Jocko Podcast 1: Jocko & Echo (Discipline, Ownership)

A new episode Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Pomegranate, what is a pomegranate chai?

• 0:03Jocko Willink?

  White tea.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  You're deep, bro.

• 0:09Jocko Willink?

  So, action?

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Action.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  This right here is the first Jocko podcast.

• 0:21Jocko Willink?

  Here we go.

• 0:23Jocko Willink?

  I guess to start off, how did we end up here? How did this happen?

• 0:32Jocko Willink?

  I guess I have to thank Tim Ferriss for initially having me on to his podcast. And that was via

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  a couple of people that helped me out, get on there, Kirk Parsley,

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  Peter Attia, and they made some introductions and introduced me to Tim Ferriss. Tim had me on, got a lot of good feedback on that, on that show. And that led to me going on to Joe Rogan. So, thanks to Joe Rogan for having me on as well.

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  And once those two things happened and I actually got online and started getting, communicating with other human beings online. And they were asking, you know, you should, you should do a podcast because it was interesting. And both Joe and Tim told me to have a podcast because it was interesting. So, as I got all that feedback, which was awesome,

• 1:42Jocko Willink?

  I kind of realized I should do a podcast. So, I'm sitting here, my name is Jocko, Jocko Willink. I was, if you don't know anything about me, I served 20 years in the military, retired in 2010. Myself and one of my buddies, guy by the name of Leif Babin, we started a company where we

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  Do leadership and management consulting for businesses. Doing all that work eventually got us to a situation where we had some knowledge and kind of aggregated some knowledge and so we put that into a book. The book came out and been doing pretty well. It's called Extreme Ownership. So, that's who I am. Now, I kind of sometimes find it a little strange just to be talking and so as we decided to put this podcast together, at one point I had done some follow-up videos for Tim Ferriss, for him to put online and I did those with a buddy of mine who's sitting here with me now.

• 2:49Jocko Willink?

  A guy by the name of Echo Charles, who is a longtime jujitsu training partner of mine. And he does video production. He's got a company called FlixPoint TV. And whenever I gotta do something video related, he's my go-to guy. And so when this came, this opportunity came about, when we were filming the videos for Tim Ferriss, you know, we had questions from the internet and we were sitting there and he's filming and we were basically doing a podcast because we were talking and we were having conversations about leadership and about jujitsu and about problems and about everything. And that kind of rolled into when we started talking about doing a podcast.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  And I said, "Hey, do you have audio equipment? Do you have a recorder? Do you have, do you have time to sit down and hang out with me and do this?" And... I do. He said, "I do." I do have all that stuff. And here we are. So then, uh, what we did was we, we took a bunch of uh, questions that I got from online. People hit me with all kinds of different questions, which is awesome. Thanks to everybody for giving me that feedback and listening and talking and communicating with me. That's awesome. It's kind of weird because I, I've, I've never been like the most social person in the world and...

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  Not that I feel like lonely, because I never do. I'm, I don't care if I'm alone or not.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Social, you mean like online social?

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  Definitely not, definitely not online social. I mean, I had zero online presence prior to, you know, being on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And, um.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  But, but even socially, I mean, I don't like hang around with people. You know, I mean, I, I told you that like the last time I was over here. I said, hey, yeah, I just don't do that a lot. So it's, it's kind of interesting to me being online and communicating with really thousands of people.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  And they all, and it's cool because I'm not used to having people that are kind of interested in the same thing I'm interested in, you know? The jujitsu, the working out, the want to do better, the want to get better, the want to learn more. That's what I'm, that's what I want to do. And it's cool to be able to communicate with a bunch of people that want to do the same thing.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:14Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I think that's what this podcast, which I know is going to evolve into all kinds of different things. But I think the, the underlying theme will be lessons learned. You know, lessons learned. I want to learn from people. I want people to, I want to pass on what I've learned. I don't want people to make the same mistakes I made. I want to learn other mistakes that people have made, so I don't make them. And I think that's going to kind of be the underlying theme here.

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  With this.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  What about you? I mean, is there anything in your background that you would consider to be important for people to know?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Above and beyond what you just said, no. That's, that's, those are the relevant points for sure.

• 6:11Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's, that's, as we talked about doing this, that's one of the things that struck me as you're a director, you know, for your business.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:20Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're a film director and you don't get in front of the camera. That's not your thing.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  And so that's why I think this interaction is good because you're, you draw things out of people. That's what a director does.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:33Jocko Willink?

  And I, I believe that's what you're going to be doing here.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Especially when I did a lot of the Metamorphosis stuff. That was essentially my.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  That's like maybe a third of the whole job is to get stuff out of.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  So the jujitsu players out there, if you followed Metamorphos at all, the videos, the, the, what do they call it? Lead up videos?

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, like promo.

• 6:53Jocko Willink?

  The promo videos.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  For the matches, yeah.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  Those were.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Countdowns.

• 6:57Jocko Willink?

  The countdowns, that's right. Those were, those were Echo Charles material right there.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  So you'd occasionally hear his voice in the background with a question.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  So speaking of questions.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  We got some questions from the, uh, from the interwebs.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  What do we got for the first one here?

• 7:18Speaker 00

  First question is, why do you wake up early in the morning? Actually, this is, I, I kinda have the same question for you because, um, I wake up late. Well, I was in the nightclub industry for a long time, so my schedule's just shifted. I still, you know, work out and, and, and work hard for the most part during the day, but my schedule's just shifted. But I think a lot of times I'm viewed as like, oh, this is like late riser, like early risers just to begin with. Kinda seem like these disciplined, you know, but if you just shift the schedule a little bit forward, you know, you're up for, let's say you get eight hours, I know you get less than eight hours sleep, but let's say a typical person ate eight hours of sleep.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  If you get eight hours of sleep, but you wake up at four thirty versus you get the same eight hours, hours of sleep, same waking, um, you know, hour or same hours awake and doing work and working justice, but you wake up at,

• 8:15Speaker 00

  in my case, noon.

• 8:16Jocko Willink?

  The crack.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  What's the difference really?

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, there, there, technically there is no difference. And actually I've talked to people that they're on the night shift.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, so they, they get home at four o'clock in the morning.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  And, but I think we both know.

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  I think we both know what the difference is and.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  And I truly think, you know, that waking up early. Now, if that early means noon, because you you worked until seven o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning, and it takes discipline to get out of bed, then I believe that there's, then that's fine. But if you wake up whenever you want, and you slept for 10 hours, and you're lazy getting out of bed, I think that affects your whole life in a negative way. I really do. I think it's not good. And again, I know that some people are on those schedules. And I know that some people need more sleep. That's, that's, I understand that. There's some genetics

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  involved. I have one of my daughters, genetically, I will go to bed at 11 o'clock at night, she's still awake. I wake up at four in the morning, she's awake. So there's some genetic weirdness going on there.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. What, as far as getting up early, let's say, how you said, okay, it takes discipline to get out of bed. Wouldn't that kind of indicate that maybe you need some more sleep? Because let's think of like, what they how what they call the natural sleep cycle, right? You go to sleep, you sleep your however, seven, I think I do seven and a half or something like that. And you naturally wake up, you got your rest. But if you gotta drag yourself out of bed, doesn't that kind of indicate you need more rest?

• 10:09Jocko Willink?

  Possibly.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  You could be right.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  But you know how you always say, like, what do you say, psychological victory?

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  Psychological victory.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Right. So isn't that kind of, it's, it's a mental exercise, right?

• 10:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  So you're, if that's part of your routine to fight adversity, you end up getting better at fighting adversity, whether it's that tiredness you feel, or actual physical pain, or, you know?

• 10:39Jocko Willink?

  And also, you sleep, like, if you decide to sleep more, it's because it feels good, right? So then it's good for you. But what if you want more candy?

• 10:53Jocko Willink?

  You know, if you want more candy because it tastes good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. In fact, it's not good. But I, I do think that there's times that I do definitely need more sleep and, but I don't. And I also know that there's a fine line. I know when I get, I know when I get overtrained. I know when I get not enough sleep and I feel it and my workout starts going backward and my jujitsu starts going backwards and my life starts going a little bit backwards. And then I know, okay, you know, you, you need to, you need to take a day, you need to relax, sleep more.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Maybe like wake up at like five.

