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Discipline equals freedom, episode four. Jocko here, I also have Kerry and Leif in the house. Um, I was doing a live event, I think it was the one in New York, I was doing a New York Jocko Live. And I'm get to the Q and A portion and this guy stands up and asks a question. And it basically, his question is that he's having a hard time finding discipline, staying discipline type scenario. And he's kind of goes through his life, he's, you know, I'm pretty happy, I got a good job, I got a good family, I got a nice house, I'm in pretty good shape. So he's doing good, right? And he says, but you know, I can't find the
discipline, you know, I sometimes I skip workouts and sometimes I sleep in and sometimes I eat bad and sometimes I watch a little too much TV with, and I just, how can I find more discipline? Is his question. And I'm sitting there thinking about it. And I thought through all these different possible scenarios that could be going on. And finally, I'm like, you could be lying to yourself. That could be the problem. How is that? You can be lying to yourself by saying, I'm really happy. That can be a lie. It can be a lie. Hey, you know what? I'm really happy right now.
And there's a chance you are, right? There's a chance, there's a chance that you really are truly happy. I got a good job, I got a good family, I got a house, I'm in pretty good shape. There's a chance that you're truly hap- happy in that situation. And if that's the scenario, good. You know what? Don't worry about getting more discipline. You're, you're happy, you're content, you got a good job, you got a good family, you got a house, you got a car, everything's good. That's cool. That's fine.
But there's a chance that that's not fine. There's a chance that you're lying to yourself. And that's why you're asking this question, by the way. The reason you're asking this question is because you can't find more discipline. You want more discipline. Why do you want that? Because you know you could be better. And there's something in your mind that's saying you could be better. And you know it. And you know that the way you could get better and the way you could do better and the way you could be more is by having more discipline. So don't lie to yourself. That's what we have to do. We have, we have to not lie to ourselves. And this is where JP uses this quote a lot. Cause I ended up telling JP like two weeks later or something. We were at a gig together.
Discipline is rooted in the truth we tell ourselves. That, that's what it is. Discipline is rooted in the truth we tell ourselves. Because if you tell yourself the truth, if you tell yourself the truth and the truth is, I'm not happy with where I'm at. That's the truth. The truth is, I can do more. The truth is, I can be in better shape. The truth is, I can work harder than I'm working right now. The truth is, I can do more for my family. The truth is, I can do much better than I'm doing right now. And if that's the real truth, if that's what you believe, if you believe that to be the truth, you won't have to find more discipline. Discipline will find you. It will wake you up in the morning.
It will wake you up in the morning. Have you ever been like preparing for something and you didn't think you were ready and you couldn't sleep? And you wake up in the morning because it's happening?
Hundred times, million times.
Ever happen to you, Leif?
Definitely.
Hey, when you're, when you're missions, going out on a mission, like let's say you're, you're in Iraq and you're going out on a mission. You haven't been on a mission before. Let me ask you this, the first mission you did in Iraq with me, when, when we were there together, how well did you sleep the night before?
I don't think I slept at all.
Why is that?
Trying to think every, every contingency, you know, so much work left undone. Uh, just not confident in, in knowing that all.
All the, the, uh, you know, all the I's were dotted and the T's were crossed and everything was done and prepared as it should be. And, and you're also thinking about scenarios that might unfold, like worst case scenarios and, um, and it's, it's kind of just spinning.
Yeah.
In your head.
Isn't that interesting? You, what, what makes that interesting is you've got a specific scenario that's happening that you want to be ready for. And therefore it, your mind prevents you from sleeping. That's what happens. So when you're going through life and you truly feel like you could do better and you could do more. And you truly feel that way, you think about that, you are, you're gonna have a hard time sleeping. And look, I'm not encouraging not sleeping, I'm not doing that. But when you, if you think about that and you say, oh yeah, I could do better. You're gonna have a hard time sleeping, you're gonna, discipline is going to find you. Now, if you lie to yourself, if you lie to yourself, if you would lie to yourself and say, you know what? I'm, I'm good to go.
Like, I'm not worried about this operation, we're good to go. I know, I know everything will probably go fine, I'm good. You sleep all night like a little baby. If you lie to yourself and you're like, well, you know, I'm, I'm in pretty good shape and I got, my family's doing fine and I like this house that I'm in and my job, my job's good enough. If that's the lie that you're telling yourself, maybe you can sleep just fine and maybe it's hard to be disciplined in those scenarios.
