#395: Jocko Willink Takeover — On Quitting, Relationships, Financial Discipline, Contrast Baths, and More

"You might have to make some tactical retreats in order to win the long war, but never quit on your strategic vision. Never quit on getting to the ultimate place where you want to go." — Jocko Willink Jocko Willink (@jockowillink https://twitter.com/jockowillink) takes over the show for a special episode. Jocko is one of the scariest human beings imaginable. He is a lean 230 pounds and a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt who used to tap out 20 Navy SEALs per workout. He is a legend in the special operations world, and his viral podcast interview with me https://tim.blog/2015/09/25/jocko-willink/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description was the first public interview he ever did. Jocko spent 20 years in the U. S. Navy and commanded SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit from the Iraq War. Upon returning to the United States, Jocko served as the officer-in-charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams, designing and implementing some of the most challenging and realistic combat training in the world. After retiring from the Navy, he co-founded Echelon Front https://echelonfront.com/, a leadership and management consulting company, and co-authored the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U. S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250067057/offsitoftimfe-20. He is also the author of The Dichotomy of Leadership https://www.amazon.com/Dichotomy-Leadership-Babin-Jocko-Willink-dp-1250247101/dp/1250247101/, Way of the Warrior Kid https://www.amazon.com/Way-Warrior-Kid-Wimpy-Novel/dp/1250158613/, and Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250156947/offsitoftimfe-20. His new book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250226848/offsitoftimfe-20, is coming out in January. Jocko also discusses human nature through the lens of war, leadership, and business on the top-rated Jocko Podcast https://jockopodcast.com/. This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom https://www.legalzoom.com/. I've used this service for many of my businesses, as have quite a few of the icons on this podcast, such as Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame. LegalZoom https://www.legalzoom.com/ is a reliable resource that more than a million people have already trusted for everything from setting up wills, proper trademark searches, forming LLCs, setting up non-profits, or finding simple cease-and-desist letter templates. LegalZoom https://www.legalzoom.com/ is not a law firm, but it does have a network of independent attorneys available in most states who can give you advice on the best way to get started, provide contract reviews, and otherwise help you run your business with complete transparency and up-front pricing. Check out LegalZoom.com and enter promo code Tim at checkout today https://www.legalzoom.com/ for special savings and see how the fine folks there can make life easier for you and your business. This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn http://LinkedIn.com/jobs. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step toward finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings—from software engineer to robotics engineer, project manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. LinkedIn http://LinkedIn.com/jobs also has one of the largest communities to help you connect and network with people who can open doors for you, give you valuable career advice, help you learn new skills, and introduce you to new people at companies and organizations that are hiring and looking for exactly your skill set. No matter what kind of job you're looking for, or where you are in your career — whether you're just starting out and wondering what to do, switching to a new role, or starting over — there are people on LinkedIn http://LinkedIn.com/jobs who can help you. With more than 20 million jobs posted, there's a good chance that LinkedIn has exactly what you're looking for. Find the job meant for you at LinkedIn.com/jobs http://LinkedIn.com/jobs. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor http://tim.blog/sponsor. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom, which more than 2 million Americans have used to help start their businesses. Past guests even, such as WordPress lead developer, CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, now valued at more than $1 billion, have used LegalZoom to help with their business needs, specifically in his case, to form his company. But LegalZoom isn't just for launching your business. Their services include everything from helping you to manage changing tax laws, reviewing contracts, creating NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, important stuff, handling lease agreements, and assisting with really any other legal challenge, hurdle, inconvenience that typically takes time and effort away from running your business. The best part is that you won't get charged by the hour

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  because LegalZoom isn't a law firm, so they won't be running the clock up and spinning circles just to raise your bill. Instead, they just ask you to pay one low upfront price for whatever it is that you're looking to get à la carte style. So visit LegalZoom.com and check out their business section for all of their services. And if you want special savings, that's the terminology in the copy that they suggest. I don't know what the special savings is, folks, but it's titillating. If you want special savings, enter promo code TIM, T-I-M, at checkout. Capital T, lowercase i-m. Again, take a peek, LegalZoom.com, and enter promo code TIM.

• 1:52Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step towards finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings, from software engineer to robotics engineer, project manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. There's something for everybody. They have everything. It also has one of the largest communities to help you connect and network with people who can open doors for you, give you valuable career advice, help you learn new skills, and introduce you to people at companies and organizations that are hiring. Companies and organizations that are looking for exactly your skill set. And no matter where you are in your career, whether you're just starting out, wondering what to do, switching to a new type of role, or completely starting over, and no matter

• 2:37Tim Ferriss?

  what job you're looking for, there are people on LinkedIn who can help you find it. With more than 20 million jobs posted, there's a good chance that LinkedIn has exactly what you're looking for. You just have to check it out. So find the job meant for you at LinkedIn.com/jobs. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/jobs.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  My name is Jaco Willink. I spent 20 years in the military, more specifically in the Navy, and even more specifically than that, I was in the SEAL teams for my whole career. I started off as an enlisted SEAL. Eventually, I moved up through the ranks and became a SEAL officer, and I deployed around the world, and I was lucky enough to deploy to Iraq a couple of times. The first time as a SEAL platoon commander, and then as the commander of SEAL Team 3 Task Unit Bruiser during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006. And when I got back from that deployment, I took over the advanced training for the

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  West Coast SEAL teams as my final assignment in the Navy.

• 3:51Jocko Willink?

  And after I retired, I started a leadership consulting company called Echelon Front, which led me to writing a bunch of books, first for adults and then a bunch of books for kids as well. And you can get those books wherever books are sold. And along the way, with some coaxing from Mr. Tim Ferriss and Mr. Joe Rogan, after being on their podcasts, I started my own podcast called Jocko Podcast, which comes out on Wednesdays every week. And I talk about human nature through the lens of war and atrocities and leadership.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  And I would be sitting down with Tim right now, but he's off in the jungle or the desert or the mountains somewhere. So I am just going to answer your questions this time by myself. So thanks to Tim for having me on again, and thanks to you all for listening. And here we go. The first question is from an anonymous person. How did you meet your wife? And other tips on building a family. So I met my wife when I was overseas. My wife happened to be overseas at the same time. And when I saw her, I was, I was, I

• 5:10Jocko Willink?

  was kind of taken aback by my, by my wife, because she was a stunning looking woman. And I walked right up to her and immediately said, you know, started talking to her. And I won't go into the gory details of that whole situation. But because I, because I asked my wife if I could tell the whole story, and she actually said, do not do that. So I'm not going to. But I met my, when I met her, I went up, talked to her, and not only was she stunningly beautiful, she was also super nice, which was a very nice surprise for me. And immediately, I told one of my buddies a couple of days later that I was

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  gonna marry that girl if I could. And we ended up, yes, getting married. The, the tips I have on this, I would say,

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, first of all, I'll tell you that getting married is probably the most important decision that you're gonna make in your life because you're gonna end up spending your rest of your life with this other human being, which, which is a big task. And so you really wanna make a good decision. And, and of course, there's a dichotomy in this too, because if you think you're gonna find the perfect wife, you're not. Or you think you're gonna find the perfect husband, you're not. They don't exist. No one's perfect. Everyone's gonna have their little idiosyncrasies about them that you don't like, or that bother you. And so what you have to do is you have to find somebody that, you know, has idiosyncrasies that don't bother you very much. The other thing, and I would say, I got lucky in this. I, I would love