• 11:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sleep until like 5:30. And you could always tell that when we were training fighters for the UFC, you could tell when they're, when they reach their limit, when they were overtraining, it was so obvious they would just fall apart on the mat, just completely fall apart. Um, and you know, the other thing is, I, I, I'm like making a big deal out of waking up early. There's millions of people in the world that that's what their job is. They're a single mom and they gotta work two jobs and they're getting up at earlier than I am and they're going to bed later than I am because they're supporting their family. So I'm not sitting here saying this is the be all end all. But I will say that it definitely, it definitely has an impact and it definitely affects

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  the other things in your life. If you have that discipline early in the morning, it, it, it will help you across the board.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I, I always read this stuff about creative people and this is a complete generalization, but they say that creative people tend to stay up later. And, you know, usually when you stay up later, you wake up later, whatever. Um.

• 12:35Jocko Willink?

  If you're mentally weak, yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  So couldn't it be kind of seen, couldn't it be seen at like when?

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  My early waking is a total lack of creativity?

• 12:51Speaker 00

  No, it seems like you're driven to get things done, you know, get the job done, get it done well, no excuses.

• 12:59Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  And at the same time, develop your physical, mental toughness. And, you know, improve yourself in these ways that it's essentially like, I don't want to say the chores in life, but it's like you, you, you want to get up and maximize the day and get the most work done possible, right? So if you, let's say, okay, a typical day, let's say I wake up at eight AM. I do my work, I get home at five and I, you know, I kind of goof off, watch some TV and maybe, I don't know, maybe even go out to a bar or something like that where all the, the work is done. There's no work to be done really, as far as just kind of in a general way of, way of saying it. There's no work to be done at the bar.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  There's no work to be done watching, you know, TV or whatever. So a person that lacks discipline, they're gonna, it's pleasurable. The bar is pleasurable, you know, for, you know, generally speaking, um, TV is pleasurable. So they're going to be all focused on that, like, oh, I don't want to go to bed and, and, and face the work day the next day. I don't want to charge the work day. I want to immerse myself in the, in the fun part of it, in the candy part of it. Then they wind up going to bed late and then they wind up having to drag themselves out of bed, maybe sleep in a little bit more. So wouldn't kind of that discipline that you talk about, that applies to the whole day, not just waking up early, right? So it's like a whole system.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  So a lot of, a lot of people, when like you, that, that I've noticed, you focus really hard on getting stuff done. And if you maximize the time you have to get it done, when you wake up early, then you can do that more effectively.

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  And at the same time, I don't want to give the impression that I'm living this like task driven life where I have every minute of the day scheduled. Because, because then that does inhibit your ability to do other things. It inhibits your, it inhibits your creativity, um, obviously. But, you know, I'll train jujitsu and I'm going to go there for, maybe I'll just go there for 45 minutes and get some rounds in. Maybe I'll be there for three hours and I don't necessarily know that when I show up because I have some flexibility in what I'm going to do in the day.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:11Jocko Willink?

  The waves are good and maybe I'll go surfing, you know, the, but you, you're right that. You have to be disciplined. It's not getting out of bed is like the the foundation of the discipline.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  And I think it carries over everything else because we get out of bed early and then you work out. When you get done working out, me personally, I don't want to eat junk. When I get done working out, I'm like, oh, you know, I did a good workout. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling healthy. Instead of eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, I'm going to eat, you know, some some eggs and bacon and eat something good. So I agree with you on that.

• 15:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  So fear is kind of a little side note to to that question.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, to me. One of the things when people ask me like what drives you, which is kind of a weird question because it's a big question. I guess that's not a weird question. It's a big question. What drives?

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, like a long list of.

• 16:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Answers on that one.

• 16:13Jocko Willink?

  But one of the things that I definitely. Think of it as a as a driver of me is is fear. And it's, you know, fear of failure, fear of being overtaken. Yes, yes. What drives me?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:30Jocko Willink?

  And and this comes from, I remember being in the SEAL teams. I I was when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation. And that fear got me to work early and got me to inspect my gear three more times and got my me to ask my buddy to inspect my gear to make sure we were good to go. So I I think that's what the fear is. And then there's also the fear of what the enemy is doing and how hard are they training? And are you training harder than them? And now that I'm in the civilian world, I'm thinking, okay, what is what is, you know, some other company doing better than we're doing? And how can we overtake them, you know?

• 17:14Jocko Willink?

  And that's some weird fear and competitiveness that, you know, everybody has, some people more than others. You got to balance it for sure, but it's definitely one of those things.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, sometimes that can get in the way, especially when you mentioned like, what is that other company doing? So.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  I knew this guy that my brother worked with that he would be one of those guys where he'd be really concerned on what's the, what's the competition doing. So he'd be developing this aspect of his company. And it's like right in the middle of development and but he'd be paying attention, you know, one error would be on the, you know, what's going on with this other company? And they do some new thing or go in some new direction that really yields a lot of success for him. Oh, we gotta do that. We gotta do. Meanwhile, these other ideas that are solid viable ideas are left half developed or the resources are kind of allocated to do this new thing and not so much the old stuff.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? I actually got asked this at working with a company the other day and they said, you know, how much should we be focused? Cause I said something along these lines. They said, well, how much should we be focused on what the enemy, on what the competitors are doing? And should we be afraid of them?

• 18:23Jocko Willink?

  And I said, actually, fear is the wrong word. You shouldn't be afraid of the enemy, but you have to respect them. And I think that's the thing that gets me out of bed in the early in the morning is that I respect the enemy. I'm not afraid of them, but I respect them and I'm going to be ready to do battle with them when the time comes.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  You know, this is kind of a side note, but isn't, don't you kind of think too sometimes where it's, you're almost like reflecting yourself when you say you're, you're, you respect and you, for lack of a better term, fear the enemy and what they're doing to prepare? Because you know what you're doing to prepare and it's pretty hard. So you kind of almost in the back of your mind is thinking, they're probably doing all this too, you know? So it's like the more you do, the more you kind of in a weird subconscious way might think.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  They're doing?

• 19:10Speaker 00

  They're doing the same thing, you know? So it's like boom, boom, boom, this never ending like.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  It's an arms race.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:16Jocko Willink?

  It's an arms race somewhat.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:17Jocko Willink?

  And, and if you get caught up in it to a point, like the example you just gave, yeah, it can drive you crazy and it'll, it'll drive you to failure. You know, you have to be able to stand on your own and, and say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna maneuver regardless of what the enemy is doing. We're gonna make our, we're gonna make our moves.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:37Jocko Willink?

  Next, what do we got next?

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Next question, um, oh, actually, there's a life, you know, and other people, single moms.

• 19:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I kinda, I kinda went through that.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, this, this applies to everyone, these underlying concepts.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Okay, well, then, you kinda talked about this before, mental toughness. How do you, and this is another one that applies to me where

• 20:05Speaker 00

  certain, you'll see it even in, in high levels, certain people, it's almost like they've navigated their way through life and two, into success, not really needing that much mental toughness, because maybe they had some special attribute that allowed them to be successful early on and kept them success, you know, like these, like athletes, for example.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  Athletes that are really talented.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, you know, and you, you'd kinda notice it when things get rough for them, that's when they break or, or whatever. And, um, so, I mean, I'm not saying I'm like a superior athlete or nothing like that, but it just so happens in a lot of ways, some ways, whatever.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  I managed to avoid developing mental toughness, up until about maybe two years ago, maybe.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  But, and I, I, of course, I know how mine came about, I think, I mean, the the main reason was just through maturity and seeing it around me, but, um, let's say I didn't, I wasn't surrounded by people who are mentally tough, and I didn't see the value firsthand. How, how do you just develop mental toughness?

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is one of those things that people ask, and this was a big question from online, you know, tons and tons of people asked, how do you develop mental toughness? How do you become more mentally tough? And, you know, you and I did that video on it where it's like, i- if you wanna be more mentally tough, then be tougher, you, you know?

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:37Jocko Willink?

  And, and you get these people that are out there that sell courses on developing mental toughness and, you know, they're, they're gonna bring you into a room and get you into some spiritual state and say, okay, listen, you've got to visualize. The mind of the wolf and you are going to see through the eyes of the wolf. What does a wolf do? The wolf does not back down. He leads the pack. And they're like all this stuff, right? Okay, I'm not, I don't, I don't, no, not, not my gig right there. Because, because the cool thing about mental toughness is, is it's just a simple choice that you have to make.

