book, which is freaking solid. And then you get into the last, the last chapter of this book, which is very, uh, uniquely titled "You."

• 1:25:42Jocko Willink?

  You say this, that's why I want to end this book by sharing with you a handful of things that you can put into practice immediately in your own life. All of these things, all of these are things that I strive to practice in my own life. They are things that I have seen proven time and time again to have a positive impact, both in the lives of individuals as well as society at large. I am by no means perfect or feel that I have arrived at any of these points. But if you, but you can bet your ass that I wake up every day doing what I can to progress, grow, and learn. Most days. Most days. Uh, the first thing you talk about is shift your mentality. In many ways, this book has been all about shifting mentality and perspective. The word mentality is defined as the characteristic of attitude or way of thinking a person, of a person or a group.

• 1:26:26Jocko Willink?

  All of us should make it our mission to pursue independent and informed thinking, to check and recheck our mentality about ourselves and the world around us constantly. It is a journey that each of us will be on for life. There are two mental shifts that I believe can do the most good in your life as an individual and as a society. And the first one is think for yourself. And dude, this is what-

• 1:26:48Jocko Willink?

  It's weird. Uh, I remember when I was a kid and I was always, uh, liked war and liked to learn about war and study war. And, you know, I remember even as a little kid watching, uh, like PBS shows about the Nazis. And you would see the Germans and you would see like the mass hypnosis of the people. Like all freaking Sieg Heiligen, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. And it seemed for many, many years of my life, it seemed like a unique thing.

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  Like a thing where it's like, oh dude, this, that guy Adolf Hitler had some freaking kind of magical power. Uh, he had some kind of charisma. And then you learn a little bit more like, oh, it's also because the German economy had been crashed so bad. So that's another reason why the people were kind of down for the cause. Oh, and then also you learn that after the Treaty of Versailles, the German people like they felt like they got screwed in that old gym. So now they're even more down for the cause. So by the time Hitler comes around, like you just have this, this massive people, unique in human history that was ready to get on board with the program.

• 1:28:07Jocko Willink?

  But man, in the last like several years, it's become much more obvious how just completely pliable people's minds are. And the only reason that we don't have a mass movement like that unified right now is because there's just all these little mini mass movements that are going all the time. And people are freaking scrolling through their phone and they're getting sucked down to that algorithm thing. And next thing you know, they're on some weird freaking belief system. That's crazy. That's leading them to become angry and frustrated and psycho.

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  And the Nazis did that to a whole bunch of people at the same time. They happened to unify that message and they got them all going. But it's sad to see this happening now with all these little offshoots that you can go down and you can get wrapped up into these rabbit holes where you're not thinking for yourself anymore.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and I think, again, it speaks to the lack of purpose that so many people have, you know, is that they don't really have anything that they're that passionate about, you know? And when you don't have that, again, like we said, you know, you'll figure something out. Your mind and body will gravitate towards something. And the problem is, is that, you know, that passion needs to be real. It needs to be, you know, an ignited fire kind of coming from your soul. And if it's something that's trivial, then it's going to seem ridiculous because it is. But, you know, it doesn't mean that you're any less passionate about it. It's just what you're being passionate about is a pretty trivial thing. You know, but to you, it's all relative. It doesn't feel trivial because that's what your thing is.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  And so I agree, it's an alarming time to see, or it makes more sense now where it's like, okay, now I get how Nazi Germany happened. And I think a lot of people have kind of come to that realization over the last few years of seeing, you know, people, you know, when Trump was shot. I mean, fuck, a good portion of the country, you know, was like, wish they would have hit him. It's like, what? You know, it's like, I don't like Biden. I don't want to see him get fucking assassinated, you know? Like, what am I missing? Like, how is there that many people that are okay with that? You know, and same with the healthcare CEO, same thing. Like, there's, you know, there's probably, not probably, there's always going to be

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  a portion of the population that cheers those things, that, you know, is okay with that and applause or applauds something like that. But it seems like the balance is so far tipped now to where there's so many people that are okay with dehumanizing people that they disagree with over some of the littlest things. That they're, you know, it's like they're now an inanimate object almost and they could fucking care less. There's no kind of human connection to that person because, well, they don't believe what I believe. And so they could have their head cut off and I wouldn't care. It's frightening.

• 1:31:11Jocko Willink?

  My, uh, when I was growing up, my dad's a real conservative guy and one, like real conservative and one of our family friends was a old, like crazy, what we would call like a crazy liberal guy and we had dinner with this family a thousands, thousands of times growing up and my dad and this guy who were on absolute opposite ends of the political spectrum would freaking sit there all night and argue and make fun of each other and bring up facts and go at each other's throats metaphorically.

• 1:31:55Jocko Willink?

  And at the end of the night, you know, I have a good night. We'll see you tomorrow. Like and, and that just, I don't think that really happens anymore.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  It doesn't. And I do wonder, uh, or I, I suspect that social media and the internet's played an enormous role in that, uh, for the simple fact that that, that and kind of the political correction, overcorrection of not being able to handle things the old fashioned way, like this is interesting. My Uber driver on the way here was from Chechnya. We of course got to talking about Dagestan and wrestling and fighting and the differences between, you know, I'm like interviewing this guy on the way here, but um, but it, you know, our society.

• 1:32:35Jocko Willink?

  Where does he train?