• 6:46Jocko Willink?

  to tell you that I was, was a visionary, and knew exactly what I was looking for. But I didn't. I got lucky and just happened to meet this, this woman that had this quality, which I believe is very important. And that is that my wife was emotionally stable and emotionally independent. And so what I mean by that is my wife wasn't always relying on me emotionally to give her support about things. She didn't, she didn't really, this sounds bad, but she didn't really need me. You know, I didn't need to be there. And, and trust me, when you're in the SEAL Teams, you're not there a lot. So, I, I think if you can find someone that's emotionally independent, that doesn't rely on you to

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  prop them up every day, I think that's a, a big benefit. And, uh, can someone go too far with that? Yeah. Cause I'm sure you could have someone that's so independent that they don't even wanna be around you. And that would be a problem. So, but I think we tend towards people, we, we like the feeling of someone that's depending on us. And, and so I think we, I think I saw guys get sucked into that over the years. So I think you look for someone that's got a little bit of emotional independence that they can stand on their own. And then, and then when it comes to just relationship, and I don't know, you might wanna check yourself if you're coming to me for relationship advice, but you are. So I'll put it out to you. Here's the, here's the thing. When, and I have been married for a long time, uh, 20 plus

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  years. That's a pretty long time to be married. I guess these days. Well, one of the things going back to the idea of extreme ownership is guess what? You take ownership of your relationship and you take ownership of the problems inside your relationship. If you're blaming your spouse when things go wrong, that's not going to work out really well. And when I try and think of an example, I was talking about this with someone the other day. And one, one example that when my kids were younger, it's always stressful, stressful time in the family is getting ready for school in the morning. You've got kids, you've got teeth to get brushed, you've got lunches to get made, you've got, the clock is ticking, you're gonna be late, there's traffic, there's all these things going

• 8:52Jocko Willink?

  on. And so sometimes you can, that, that stress can start to impact negatively the family. So I was thinking, what's the situation where you've got to take ownership? Well, let's say normally, you know, for me, I was getting up and going to work. My wife was getting up and getting the kids ready for school. Cool. Those are our two jobs in the morning. I get ready to go to work. She gets ready to take the kids to school. So let's say the lunches weren't made and the kids got up late and my wife got up late and all of a sudden she can't get out the door because she's got to make, make the sandwiches for the kids. And if I look at her and say, well, you know, you didn't make the sandwiches. That's why everyone's late. I'm telling you right now, that's not gonna work

• 9:35Jocko Willink?

  out well. You're blaming the person and when you blame people, they get defensive and they start blaming other things and they're gonna blame you and they're gonna blame the kids and they're gonna blame everyone else. So that doesn't solve the problem. All it does is create arguments. So instead of doing that, what you do is you take ownership, just like when you're in a, in a SEAL platoon or you're in a business, when something goes wrong, you take ownership of the problem. So if instead of saying, hey, you didn't make the lunches, that's why everyone's late. Instead you say, hey, you know what? I noticed everyone was a little bit late today. Tomorrow. You know, I think I can help out by getting up a little bit earlier and making the lunches. And well, realistically, and with my wife, my wife would be, you know, my wife would say back to me, "No, that's fine. You gotta go to work. I slept in. I shouldn't have done that."

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  So, so it immediately reverses the defensive attitude of, "What are you talking about? I didn't make the lunches. Why am I making lunches?" It turns it into, "Oh, you know what? No, you have to go to work. I'm gonna get up and make. It's my fault. I'll take care of it." And, and that's, that's a great solution, right? That, that's problem solved. And then people worry about it. Cause they say, "Well, what if I, if I said that to my wife?" You know, my wife would say, they say, "Yeah, you should get up and make the lunches." And then you know what I say? "Get up and make the lunches. It's gonna take you an extra, it takes, takes six minutes, six minutes to get the lunches made. Probably not even that." So, no big deal. Get up a little bit earlier. Get up six minutes earlier. Actually make the lunches the night before. And, and it'll be fine.

• 11:00Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, most likely, your wife is gonna say, "Hey, you know what? You don't need to make the lunches. I'll do it. I got it." So, that's what you do. That's what you do. You're just like in any other leadership situation, or even in a peer-driven situation, what you do is you take ownership. And when you take ownership of things, life gets better. Give it a shot. That's the first question. Next question is from Avfar. And the question is, "What's Jocko's criteria about when you should quit? And when to persevere in areas with opportunity costs like businesses?" So, this is a, definitely a very good question.

• 11:44Jocko Willink?

  Especially if you know anything about the SEAL teams, one of the mottos of the SEAL teams is "Never quit." And I should say, that's really more of a motto of the basic SEAL training that you go through, the BUDs training, the, the first block of training that you go through when you, when you join the Navy to be a SEAL. It's six months long and... And the the underlying mantra there is don't quit. And of course, it actually makes very good sense in training, in that training, because that's how you make it through the training. You don't quit and people, people, I'll get kids that ask me nowadays, you know, I want to go on. I'm gonna go to the SEAL teams. I want to go and through SEAL training.

• 12:27Jocko Willink?

  What advice do you have for me? It's like, I was telling the same thing over and over again. Don't quit. That's, that's how you get through the training. Don't quit. So going through that training, it, it makes sense, but I'll tell you, once you get to the actual SEAL teams, you have to take that attitude and you have to put it in some kind of perspective, because that attitude can be bad. And the classic example of that is the young leader, the young SEAL leader who comes up with a plan for a training mission. But maybe it's not the best plan. Or maybe the circumstances change, or something unexpected happens, or the weather or the terrain isn't what was anticipated and the plan is not working. That's what's going on. The plan, whatever plan they came up with is not working.

• 13:10Jocko Willink?

  But that young leader has been told, never quit. So he keeps going and he keeps going and he keeps going and he keeps going. And he uses up all his energy and all his time and all his resources and all of his people, because he had been taught never quit. So that is actually wrong and you don't do that. If you are trying something and you have given it a solid effort and it's not working, then stop doing it and step back and assess and see if there's another way to do it. That is not quitting. That is being smart. I have a little rule. I say, don't bang my head into something 47 times. I'll do 46. Once you get to 46, then it's like, okay, you know what? I gotta try a different way. This is not working.

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes you have to step back. You have to, you have to quit the plan that you had and try something new. Now, the other way to frame this is by looking at it from a tactical level and then from a strategic perspective, tactical level, meaning the immediate situation right in front of you and the situation that's unfolding. Right now, in this very period of time. So like a firefight that's going on right now. Or this actual battle that we're in right now. That's tactical. That's what's happening on a tactical level. And then above that is the strategic level. And this is the broad, long-term, overall objective that you are trying to achieve.