• 22:19Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna go through this thing that's hard, this thing that's tough, this thing that sucks? Are you gonna suffer through it or are you gonna quit? It's really easy. You, you, you just go, okay, I'm gonna suffer through it. I'm gonna deal with it. Then you're mentally tough. Done. Next question. Let's move on to something more important. You know what I mean? That's that easy.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  But doesn't that, and maybe I'm wrong here, but that sounds like the answer coming from someone who has, doesn't sound crazy, but has the luxury of being mentally tough. So like when you're, do you, do you ever remember a time that you were not, that you were straight up mentally weak? Do you ever remember any time?

• 22:56Jocko Willink?

  No. 1996, I was, no, I'm just kidding.

• 23:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, I'll tell you, people talk about in SEAL training. They say, oh, everybody, everybody wants to quit at some point during SEAL training. And I, I literally, not at all, never for one second did I think, oh, I'm, I'm gonna quit. I don't want to do this anymore. Not even a chance. That's ridiculous.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Um, who says that?

• 23:21Jocko Willink?

  SEALs say it, civilians say it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, everyone thinks about quitting sometimes. Like, no. And I got plenty of bros in the SEAL teams that never thought about quitting.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, two of my best friends, they said, no, you don't even think about quitting.

• 23:33Jocko Willink?

  No, you didn't even think about quitting.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:35Jocko Willink?

  And so those guys are mentally tough. And okay, so if you, if you're not mentally tough, if you view yourself as mentally weak, then you gotta do things, I guess, push yourself to that threshold. And how do you push yourself to that threshold? You do mentally challenging things, you do physically challenging things, and you push through them.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  And then, and then that might develop your mental toughness more.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah, you'd think that.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Like any exercise, getting the reps, you need to get those reps of hard stuff mentally. Like that seminar analogy you just made, that's not, that doesn't seem like that would ever work. No matter if you you're visualizing yourself as a wolf or whatever. It you're not even getting the reps. That's like saying, oh, I've never played basketball ever. I've never been held to basketball, but guess what? We're gonna get you, we're gonna prepare you to be good at basketball. Close your eyes, visualize playing basketball, and that's your reps.

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  So it probably won't work. So the back to the fear thing.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna get hammered because all these people will be like, no, if you visualize, you get better. That's true. Like, yeah, they do all kinds of experience, but but mental toughness, you're right, you might be right.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  That's more of emotions thing, I think, when you visualize, you know, winning and reacting and stuff. Um, mental toughness, maybe, but it it won't substitute reps. Like, if you're scared of something, for example, that should be like a flag or an indicator that, okay, I gotta, let's get some reps right here. I'm scared of this.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  You're right. And that being said, like you talking about your buddy, your SEAL buddies that never were gonna quit, right? And I was definitely never gonna quit. Well, I I didn't have any reps going into that of, you know, mentally challenging things or whatever. I mean.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  You did, though, in in life.

• 25:16Jocko Willink?

  In life, but.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  This is, this is why I say that. I'm not, I obviously wasn't in SEAL teams at all.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  They might find that hard to believe. Um, no, these guys both played football. Do you want school? Um, they both, one of them's father was a Navy SEAL. And just grow, growing up a certain way with a certain.

• 25:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Like, environment does make you, like, let's say your father just not letting you quit. Like, you play, even Pop Warner football. And your dad's like, no, you you can't quit. Like, oh, I wanna quit, this is lame, I'm not good. Or it's, I'm so, just so tired, I'm hurt, or whatever. And your dad's saying, no, you don't quit, and it just is in your mind, or you just simply don't quit.

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  And this is the crazy thing about the SEAL teams, is there's kids that grew up in, you know, some rich town with very wealthy parents and went to an Ivy League school, and they're tough. And there's kids that grew up with no dad and, you know, a single mom, and they're they're tough as hell. So. That theory is almost debunked because where does that mental toughness come from?

• 26:20Speaker 00

  I think it comes from a bunch of different places. It just is interpreted and kind of internalized in the same way.

• 26:27Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you where I think it comes from. I think it comes from when a, when a human being decides that they're going to achieve their goals and they're going to go through whatever obstacles, then that's where mental toughness comes from. It is a decision that human beings make to make it happen.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But I think that when.

• 26:48Jocko Willink?

  You know what you're doing right now? You're shirking responsibility for mental toughness. That's what you're doing.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  I'm trying to narrow it down.

• 26:55Jocko Willink?

  Basically, you're basically saying right now, like, you didn't, you weren't developed in a way that raised mental toughness. And it's everyone else's fault. It's your fault. You're not tough.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  I'm taking the, the exact opposite of extreme ownership of my lack of mental toughness. Or former, I'm working on it. Oh, no, but I think it is a lot of environmental factors. Like you become tough because of certain environments, for sure.

• 27:19Jocko Willink?

  I, I guess, I guess we, we would need to see what happens with the people that aren't mentally tough. Because where do they end up? They end up in the gutter. They end up dead. They end up in jail. They end up in bad places. Because they weren't mentally tough. They didn't figure it out. They didn't drive through it. And so we don't even know who those people are. What happened to them? They failed.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Weren't mentally.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  They didn't make that decision. They didn't decide that they were going to get out of that bad situation, that they were going to push through that scenario. The, the guys that you played football with, they drove through that, those bad situations and got there. You know, that's how they did it. They decided to do it.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Making that decision, I guess it's, they would have to sort of access a place in their mind where that decision is final. Cause a lot of times people say, yeah, I'm, I'm going to do this and that's my dream. And, you know, I'm going to be an architect. And then when they go to college, when the beginner class is three hours a day for five days, they're, oh, well, you know, I don't, I don't know.

• 28:21Jocko Willink?

  That's one thing that the SEAL training does very well is. Gets rid of those people because everyone that shows up there thinks they want to be a SEAL.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  Until, you know, two weeks into it and then you've got half the guys and you end up with 20% of the guys.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:36Jocko Willink?

  And everyone has that dream when they show up there.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:38Jocko Willink?

  But that dream gets crushed.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  So as a try to imagine yourself, you're probably not gonna be able to do this, but imagine yourself mentally not tough.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  I don't even want to say weak, just an average person.

• 28:49Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  You know, when, you know, when you get, you're doing some pushups, you hit about, you know, 15, you're like, oh, you hit 20, you're like, okay, I can't do anymore. So you stop doing the pushups.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Not the guy who's gonna get those five extra. You're not that guy.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  Is there an exercise or an approach to just be on the path to at least increase my mental, your mental toughness?

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Like what though? Like what?

• 29:16Jocko Willink?

  Keep going.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, but I don't want to, I can't keep going.

• 29:19Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you can.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  I mean, I can, yeah.

• 29:21Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes, you can. That's the difference. You can.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  You just gotta say, bec- okay.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  I remember I read this small little book. It was called Mind Games and there was this one short chapter on,

• 29:37Speaker 00

  on anger, anger issue, like if you have anger issues, right? And I'd never had anger issues or nothing like that, but like anyone else, I was young. I was like, I don't know, 23, 24. You know, I'd get mad and think I'm better than certain rules. And when I'd get called out on the rules, I'd pitch it like, you know, have an attitude or whatever, right? So I read this, this little chapter and it said,

• 30:00Speaker 00

  anger issues along with other things comes from a low self-esteem.

• 30:05Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Because you're real sensitive and you react, you know, in this aggressive way or whatever. But the word low self-esteem was like a trigger for me. So having a low self-esteem, for whatever reason, I, that was like an embarrassing thing.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  So I, so, you know, so that could be a little trigger. So you could find little triggers in, let's say, you know, you're doing pushups and you don't want to do five more. The fact that you don't want to do the five more, that should be embarrassing to you.

• 30:29Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  You know, like if you kind of tell yourself that, that'll help you make that decision where I'm not gonna embarrass myself right now.

• 30:36Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  So that fear of embarrassment can get you into the mode to, to want to exercise more mental toughness, you know? Need that trigger.

• 30:45Jocko Willink?

  And at the end of the day, when you feel that weakness, it's a choice to make to overcome it. It's not that big of a deal. You just. Suck it up and do it.