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Uh, he, he doesn't train here. You, you probably, you may see him coming through the victory doors here pretty soon, but.

• 1:32:42Jocko Willink?

  Could use some of that.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, he had, uh, he fought twice, uh, one, one, two amateur fights in Chechnya and, uh, you know, he's like, in Chechnya, growing up, like you either wrestle or you do judo. That's part of school. Uh, for everybody's like, boys, you do one or the other and, and there is no choice. And just the, the stark contrast between the two societies, but he was saying, one of the things that surprised him the most here is because we, uh, we're at a stoplight and somebody like pulled out and somebody was honking and flipping them off and, and yelling out the window. And he's like, that never ever happens in Chechnya. He's like, nobody talks shit to each other. Nobody fucking flips anybody off. He's like, like, if you flip somebody off, you, you better be ready to fucking fight right now and nobody gives a shit.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  You know, it's like people knock each other's teeth out for mouling off or for flipping each other off or whatever. He said, it just doesn't happen. He's like, In, in, in Chechnya, like you, if you pull out and, and there's some sort of disagreement as to a traffic maneuver or whatever, like people will, will ask, are you okay? And do you need any help? Like, it's not an aggressive, you're fucked up, get out of my way. It's, is everything okay? Like, do you need a hand? Like, like, assuming you're screwed up because something's wrong. It's just like a polar opposite mentality. But, um, back to, to that, that kind of point is that, you know, we live in a society now where, I mean, you, you can say fucking anything to somebody with absolutely zero consequence.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  I mean, you can, you know, insult their family, their mom, their kids, their spouse, them. I mean, you, you can threaten them frankly. I mean, I've, I'm sure you've seen stuff too, where people will say shit, just like, dude, how the fuck is that, how is that what you think? You know, like, some of the comments on, on YouTube or, or on social media, which I admittedly don't read very much of or very often, but sometimes some have gotten my attention because of how egregious they are. But I think that, that's part of it is that, you know, it's like there, there's no consequence for talking to somebody in, in any manner, like the most vile, disgusting, offensive, threatening, disrespectful manner, there's absolutely no consequence for it, you know?

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  And, and I think that's a problem. When you couple that with the fact that the weird timing of texting and, and social media and, and comments is that, you know, having a discussion or even a disagreement with somebody, you don't have time to think about it that much. Right? So everything is really off the cuff. Like, when you have just enough time, like, you, you may spend minutes or even hours figuring out how to respond to somebody's smart ass comment. And so you have, you know, all of, all of these, like, one up, I got you, catch me, fuck me, trick fuck kinda comments on social media where people are, you know, have these well thought out things, or there's no emotion behind it. You can't see the, the person's face, you can't humanize them at all because it's just, you know, text on a, on a little screen in your hand.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  And I think that that changes, uh, the way people view each other.

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, yeah. The idea, like I'll see on social media of someone will say, you know, well, that's bullshit. Fuck you.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Jocko Willink?

  And I'll, you know, the last time I said, I said fuck you to another person. I can't, I can't remember.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, that, that's, and the last time someone said that to me, I can't remember.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  Like, for someone to look at me and say, fuck you, like, that is, that is a

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't do it.

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  Extreme kind of crazy thing that's going on, like, we're about to fight.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:17Jocko Willink?

  Or I did something to you that, like, you're, we are now enemies. But for just to be, it's like a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm going through this person who's talking about Biden or Trump or whoever, and my response is, hey, if that's what you think, fuck you. That's

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, is that serious?

• 1:36:36Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's where we're at? That's what we're doing?

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  So, yes, social media for, I wonder how that bleeds over to, like, real life.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  So, but, but no, let's say you're a kid, let's say you're a 15-year-old kid, and you're on social media, and you're telling people, fuck you, and this and that, and the other thing, and now all of a sudden, you're in a movie theater, and someone's talking, and you tell them to be quiet, and they say, ah, you know, I'm not, you don't, you don't tell me what to do. Do you immediately just go, like, fuck you, and now we're fighting?

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:09Jocko Willink?

  Like, I don't know.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  I, I, I think there's an element of that. I do think that, uh, deep down, even if it's hardwired genetic, is that I think people still understand the, the primal nature of, of human beings and, and kind of what exists. And so I think it depends on the person in person. I think there's a lot of people that would talk a ton of shit online, and if you saw them in person, they wouldn't talk to you that way. But I think, you know, it depends on who that other person is. With kids, yeah, I think a lot of them would go right to, you know, saying what, what they would type in social media. I do think as you get older and you get a sense of, of how somebody carries themselves, their, their

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  presence, their nonverbal communication, eye contact, things like that, that, that plays a big role. Uh, again, I, I think, I don't even think you ever have need to have been punched in the mouth or been in, in a fight to realize when you're in the presence of somebody who absolutely will fuck you up, you know, for being disrespectful. I think people recognize that, even if they've never been in a fight.

• 1:38:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's a little bit of primal activity going on there. Uh, one thing you say about this is this one mentality shift is something that you can begin pursuing right now. Start asking questions, start thinking for yourself, educating yourself, researching for yourself. Expose yourself to a variety of deep thinkers, innovators, philosophers, political leaders, experts, and friends who think both similarly and different than you.

• 1:38:34Jocko Willink?

  Certainly something that if you don't actively try and make that happen, it won't happen.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:39Jocko Willink?