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  So those are the two different perspectives that you can look at this idea of when to quit. So in a war, the tactical objective might be to take a hill, right? We're gonna take that hill. That's our objective right now. Whereas the strategic objective might be to remove this tyrannical regime and stop their imperialistic endeavors that threaten your own nation state. So that's the strategy. That's what you are strategically trying to accomplish. So now you look at those two things, right? If you're assaulting this hill and it's heavily defended and the hill is fortified and has massive enemy troops,

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  massive numbers of enemy troops in there, and you can't take that hill without suffering massive catastrophic losses yourself. It's probably a good idea just to back off the hill a little bit and figure out another way of taking it, or figuring out if you can actually bypass that hill. See if you can avoid even having to take that hill. Now, that might be considered quitting, right? I'm not going up that hill. I'm not gonna lose everyone trying to get up this hill. But even though it might be considered quitting, it also could be considered smart. Because why would you waste your troops if there's another way to go about this? If there's, there's, and I'll tell you, one reason that people continue doing this

• 16:06Jocko Willink?

  is a lot of times people will drive on a tactical mission and the only reason that they keep going is A, because they've been told never quit, and B, because their ego, their ego, their ego, they're gonna stick with their plan. They came up with their plan. They want their plan to work. And they're gonna go and they're gonna keep going until everyone's dead. That is not smart. Because if you backed off that particular goal, you could allocate your resources and your troops somewhere else where you might have a bigger impact. So.

• 16:39Jocko Willink?

  So quitting that tactical mission, that low level tactical mission, it might not only be acceptable, it might be a necessity. Because let's face it, if all you do is attack hills where everyone dies, you're not gonna, you're gonna lose strategically in the long run. So, sometimes you gotta back off, sometimes you gotta, you gotta quit that tactical mission. And there's been plenty of times in history where that has happened. And, and, and people made tactical retreats, we'll call it tactical quitting, in order to win strategically. So when, when General George Washington led the retreat of Continental Forces out of New York, which was

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  a lucky retreat, because there was this massive fog and they were able to do it clandestinely, that, that was a, he quit, but guess what? He came back for the strategic win. In World War I, Gallipoli, some super hard fighting there, the Brits, the Aussies, the New Zealand troops, the French as well, and they had really hard fighting, and eventually they realized that this wasn't working, and they snuck away. They, they retreated. Did they quit? I guess you could say they quit that tactical situation. And it's the same thing, I mean, probably the most famous example of this is Dunkirk, at the beginning of World War II, when, you know, this, this

• 18:05Jocko Willink?

  ad hoc British Navy of merchant vessels and whatever else, pulled out, you know, hundreds of thousands of soldiers out of Europe so that they could regroup, rebuild, and reengage. So, and, and by the way, come back for the win, for the strategic win of getting rid of the tyrannical leader of Nazi Germany. So, was anyone calling the Brits quitters because they decided to save a massive number of their troops? No. It's like, hey, we have to do a tactical retreat. So, yes, sometimes you have to retreat, but that doesn't mean you quit the strategic mission. You know, it's like Churchill said, never surrender. But he didn't say never retreat.

• 18:50Jocko Willink?

  So I think you have to do a little differentiation between quitting and retreating. And that's, that's what you need to do and you need to do the same thing in life. Right? Because sometimes we come up with ideas, we come up with plans that aren't as good as we think maybe they were. And at some point, you got to look at it from an honest perspective and see if maybe this isn't going to work. Maybe we can't take that hill. And that doesn't mean, you know, if you come up with one idea for a product and it doesn't work and you decide you're going to retreat from it, does that mean you just never come up with another product again? When strategically, what your goal was, was to build a large business or, or become financially independent

• 19:31Jocko Willink?

  or be your own boss or whatever. If you, if you back off of one tactical mission or you quit with one product that you came up with, does that mean you're never gonna do anything in business again? No, it just means that you're going to regroup, you're going to reload, you're going to come up with a better idea and then you're going to, you're going to attack again. You're going to keep that strategic vision alive. So I think that's it. I think to sum this up, that's kind of a long answer, I apologize. To sum this up, you might have to make some tactical retreats in order to win the long war, but never quit on your strategic vision.

• 20:12Jocko Willink?

  Never quit on getting to the ultimate place where you want to go. The next question is from Brendan and the question is, how does discipline pay a role in financial decisions? On two levels, macro slash investing and micro, meaning daily and monthly budgets. How has this changed recently? Well, discipline equals freedom, as you may have heard me said, say, the first time I was on Tim's podcast. If, and the example of that in this situation is, if you want financial freedom, you need financial discipline. So what does that mean? That means you have to work hard, you have to save your money, you have to invest your money, you have to not buy stupid things that you don't need.

• 20:56Jocko Willink?

  I often give the example of my 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. Kind of rusted, broken window on the driver's side that was taped shut. But I drove that vehicle for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years. And the reason I did is because I was saving money. I also lived in a house that was 934 square feet. It had two bedrooms and I had three kids, two girls and a boy and my wife. And my wife and I slept in the living room. And when you opened the front door to our house, to the right was a couch and to the left was our bed. And that's where we slept and right next to our bed was the dining room table.

• 21:38Jocko Willink?

  So like our front room of our house was the bedroom, dining room and living room. All, all in one big room, zero privacy. But that's where we lived. Why do we live there? Cause it was in a location that we liked and we were saving money. I pretty much always wore the same clothes. My guys used to give me a hard time because I would wear jungle boots out on liberty with my normal clothes. Why? Cause I'm not going to go out and buy some pair of fashionable shoes. I cut my own hair, so I have a pair of clippers that I've had forever and I cut my own hair. So that's the discipline that I think put you in a good place later on in life. When you save money upfront.

• 22:21Jocko Willink?

  And so, so now when we talk about macro investing, what do I do now? I like to put my money into, well, actually into my businesses and it's things that I own, things that I control, things that I know about. And so I do that and I like to buy properties. So I invest, invest in properties and, and, and I take other opportunities. If there's something that I have an understanding of, some business opportunity, then I'll put my money in that. I, Will said, I do have a nicer car now. I no longer drive the 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. May she rest in peace.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  I also instill a little bit, I, I still, even though I have more money now, I still am a person that struggles to spend money on things. And I will research some stupid purchase for three months to figure out if it's something that I really need to figure out if it's the actual one that I want and all that. So, so there you go. I, I, I guess on a macro thing, I look to buy big things or I look to invest in big things like properties and businesses and on the micro, I look to buy nothing. I don't want it, I don't need it and I'm trying not to buy it. So there's that. Next question is from Joey and he says, how do you balance your time as a father with

• 23:43Jocko Willink?

  your business, podcasts, workouts? And then there's a follow on question, what values do you hope to pass on to your children? So this is a question that everyone wants the secret answer to and you know, how do you balance your time with your family versus your time with work? And the answer is that that is the answer. You have to balance it. So what do I do? Yes, do I wake up early? I do, I wake up early. Do I stay up late? Yes, I do. I try and do things before and after my family is awake or before that or after they fall asleep so that I'm, I'm working when they're sleeping, which seems to work out well in terms of trying to spend more time with them in like in the morning, in the morning I'll wake up early and work out.

• 24:27Jocko Willink?

  So that way when they're, when they get up and they're eating their breakfast or whatever, I can say hi to them and talk to them a little bit. I also try and do things that are, that are mutually beneficial to everyone, to all of us. So for instance, I like to do things with my wife and kids, like work out together or do jujitsu together or wrestle or surf. I like to do things that, that I like to do and that they like to do too. So that seems to do a good job of spending more time with the family. I, I. Don't always do a great job with us. I have missed some pretty critical events with my kids because of work. And that's a sad reality.