• 30:57Jocko Willink?

  Let's go to the next question.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  What are some key mental and physical steps or patterns to stay on game?

• 31:15Jocko Willink?

  Yes, this is one of those questions that we got a very similar bunch of very similar questions to this. What are the five key? And people always want to put numbers on things, especially these days, I think, because people's attention span.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, people want to see a list of, okay, if I do this.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:31Jocko Willink?

  And I guess, you know, that's it sells, right? What are the five? In fact, they've done a bunch of articles about Leif and I and they they throw like a number on them, the 12 things, the three things.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:44Jocko Willink?

  Because people want to believe that there's a finite number of steps to take.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  And also as far as an article for consumption, it makes you feel mentally comfortable to know that, okay, it's not this open, I don't know how much I'm gonna read, I know I'm gonna read the 12, you know, and that's what I'm gonna eat, you know.

• 32:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, this is gonna go back to what we've already been talking about, you know, for me, waking up early, working out every day, taking ownership of what you're doing and responsibility of things that are in your life, making sure that you periodically, throughout the day, throughout the hour,

• 32:28Jocko Willink?

  maybe not throughout the minute, but that you detach yourself from the situation that you're in, you detach yourself from it and you look at yourself and you assess. And I think that has a huge impact and I, you know, I talk about that a lot, that detachment, that it is something that I learned in the SEAL teams and I learned it when bad things were happening. And if you get sucked into those bad things and you're in them mentally, emotionally and physically, you can't assess well because you're in the problem. It's like when you're watching a horror movie and, and you know. They're like voluntarily, you know, oh, there's a noise down in the basement.

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  Let's go see what it is. Everyone that's watching the movie that's detached from the situation is screaming at the screen. No, don't do it. The people that are there are saying, yes, let's go check it out. Cause they're emotionally and physically and mentally in the situation. So having the ability to detach from this, the, the, the present from being in, inside your own head. Being able to detach from that is, is hugely important because it allows you to do a real assessment of yourself. And then finally staying humble.

• 33:44Jocko Willink?

  You, you, you can't ever think that you've got everything figured out. You've got to constantly be saying, you know, what can I do better? What can I fix? What am I screwing up? And people are going to give you advice and you gotta take it and listen to it and see if it's good or not. Maybe put it to the test. But I think those things, you know, waking up early, working out, taking ownership of stuff. Being able to detach and assess and staying humble. Those are, those are kind of my mainstays. If I had to call them out. On the list of five things that make you better.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, the ownership that, I don't, I mean, they're all pretty, you know, th- these are all challenges for sure. These aren't just easy things to do. Um, but the ownership, I think that's a big key. Like, um, for example, in your book, what it talks about, the whole theme of the book, extreme ownership.

• 34:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Where any situation when something goes wrong, when it doesn't go perfectly, or you want it to go better. It's so easy, super easy, especially if you're emotionally charged or whatever. It's so easy to be like, well, that guy didn't do his job or whatever. And a lot of the cases, it's true. That guy didn't do his job.

• 34:56Jocko Willink?

  A lot of cases it's true.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  But it, it, and then when you do that, you don't even think about, or you don't honestly. Tell yourself or think about what what you did or what you didn't do, you know, or what you did wrong, you know, to make that, um, you know, to what role you played.

• 35:11Jocko Willink?

  And that's why that detachment is is critical. Because if you don't detach, it's very easy to be in your own head and say, well, Echo screwed up his part, and that's why we failed the mission. It's because Echo didn't do his job and now. But as soon as I hear myself saying that, when I'm saying it, it's okay. When it's coming out of my mouth.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  If I see myself saying it, then I know that I've.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:34Jocko Willink?

  I've gone the wrong way. I know that I've made a mistake.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, and what's interesting is when you, when you, and it's something you can do like right now. You don't have to get trained in it. You can start practicing taking ownership of everything you possibly can, literally right now. And what I've found and and really like about it is that it works, not just like with business, it works with everything. Relationships with friends, relationships with your wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, all that. It works amazing in all those situations. So it applies, it's really.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Kind of like a staple for for life, you know, like a way to conduct yourself just in life.

• 36:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that is, that is why, that is why that became the title of the book. Because that is the underlying characteristic that helps people in their life. And I mean, that means as a leader, of course, obviously, in a, in a pressure situation, obviously, in a business, obviously, but you're right. And it it takes. Uh, transitions across the board to life and and it makes you successful across the board when you take ownership of everything, no doubt about it.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  So at age forty four. You get out of bed, bust your ass, like the next mission is around the corner.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  What drives you? Actually, you kind of talked about that, kind of that fear of the enemy's preparation.

• 36:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  But what do you, you know?

• 37:04Jocko Willink?

  You know? This is one of those things that.

• 37:10Jocko Willink?

  When, when people start talking about war and what war does to people and

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  you know nowadays we're hearing and we see more and we know more about what war does to people's minds.

• 37:34Jocko Willink?

  And obviously it is

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  it can have some, some extremely negative impacts on people. And there's a lot of veterans right now that are, that are suffering, that are having a hard time.

• 37:54Jocko Willink?

  And

• 38:00Jocko Willink?

  I think for me, when I think about what drives me,

• 38:09Jocko Willink?

  it's

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  an extremely powerful force that's driving me today.

• 38:17Jocko Willink?

  And that is that I served with guys

• 38:24Jocko Willink?

  that sacrificed their lives

• 38:31Jocko Willink?

  so that we could be here, so that I could be here, so that we could have freedom, so that I could have, never mind freedom, so that I could be here alive.

• 38:44Jocko Willink?

  And

• 38:49Jocko Willink?

  when you think about that, when you think about this gift, this gift that you've been given,

• 38:58Jocko Willink?

  to come back to America and be free and have a life and have liberty and, and be free for the pursuit of happiness. When you think about that gift, it's the most beautiful thing anyone could ever give you. It's been given to you, it's been given to me. And I will not squander that gift and I will make every day count as I remember those guys that gave that gift to me.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:35Jocko Willink?

  Hey.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Funny how like, you know, how you kind of get a glimpse of certain people's life and how they how they behave and how they act, what their routine and schedule is. And um when you like keep just hearing that and you've said that before and and you've even kind of said that to me before. And it kind of reminds you how much, well, reminds me how much I'm not doing, you know, and you know how i- if you get

• 40:05Speaker 00

  free money, it it almost means less

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  than if you earn it, you know? So I think a lot of times when you don't do a lot or, you know, maybe, you know, you haven't served or something like that, it's almost like free money. And you've been exposed to earning that money in the in the real sense.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  So that's, boom, that's constantly just in your nature now. And then, you know, other people, they they do have to be reminded, you know?

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Cuz you know what?

• 40:34Speaker 00

  A powerful reminder.

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  Because every day

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  and I would say every minute of every day, I'm thinking about those guys.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  And that

• 40:54Jocko Willink?

  that that's a

• 40:59Jocko Willink?

  that definitely pushes me. And I don't want to let those guys down.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  So in regards to the military,

• 41:16Speaker 00

  you know, officers entering spec ops or other elite scenarios, what advice would you have for them?

• 41:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, this is, again, this is one of those questions that's come up. And I get this a lot because a lot of people that listen to Joe Rogan, a lot of people that listen to Tim Ferriss, they're younger folks. And they um they're they might be stepping in the leadership positions for the first time. And so we definitely got a lot of, a lot of questions from military guys that are getting promoted, they're going to be promoted into leadership positions. And we get a lot of younger people that are stepping into the business world and they're stepping into leadership roles for the first time in those situations. And I think that um

• 42:02Jocko Willink?

  And I would tell both the special operations folks and the folks in the business world the same thing because as if anyone's listened to me at all or heard anything that I say or read the book, the leadership principles do not change regardless if it's in business or in battle. The leadership principles stay the same. And so if you're new and you're up and coming, what do you do? How do you step up into that role? Number one, be humble. I know it's a theme. I sound like a broken record, but you, everybody knows, everybody's seen that cocky guy that walks in and thinks they're going to run everything and you just instantly disrespect that person. So how do you overcome that? You come in and you be humble. You respect people. You know,

• 42:45Jocko Willink?

  you, you, you respect people regardless of what rank you are, regardless of whether you're, you're making a ton more money than someone else. It doesn't matter. You treat everybody with respect. You treat them with respect and they're going to respect you. You listen to them. It means so much when, when, when one of your people comes and talks to you and you sit down and say, okay, let me take some notes on what you're saying. That means so much to them. And sometimes people forget that, you know, they, they forget what it means to look up and, and see the boss man. And they, they might blow a guy off or, you know, hey, I don't have time for you right now. You've got to listen to people because what you're trying to do in a leadership position,

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  and this is a word that I've only recently become comfortable saying, the word is relationships.