  If you just, well, look, it's so much, uh, more comforting just to hang out with a bunch of people that think what I think. And I don't want to hear from anybody else. And by the way, your algorithm is set up to do that for you.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:50Jocko Willink?

  Um, and you go into the fact of, uh, voting. Here's another thing that you talk about which I, well, I guess you could say I fully wholeheartedly support this. Take responsibility. No matter who you are or what stage of life you are currently in, it's important to remember that someone is looking at you. You are an example to someone and you are an influence on someone. That alone should be a weighty responsibility. It is one none of us should take lightly. Take responsibility and ownership for what is yours. Don't blame your problems on other people. Put your head down and own the shit that's yours to own. If you made a mistake, don't pretend you didn't. Don't try and cover it up. Look at square in the face, own it and take action to grow from it. In doing so, you'll show others that it's okay to fall down and get back up.

• 1:39:37Jocko Willink?

  I wrote a whole book about that.

• 1:39:40Jocko Willink?

  Actually, it's only one chapter in that book, but yeah. Take ownership, everybody. And then you get into this trifecta of health, uh, three components.

• 1:39:52Jocko Willink?

  Get the fuck outside, get off your ass, get proper fuel.

• 1:39:58Jocko Willink?

  Step one, get the fuck outside. Why is that?

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  So taking one step back, you know, the book highlights, like I was kind of saying, the, the premise behind it is, you know, there's all these data points that speak to big, much bigger problems than what typically is focused on in the media. It can be a daunting thing to see all of these issues, these data points and be like, holy shit, you know, our country is in, in kind of a mess. And now it's, the daunting part is, what can I do about that? Right? It's like, well, you can vote and you can set the example. You know, I don't know what the adage is, is all, all high tides raise ships or whatever the hell that is. I, I, I know I messed that up. Whatever it is, you get the point, right? Do you know what it is, Echo?

• 1:40:43Jocko Willink?

  High tides raise all ships.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  That sounds about right.

• 1:40:45Jocko Willink?

  But hey, you know what?

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:48Jocko Willink?

  All high tides do also raise ships. We're good either way.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  It's the highest it's ever been. Um, but you know, that, that's the reality is that, so if everybody, you know, attacks that same problem of saying, okay, well, the, there's not a lot that I can control, but the things that I can control are me. So those first four kind of protocols of how you approach everything, coupled with the fact that, okay, well, I can keep myself healthy because the reality is our, our country's biggest problem is drug addiction, alcoholism and heart disease. Right? By far, those three things kill way more people than guns, than, I mean, everything else by a landslide. By getting outside, getting, you know, getting sunlight, the Huberman protocols of, of getting

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  off your ass, staying active and, and having that implemented as part of your routine is going to be super beneficial. The second thing is fueling your body appropriately. Same thing is that stop rinsing Snickers bars down with Mountain Dew and, and eat, you know, nutrient dense whole foods that are relatively healthy most of the time. Um, and then, you know, exercise and, and make your body strong and, and, uh, you know, do those right things. So those three things, you know, uh, staying active, eating properly and, and exercising, um, you know, take the biggest strain off of our society because if you're doing that, you're not an alcoholic, you're not addicted to drugs and you're not clogging up our, our healthcare system.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  But even, even beyond that is that, you know, mentally you're going to be the most capable, you're going to be the most productive physically and mentally, which is just going to, you know, uh, be a, uh, an asset to the, to the country. And, uh, and if everybody does that, if everybody maximizes their own potential, the collective average of the country is way above where we're at now, you know? And those are things that you can control.

• 1:42:44Jocko Willink?

  You talk about getting off your ass and we were talking earlier about the fact that you were on this podcast before six and a half years ago.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:42:54Jocko Willink?

  And after that podcast, at some juncture, you got off your ass and you started training jujitsu.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:00Jocko Willink?

  What was that all about? Let's talk jujitsu.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:03Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, step up to the mic.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  I mean, I already stayed pretty active working out, but you know, jujitsu is one of those things where um, I think, I don't think, I know that, you know, the cost benefit of juice being worth a squeeze, like if you're going to be active and you're going to put effort into a physical activity. I think you'd be hard pressed to find one that gives you the return that jujitsu does, you know, uh, for so many reasons, which I know you guys have talked about at, at length. Another part was, um, which I mentioned on the last show, but I'll, I'll mention again for your listeners is the uh, Andy Stump had the uh, ask me anything and somebody was like, who's going to win in a fight between Rittlin and Rogan? And Andy was like, Rogan had fucked Mike up. And I was just like, well, fuck you.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Like, I don't care if it's even true. Like, it's like, I should probably do something about that, you know? Not that I didn't feel like I could at least somewhat handle myself, but not to the degree with which somebody who trains a lot and, and gets, you know, to be a pre-seasoned jujitsu athlete or even combatives, because I do, uh, I don't compete, I don't, uh, focus on points or positions. It's, it's all very kind of MMA or, or real world, um, focused, you know, with starting from feet and, you know, doing takedowns and even throwing little strikes in here and there and, and being mindful of the fact that that's a thing. And generally speaking, no holds barred. I mean, we're not gouging eyes and shit, but we're doing a lot of things that aren't legal in, in competition and,

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  and, uh, and just kind of focusing on that as a mentality. But for me, um, I found a huge, um, I would say kind of release and balancing mentally with just, you know, whether it was ego or temper or frustration, you know, things that I, I didn't really um, expect as a, as a consequence, as a positive consequence of doing it, but that have been just overwhelmingly beneficial for me with, you know, being more patient and letting things go and like not letting certain little, little things bother me and, and what have you. And it's been, uh, it's been an amazing journey. I

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say that like it runs my life and I'm addicted to it, but I absolutely love doing it and I have to do it. So I don't know, maybe I am addicted to it.