• 25:12Jocko Willink?

  I've missed some, some pretty big events because I've had things that I had to do. I had commitments. I had contractual obligations that I couldn't get out of. And so would miss, you know, I've missed some pretty important things for my kids and I definitely feel bad about that. And I'll say this though. They also learn from that because when they see that I am doing that, I'm doing, um, um, putting a big, placing a big importance on work, they realize that work is important. They realize that you have to be dedicated to your work. They see me up early working. They see me staying up late working and they know from seeing that, that if they want to get anywhere, there's going to be sacrifices that have to get made. So,

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  that's it. I, I, I also often explain this to people. You know, you, you get a job and you work hard so that you can earn money so that you can take care of your family. And that being said, if you focus too much on working hard and too much on your job, well then, eventually if you look up, you'll look at your family and they won't be there anymore because you weren't paying enough attention to them. So you, you can't let that happen. The other end of the spectrum is you're trying to take care of your family. So you're trying to spend all your time with your family, which means you stop paying attention to work like you should. And instead of going to the meeting, you're at, you know, the parent teacher conference. And instead of going to the,

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  the networking event at your company, you're, you're going to the recital for your, you know, six year olds piano. And eventually you look up and you realize that you're not where you want to be work wise. And maybe you're getting let go. Maybe you're not promoting the way you want to. So that's not good either. So that's why, as I said, to kick this off, the, the key is balance. You have to find the balance on these things. If you focus too much on work, you won't have a family. If you focus too much on family, you won't have work. So get balanced. The second part of this question was what values do I hope to pass on to my kids? I think the values that I try and pass on to my kids are pretty much the standard

• 27:22Jocko Willink?

  kind of human values. And to be really simple about how to discuss this, well, I wrote, I wrote multiple kids books trying to pass on the values that I think are important for kids. The first book that I wrote for kids was called Way of the Warrior Kid. And the, the first book is about a kid who's kind of having the same normal problems that every kid has. He's can't do any pull-ups. He doesn't know how to swim. He doesn't know his times tables and he's getting picked on at school. And what happens is kind of the last day of school, he's all sad and bummed out and he gets called out for not being able to do any pull-ups and not knowing how to swim.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  And he runs behind the library and he's crying and eventually heads home from his last day of school. And then he remembers that his Uncle Jake is coming to stay with him for the summertime. And his Uncle Jake was in the SEAL teams. And his Uncle Jake, when they, when he shows up, you know, they start talking and he says, hey, you know, what do you want to do tomorrow? You want to go, you want to go play some ball? You want to go for a swim? And he says, and the kid whose name is Mark says, well, you know, I, I can't, I can't swim and I don't know my timetable and I'm getting picked on and I, I can't do any pull-ups. And he starts crying and Uncle Jake looks at him and says, hey, listen, all these problems that you've got, they can be solved. And then they go on the, the mission over the summer of working out, eating right, learning

• 28:48Jocko Willink?

  how to study, learning jujitsu, learning how to swim, overcoming his fear of water. All those things happen. And one of the parts that's embedded in the story is that Uncle Jake talks about how warriors live by a code. And he encourages young Mark to write his own Warrior Kid code. And in that Warrior Kid code, I pretty much pass forth the values that I try and give to my kids. And so here's the Warrior Kid code from the book Way of the Warrior Kid. The, number one, the Warrior Kid wakes up early in the morning. The Warrior Kid studies to learn and gain knowledge and asks questions if he doesn't understand.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  The Warrior Kid trains hard, exercises and eats right to be strong and fast and healthy. The Warrior Kid trains to know how to fight so he can stand up to bullies and protect the weak. The Warrior Kid treats people with respect, doesn't judge them, and helps out other people whenever possible. The Warrior Kid keeps things neat and is always prepared and ready for action. The Warrior Kid stays humble, controls his ego, and stays calm. Warrior Kids do not lose their tempers. The Warrior Kid works hard, saves money, is frugal, and doesn't waste things, and always does his best.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  I am the Warrior Kid, and I am a leader. So that's the Warrior Kid Code. And that Warrior Kid Code, that's actually the one that I just read is from the third book in the series, because each book, Young Mark adds a little something to the Warrior Kid Code. He adds, he learns a life lesson, and then he adds it to his Warrior Kid Code. And so, those are the values that I try and pass on it. And that's, I also, I also do a kids podcast called The Warrior Kid Podcast, and what the funnest part I've had with that Warrior Kid Podcast, because it started off me just doing questions for Uncle Jake, and then I would answer the questions, and kids would

• 31:00Jocko Willink?

  say, "Is, is pepperoni healthy?" And so I'd answer these great questions from these kids. And, but eventually, what I started doing is I started telling stories from Uncle Jake, where Uncle Jake would talk about where he was a kid, or when, when he was a kid, and they would kind of capture some important lesson that he learned. And they're all just kind of parable stories that, again, back to this question, teach the values that I think kids should have. And that's the, what the stories do, the stories are meant to explain where Uncle Jake got his values from. So, yeah, those are the Warrior Kid Podcast, if you want to.

• 31:43Jocko Willink?

  Check that out in the Warrior Kid books. All right, next question, and it says, I'd like to hear his thoughts on sexual harassment, toxic masculinity. And then it says, I am working to teach my sons about matters like consent. Okay, so I know this has been a big, a big topic, toxic masculinity, and I'm not a psychologist, certainly, I don't claim to be, you know, some somebody that understands everything, but you know what, I have spent a lot of time around alpha males. So I spent 20 years in the SEAL teams, and there's a lot of alpha male type human beings in there. I have my own son,

• 32:26Jocko Willink?

  so I have a decent understanding of the male human. I also, like I said, I've been married for 21 years, and I have three daughters, by the way. One of them is 19, one of them is 18, and one of them is nine. That that counteracted the testosterone of my 16 year old son to the best of their ability. But my point is, I I have some experience with both sides of this situation. And so so for me, toxic masculinity is sort of saying that, at least for the best, the best that I can interpret what it what they're trying to say is that if you take sort of traditional masculine traits, and then you take them to the extreme,

• 33:11Jocko Willink?

  well, then it becomes negative. And well, that's a true statement. That's actually a true statement. So and it goes back to the book, Dichotomy of Leadership, is that if you take any positive trait that a good leader can have, and you take it to an extreme, then it can become a negative. So this is going to happen with any traits that any human being has. If you take a a human trait to an extreme, it often becomes a negative. So I mean, a clear one is, if you're a good leader, then you need to be aggressive. Right? That's what you need to be. And that being said, if you're too aggressive, then you're taking risks that are not necessary.

• 33:56Jocko Willink?

  And that's not going to work out good for you. So, uh, that's why you, you, you can't take the aggressive trait to the extreme. Same thing with being ambitious. Right? Because everyone, you know, a good leader, a good person, a good kid is ambitious. But guess what? If someone becomes too ambitious, then they're stepping on other people so that they can rise to the top. And by the way, that, that rise to the top will be short-lived. That's why it's not beneficial because you might think, well, if you're ambitious and you step on people, but you make it to the top, you're good to go. It doesn't work that way because other people are going to see that you're stepping on them and they're going to rip you down. So the group that you're leading, when you're stepping on them will turn against you.

• 34:37Jocko Willink?