• 43:38Jocko Willink?

  You are truly, that's what, that's what business is. That's what, that's what life is. That's what business is. That's what combat is. That's how you lead people in combat, in business. You have relationships with them. Leif and I talk about this all the time. You know, sure, I can give you an order if you, if you're below me in rank and you might do it some of the time, but you're not going to, the, the, the people that really follow you, that you have a relationship with you, those guys will do anything for you. The guys that I, that I worked with, the guys that worked for me were, were my subordinates. They'd do anything for me. And you know what? I would do anything for them. I would do anything for those guys. The guys that were in my task unit, those guys were

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  awesome. They were awesome guys. And I would do anything for those guys. I would give them anything. Anything and they would do the same for me. Why? Because we had relationship. That was what we had. It wasn't because I would order them to do something that doesn't work. So you gotta build those relationships and how do you build relationships? How do you build relationships then? You build relationships by doing those things, by respecting people, by being humble, by listening. By telling them the truth, by having integrity and telling people the truth. You can't

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  lie to people and I mean, lie is a strong word. Because you know, I don't think people are generally lying to each other on a regular basis, but people. People use half truths and they, you know, they shadow things and you can't do that. And people see right through it and even if they don't know what the truth is, they know they're not getting the truth.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, I, I was always with my guys. Okay, here's what's going on. Here's the problem. Here's what we screwed up. Here's what we need to do better. Here's the pressure I'm under from higher headquarters. Here's why I'm under this pressure. I'm not sugar coating it. I'm not trying to set something up to be different. Um, than what the reality is. If I'm getting told to do something that I don't believe in, okay? Now, this is a tough one. If I'm getting told to do something I don't believe in. I'm not going to go tell my guys, hey, I don't believe in this and we're going to do it anyways. No, no, no, no. If I don't believe in it, I gotta figure out why we're doing it. And I'm gonna say, okay, boss, I do not understand why we're doing this. I don't see how this is gonna help us win the battle.

• 46:00Jocko Willink?

  So, so you need to explain this to me so I can explain it to my guys because I'm not gonna go lie to them. I'm also not gonna go down there and say, hey, we're doing this anyways. Or, or I'm not gonna send people to do things that I don't believe in. We're all trying to win the war. My boss is trying to win the war. I'm trying to win the war. My guys are trying to win the war. So my boss isn't gonna tell me to do something that doesn't make sense and doesn't, isn't logical to win the war. So I should believe in it and if I don't, then I should question him. And those are, those are the things that allow you to build relationships. And the topic of the night again, ownership, you know? If you're, if you take ownership when there's problems and you get them solved.

• 46:40Jocko Willink?

  And then when things do go right, you pass that, pass the reward and the credit on to your boys. Then you, that, that also helps you build those relationships. So that's what I would tell a new leader in the business world, work hard. You know, I should have said that one's like number one, work hard.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Work hard, yeah.

• 47:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  Dang, that's another thing, that whole, that whole answer, what you just said applies to, is another thing that applies to everything.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Even, you say as a leader, you know, in a, you know, with the chain of command and, and you know, all your guys that works with your kids, your friends, or just even in general, like, you know, at the gym, if you're, if, I used to work with this guy. And man, he, he was the nicest guy, he was the nicest guy, he'd always have compliments, but you know the kind compliments that are kind of too good? Like, man, it, I don't know, let's say I'm wearing a new shirt, and be like, man, that shirt is fucking awesome. And, and then, but he-

• 47:41Jocko Willink?

  I've never been told that one time in my life. You're gonna have to come up with a different compliment.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Well, but he would do that kinds, he would say, you know, give you compliments, but just overdo it a little bit too much, just a little bit, just to step outside of the realm of it being believable.

• 47:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  So, that kind of work, you get, man, that's awesome shirt, and then he, you know, walked away or whatever, this is a nightclub, and he'd come back, and be like, man, that is an awesome shirt. You know, it's hard to believe, given what I know about this person, that you're that into-

• 48:10Jocko Willink?

  Your shirt.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  My shirt, right?

• 48:11Jocko Willink?

  Maybe he's just into you.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  See, and that would be a thing if there was other indicators, right? So it's, it's a whole persona, so it, it takes that, it takes you being consistent and all these things that you're saying are honest and, and, and consistent about it.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  So, so the point of your story is that you didn't build a relationship with a guy because you didn't trust him?

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly right, so you know when you're saying, uh, tell the truth, you know, if it's, if it's bad, you gotta tell the truth, you're not gonna- This guy, literally, it's almost like he would only want to tell you good news. So i- it could be, like, he could, it's almost like you had this feeling, like, even if he hated my shirt, or thought it looked whack or something like that, um, he would, he would still, oh, that's a, that's a cool shirt.

• 48:54Jocko Willink?

  And you know, this is, this brings me to another point, and that is, um, balance. And I talk about balance all the time because all these things have to be balanced, and when you're talking about truth right now- You have to be tactful, you know, being, being truthful and being honest does not give you permission to be a jerk. It doesn't do that. And so there's a difference between, you know, oh, I don't like Echo's shirt. So I'm going to say, dude, that's an ugly shirt, right? And just like in, when you're working with, you know, subordinates and they screw something up, you know, you're in it, you know, that was a horrible job. You've, you, you let me down. No, no. Okay. Hey, well, first of all, you want to take ownership of it.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, obviously didn't give you good enough guidance, but the ball, the point that I'm trying to make is being honest with people. There's people that are blunt, honest leaders, and everyone hates them because they're so blunt. They don't have any tact. They don't, they don't maneuver. They don't use jujitsu. They don't, they don't think and they don't assess the whole situation. And they think that if, if I tell Echo, you know, if I want Echo to use method A and Echo's used to move using method B. Echo might have a personality that if I go up and say, hey, use method A now, I'm being blunt, I'm being frank. What does Echo say to that? Echo's like, dude, I've been doing this a lot longer than you. I'm not going to do method A. I'm sticking with my method. That's real.

• 50:17Jocko Willink?

  I need to get, you know, so you've got to, you've got to influence people. You've got to be a chess player, not a checkers player. And so don't confuse being honest with being blunt and untactful and a jerk. You have to do jujitsu and for anyone that's listening that doesn't do jujitsu, jujitsu is a very nuanced game. Where you're constantly trying to set things up and shape the situation. It's not like boxing and boxing, I'm trying to punch you, you're trying to punch me. In jujitsu, you're trying to maneuver on the other person. You're trying to get better positions on them. You're trying to flank them and come in from a different direction that they didn't expect. That's what the, the art of leadership is. Anyone could go through a list of, hey, here's what you guys screwed up on the mission.

• 51:02Jocko Willink?

  One, two, three, four, five, fix it. That guy's not going to be respected as a leader, even though he's truthful and, and honest and blunt. It's not going to get him where he needs to be. There's a whole nother game to play. Yeah. And it's, and it's, and it's dealing with egos and it's dealing with personalities. That's really what it boils down to. Everyone has different personalities and learning how to be a craftsman. That knows what tools to use with what different types of wood. That's what being a leader is.

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:38Jocko Willink?

  If leadership was do these next seven things and you'll be a great leader. I wouldn't have a book and I wouldn't have a business because everyone would be a great leader. There is an art to it. It is a, it is a very difficult thing to do. It's simple. They're simple steps, you know, be honest, you know, show integrity, take ownership. There's those simple steps, but at the same time, they're incredibly nuanced.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  And that's what makes it challenging and that, and that's what makes it so rewarding as well. That is absolutely what makes it so rewarding.

• 52:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  People who don't, people who don't take accountability, uh, don't take accountability. Right. Blaming everyone else. Um.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  How do you deal with people like that? And I mean personally, how do you deal with them? Cause I guess, or would it be the same way as you would professionally?