So what you need to do is you need to tell yourself the truth about what the hell is going on in your life. That's what you need to do. You need to do an assessment. You need to break out a piece of paper and start to write down these things that you claim to be happy about. And pull the, pull, pull the stops off. Like, okay, what if I, if I could have any house I wanted, is this house the house I wanted? Is it? Is it, is it really? You sure about that? You sure about that?
You sure about that?
You see what I'm saying? If you ask yourself, hey, I'm in pretty good shape right now, you sure about that? You sure about that? And you write down, well, what, if, if I could snap my fingers and be in a different physical shape, is this what I would choose? Or would I, would I want to be a little bit better? Would I want to be stronger, faster? Am I happy where I'm at with my jujitsu? I'm pretty good, I've been training for a while, I can beat most people, that's pretty good, right?
Then you gotta ask yourself, you sure about that? Are you sure about that? Because we end up lying to ourselves. And if we're lying to ourselves, we're not gonna find the discipline. It's, it's going to be more difficult. You have to do an assessment. You have to detach from it. You have to write it down. And then you have to ask yourself, is this the truth right here that I'm saying? And like I said, dude, if you're happy with that and you, you pull back, you peel back the onion and you look at it, you say, you know, my house is awesome. Like it's a really good house. And maybe you have to weigh some things out. And you say, you know, my house is pretty good. And if I was to really want a bigger house, I'd have to work so much more that I wouldn't be able to see my family. You know what? I'm good with it.
That's fine. That's perfectly fine. But maybe you're not getting to spend time with your kids in the morning because you're sleeping late. And now they're going off to school and you haven't said good morning to them, haven't sat down and eaten some bacon with them. Or done a quick workout with them. And you know, it would make you better and you know, it would make them better, but you're not doing it. Why? Cause you're being lazy.
So tell yourself the truth about the situation that you're in.
That's what we need to do. And it should hurt a little bit, by the way. It should hurt a little bit. There should be aspects of your life that you know, you can improve upon.
That should hurt a little bit.
Here's the cool thing. Take ownership of those things and guess what? Doesn't hurt at all. Now guess who's in control? You are.
But if you're having trouble finding discipline, start by telling yourself the truth about what's going on. I'm gonna go to the book here. Discipline is Freedom Field Manual. Where, where does discipline come from? It comes when you make a decision to be disciplined.
Really? Hold on a second. This is a choice? Is that, is that what I just said? Is that what I just said right there? It's a choice? You mean, you mean you're not born with discipline? Hey, this is your baby boy. He's got brown hair, blue eyes, and level seven discipline. Is that what happens? Negative. No, that's not what happens. You actually, as a human being, get to decide if you want to be disciplined or not. Back to the book, when you, when you make a decision to be better. Now, if you've already told yourself that, hey, I'm pretty good to go, you don't make a decision to be better because you already think you're there. You lie to yourself and you're not going to make this decision. If you lie to yourself, you're not going to make the right decisions. Back to the book, when you make a decision to do more, to be more.
Self-discipline comes when you decide to make your mark on the world.
If you don't think you are disciplined, it's because you haven't decided to be disciplined yet.
It's because you haven't created it yet. It's because you haven't become disciplined yet.
Because you haven't told yourself the truth. And this is going to be problematic. It's going to be very problematic.
So where does discipline come from? It comes from you.
Become the discipline. Embrace its cold and relentless power.
Hell yeah, I like that line. And it will make you better and stronger and smarter and faster and healthier than anything else. And most important, it will make you free.
So that's what we're doing. That's where we're at. Go.
This guy sounds comfortable. The guy who was talking to you?
Absolutely.
What, what effect do you think comfort plays on our ability to tell ourselves the truth?
Well, comfort's kind of a, a, a, it massages lies, right?
Dang.
It makes them feel good. It, it makes it feel like it's okay. And, you know, that happens in, in people's lives, happens with everybody, right? I mean, it happens, you know what happens with rock and roll bands? Right? Rock and roll bands, when they're young and they're struggling and they're hungry and they're, they're poor and their music is, reflects that. But it's hard to, you know, write good music when there's someone massaging your freaking throat as you're drink eating caviar or whatever. It's hard to be like disgruntled about things. So their music tends to get worse and worse as time goes on.
It's like fighters too, right?
Oh, yeah. It's, it's hard for a fighter in silk sheets to get up and go for a run in the cold biting air. You can't live like that. You can't allow yourself to get there. You gotta be careful of that because it's a real thing. Yeah. Comfort breeds lies.