  So yes, you should be ambitious, but you can't be extremely, you can't take that to the extreme. Um, being strong, that's be, being just physically strong, that's, that's a great, that's a great attribute to have. Because, because then you are harder to bully, right? No one's going to push you around when you're a strong individual. That being said, if you go too, you go too far with that and you begin to abuse the strength that you have to bully other people, well, then that's not good. And once again, I'll tell you, if you do that, the pack will turn against you and take you down.

• 35:16Jocko Willink?

  And so there's all these traits that these are considered sort of masculine traits. Like being assertive, right? And, and that is definitely true. If you're, if you're a good leader, and I go from, you know, a man to just be talking about leadership. If you're a good leader, then you should be assertive. That being said, if you're too assertive, then you don't listen to anyone else's ideas. And, and so that puts you at a disadvantage because you're trying to figure out everything for yourself and you won't be able to do that. So, uh, what else, what else for traditional masculine traits? Oh, be less emotional, right? The, the, the man is supposed to rely more on logic than emotion.

• 35:59Jocko Willink?

  And, and that certainly makes sense as a leader because there's no one that makes good decisions when they're emotional. Now, the dichotomy is that if you are completely devoid of emotions, then you don't connect with anyone. You don't have any emotional connection with anyone. And as a leader, if you don't have emotional connections with people, then you won't truly be able to lead them. You'll be able to lead them on like a surface level, but you won't have the deep connection that forms a solid bond inside of a team. You won't have that. And so the list of these traits, it goes on and on. And like I said, these are sort of these traditional masculine traits. And if you take them to the extreme, then they become negative.

• 36:43Jocko Willink?

  And also, you've got to remember that it's not just one extreme. There's the other, there's the opposite extreme as well. And if you go in the opposite direction to the extreme, then that's equally bad. So if you've got a leader that's hyper aggressive, right? We don't want that. But at the same time, we don't want a leader that's a pushover. Just like we don't want someone that's overly assertive, right? If you're overly assertive, then you're not listening to anyone else. But at the same time, if you go in the other direction to the other extreme, then you've got someone that's scared to speak up. So that's not good either. And then talking about the emotional thing again, like we don't want a leader that's completely devoid of emotions, but at the same time, you don't want a leader that's

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  overly emotional and is unstable and not able to think logically and clearly. So these things, these things need to be balanced. That's what they need to be. They need to be balanced in leaders. They need to be balanced in men. And the fact of the matter is, is that all these traits are equally positive for women, and they also need to be balanced with women as well. So to me, this idea of toxic masculinity is just reflective of taking any human traits to an extreme, male or female, doesn't matter. If you, if you don't properly balance the dichotomy of these traits that human beings

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  have, you'll be out of balance and will be a bad thing. So try and stay balanced. That is, to me, the best solution to these types of issues. All right, next question.

• 38:25Jocko Willink?

  Is from White Belt MMAS. I have no idea what that means, but I'm glad you have the white belt attitude. That's a good attitude to have. What are Jocko's experiences with cold or heat therapy? Cold showers, ice baths, saunas, etc. Okay, I'm definitely a believer in contrast baths. If you know what that is, contrast baths are going from hot to cold. I mean, I like them both individually, but hot to cold, I definitely had a, I had a situation that unfolded for me that really sent it home. I was, I was at San Clemente Island, which is a little training site off the coast of Southern California. And on that island, there's a hill called Frog

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  Hill. And when you're going through basic SEAL training, you run up that hill before every meal. And sometimes you carry things on your back or whatever, but it's a really steep hill and it takes a few minutes to climb up and it burns you out pretty good. So anyways, I was out there for, I wasn't going through SEAL training, but I was out there doing some training with some other troops. And so while I was out there, I decided, yeah, I'm just gonna run Frog Hill every day for every meal, just like we did in BUDS, you know, just trying to stay hard. And then I, while I was out there, and this was probably 10 years ago or something like that, maybe 12 years ago, I don't know, but late, late

• 39:47Jocko Willink?

  2009, something like that. And while I was out there, I also was working out hard, you know, and I did this, this CrossFit workout. This CrossFit workout, which is called Cal Sue. And, and this, this workout is named after a guy, well, it's named after a guy whose name was Cal Sue, Bob Cal Sue, who was an All-American football player for the University of Oklahoma. And then he played for the Buffalo Bills in the 1968 season. He was the Rookie of the Year.

• 40:26Jocko Willink?

  And after that season, he went and did his time in the army because he had gone through, I guess, an ROTC scholarship and had an ROTC obligation to the army. And so he went in the army to serve his time. He went to the 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Vietnam. And he was killed in action. And so this, this workout, like the man himself is a, is a tough workout, tough man, tough workout. In fact, I'd say it's a little bit harder than tough. It's, it's actually a pretty brutal workout. And here's the workout. If you want to try this, it's like, oh, every minute on the minute. So every minute you do five burpees.

• 41:09Jocko Willink?

  And then you do as many thrusters as you can with 135 pounds. And thruster is basically a front squat and then a push press. So you do that. So you do, every minute you do five burpees and then you do max thrusters with 135 pounds. And you keep doing this over and over again until you get to 100 total thrusters. And it is like a complete soul crushing leg destroyer of a workout. And anyways, I did that workout and plus I was running Frog Hills. So my legs were pretty much just completely annihilated. And then I was supposed to be flying back to Coronado to where I was working at the time, the training command

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  out on the west coast. I was, I was flying back there and I was supposed to fly back at in the middle of the, like for lunch, but our training ended, I ended up getting the first flight back from San Clemente Island. It was like six o'clock in the morning. And when I got back, the master chief, so I was the, I was the officer in charge of trade at the time and the master chief, who was a, who was kind of a runner type guy. And he picked me up from the airport. He's like, Hey, man, we're doing a, we're doing a command PT today, which means we're all going to work out and do physical training together. And I'm like, oh, cool. You know, because it's sort of, you know, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the officer in charge. So if we're having command PT, then, then I should do it. And

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  he goes, okay, great. It's a, you know, we're doing a run and we're doing a run down this, there's a lake in, in San Diego and it's, it's got a trail around it. It's like a seven or eight mile or something like that. But there's, it's got a lot, lots of little, these little hills.

• 42:48Jocko Willink?

  So, cool, you know, I already signed up for it. So we get, we get, uh, we go and we go to do this run and um, my legs are already crushed when I start this run. And then I end up racing with one of my buddies who, who's actually a better runner than I am and, but I'm giving it everything I got to, to hang with him. And I hang with him until probably the last, I don't know, mile. Got back from the lake, went to the team. And when I got back to the training command, I went into our physical therapy guys. And I said, hey, man, I just annihilated my legs and I've been annihilating for like five straight days.

• 43:33Jocko Willink?