• 52:38Jocko Willink?

  Personally, professionally, it's all the same. These are, these are questions that we get asked. On a regular basis and we definitely got a lot of them online is, you know, these, how do you feel? How do you deal with people that don't take accountability? How do you deal with leadership that doesn't get the message that you are communicating? Right? So just so we can both understand very out of the gate here. Both those questions, what do both those questions do?

• 53:05Speaker 00

  What this question?

• 53:06Jocko Willink?

  Both these two questions, they have something in common. How do you deal with people, people that don't take accountability? And people that don't get the message that you're communicating.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  You're not taking accountability.

• 53:17Jocko Willink?

  It's you're blaming these other people. You're blaming them for not taking accountability. And you're blaming them for not understanding your message.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  Whose fault is that?

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Your own. If you're taking extreme ownership, that's your fault.

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent of the time. So if I'm a leader and my people aren't taking responsibility for their actions. That's not their fault. It's my fault. I have not shown them how to lead properly. I haven't shown them how to take accountability. And how do you do that? Hey, you know, if Echo does something wrong, I don't go Echo, you screwed this up. I say Echo, this went wrong. It's my fault that I didn't explain it to you well enough. And I'm not gonna talk to you, baby, but like, hey, you know, what do we do wrong? How do we not? How do we? How do we make this happen? You know, you gotta take ownership of it. And that's what does that make Echo do? That makes Echo say, oh, you know what? No, it was my fault. You know what I mean? So both those questions, how do I? How do I solve those problems?

• 54:12Jocko Willink?

  I take ownership of them. That's number one. Number two, what do I do? Because to take ownership of them isn't quite enough here. We need to, we need to be smarter than that. We again, we need to play chess. So what I always try and do from a leadership perspective is I always try and understand the perspective that other people have. This kind of goes to detachment. I gotta detach from my own head and I gotta see it from their perspective. So I can understand what does it look like from Echo's viewpoint? What does it look like from my most junior guy that's not doing what I want him to do? Why isn't he doing it? What is he seeing from his perspective? What is, okay, my boss doesn't understand what I'm trying to communicate to him. Guess what?

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  What is his perspective? How do I detach from my own head? See what his perspective is? Cause once I see his perspective, I can adjust it. So it's very important to try and understand other people's perspectives. And it's usually not that hard. People are often, you know, pretty easy to read. And as soon as you leave your own head and get into theirs, you'll see how you can change the scenario and make them understand it better. So those are two, uh, big pieces.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, uh, that's another one that's, that applies to everything and

• 55:33Speaker 00

  how you were saying, these are simple steps, but

• 55:37Jocko Willink?

  Simple, but not easy.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause man, to get out of your own head and, you know,

• 55:42Jocko Willink?

  It, it, it's hard. It definitely is challenging.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  Especially in these pressure situations.

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  Pressure situations where emotions are involved and you start getting fired up. People are yelling or there's, you know, capital at risk or jobs at risk or lives at risk. It's, it's definitely hard to do that. And guess what? Those situations where it's hardest to do are the most critical times where you need to step back. Calm down, step outside your own head, don't see the emotions, let your ego go. Understand other people's perspectives. That's when you need to do it the most.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  Oddly enough.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  So what would you say is your most difficult day in the military? Or can you even single one out?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  And how did it affect you or shape you or, you know, push you forward?

• 56:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, the time I was in, I was in the SEAL teams for 20 years and it was awesome. It was, I became even called a job because it was so fun and surrounded by great guys. And even overseas in Iraq, I was having an absolute fantastic time the whole time.

• 57:04Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, those were the best days of my life, being a combat leader in a combat situation. That's what I wanted to do my whole life. And when I was there, I knew that. And those were the best days of my life and encompassed inside those

• 57:26Jocko Willink?

  great days are obviously the worst days of my life.

• 57:32Jocko Willink?

  And no doubt, the worst days of my life were the days when my guys got killed. And Mark Lee, first SEAL killed in Iraq. Mikey Monsor, second SEAL killed in Iraq, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for jumping on a grenade to save three of our other teammates.

• 57:59Jocko Willink?

  And Ryan Jobe, who was severely wounded, blinded in both eyes after he was shot in the face, who made it home.

• 58:08Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, after his 20 second surgery to repair the damage that would have done to his head and face, he died as well.

• 58:21Jocko Willink?

  And the day that was the absolute worst

• 58:29Jocko Willink?

  was when I came home from deployment.

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  And I didn't have those guys with me.

• 58:42Jocko Willink?

  And

• 58:47Jocko Willink?

  I was coming home to my family, to my kids, to my wife. And

• 58:58Jocko Willink?

  they weren't.

• 59:11Jocko Willink?

  And how it affected me

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  as far as my military career goes.

• 59:22Jocko Willink?

  I truly

• 59:28Jocko Willink?

  understood what was at stake in combat.

• 59:35Jocko Willink?

  And when I took over training out on the west coast.

• 59:41Jocko Willink?

  I was

• 59:45Jocko Willink?

  obsessed with making the training as realistic as possible. And getting the guys that were going overseas to Iraq and Afghanistan, getting them as prepared as they could humanly possibly ever be to be in these worst case scenarios.

• 1:00:07Jocko Willink?

  And I remember, you know, I remember we'd set up these scenarios that were very, very difficult. I mean, unbelievably difficult. Like you were gonna have massive challenges. And I remember I'd see a guy, like for instance, in an urban environment and training. I'd see a guy standing in the middle of the street, you know, like what you would not want to do if you were in Ramadi in 2006. And I'd see, and I would, I would get this feeling, a sick to my stomach feeling. Because like in the back of my mind, I'm waiting for rounds to start hitting the ground and kill this guy or wound him. And

• 1:00:49Jocko Willink?

  I would, you know, get fired up and, you know, explain to him, listen, you cannot, you gotta move from cover to cover. Don't be standing out here in the middle of the street. Why is there, there's no cover fire going on, you know? And that's, that's how it affected me as far as my military career and how it affected me in my life. You know, I, I've already told you how it affected me. Those are those guys, um, I'm trying to honor them by, by living the best life I can. And taking advantage of the freedom that they blessed me with.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  I'm gonna go to the, uh, another question from online here.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  How'd you come to know the darkness and how does it motivate you? Dealing with it and using the light to win.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  Is this a Star Wars question?

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Kind of. On Tim Ferriss podcast, you were talking about the darkness and the, and the light.

• 1:01:56Jocko Willink?

  No, no doubt about it. It's, um, it's definitely, uh, something that I, something that I.

• 1:02:06Jocko Willink?

  It's definitely something that I think about, you know, and I.

• 1:02:13Jocko Willink?

  The world is, is an evil place and there's a lot of evil in the world. There's pain, there's suffering, there's disease, there's evil, there's war. I mean, there's bad things in the world and. Sometimes people.

• 1:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Ignore those things and, and, you know, we talked about this with, with Joe Rogan quite a bit. You know, we, we can live in a bubble here in America where there almost is no pain and there almost is no suffering. And there almost is no violence and there almost is no evil.

• 1:02:48Jocko Willink?

  And for some reason I've always.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  Stepped outside that bubble and looked and seen what the rest of the world is like. And so I think that's a counter to what a lot of people believe the world is like. And so for me, that darkness is always present. It's always there. And at the same time, there is light and there is people that are incredibly generous that sacrifice greatly.

• 1:03:25Jocko Willink?

  That give everything they have to serve other people. Doctors, you know, nurses, firefighters. There's all these people, teachers. I mean, there's just people that do all they can to help other people and and to do good in the world.

• 1:03:47Jocko Willink?

  And so I think that just, that's what I try and balance in my mind.

• 1:03:53Jocko Willink?

  And, and I don't want people to think that I sit around and brood all day about the darkness, you know, because I don't, you know, I mean, I

• 1:04:03Jocko Willink?

  I love to have a good time and laugh and, and you know, smile and I want to do that, you know? But I also, in those moments, I'm definitely thinking that, you know, we're lucky to be here.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. And doesn't that make like, you know, I don't know, a day where you're just kind of cruising or whatever and, and, you know, looking for a laugh or whatever, you know, you hang with your friends or whatever. Doesn't, don't those days seem a lot more enjoyable when you do have the darkness in mind, you know, where even, I mean, you know, you have kids, so let's, I don't know, your daughter spills some milk and laughs about it, right?