• 1:45:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we do call that an addiction. How many times a week do you get to train?

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Um, it varies. I mean, I would say on the like the most I'll do in a week is four days. That's pretty rare. It's usually two or three. Uh, for me, I do find that sweet spot of two or three, if it three, if it's, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or, you know, at least one day in between training for me is, is pretty important for me to be able to recover and not feel like I've been hit by a bus when I get out of bed every morning. But, um, yeah, I just, you know, I train with a young, young, very skilled black belt, uh, mostly private lessons and, and even the, you know, occasional group class that I'll do is, you know, there's usually some, some pretty competitive guys that are, you know, half my age and pretty athletic and, and make me feel fucking old, you know, but,

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  uh, but I, yeah, I mean, I love it. And to me, the kind of the three D chess, uh, component that just never gets old, you know? I mean, to me, it's to use kind of a band references like striking is kind of like drums, you know, whether it's Muay Thai, kickboxing, whatever, like there's only so much variance, combination wise that you can really bring to the table.

• 1:46:26Jocko Willink?

  That's a freaking good one.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Um, jujitsu is the guitar. It's the electric guitar with wah pedals and fucking effects and you can bend the strings and, and, you know.

• 1:46:34Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, look, dude, drummers and drumming can be in totally insane, complicated craziness. It's awesome. But, but it doesn't, it, the amount of complexity and, and infinite number of opportunities on a guitar fretboard are tenfold, like tenfold. And so, yeah, that's a really good, I always just say it's like linear versus nonlinear, you know? And, and there, you are limited in boxing. How, what can you do? Only so many things you can, and look, a boxer will be like, well, no, there's this, and they're right. They're right. And every one of those things that you can, you can, every one of those variables in boxing,

• 1:47:19Jocko Willink?

  there's, let's say there's 10,000 variables in boxing, you can multiply that times, but infinite, infinity, to get to jujitsu.

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's just that, there's the, you're never finished component to it. Like, there's always some other level or whatever. And I feel like with boxing, or, you know, really any type of striking, you get to a certain point, and I don't think it takes that long before you're kind of as good as you're gonna get, you know, you're not gonna, because so much of it is hinging on speed and athleticism and quickness and reflex and, and a lot of those things you can't change, you know, so, uh, it, it seems like, I mean, I haven't done a ton of striking, but I've done enough to where it's like, you know, within a certain point and relatively soon, you're about as good as you're gonna get at that. Whereas jujitsu, it's just like, it just keeps going, you know?

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  Just that fly, there, there is crazy levels to striking too. Like, if you ever train with people that are what would be considered like a jujitsu black belt in striking, and you're not, you are getting worked over the same way as like, like we, we, Mike Regner, remember Mike Regner at City Boxing? He's, you know, he was like a champion kickboxer, Muay Thai guy. Like, you think about kicking him, and he's checking your kick and like, returning, and it hurts way worse than what you threw at him, and he doesn't care. Or, Robbie Garcia, who was like the hitman, like, he hits you with a body shot, like you're

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  sparring, you're throwing, he's throwing, boom, boom, yeah, dude. So, and they, they can just work you over. That being said, there is an even more exponential level change in, like, someone that is a, uh, you know, a black belt in jujitsu.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  Well, I guess to, to clarify, like, I'm not, uh, insinuating that there aren't the same amount of levels of, of skill in striking. What I think is, is that individually, your, your ability to progress is far more limited. You know, like, if, if, especially if you didn't grow up doing it, you know, it's like if you take a, say a 25-year-old in good shape, you know, decent athleticism, and you start putting them through the paces, boxing, Muay Thai, what have you. You know, within a probably a couple of years, he's probably as about as good as he's gonna get. You know, even if he trains for the next 15, he may get a little better. I don't, I don't think there's the same learning curve in striking that there is in jujitsu.

• 1:49:52Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu learning curve is definitely an apex learning curve, learning curve for sure.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's the way it works. And it doesn't stop. That's what, you know, people ask me like, oh, who would be, who would win the 53 year old Jocko or the 25 year old Jocko? That's no contest. The 30 year old Jocko is no contest. Actually, myself, like, six months ago, no contest. You know, so you get better all the time.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:22Jocko Willink?

  And you learn all the time and you can just, the difference, and there's, there's a huge difference between like, black belt, that, that black belt, you know, guy over there and that other black belt guy over there.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:34Jocko Willink?

  And it's like, oh, this is next level activities that are going on. So it is definitely,

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  definitely a, do your kids do it?

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  They have. Um, so my, my youngest, uh, trains, I'd say more MMA style now.

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  So sweet.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  You know, she does a fair bit of striking, uh, as well. I, you know, so both of them did it when they were real young for, for several years. Uh, and then for a period, uh, neither of them did it for a little while. My oldest wrestled in high school, uh, which is great that.

• 1:51:05Jocko Willink?

  All, all years, four years of wrestling?

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  Uh, three.