  What do you got? And the guy that worked there, who is an awesome guy named Jason, he said, hey, do contrast baths. I'm like, what's that? He, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold. So anyways, he put me in this protocol for ice bath to the, to the whirlpool, the hot whirlpool, which is scolding hot. Anyways, I did the protocol. I think it was like five minutes, five minutes, four minutes, four minutes, three minutes, three minutes, two minutes, two minutes, one minute, one minute. And I am not kidding. When I got done with that, I was probably 60% recovered just from that. So do I believe in cold and heat therapy? Yes.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  I have a jacuzzi at my house and I have an ice bath at my house. So I believe in them. They work. Be careful if you ever do that workout. It hurts. Next question. What is one piece of advice you'd give a man who's on the brink of finishing it all tonight? So, you know, this is one of those questions that comes across from time to time when people are feeling like they have reached the point where they cannot go on anymore. And so this is from anonymous and I'll tell you right now, what I'm going to tell you is number one. First, we're gonna wait until tomorrow.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  And then, and so this is gonna sound like, I guess, like a cop out of an answer. Or like a weak answer, but then what you do is you actually go and get some professional help from someone. And, and, and the reason that I'm saying that is because I only just recently kind of put this together. It is the fact that I didn't know anything about psychologists and psychology. I thought that they were just kind of weird people that would tell you some mumbo jumbo. Stuff. I didn't really understand it. I didn't know anything about it. And I had, I had Jordan Peterson on my podcast. And we were talking about a bunch of different subjects.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  And he was talking about how, I think he was talking about how he would get people to overcome fear of needles. And he went through this thing and what he explained was called exposure therapy. And I didn't know what it was, but it made perfect sense to me. And then, as he was explaining it, I realized what he was explaining was this methodology of exposure therapy. And that methodology is the exact methodology that I had used in the first Way the Warrior Kid book to teach this young kid, Mark, to overcome his fear of water. So I just kind of used instinctively something that I had used with my kids. When they were afraid of something, I would expose them to it a little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit. And then over time, they would not be afraid of it anymore.

• 46:25Jocko Willink?

  And so it's something that I had used, but, but when Jordan Peterson, who's a clinical psychologist, talked about it, this is an actual psychological procedure. And, and that's when I started to kind of make this connection. Is, is the fact that psychologists, what they are, is they're basically like mechanics. They're like car mechanics, but they're mechanics for your brain or your mind or whatever your thoughts. Because your brain or your mind, your thoughts can have problems, just like your car can have a problem. And what psychologists know how to do, just like a mechanic knows how to do, is they know how to. Assess the problem and then give you a solution to the problem.

• 47:07Jocko Willink?

  And I, I think the fact that they're called psychologists kind of threw me off for, for my, for my life. And if they would have been called something that the term I've been calling them is mind mechanics. So if you, if you said, oh, I've got a problem with my mind, oh, I'm going to go to the mechanic and have it get fixed. That, that makes sense, right? There's no mumbo jumbo there. The, the psychologists learn about what type of symptoms there are. And then they figure out how to solve those. And they learn techniques and, and procedures and protocols. So that, so it's real is what I'm saying. So, so to you anonymous that, that asked this question. You, you need a, you need a mind mechanic. You know, you've got an issue going on in there and you've got to get someone that knows how to identify,

• 47:51Jocko Willink?

  diagnose what the problem is, and then give you a solution to it. So hang in there, go get some help. That, that's what you need, a professional help. I'm not a mind mechanic, I'm not a psychologist, but there are people that actually know how to help you. And so go get some, go get some professional help. That's, that's what you need. Um, another thing, I mean, you know, Tim came on my podcast. It, it's, it's podcast number 50. And you know, it's, it's a crazy thing and a lot of people, they either don't know this or they haven't heard about it. Or it's easy to forget that Tim was, you know, when he was in college,

• 48:32Jocko Willink?

  he not only contemplated committing suicide, but he actually planned to commit suicide. And so when he came on my podcast, we went deep on that and we talked through it. And so if you're in that situation, you know, Tim's a great example. You know, it's, he's a, he's a, was doing great, you know, from the outside, you know? He was going to an Ivy League school and you know, things were, you would look from the outside and say, oh, this guy's got nothing to worry about. His life is set, but on the inside, you know, he was in a really rough place. In a, in a place that was so rough that he was thinking that maybe he didn't want to continue on. So take a listen to that one. You can hear some of the things that Tim did and continues to do to, to maintain

• 49:15Jocko Willink?

  a, a positive attitude about where he's at. And then man, go and get some professional help because there's, there's darkness out there. And sometimes that, that darkness in the world that surrounds your head, but you can get out of it, man.

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  Good luck, brother.

• 49:33Jocko Willink?

  The next question is also from anonymous. What is a step-by-step guide for building discipline for someone who has little to none of it? I'll keep this one short. I answer this question a lot. Before you go to bed, make a list of the things that you need to do tomorrow. So whatever those things are, you make, you write them down. Workout, you're gonna do, you know, this project or that project, you're gonna do this task or that task, whatever they are. You write them down and then you set your alarm clock and you set it earlier than you normally would. I don't care. Look, people get hung up because I wake up at 4:30. That's just when I get up. You figure out when it's good for you to get up. Make it a little bit earlier, like an hour earlier or a half hour earlier than you normally would. Set your alarm clock, then go to sleep. Then when your alarm clock goes off, just get up.

• 50:18Jocko Willink?

  Get up. No, don't think about it. Don't rationalize anything. No snooze button, no, just five more minutes. Just get up when your alarm clock goes off. Put on your workout clothes, which you should have laid out the night before. I should have said that too. Brush your teeth and go work out. Get that done and then shower, pull out the list that you made and attack that list and get everything on that list done. That's what you do. And then the next day, do the same thing. And the day after that, do the same thing. And then imagine what your life is gonna be like in a week of, after a week of doing that, or after a month of doing that, or after three months of doing that, or after a year of doing that. You're gonna be in a totally different place. If you just do the things that you know you're supposed to do every day, you'll be in a totally different place. Now, will the discipline get easier over time?

• 51:02Jocko Willink?

  Will it get easier? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's easy, hard. You don't think about it. You don't consider that. Just, just do what you're supposed to do. And then just stay on the path because even though it might not get easier, the rewards are going to grow and you'll realize that the discipline that you are imposing into your life is making your life better and giving you more freedom. Question 12.

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  How do you build mental toughness and resilience? The answer is, you actually already have it. You are a human being and human beings can survive the most insane adversity that you can imagine. I talk about it on my podcast all the time. These, these people that go through these atrocities or go through these insane combat situations or get put into prison camps, they're not superheroes. They're people. They're normal people that got drafted or that signed up after Pearl Harbor or that got recalled when the Korean War kicked off. Or, or got sent to Vietnam because it was either that or go to jail.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  They're normal people and they have the mental toughness and resilience and so do you. Now, you want to help reveal it? Cool, do some hard things. Do some mental and some physical challenges that re- that require you to push yourself harder. Get some, that's fine. That'll reveal some of that mental toughness, but you have it. And as I said in Tim's book, Tools of Titans, if you want to be tough, be tougher. You don't need to meditate on it, just be tougher. You already have it. Next question. If he had not been in the military, what would he have done instead? If I was in the military, if I couldn't join the military,

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  I likely would have been probably a policeman or a firefighter. I think I have a pretty inherent sense of duty, some patriotic feeling to serve. And, and you know, straight up, I also like some kind of like level of danger and I like to take some level of risks and I, I feel good about those. They make me feel, make me feel alive and I like physical work. I like doing things, I like, I like physically moving around and getting things done and making things happen. And I like, I actually like high stress situations. So I, I enjoy mayhem and chaos.

• 53:36Jocko Willink?