And it breeds a lack of discipline. Absolutely. Cause you, because that's where you're at. And that's, you know, a, as much as I talk about, look, imposed discipline is not our goal, right? We don't want imposed discipline. But you were talking earlier about, before we hit record today, you know, one of these, one of these other discipline equals freedom episodes that I did, I was saying, listen, you're the general, you're in charge. You're also the soldier.
What is it? What do they teach you about discipline in the Marine Corps?
So in Marine Corps Basic Training and Boot Camp, we have ditties. And one of those ditties is about discipline. And the the first call from a drill instructor is, discipline. And then all the recruits say, discipline, and they spell it out, D I S C I P L I A N E. And then he says, discipline is, and the recruits say, discipline is immediate, willing obedience to all orders, sir. And that's where, in my brain, I try to attach that to the orders I'm giving myself, right? If you're the general and you're giving yourself orders, immediate, willing obedience to all orders from me.
Yes.
Do it. Do the thing. That's what I try to tell myself.
I'm the general. I'm the soldier. I am going to obey orders without question. And you've heard me talking about this for years right now, right?
The negotiation, the debate, the what?
And people say like, what do you tell yourself? I'm telling myself anything. I'm not allowed to talk. I'm not allowed to talk. We're not allowed to, we're not allowed to come up with these things. It's like, you know, the Marine Corps recruits not like, well, actually, I'd like to wonder why, why we're doing this. Why you want me to go over this? It's not happening. Not allowed to do that. You're not doing it.
Immediate obedience to the orders. That's what we're doing with ourselves. And listen, do we encourage this idea of imposed discipline on other people? No, you've heard me discourage it for years. I don't even encourage it with your kids. And listen, beyond Marine Corps Boot Camp, in the military, I don't encourage, hey, immediate response, immediate obedience to my orders. I don't even want to have to give you orders. Matter of fact, what I want is you're doing it before I even thought of it. That's what we really want. That's what we want to get to. But the way we treat ourselves as general and soldier,
what we need is immediate obedience without question. That's what, that's what we're moving towards. And here's the thing. If there's lies, if the general lies to the troops, there's no trust. There's debate. There's negotiation. If the soldiers lie to the general, there's no trust. There's lies. There's debate. So we can't let that happen. We tell the truth up and down the chain of command in our heads. So there can be no question.
You were asking about, you know, first combat operations, whether I was sleeping, you know, good the night before. And I think what gives you, after that first combat operation, you realize, okay, I, there's a, there's a lot of things that are out of my control. I gotta focus on what I can control. And you, you know, you can prioritize and execute on those things, but the, the more disciplined that we were in planning and preparation, like the easier you sleep at night. Cause you know that you, you've done everything you can. And, and, and you can go to sleep knowing that like, we're fully prepared and we're ready. Uh, and I think that, that's a, I had a leader ask me about this recently.
And she was, she was talking about like not being down on herself. Well, you know, we're holding the standard really high and we have to be disciplined and, you know, kind of similar to the question that you got. At that, that you, you reference of this person that's, that's, they know they could do, be better, but you know, it's, but they don't want to like be, they, they, they're driving their confidence in the ground. Because they're constantly like, you know, holding the standard too high. And, and so the, the question was like, how do you gain more confidence? And the only way to gain that confidence is through discipline and, and that discipline preparation is what gets you confidence. It doesn't matter whether you're playing a sport, whether you're in school, studying for a test, whether you're not preparing for a presentation, you know, at work.
Or whatever it is that you're doing, planning for a combat mission. I mean, the more disciplined you are in that preparation, the, the more confidence you're going to have. And I think for, for me, I notice if I get off the path, it's, it becomes, it's easier to lie to yourself, you know? And so that slip, it starts to really, that can snowball. Whereas the, the, the more that you make that a habit of telling yourself the truth and realizing, uh, hey, I gotta fall, you know, stay on this path of discipline. It's, it becomes easier, it becomes easier and easier over time. So I think what seems daunting to people initially, it's not that daunting when that becomes habit and, and it's just part of what you do.