• 1:51:08Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Um, but, uh, you know, it's neat to see, you know, a, a, a women's wrestling team, you know, at Texas school. It was also great in that they didn't have a ton of, of, uh, you know, kids on the team. So they end up having to wrestle the boys a lot.

• 1:51:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  Which is good for them, you know? Um, and so, yeah, so now, uh,

• 1:51:27Jocko Willink?

  Did the jujitsu crossover pretty well to her wrestling? Did she have enough jujitsu to make it an, an impact?

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was, uh, like with a lot of kids, um, it was a little problematic at first, you know, just the being comfortable on your back versus no, you never go on your back, you know, but that doesn't last very long, you know, so now I would say. Even that, you know, when we'll still kind of mess around a little bit, she's still pretty heavy in the wrestling, you know, the collar ties and the arm drags and the, you know, you know, flinching and, you know, just the, the standard wrestler stuff that you get into right away, which is still fun. And she's, you know, her frame is, is pretty good size. She's really athletic and, and stays in good shape and, and, you know, she's a handful. I mean, for sure.

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  Do you think she's going to venture back to jujitsu?

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 1:52:15Jocko Willink?

  My daughter, you know, same thing, jujitsu, wrestling, and boy, she went back into jujitsu. She's, she's real into jujitsu right now.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I hope she does. I, I think she will. I mean, she has the personality that would lend itself to, to probably do that. So she's out of state right now. I think if, if she comes back in the next year, which I think she very well may, then, then I'd say you could probably count on it, you know, but I hope she does.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu on, yes.

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  Just to, just to kind of close out the book here a little bit. You say, "Our country's facing a lot of challenges right now, and we need individuals like you to have the courage to think independently, to live with sincerity and integrity, to, and roll up their sleeves and contribute to the world around us. We each have a part to play and a path to take that is and should be different from one another. There are times when you may feel like you're swimming upstream. You may feel insignificant or inconsequential in the grand scheme of life, but don't give up because your life, that individual thread that you've been given to weave alongside countless others, is what will create the tapestry of the next

• 1:53:26Jocko Willink?

  chapter in history. What will be on that tapestry and what we will be remembered for is up to us."

• 1:53:37Speaker 01

  Marcus Aurelius.

• 1:53:38Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:53:43Jocko Willink?

  Good stuff dude.

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:44Jocko Willink?

  And you wrote that book a couple of years ago. So what else you got going on?

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  So a big thing now is just kind of continuing to do all the same stuff that I've been doing. The primary focus is the dog food company. Just because that's such a heavy lift, as you well know. Just with, you know, product development and bringing new SKUs and, and even just continuing doing, you know, with consumables, it never ends, you know, which is good. Uh, you know, and I think, you know, product based business is, uh, I think you have to have something where people are going through it and reordering regularly. But, uh, yeah, the, the expansion of that, I mean, it's kind of ironic. I mean, over the last 15 years, when I first started doing dogs for a living, you know, it was like, because I love dogs and I want to train dogs. And while I still do that,

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  you know, coming full circle, it's like the bulk of my day now is talking about shipping issues and truck delays and fucking packaging costs. And, you know, and it's like shit that has nothing to do with dogs. It's all the same stuff you, you probably are, uh, you know, uh, faced with all the time.

• 1:54:49Jocko Willink?

  It works.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  You know, but, uh, but I, I love it. I mean, you know, I, I wouldn't have it any other way. I, I really enjoy doing it and, uh, and it's fun. I mean, you know, the, the reason why I started the dog food company is in that same vein is that I just wanted to, to have a superior product and help dogs and, and, uh, help people get the most out of their dogs, both from a training standpoint and from a nutrition standpoint. So I'm, I'm still doing the online training. I still sell personal protection dogs. Uh, I'll still teach it, you know.

• 1:55:18Jocko Willink?

  Do you sell, do people order the dogs in advance or?

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Jocko Willink?

  How's that work?

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. I only do that one at a time. So, you know, there, there are some companies out there that'll have, you know, three, four, or five dogs for sale on their website. I, I don't do it that way. Uh, if somebody says, hey, I'm interested in a dog, we have a conversation. Um, and then, you know, kind of get the, the understanding of the family dynamic, the, the daily routine and determine, hey, is this a good fit or not? Cause there are times where it's not, uh, where I'll say, hey, I, I really don't, your lifestyle from, from my perspective.

• 1:55:49Jocko Willink?

  Get a lab.

• 1:55:50Speaker 01

  It's just too dynamic. Yeah, it's too dynamic. You know, dogs thrive on, on, uh, on routine and, and their currency is, is engagement. And, uh, if you can't do both of those things at a certain level, it's, you just, you know, should get a fucking goldfish though. Or an attack cheetah or whatever, you know, but hire a fucking bodyguard, but, um, so at that point then I'll go find the, the right dog for that fit. And then bring them, bring them into my house and spend however long it takes to, to get them ready to, to be delivered. Then I'll spend a couple of days delivering the dog and then, uh, then that's it. It is, it's a strange business because unlike really anything, it's such an intimate transaction, you know? Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Even if you're, you know, say remodeling somebody's bathroom, like you're in their house and whatever, but not with them. Here you're, you know, you're adding a family member. This, this customer is trusting you to put a potentially dangerous animal in, in their house. Uh, with their, you know, so you're spending time with their kids, like you're seeing, and, and some of these people are household names, you know, they're, or they're uh, C-suite executives of, you know, household name corporations or, uh, things of that nature. And so, uh, you know, you, you meet some really, really interesting people and, and, uh, get a lot of good advice business-wise, which I, was an unintended positive consequence that I, I didn't anticipate.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  But, but that transaction is such where, you know, you're, you're seeing these, these people that, you know, as they're putting their kids to bed, first thing in the morning, like you're staying in their house while they're doing their normal stuff. You see how they interact with their spouses. It's, it's kinda weird. Uh, I wouldn't say- How many days do you spend? Usually three or four. Um, so it's, uh, but then, you know, that's, once I'm comfortable and they're comfortable with me leaving, at that, that, there comes a certain point where it's counterproductive for me to still be there. Cause the dog's always gonna default to me. Once, you know, everything's kind of good enough for me to leave, then it's still, you know, you're, you're touching base and, and checking in pretty often. You know, that they'll still have a lot of questions and over that first few weeks, we're still talking quite a bit, you know?