  And it's where, and when I say I enjoy them, that doesn't mean I'm out seeking them every day. But when they hit me, that's where I feel like I'm in my, I'm in, I'm utilizing the best of my natural capabilities. Cause I'm, I'm calm under pressure. I stay relaxed. I stay detached. I can look at like complex problems and kind of simplify them well. So I like being in those situations. So that's why I think either one of those jobs probably would have been what I would have ended up doing. Next question is from Zach V. My five-year-old son has been doing jujitsu for two weeks now and he's not aggressive. How do you teach someone to turn on aggression? So Zach,

• 54:20Jocko Willink?

  bro, your kid is five. Do, do not worry about your kid's aggression level at this age. In fact, what you need to do is be happy that he isn't a hyper aggressive kid that is slapping other kids around and can't get along with other kids. That's a problem. So don't worry about this. This is no factor. And I've, not only have I brought my kids up, but I've seen,

• 54:45Jocko Willink?

  I would say hundreds of kids go through jujitsu in their life. And you don't need to worry about this. You don't need to worry about trying them, to teach them to turn on their aggression. I, in fact, instead of teaching him to turn on his aggression, I would teach him how to be nice and how to play guitar. And how to be respectful and polite to other people. That's what I would, would teach him. Because when he turns 14, you're gonna have to do everything in your power to rein that aggression in. That's gonna come. So you don't need to egg it on. It'll be there. Now, if it's not there, whether or not he ends up being aggressive, it is still one of the best gifts that you can give him is give him jujitsu. But let me tell you what. Please don't ruin it for him.

• 55:29Jocko Willink?

  Don't ruin jujitsu for him. The best way to make him good at jujitsu is actually by making it fun for him. He's five years old. You want to make it fun. I failed to do that with my older daughters. With my older daughters, I pushed them too hard. I was forcing it down their throat. I was making them train six days a week. Gi, no gi, striking, making them compete. And when I did make them compete, I put them there against older kids and heavier kids. The kids that were better than them and they'd get beat. And I thought, of course, in my mind, I thought I was like being an awesome dad because I was making them super tough. Oh, you know what? You're, oh, you're, you're six years old. Cool. I'm gonna put you against a nine-year-old girl who weighs, outweighs you by 22 pounds. And you're gonna get destroyed, but you know what?

• 56:13Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be good for your character. It's gonna make you tough. That's what, that's what my idiot mind was thinking. And what I actually ended up doing was making them not like jujitsu. So don't do that to your son. What you want to do is you want to make it fun and you want to find a school where it's fun. And you know what? Even that's no guarantee because your kid may not love jujitsu. But at least if it's fun, he's gonna learn it. But, but yeah, I'm sorry to break the news to you that you can't make your kid love jujitsu. You, you can make it part of his life, but he's, this is a, I'm sorry again to break the news to you, but your son is an individual human being. And you know, I got four kids and all my kids are great kids.

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  And I can tell you this, and this is a hard fact for parents to realize. It was a hard fact for me to realize. Your kids are not going to be what you want them to be. And with case in point, I ask this, I ask this question to people all the time. I say, are you what your parents want you to, wanted you to be? Everyone says no. Who grows up and becomes exactly what their parents wanted them to be? No one. So the chances of you getting your kid to be exactly the person you want him to be, the chances of that are zero. He's not gonna be who you want them to be. So what you do, and matter of fact, if you, the more you try and conform him into being what you want him to be,

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  the more you try and box him in, the more he is going to resent it. The more he's gonna push back against you. So don't do that. Don't try and. Don't try and box them in, be supportive, make it fun. Now, I'm not saying you'd let kids do whatever you want because you don't do that. You get, you put them, you give them discipline. You give them a box that they need to stay in. And then you show them the path, but you don't put a dagger in their back and force them to walk down it. You let them find their own way down the path because they'll understand it better and they'll be better people. Uh, next question. You have started multiple companies and businesses since you were on,

• 58:19Jocko Willink?

  since you were first on Tim's podcasts over three years ago. They all seem to be doing great. How do you do that?

• 58:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so I have started a bunch of businesses and they all seem to be doing really well and I'm certainly stoked on that. As far as how do I do that? I would say two major things. And the first thing that I would say is that I get involved in businesses that are related to things that I know about, that I understand. So like the first business that I ever had was an MMA gym. Still have it. It's called Victory MMA and we trained Jiu-Jitsu and, and boxing, wrestling, all that stuff. But the reason I started this gym is because it's something that I knew and understood. We've been, I've been training Jiu-Jitsu for a long time. Been, been training MMA fighters for a long time. And so this is something that I knew and understood. So we started a gym.

• 59:13Jocko Willink?

  The, the second real business that I started was Echelon Front, which is the consulting company that I have with my brother Leif Babin and a bunch of other guys we have on the team now. But again, I started that company was like, this is something that I knew and understood. We're teaching people leadership. And teaching leadership is exactly what I was doing my last few years in the SEAL teams. So I started a company that really, that was based directly around something that I knew, something that Leif knew. And now when we bring other guys on to the team, it's something that everyone knows and understands. So that was kind of evident. It was, it was a very clear that that's something that I had the capability and understanding of. I guess the next one down the list would be, would be my tea, the Jocka White Tea, which

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  This is something that it was actually with Tim. I was with Tim and Tim talked about it all the first time I was on his podcast and it was just like a little funny statement he said and and then people kept asking me, you know, what's the tea? What's the tea? What's the tea? So I just started, you know, making the tea and getting it out there and people were stoked on it. And so there you go. That's something that I knew and I knew that I liked it and started making it and then you know, that kind of led to the rest of the supplements that I made because I like certain, I like to take certain things and I want to take things that I know, things that I trust and things that I actually use. And so that's

• 1:00:39Jocko Willink?

  what I did, made stuff that tasted good, that worked well, and there you go. And then along the way, you know, I got involved with with Origin Maine, which is a, which is a company up in Maine, which is manufacturing apparel right here in America in Maine and you know, that was really more than anything else because I didn't really have a background in that. But what happened was I got, I saw, I saw a really kind of a perfect storm brewing this, this guy that I had seen videos of on the internet from Origin. He was the, he was the founder of Origin. He's a guy named Pete Roberts and

• 1:01:22Jocko Willink?

  he had these videos on YouTube and he's a jujitsu guy and he wanted to make gees and he wanted to make gees in America and there was no one making gees in America. And as a matter of fact, he found out that there was no one making the material to make gees in America. So we're making the fabric to make gees in America. So he went on this kind of like psycho quest to try and make that happen. And he had these videos of himself up in Maine and him and his buddies pulling these, these, the, actually a loom is, it's not these, it's one loom. He went and found a a rusty old loom, abandoned loom in an abandoned factory in Lewiston, Maine.

• 1:02:03Jocko Willink?

  And they, you know, he pulled it out of this factory and brought it back to his place where he had built. A factory, built a timber factory in the middle of the woods in Maine and put this loom in there and hired a guy that used to work on these looms and they got that thing running. And he was up there making these American-made gees. And the, the problem was, he was, the problem was he was in Maine. And he was, you know, didn't really, he didn't have much reach. And so I reached out to him a couple of times and eventually got in touch with him. And, and we were able to, you know, I kind of had reach and, and had the people to talk to. And way, a way to spread the word. And then he had the knowledge, you know, that he gained to, to start making apparel and all that stuff.

