40: Avoid Conflict Without Being a Weakling, Dealing w/ Random Threatening People, Was Jocko Disciplined as a Kid?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaZ-RrNeRYg 0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:14 - Tips for Complimentary exercises for BJJ & Frustrating Moments in BJJ 0:39:19 - What to do if Others get into adversarial relationships with you without being a weakling. 0:52:58 - Tips for making the change to Wake up earlier wile keeping the peace at home. 1:14:02 - How to deal with Random Threatening People in Public. 1:34:23 - Was Jocko disciplined as a kid? 1:53:22 - Can you train instinct? And can you trust it wholly in fighting and leadership? 2:02:10 - Cool Internet/Onnit Stuff, Jocko Store Stuff, etc. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast, number 40, with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  In the last podcast that we did, I went a little long with the book. The book was Brave Men.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  By a guy named Ernie Pyle, and there was just some incredible writing in there that I just went deep with. I read it all.

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  And so we had to postpone the Q and A. So, that's okay. Gave us some time here to, gives us some time here to go a little deep on some Q and A. This is podcast number 40, by the way. Forty weeks straight. Who wants some? Forty weeks straight is where we're at. And that's apparently, that's the battle rhythm here. We put out podcasts and we do it weekly. And we've been doing it for forty straight weeks. And I dig that.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's not always easy.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, because if you think about the times, think about the times when you're not doing anything.

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, when you're not doing anything, or when I would normally not be doing anything, for forty weeks, I've been doing something. I've been reading, I've been prepping, I've been researching. So forty weeks is legit. And I'm, I'm stoked that we're at number forty.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  And now we get to talk about some questions from the interwebs. So thanks to everybody for giving us the awesome questions through Twitter, through Facebook. It's pretty much where they come from, Twitter and Facebook. I guess I get a couple of emails. I get texts too, from like some of my, some of my buddies in the SEAL teams. They'll hit me up with a question here and there. A lot of times I just respond to them. Keep it real.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes I use them.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  But anyways, yeah, let's get to it.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Let's do it. Okay, Jocko. First question from the vault.

• 2:20Jocko Willink?

  And from the vault. I've got a lot of questions.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Got a big vault.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  Got a big vault. And so I was just trying to go through and make sure there wasn't any questions, or just reviewing questions that might be good that I missed the first time around. So this one right here is from the vault. It's from an old school, old question.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, one that you always intended to maybe revisit.

• 2:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  And here we go revisiting it.

• 2:41Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42Jocko Willink?

  Let the revisit begin.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Started jujitsu, thanks to you. Any tips for complimentary exercises, especially for non-athletic civilian? What's the hardest stage of your, and what's the hardest stage of your jujitsu journey?

• 2:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's actually for, for, that's actually was two questions. I combined them into one because they're, they're kind of similar. And, okay, so jujitsu, one thing that's cool about jujitsu is it's a, it, it, it's a very well-rounded physical activity, right? You gotta have flexibility, you gotta have strength, you gotta have endurance, you gotta be able to recover quickly when, from fatigue.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  You gotta have some agility, speed, balance, coordination, proprioception. Do you know what proprioception is?

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's knowing where your body is in space.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 3:41Jocko Willink?

  It's, and it's a talent that gymnasts have very well.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  Um, maybe a dancer has very well. They know where their body is in space.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:53Jocko Willink?

  And jujitsu demands that you know where your body is at all times. So that's the stuff that you need to work on, all this, all those things. Because jujitsu is a unique test of all those things. It's a test of your strength, it's a test of your flexibility, it's a test of your endurance, it's a test of your ability to recover, it's a test of your agility, it's a test of your speed, of your coordination, it's a test of all those things. And so that makes it, that makes it, um...

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  A really good sport to practice, in my opinion. So, uh, what do you need to do? Well, what you need to do, um, to, to train them is you need to train all those things. You know, so for flexibility, I like, I personally like the mobility wad. I think that's excellent, you know, but you know, get some kind of stretching protocol.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  Uh, gymnastics types move movements. There's gymnastic bodies, which is a ridiculously good

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  pro- protocol you can go on. It's an internet thing. Gymnasticsbodies.com.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  And what is that, like a workout?

• 5:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a workout. It's flexibility. It's, it's, it's hardcore. It's hardcore. Um, but that's really good. You know, you'll get your flexibility. You get all kinds of stuff from that. But, so you gotta be flexible. You gotta work on your flexibility. So what are you gonna do? Like I said, you're gonna do mobility water, some kind of stretching protocol. So you get limber. You gotta work on your strength. So what do you do? Work on strength? Olympic lifting. What is that? Clean and jerk, snatches. Uh, that brings in things like cleans by themselves, you know, uh, presses and hang cleans and all that. And then on top of that for strength, you also have the simple movements, the deadlift, the squat, the front squat, the overhead squat.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  And also for strength, you can go back to gymnastics again. Go back to those gymnastics movements and basic calisthenics. Pull ups, push ups, dips, squats, flutter kicks, that whole nine yards. Now you gotta have endurance, right? So what do you do for endurance? You can see where this is heading. For endurance, what do you gotta do? Run, swim, bike, some kind of metcon. I like the metcon personally for my, for my cardiovascular endurance and recovery and whatnot. You know, so yes, you can, you can add running and sprinting into those. You can sprint swimming. You can sprint on a bike.