I remember when, uh, when we first started working together, Tasked and Ruzer, Seth Stone, the Delta Two Commander and I were, uh, were good friends and we'd go surf all the time. And we'd go surf after we'd go out and party, you know, hard on Friday night and we'd be like, we're gonna get up early. What we called dawn patrol was like 7:30. And then we started, we started rolling out with Jocko. Jocko was like, cool, I'll meet you guys at 4:45. And we started going out in the dark. And initially, that seemed insane. Like, who, who can get up at 4:45 on a Saturday morning? That's, is that even possible? And I remember me and Seth, even, even when you weren't able to join us for surf sessions, we would go out all the time at like 4:30, 4:45 in the morning.
We'd surf for an hour and a half and we'd paddle in as everyone else is paddling out. So no one else is out there. And I was like, this is, this is awesome. So.
Might be the greatest thing I ever taught you.
Is there any way, there's anything better than paddling out when it's dark? It's like.
It's amazing.
It's awesome. And, and is there anything better than after you've been surfing and catching every wave? And other people are paddling out as you're paddling back in? That's pretty satisfying as well, too. Cause you know, like your, your day has started off like no one could take that, that time away from you. Uh, and I think that's a, that's a super powerful thing, but it's, it gets easier over time. And I think what makes it easier for me is when I'm thinking, if I gotta think long-term. Like if, if I'm, it's real easy to lie to myself when the alarm goes off in the morning. If I'm not really, I hadn't really looked at the schedule in detail and I don't know how busy the day's gonna be. It's, it's easier to tell yourself, oh, you know, I'll find some time. I, I can sleep in.
It's such a lie. That's such a lie. I'll find some time. It's such a lie. Don't do it. Don't do it.
But what, what helps me not do it is, is the discipline preparation of like looking at my schedule. I was like, no, there isn't any time. Like this is the time. So I can't get sucked into the algorithm of, you know, scrolling through Instagram or whatever it is. I've gotta use the next hour that I have to get a good workout in, to set the whole tone for the whole day. Because there's not gonna be another, another time for me to be able to do that. So I think, I think that kind of long-term thought of where I wanna be, um, you know, on a day-to-day basis. If, if I'm not, if you're not really paying attention, you're just kind of, just a slave to the, what's next on the schedule and you're not looking ahead, it's real easy, I think, to lie to yourself. Or, or easier, certainly.
Yeah. And the more you lie to yourself, the easier it gets. You know, when people come to work at Echelon Front and. The first time they say like, well, that wasn't really my, and you can hear like on a conference conference like and they kind of self correct. And then after a while, no one says, you know, if you've been at Echelon Front for three months, you don't say, well, that wasn't my fault, or I think actually, you know, Leif should have done. No, you don't do that. You don't say that. You recognize that that doesn't work. It's not allowed. So when you, when you start lying to yourself, it doesn't get harder, it gets easier and it becomes harder to recognize. Like it stands out like a sore thumb at Echelon Front when somebody says, oh, that wasn't my fault, or that's because of the client. When someone says that, it stands out like a sore
thumb. It's just, everyone hears it. Well, when you lie to yourself and that's the habit that you're in, it doesn't stand out at all. And that's why I'm a big proponent, if you just writing things down, right? You know what? You got an excuse for not working out, just write it down. See what that thing looks like. Actually, we had a conversation on this podcast the other day, and I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask ChatGPT to write, give me 5,000 excuses to not work out today. And I, so I did it, like later on in the day, I was like, I want 5,000 excuses to not work out, and it wouldn't give it to me. What it said, it was
like, it gave me a mental health answer. Like, even though, and then I tried to give it a better prompt. I was like, if a person wanted to know why you, they shouldn't work out and give a legitimate reason, I tried, and it would not give me any excuses to not work out.
Is the AI on our side?
The AI might be, but
Is it an ally?
It was very strange, but it was very weird.
That is weird.
Yeah, it wouldn't give me the answer. Now, I haven't tried Bard yet, and I'll try the other ones later, and we'll see what we get.
There's, there's a trooper in there, like in the coding.
Yeah, he's like, no excuses. Your excuses are lies. So
There is no hack.
Yeah, there is no hack.
There's a man on the inside. We've got a man on the inside.
Yeah, the AI is disciplined. That's what we're doing. The AI is telling the truth, and that's what you need to do too. So if you're lacking discipline,
You gotta start telling yourself the truth. And if you do that, the discipline will find you. That's what we're doing. You want to do more of this? Go to the defreset.com. Sign up. We're getting after it. Come get after it with us. Also, jockofuel.com, jocko store.com, originusa.com, and echelonfront.com. We're there. Come get it.
Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