• 1:02:48Jocko Willink?

  And so that's what we're doing. So I just wanted to, um, wanted to help him make America make again.

• 1:02:58Jocko Willink?

  Make America make again, you know, that it, you know, I'm from New England. And when you see the abandoned factories, it's, it's a, it's a horrible, it's a horrible sight. And so for us to be up there, to have that company, to be breathing life back into an industry that had been left for dead. And to now be making gees and making rash guards and, and other athletic apparel. And we, we just came out with jeans. Because what's more American than, than damn blue jeans? So, you know, I said, hey Pete, well, actually what I said to Pete was, I said, hey Pete, how many people do you know that do jujitsu? And Pete said, oh, you know, probably a hundred. I said, how many people do you know that have jeans?

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  And I was standing in the airport at the time and I said, eighty percent of the people I'm looking at right now are wearing jeans. Let's make jeans. You know, even I'm not wearing a gee pants right now, I'm wearing jeans. So we started making jeans. Now we're making boots, so we're making everything. So that's, that's what happened there. And, and then the last one, I guess the most recent company is the, is the publishing company. Is, is Jocko Publishing. And that one, so that one's a little bit more of a. Interesting situation. I had written another kid's book called Mikey and the Dragons. And, and this book, I was super stoked on it. I finished it in August. And I talked to my publisher and I said, hey, you know, I've got this new kid's book and I just

• 1:04:24Jocko Willink?

  want to get it out by Christmas because I want, I think the book is about a little kid that learns how to overcome fear. And it's a rhyming story and has amazing pictures in it that one of my buddies drew. And so it was just this really great book. When I read it to my youngest daughter, you know, she was just blown away by it. My wife's actually reaction was, did you actually write that? So I thought that was a really good compliment. She didn't actually believe I was capable of doing it. So anyways, I was super stoked and got this and, and I said to my publisher, I said, hey, you know, I want this book to come out by Christmas. And this was in August. And they said, well, no, that's not, not possible. And I said, well, no, please. And they said, well, we can't do it. And I said, no, seriously, I really wanted out by then. And then they said, there's no scenario where this

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  book comes out by Christmas. And I said, watch this. So I had a friend that, you know, a friend that she had, was in the publishing business. And I said, hey, can you help me make this happen? And she said, let's do it. And so started the publishing company and book came out in November, Mikey and the Dragons. And now I have a publishing company. I got another couple of books in the works for the, for the publishing company. From not just me, but I got another couple of authors that I'm working with that are putting books together that are awesome. So there you go. So all those things are thing, all those different businesses, as I said, like, these are all things

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  that I kind of know and understand. And that's, that's, I'd say, part one of me figuring out what businesses I want to do. And then the second part.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  The second part is that I actually follow my own leadership principles. That's the principles that I teach, I utilize them myself. And I cover and move, I keep things simple, I prioritize and execute. I implement decentralized command and that's a really big one because, you know, I've got people, I've got people on my teams that they, they have decentralized command. They know what my vision is and they are free to go out there and make it happen to the best of their ability. And if they need support, they come back to me. If they need guidance, they come back to me. And if they don't, then they're out there crushing it. So that's, that's what happens. They're making these things happen and I'm kind of looking up and

• 1:06:42Jocko Willink?

  out and to see what's next down the line and see what else we can get into. So yeah. Try and get involved in what you know and understand and then follow the fundamental leadership principles, fundamental combat leadership principles. One more question here.

• 1:07:00Jocko Willink?

  This is from Oliver and he says, what is your biggest failure? Well, for me, this is a pretty straightforward, pretty straightforward answer. When I was in the Navy, when I was in the SEAL Teams, my last tour was in Iraq. I was the commander of SEAL Team Three, tasking at Bruiser. We fought in the Battle of Ramadi. In the summer of 2006, we did our job well. We had the honor of supporting the soldiers and Marines from the First Brigade, First Armored

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  Division. And we all fought together to defeat the brutal insurgents that were there.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  And it was a very tough battlefield. It was a tough fight. It was an honor to serve alongside those soldiers and Marines and the task unit that I was in charge of really performed exceptionally day after day after day. And in the end, victory was achieved in the city of Ramadi.

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  And Ramadi was liberated from the sadistic insurgents that had reigned there. The people were allowed to return to their normal lives. But I did not bring home all my men.

• 1:08:34Jocko Willink?

  And that's that.

• 1:08:37Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Tim for having me on and for everything you've done to help me out. I started my podcast because of Tim and, and, and Joe Rogan as well. And Joe Rogan heard me because of Tim in the first place. So thanks to Tim. If you want to hear anything else from me, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram and I'm on Facebook at Jocko Willink. My podcast is called Jocko Podcast. It's wherever you get your podcasts. The books that I've written are on Amazon and other places books are sold. My clothes are on JacoStore.com. My supplements are at OriginMaine.com.

• 1:09:25Jocko Willink?

  My consulting company is EchelonFront.com. It's a lot of dot coms for you. Anyways, that's all I've got. Again, thanks to Tim for having me on and thanks to everyone that is listening to this. Thanks for spreading the word. Thanks for, of course, going out there and getting after it. This is Jocko Willink. No further traffic. Out.

• 1:09:50Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include. Favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance, and it's very short.

• 1:10:32Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, knowing where to look is the first step towards finding the right fit. LinkedIn has more than 20 million job postings from software engineer to robotics engineer, project manager to HR manager, or associate attorney to associate veterinarian. There's something for everybody. They have everything. It also has one of the largest communities to help you connect and network with people

• 1:11:16Tim Ferriss?

  who can open doors for you, give you valuable career advice, help you learn new skills, and introduce you to people at companies and organizations that are hiring, companies and organizations that are looking for exactly your skill set. And no matter where you are in your career, whether you're just starting out, wondering what to do, switching to a new type of role, or completely starting over, and no matter what job you're looking for, there are people on LinkedIn who can help you find it. With more than 20 million jobs posted, there's a good chance that LinkedIn has exactly what you're looking for. You just have to check it out. So find the job meant for you at LinkedIn.com/jobs. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/jobs.

• 1:11:59Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom, which more than 2 million Americans have used to help start their businesses. Past guests even, such as WordPress lead developer, CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, now valued at more than $1 billion, have used LegalZoom to help with their business needs, specifically in his case, to form his company. But LegalZoom isn't just for launching your business. Their services include everything from helping you to manage changing tax laws, reviewing contracts, creating NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, important stuff, handling lease agreements, and assisting with really any other legal challenge, hurdle, inconvenience. ...that typically takes time and effort away from running your business. The best part is that you won't get charged by the hour because LegalZoom isn't a law firm.

• 1:12:44Tim Ferriss?

  So they won't be running the clock up and spinning circles just to raise your bill. Instead, they just ask you to pay one low upfront price for whatever it is that you're looking to get à la carte style. So visit LegalZoom.com and check out their business section for all of their services. And if you want special savings, that's the terminology in the copy that they suggest. I don't know what the special savings is, folks, but it's titillating. If you want special savings, enter promo code TIM, T-I-M, at checkout. Capital T, lowercase i-M. Again, take a peek, LegalZoom.com and enter promo code TIM.