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  And then as a couple of months gets down the road, then they're kind of firing on all cylinders and, and, uh, they don't need a whole lot of, uh, advice at that point, but.

• 1:58:05Jocko Willink?

  So, dog food, dog training, selling dogs, the podcasts.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  And then, of course, the Warrior Dog Foundation.

• 1:58:12Jocko Willink?

  And the Warrior Dog Foundation, which you have, how many kennels do you have set up for that?

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  Thirty, and we're always full. I mean, we've got over ten dogs on a waiting list right now. I mean, it's one thing where we're trying to, trying to expand and, you know, it's tough to determine whether or not it makes sense to expand where we're at, which I don't think it really does, or have regional places. Like, I'd like to have a Warrior Dog West Coast, Warrior Dog East Coast, maybe a Warrior Dog North, have different satellite operations where, number one is that if the dog, you know, from whatever unit or police department is closer to there, then it's going to go to wherever the closest location is. But two, you know, these dogs don't, don't play well with others. I mean, they're all kind of the Hannibal Lecters of the dog world and that they've bit a bunch of people they weren't supposed to and, and we're, we're to a point

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  where wherever, whatever unit they're coming from, you know, wanted to euthanize them and then that's where we step in. So, these aren't the dogs that, you know, you can just adopt out and, you know, like from the movie Dog or, you know, Lassie or whatever, it's, it's not that dog. This is the dog that's made a bunch of mistakes and, and has, you know, hurt, hurt people and put them in the hospital that they weren't supposed to. And so, um, we can't let those dogs out together, you know, you're letting them out one at a time. So, thirty dogs is kind of pushing it for one location. Um, and so, we, we really need to expand. It's just, I don't know, you know, one of the biggest challenges, I think, from a nonprofit standpoint is you're, you're kind of in one of, one of two camps. Either, you know, you're, you're really firing on all cylinders

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  in terms of the administrative staff, the fundraising, the, you know, reaching out, the advertisements, the galas, all that kind of stuff. Or, you know, you're doing ninety-seven cents of every dollar goes to the mission and you're not going to get emailed back right away and you're not going to get a Christmas card every year from, on card stock that costs nine dollars for, you know, for the Christmas card. And we've always been very lean and, and, uh, you know, leaned more towards that, trying to maximize the amount of, of, uh, you know, dollars going to the, the taking care of the dogs. So. The reason I bring that up is that, you know, that expansion is, is pretty, it's a pretty heavy lift financially. And while we don't have dedicated grant writers and fundraisers

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  and gala organizers and things like that, it's tough to, to accomplish that when, you know, when we're not, not spending money on that. So, uh, still, you know, been able to, to save well over 300 dogs in the last 15 years and, and continue to do so and will so. But I would like to see kind of the next phase of both my professional career and the foundation to kind of expand and maybe add a, add a few locations to bring some more dogs in.

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's good stuff. Um, does that, does that get us up to speed?

• 2:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's, uh, that's all I got, I guess, but.

• 2:01:08Jocko Willink?

  People can find all that stuff that you just talked about at, uh, Mike Rittland.com, right? Um, you've got Mike Drop, the Mike Drop Podcast. You're on Twitter and Instagram, at M Ritland. You also have at TeamDog.shop, at TeamDog.pet, at WarriorDogFoundation, and you got your YouTube channel, which is at Mike Ritland.

• 2:01:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:33Jocko Willink?

  Does that cover all the bases there?

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  That's every single base.

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna put down all the different websites, but they're all under Mike Ritland. You can find it from there. Echo Charles, any questions?

• 2:01:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Quick question.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  Remember the Halloween scenario?

• 2:01:46Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01:47Speaker 02

  Where, you know, we're gonna go out for trick or treating. Uh, do you remember? I mean, if you're at liberty to say, do you, do you remember what they lied about?

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  I actually, I have no recollection of what they lied about.

• 2:01:58Speaker 02

  I agree with you with the lying thing.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:00Speaker 02

  I think the, I mean, growing up, we, we got spanked very rarely for anything, but the thing we always, 100% of the time got spanked for was lying.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:09Speaker 02

  So it's like a weird, like, psychological thing that I have against, like, lying. It's like, but, um, but I tried to perpetuate that through the kids or whatever. And bro, I would shut down Christmas, Halloween, New Year if they lied, overtly lied. Oh, man. 100%, I'm with you.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, that's a tough, uh, it's tough because I think it's, I think there are phases in childhood where it's more common than others. And, you know, whether it's friend influences or, you know, stuff at school or whatever, it's like, man, it's a tough one to handle sometimes, you know, because, uh, A, it's infuriating and so trying to stay calm and not get emotional is tricky. Uh, but B, it's like, man, like the one thing I need you to do is fucking level with me, you know? And, uh, it's like, if I can't trust what you're telling me, we're going to have big, big problems moving down the road. You know, but.