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  If you know what the rest of the world is like, that's gonna seem almost enjoyable, almost like that's funny, that's cute, you can recognize all the great things about that little moment. It's a lot easier to recognize the great things about that little moment.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:00Speaker 00

  If you understand, if you think that, yeah, the world's all hunky dory and milk's never supposed to be spilt and, you know, all this stuff and everything's perfect and sweet and that's kind of your mindset and all they spill the milk, that's a disruption. And you're like, yeah, that's your daughter, but yeah, that's my daughter, sure, you know, I see my daughter every single day. You spill the milk, that's a disrupt, you know, so it's kind of that, that, you know, without

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  hardship, there can be no pleasure kind of contrast that kind of, it brought out more, huh?

• 1:05:30Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about it. No doubt about it.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  I, so every once in a while, uh, you'll hear people going, man, like this country's going like violence or whatever, you know, like it's going down the jitter or all this stuff. And you kind, if you think about it and let's say your normal day, maybe not you, but probably you too, your normal day, you, if you, let's say you got up, you worked out, you went to the store, like, let's say, oh, I want to get a pomegranate white tea at seven eleven. And you go and you're standing in line and the guy in front of you gets into a heated argument with a cash guy, the cashier, and it starts swearing, swearing at him and saying, oh, you, I don't like these prices, yelling, just yelling at him.

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  And he's like, get out of here, and you know, and he's like, screw this place, using profanity, gets in the car and speeds away. Right. Didn't break any laws, just that happened right in front of you. You, I would, we would probably remember that for a while. All it was, was a yelling match, that's all it was, no violence, no laws being broken, no, no, no physical anything, just the argument between two people.

• 1:06:43Jocko Willink?

  And some disrespect.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Some disrespect.

• 1:06:46Speaker 00

  Exactly. You'd remember that. That would, that would, that would be a significant incident in your day. That's how good the world is, or your environment. That's how good this country is, you know? Of course, you know, that we're talking about a spectrum here. You go in certain areas, it's gonna be a little worse. But keep in mind, like, in our environment, I know here in San Diego, that's essentially how it is most of the time. If you see two people almost get in a fight, that's a significant event right there.

• 1:07:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  So, overall, I would say, there's a lot of light around here.

• 1:07:21Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of light.

• 1:07:21Speaker 00

  You know, so I think that if you think about, and you've been exposed to it, so dang, you can really have a, have an accurate perspective.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  The light is very noticeable, you know, if you can, if you can constantly have that contrast and know it, you know?

• 1:07:40Jocko Willink?

  There's no doubt about that.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  When is, when do you see ego get in the way? Like, when is it most prevalent, do you think?

• 1:07:52Jocko Willink?

  It's so prevalent.

• 1:07:53Speaker 00

  Everywhere.

• 1:07:55Jocko Willink?

  And this is, uh, when, when I saw this question, I immediately thought of, um, this guy whose ego just completely got in the way, and he was able to fix it on this particular situation. And it was me.

• 1:08:12Jocko Willink?

  So, so this is actually a funny story. This guy, so we, uh, we started working with a company, and the company, um, had a pretty young CEO, and he was a super smart guy, and he had played football in college, a D1 football player, just a, a, a pretty badass guy. Super smart, super articulate, and when I met him...

• 1:08:40Jocko Willink?

  I like, there was a little tension between him and me. There was a little something. There was a little tension. And I'm looking at this guy and I'm like, this guy really thinks he's a badass.

• 1:08:54Jocko Willink?

  And, and so we go through a meeting and we go through another meeting and there's just this tension. I'm going, yeah, this guy is definitely, he's got issues. He's got problems. I'm looking at this guy and I can feel it come from him that he's thinking the same thing.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  Are you sure you're thinking the same thing?

• 1:09:12Jocko Willink?

  I'm positive.

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  Does he look in the mirror again?

• 1:09:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm positive he's thinking the same thing and I'll tell you how. How I know that? So as I'm sitting there, so we actually did, did, did like a whole like two days with this company and then we were coming back. And the next time we came back, I go, you know what's gonna be like this? I'm gonna have this again with this guy, this asshole. I come back and sure enough, there it is. I see him and he's like looking at, I'm looking at him and he's looking at me and there's tension. And all of a sudden I, so I, I detached from the situation and I looked at myself and I said, Jocko, you're an idiot. Cause here I was and what was I thinking? I was jealous of the guy.

• 1:09:56Jocko Willink?

  Or, or yeah, intimidated or jealous, whatever the words, threatened. I, I was jealous. I think it was jealous because he was, he was a young guy that had been very successful, made a ton of money. Went to a big school and played ball and all that stuff. And he had done all this stuff.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  And what was he thinking looking at me? He was looking at me thinking, oh, this guy, he was a seal and he was, you know, a jujitsu guy and he's a badass. And, and both of us were basically envious of the other one in some way. And really what it was, I guess envious is the wrong, wrong word. Our egos, both of our egos had, had impacted. And so as soon as I realized that, I was like bam, I immediately changed my attitude. And I was like, and the next opportunity I had, you know, during a break or something, I was like, you know what? After working with you a couple of days, you're awesome. I said, what you've done is badass to be your age and be dominating a company like this. And have raised it together and built it.

• 1:10:59Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome and made a ton of money. I love that. And that's just badass, man. I have nothing but respect for you and what you've done. And I actually want to learn from you while I'm here.

• 1:11:12Jocko Willink?

  And immediately it was like a force field came down. And he said to me, you know what? No matter what I've done in my life, it's never going to be what you've done. And after that, we were bros, but I had to recognize the ego in the situation, mine and his. And I just had to disarm it and then it was all gone. So it's a story about ego, my big ugly ego. And again, ego, you know, ego drives people to what makes people want to be successful. And it has a lot of positives to it, but it can definitely get in the way.

• 1:11:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  You recognize that story, right? I mean, like you, you realize like how that happens.

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, fully, especially when you can see there. Man, I can't remember the exact words, how they, I forget even where I saw it, but it was, you're threatened typically by something along the lines of if someone is like capable or there's these things that people have to be in your eyes that makes them threatening to you. So what it kind of put real loosely, when you see someone who is essentially you,

• 1:12:31Speaker 00

  you're gonna feel threatened and it doesn't have to be you, like they're the same height as you or the same race as you. Isn't that that?

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  There's some kind of equivalency that intimidates you or that intimidates your ego.

• 1:12:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. So if you get someone who's, let's say you're kind of built, like you, for example, if someone's kind of built, boom, that's one thing. If he's around your same age, it kind of depends because it can be, if they're a functioning, able adult, put it that way. And it's a guy. Kind of you're built, boom, boom, boom. Those are all these other things that it's like dogs. And it's so funny to see like it happen, like especially at the gym, when someone, a new guy walks in and he's kind of built. Watch everyone's eyes, you know, ears pop up. Yeah, it's funny. And yeah, that goes everywhere, business world. You know, girls have it bad, man. My experience when they see. I don't know. When they see other girls, you know. Yeah. With that, that. Yeah.

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  It's funny. Um, do you, do you want to go, uh, do you want to go over these as well? You know what? I have two questions. I. From my, coming from myself. Okay. But anyway, what were you gonna say? Proceed with your questions. Okay, so, um.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  Conspiracy theories, right? You, you know how, um, you know, people, uh, they'll, they'll.

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  Go into certain conspiracy trials or nine eleven, the inside job or, um, recently the, um. The San Bernardino shootings, like that was, uh, you know, what they're saying, like the government staged it or whatever. Um.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  Do you ever engage with people about conspiracy theories? I haven't engaged with anyone about conspiracy theories. So do you, when you hear like a new, for example, okay, if you're, you're not really on Facebook, but, um. We'll just say online, you can see people expressing their opinions. About the conspiracy theories that they believe in. Mm hmm. Um. And they're really overt. Us. Let's say, for example, someone expresses their feelings about a certain conspiracy theory to you.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  Do you, on what level do you entertain that?

• 1:14:55Jocko Willink?

  Not very much.

• 1:14:56Speaker 00

  Just kinda across the board?

• 1:14:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not very much across the board.

• 1:15:01Jocko Willink?