• 2:02:58Jocko Willink?

  My son lied to me one time and it was actually the reason I'm thinking about it is because, uh, not just because we're talking about lying, but also because we're talking about dogs because what he lied about was, you know, uh, my wife and I had to go somewhere. We're like, hey, walk the dog. Cool. You know, and I'm, as I'm walking out, you know, you glance over and you see like the, the pinch collar in a certain spot and other than that, he's not even wearing a collar. So if you're going for a walk, you're going to take the pinch collar. Cause he was a young dog at the time. He needed to be on leash. So I noticed it and I kind of just frame a reference real quick. Like, oh, you know, you can see the pattern that it's in.

• 2:03:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, so I come back, you know, we go back and we're gone for half an hour, whatever, 45 minutes, maybe an hour to come back.

• 2:03:43Jocko Willink?

  I look at that leash, it's in the exact same spot and the exact same pattern. I was like, hey, did you walk the dog? And he's like, yep. And I go, hey dude, I'm going to ask you one more time. Did you walk that dog? And he goes, yeah. And I go, okay. I said, I know you didn't. You're, you're done. There's levels to being done. I'm going to allow you to have a lower level if you tell me the truth right now. Did you walk that dog? He's like, no. I said, okay, get your workout gear on. And I, you know, when he went through a little, he went through a little hammer session. The funny thing was, the funny thing is, so Leif and Seth were around, you know, this is when he was a young guy. So these guys were around all the time.

• 2:04:24Jocko Willink?

  And he's like in the middle of some freaking punishing, burpy, thruster, kettlebell punishment. And I'm like, you know, what, you know, I said, do you, I said, do you think Seth and Leif ever messed up? Cause I was going to, you know, do you think they messed up? Of course they did. Do you think they lied to me? No. I'm like, do you think Leif and Seth ever messed up? And he's like, no, never.

• 2:04:48Jocko Willink?

  I was like bullshit. They messed up all the time. Do you think they lied to me? No. So there you go. Um, no lying. That's, that's what we're doing. Uh, Mike, any, any final thoughts, bro?

• 2:04:58Speaker 01

  No, I just, again, I can't thank you enough for having me out and, uh, taking up a full day to, you know, let me interview you and then, and then do the reverse. So thank you very much. I know your time is, is precious.

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Right. Oh, man. Well, it's awesome to have you back here. Uh, thanks for joining us once again. Thanks for what you did for the, the teams, for, for our great nation and thank for what you continue to do now, you know, helping dogs, helping people, um, and helping them both become a little bit smarter, a little bit better, better canines and better humans.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  My, my pleasure. Thank you.

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, brother.

• 2:05:29Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Mike Ritland has left the building, obviously putting forth some pretty good steps to improve America, to improve your community, to improve your family, to improve yourself.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:05:45Jocko Willink?

  And a bunch of steps. One of the ones I noticed was

• 2:05:50Speaker 01

  Get outside.

• 2:05:52Jocko Willink?

  Get outside. Clean fuel. Get after it. Train jiu jitsu. So we're looking for good fuel. I recommend Jocko Fuel. Hey, you know, he was like, yeah, eat good foods. A hundred percent. We're eating steak. We're eating salads, right? We're eating chicken. We're, we're doing this. You're even eating sushi, right? We're doing it, but can't always get everything that we need through these protocols. Check out Jocko Fuel.com. Get the other things that you need. Supplement your fuel system. You can get extra protein, milk protein, ready to drink, powder form. You can get energy. You can get super krill. You can get time war. Get just the supplements that you need.

• 2:06:39Jocko Willink?

  So check out Jocko Fuel.com and get what you need. You can get it at Walmart. You can get it at Wawa Vitamin Shop GNC Military Commissary, AFE's, Hannaford Dash Stores in Maryland, Wakeford, ShopRite, HEB down in Texas, Meyer in the Midwest, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and whatever gym you're at, they can have it there too. If they don't have it there, email J F Sales at Jocko Fuel.com and get it there. That's what we're doing.

• 2:07:10Speaker 02

  Is there a li- like a limitation to how big your gym has to be or anything like that?

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  No, no. You could have four people that train at your gym and those four people could be fueled properly.

• 2:07:22Speaker 02

  So even like, you know, the little Pilates place, just for example, whatever.

• 2:07:26Jocko Willink?

  By the way, by the way, we're in chiropractic places.

• 2:07:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:30Jocko Willink?

  We're in all kinds of like little niche places, anywhere where people are focused on being healthy and fit and high performance. We're in those places. So we're in, but yeah, we're in all kinds of different places. Hardware stores.

• 2:07:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Scroll it in.

• 2:07:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what we're doing, man. Jocko Fuel.com. Check it out.

• 2:07:52Speaker 02

  Also, you said jiu jitsu.

• 2:07:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I did.