  I'm not trying to convert people and make people think things and

• 1:15:11Jocko Willink?

  and I'm definitely not going to expend a bunch of energy diving into things that are

• 1:15:23Jocko Willink?

  not worth diving into.

• 1:15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, with conspiracy theories, you can tie anything to anything if you want to. I mean, any major global occurrence that's happening will be tied into the rest into some way to Kraft macaroni and cheese. I mean, there will be a connection to Kraft macaroni and cheese if you dig deep enough. There'll be an employee, there'll be a purchase, there'll be a plant, there'll be a farm, there'll be a there'll be a sales, there'll be a stock, there'll be some connection between that and whatever incident that happened on the globe. And if you want to formulate those and tie those pieces together, you can do it because the world is connected.

• 1:16:13Jocko Willink?

  And when people say, oh, this corporation

• 1:16:18Jocko Willink?

  was involved in some way with this incident in this war taking place, you say, well, yes, you know, there are big giant corporations that have huge interests around the world and they're gonna protect those interests. And that's what the world is made of. So I don't do a lot of debating about conspiracy theories, no.

• 1:16:46Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:16:48Jocko Willink?

  Somebody sent me a link to like a a video about nine 11 and I clicked on it and it was something like eight hours long.

• 1:17:02Jocko Willink?

  The video? The video was eight hours long about, you know, and, and I just thought, well, okay. You know, again, if you want to, you can connect anything to anything, um, if you want to. That's the way, that's the way the global world is, the global economies. It's the way things are. Did you watch the whole video?

• 1:17:24Jocko Willink?

  I, I watched until I saw it said eight hours.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Good. I know, I know we got some questions, um.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Questions about Blood Meridian. I think that those, that book, uh, which is obviously a very powerful book. It's, uh, I think we got to save that for the next podcast. I know we got, um, quite a few questions about Chris Kyle and,

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  you know, people want to know if I knew Chris, if I worked with Chris, um, and the answer is yes. Chris Kyle was the lead sniper and point man in Charlie Platoon, which was Leif Babbins. He was the, the officer in charge of that platoon and that was in Task Unit Bruiser, which I was the commander of. So we absolutely, you know, knew Chris and, um, worked alongside Chris.

• 1:18:31Jocko Willink?

  Leif was on every mission for all practical purposes that, that Chris was on. And, um, you know, I, Leif and I spoke at Chris's memorial service in, uh, Cowboy Stadium. I mean, it's, so yes, we, we know Chris very well. And at some point we'll, uh, we'll, I'll, I'll get Leif on here and we'll, we'll, we'll talk about Chris some and tell some, some stories about Chris that would, uh, you know, provide a, a perspective that may not have been seen in the, uh, the portrayals that have been given so far. So I think we, we need to hold off on that one and maybe just do one more question here.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  Do you have any friends that aren't

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  need well that aren't military and that are not jujitsu or MMA guys?

• 1:19:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I do. I do. Mostly musicians. I shouldn't say mostly musicians. Surfers, I got some, I got quite a few friends that surf. I surf in, out here in California and, and I got some friends that play music and, you know, we, we rock and roll.

• 1:19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's something that I actually forgot. I knew, I was saying, knew that you surf, but that you play guitar.

• 1:19:55Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  Would you like part of a band or some, some crazy?

• 1:19:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was, I was in bands my whole life when I was growing up and I was a kid.

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it's funny, like a lot of successful people or people who are, you know, they always have all these skills and, and what's interesting is that like surfing and playing guitar, like that's not easy, you know, it's not, I mean, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna talk bad about golf, but golf is, seems like, oh yeah, you just go out and you play golf. And sure, some people, they get good and great, you know, and it is, it's fun and stuff, but it's not like surfing, you know, and surfing is fun and man, really, there's

• 1:20:35Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's a little bit more of a physical challenge.

• 1:20:37Speaker 00

  Yes, more of a, and a challenge, and a challenge that it shows when you are good at surfing or not good at surfing, it shows, you know, seemingly, I don't know, I guess that's just my opinion, but it's always interesting that, like to play guitar, surf.

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  Black belt in jujitsu.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  What's interesting is too is, and these are some other, like I know some guys that are surfers and musicians and artists and I want to bring some of those guys and talk to them because they have different outlooks on things and how to get good and what kind of discipline it takes and what drives them. I mean, you know, like you said, surfing is challenging. Surfing is cold, it's wet, it's dark, it's, it's sketchy sometimes and guys that do that their whole life until they're 70 or 80 years old, it's pretty awesome.

• 1:21:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  We're at, we're at, um.

• 1:21:34Jocko Willink?

  So, so one more.

• 1:21:36Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, last question, we'll, um.

• 1:21:44Speaker 00

  The time you wake up in the morning and

• 1:21:49Speaker 00

  why do you wake up at that time and what do you think about?

• 1:21:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, we we talked about what time I wake up in the morning. But I think this last question is here, what do you think about before you go to bed at night?

• 1:22:06Jocko Willink?

  And and really, to me, I mean, to kind of close this out as a last question of what do you tell people or what do I think?

• 1:22:18Jocko Willink?

  Is most is a helpful kind of lessons learned to close on?

• 1:22:24Jocko Willink?

  And I think one conversation I had with with one of my one of my guys, who was just a complete awesome warrior named JP and JP, how you doing, brother out there?

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  When we were going through training to get ready for Iraq and when you're when you're going through SEAL training, you get you learn, you learn all this information and they teach you all these things. And you layer them on top of your brain and there's layers and layers and layers of these tactics and techniques and procedures.

• 1:23:05Jocko Willink?

  And the layers can get so thick that you lose contact with the ground.

• 1:23:14Jocko Willink?

  And so we were out in training and I was looking at JP, who is a stud. And it was one of those situations where we're out in the desert, but there's rocks and there's little shrubs and all that.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  And he was standing up in the wide open. Because he was staying in the formation of the patrol, the way that he was taught and the way that he had been indoctrinated. Is one of those layers is you're here and you stand here and this is your field of fire and you watch this area. But what he had forgotten was that you're standing in the middle of an open area. Don't stand there, move to this little rock and then move to this little shrub and then move this little so that way if a bad guy looks, he's not going to see you. And if he does see you, he starts shooting, you have a place to hide. And I said to him, I said, JP, my brother. And he's like, what's up, sir? I said, hey, man. If you were 10 years old right now and we were out playing army out here,

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  would you stand in the middle of this open trench right here? Would you stand here? And he's like, no. And I said, well, where would you stand? He said, I'd go over there to that rock right there and I'd get behind that. And I said, so your 10 year old brain

• 1:24:30Jocko Willink?

  is doing better job moving from cover to cover than your 23 year old brain? And I said, listen, your instincts, you know what the right thing to do is. You know what it is. Do it.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  And he did.

• 1:24:47Jocko Willink?

  And it was amazing. And, and I think that people, you, me, everyone, people listening, people that communicate with us,

• 1:24:58Jocko Willink?

  you know what the right thing to do is. You know what it is.

• 1:25:03Jocko Willink?

  You know it's be disciplined. You know it's work hard. You know it's put your ego in check. You know these things.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  You just gotta do them.

• 1:25:14Jocko Willink?

  You just got to do them.

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  And I think we close it out with that.

• 1:25:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Jocko Willink?

  So, um, thanks to everybody for joining. I know we had a bunch of people on, uh, on Periscope. That was pretty cool to watch. And we'll see how this one goes and we'll do some more in the near future.

• 1:25:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I like the idea that people are really engaged with you online and, and they'll ask you questions.

• 1:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:25:47Speaker 00

  And you'll essentially confirm like, check, I see that that's a good question kind of thing. You're, you're engaging. I think that's a good thing because these are real questions. It's not like questions that we just thought up.

• 1:25:59Jocko Willink?

  No, we got some great questions.

• 1:26:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I would say to, yeah, encourage that to, you know, for people if they're wondering about stuff. Cause this is. In my experience, everything that you've even said before this and even just stuff you've said to me personally, it's all like really useful stuff. And not just in business. It applied the concepts, applied it. Pretty much everything in life. Functioning in life, if you can function with these concepts, you're gonna, you're gonna do good. It'll be kinda on you if you don't. Not gonna take that extreme ownership.

• 1:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you next time. Out here.