• 2:07:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if you're doing the gi jiu jitsu, which is, you know, hey, man, recommend it. So yeah, if you're doing the gi jiu jitsu, be sure to get a gi, an Origin gi, all made in America. And here's the thing, yeah, made in America, yes. But in addition, you got the added fact that's the best gi in the world as far as quality goes as well. Trust me, I saw the process and I wear the gi's, so I know 100%.

• 2:08:16Jocko Willink?

  What's up? Also jeans, also t-shirts, hoodies, hunt gear, everything that you need. We, we got it going on. You need to work out. And by the way, you might as well get it made in America, the United States of America, not by some poor slave, child slave in some other country that's in an abusive environment, that's working against their will. Don't, don't put it into that system. Don't put money into that system. Put money into America. OriginUSA.com. Check it out.

• 2:08:45Speaker 02

  It's true. Also Jocko's store called Jocko Store, JacoStore.com is where you can get your Discipline Equals Freedom shirts. There's hats on there, there's hoodies on there, shirts that say good. I want to propagate good little bit more. You've got a different item. Anyway.

• 2:09:00Jocko Willink?

  Cleared out, man.

• 2:09:01Speaker 02

  Cleared out. We got socks on there. Anyway, some cool stuff on there. Uh, if you want to represent while you're on the path. Also, what we have on there is this little subscription scenario called the Shirt Locker. It's a new design, shirt design every month. Little bit more creative designs, funner designs, people represent. That's when you can get your attention. Little bit. I don't mean bad attention. I mean, like, you know, the kind where you wear your shirt and you'd be like, oh, where'd you get that shirt? You know, so anyway, it's that kind of designs. It's called the Shirt Locker. It's all on jocko store.com.

• 2:09:28Jocko Willink?

  Available.

• 2:09:28Speaker 02

  Available, big time.

• 2:09:30Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna need steak. I did mention steak. We want to be eating steak. You might as well eat the good steak. Check out coloradocraftbeef.com and primalbeef.com. Awesome steak. One from, uh, one from Colorado, the other from the Shenandoah Valley. Either one is going to be epic. Awesome steaks, awesome people, awesome companies. Check out primalbeef.com, coloradocraftbeef.com. Also subscribe to this podcast. Also check out Jocko Underground. Also, we got YouTube channels. We got Psychological Warfare. We got Flipside Canvas. Books by Mike Ritland, Unfuck America, Trident K-9 Dogs.

• 2:10:09Speaker 02

  You're so funny. Cause I was thinking the same thing when you're like, you're talking about the big publishers and what they edit. They would have made you like, maybe the title.

• 2:10:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But that's, it was a thing for a while, like that it was a big shocking thing. And then the book came out that was called.

• 2:10:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Unfuck Yourself.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Unfuck Yourself.

• 2:10:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 2:10:25Jocko Willink?

  But there might have been another one. But there was one big, big hit. Unfuck Yourself was one of them. And then that broke the mold and now there's a bunch of books like that have a swear word.

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I understand.

• 2:10:38Jocko Willink?

  One of them being Unfuck America. Trident K-9 Dogs, Navy SEAL Dogs, and Team Dog by Mike Ritland. I've written a bunch of books about various things from leadership to washing machines, to kids' books. So, check out those books. Check out Mikey and the Dragons. Check out About Face by Colonel David Hackworth.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  We have a leadership consulting company. It's called Echelon Front. We solve problems through leadership. So if you have problems inside your organization, they are leadership problems. And if you want to resolve those problems, go to echelonfront.com and check out what we have going on. There's also events that you can come to. One event is called the Dallas, the next one is in San Diego, February 23rd through the 25th. If you want to go to one of our events, please register early because they all sell out. On top of that, we have an online training academy where you can learn the leadership principles that we teach online, training courses, there's quizzes, there's live sessions. Go to extremeownership.com

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  if you want to learn these principles in your business, in your life, in your family. Extremeownership.com. Check that out. And if you want to help out service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mom Ali. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also check out heroesandhorses.org, Jimmy May's organization, which is called Beyond the Brotherhood, and of course, Mike Ritland's Warrior Dog Foundation. Check all those out. Great organizations. If you want to connect with us, for Mike Ritland, he's on the interwebs, MikeRittland.com. And

• 2:12:27Jocko Willink?

  you can kind of find everything that he talked about and everything that he does at MikeRittland.com. He also has the Mic Drop Podcast. He's got Twitter and Instagram where he is at M Ritland. And he's also got a YouTube channel, which is at Mike Ritland. For us, you can check out Jaco.com, and I am at Jocko Willink, and Echo is at Echo Charles. And just be careful, because as we talked about today, there's an algorithm that's going to try and lock you into a little echo chamber that's going to make your life miserable. So be careful of that. Thanks again to Mike Ritland for joining us. Thanks for your service to America, your service as a frogman in the teams, and thanks for what you're doing still today to represent. And thanks to all our military personnel out there around the world.

• 2:13:12Jocko Willink?

  Including our canine dogs that are out there getting after it. Thank you for protecting our way of life here in America. As imperfect as it is, it is still worth protecting. And in that same vein, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all other first responders. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And everyone else out there, there's a lot of complex issues and topics that you've got to navigate in the world. And it can be a little crazy sometimes.

• 2:13:47Jocko Willink?

  But I would recommend that at a minimum, like Mike Rittlin says, you should get yourself squared away. Think for yourself, take responsibility, get outside, get the proper fuel, and get off your ass.

• 2:14:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's what we got. Until next time, Zeko and Jocko out.