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  You can use kettlebells to work your metcon scenario. You can actually use barbells to do metcons, you know, do a bunch of cleans and you will get tired. And, uh, and then with that, when you work on your endurance, that thereby improves your recovery. And so that's, that's going to help you there. Then you have agility and for agility, what do you do? Do some sports, some, some cross training of sports.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  I personally like to surf, um, but you know, it's not just that. It's basketball, it's go play soccer, go huck a baseball, whatever. So that you work on your agility and you get your speed. And I already talked about this, you got your running, your sprinting, the air bike or whatever.

• 7:20Jocko Willink?

  The proprioception, the, the gymnastics, the movement type things where you're holding your body in space.

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  So that's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of stuff. And you pile all that together and you got a lot of varied, varied activity. And what's nice about that is when people talk about getting burnt out, I'm like, I never get burnt out on working out. I got 97 different base exercises that I can use. I'm not going to get burned out. So, and, and what's fun is you jump into these challenges. Like, or, or you find something that's challenging that you can't do and you go, okay, well, I'm going to try and do that. I'm going to see what I can get my weight up to on this. I'm going to see if I can do this movement in gymnastics. I'm going to see if I can do this many pull ups or whatever. You keep continually varying and, and heading in a different direction.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  And I think, I think when you combine all those things together and you become a well-rounded athlete, that is what will help you the most with the jujitsu. But I don't think there's one exercise like, hey, this will help you in jujitsu. Although the clean and jerk is pretty good.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And anything with, um, like your body weight. So, cause like in jujitsu, when you're doing jujitsu, that's mainly what it is. Sure, there are elements where you're, you're trying to control someone else's body weight, but it's mainly what you're doing with your body. So like when you do, you know, you know, like those, when you climb up.

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the pegboard.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff, um, bars, all the gymnastic stuff. And then as far as like being strong in these weird ways, because that's essentially what you're going to be doing in jujitsu, you know?

• 9:00Jocko Willink?

  There is, there is though, there is in jujitsu, you're oftentimes you're moving someone else's weight too.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Jocko Willink?

  And, and guys that are super explosive.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  That's a different thing to deal with and it's it's a good trait to have to be super explosive.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yes, for sure. So that so you combine that with what like when you shrimp out someone, right? Sure, someone's gonna be trying to holding you, but when you shrimp, you're pushing your own body weight. That's your own body weight. Sure, you add his own. That's you're with the guy. That's just kind of part of the game. But if you can control your own body in these stronger ways, that's gonna give like such a big benefit. So and then to your Olympic lifting, to me, that's in my opinion, that's a probably one of the best ones. Olympic. And this is why not only do you get that little little explosion explosive movements in there. But when you when you put Olympic lifting to make up your Metcon.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  When you do like a clean, like a clean press, right? You your muscle work is just for a second and then for a second, it's almost kind of relaxed. And then boom again, and then it's kind of relaxed and then you hold and boom and it's just repetitive.

• 10:13Jocko Willink?

  That feels like jujitsu to you.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  That's kind of what jujitsu can be depending on your game. Yeah, yeah. So and if you're in shape in that way where you can go hard, rest for just a, you know, a little bit and then go hard again. If that's kind of if you can do that, if you're in that kind of shape, that's gonna help. So when you do, when you do a Metcon or circuit training, something like that, where if you can do the exercise, dynamic rest, like active rest, you know, where you where you're walking or even jogging kind of that's what jujitsu is. It's like work and you because you're never really just laying there, you know? Do that kind of thing and do it in like rounds. If if you're into like a 10 minute round in jujitsu and that's really your thing, then do your circuit training 10 minute rounds.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  You know, it'll like it'll help. It'll get you kind of aware of like, okay, I'm this tired. I gotta manage, you know, all this stuff. Um, but yeah, I agree. I think Metcon, swimming, oh, swimming. But if you do swimming sprints, because it's like your whole body, you know?

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  Especially the less the least, the less comfortable you are in the water, the more of those swimming things are gonna are gonna be challenging for you.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:17Jocko Willink?

  But hey, speaking of Olympic lift, you know, do you know Mo, Mo Law?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:22Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever trained with him?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  So Mo Law, if you if for those of you listening that don't know who Mo is, he's a really incredibly good wrestler. He wrestled in college and and he is a.

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  He didn't, he didn't make the Olympic teams, but he was like in second. He almost made the Olympic team, but he's a big guy, so he's, you know, like 205 pounds. And uh, he is, I think he is the most explosive person I've ever trained with. And I've trained with some unbelievably incredibly explosive people. And you'll find that if anybody wrestled on a high, high level, like if they were, if they were a high level college wrestler, there's a likely chance that they're very explosive.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 12:13Jocko Willink?

  They're very explosive. And Mo is explosive to a crazy level. But the reason that I thought of it when you said Olympic lifts is one time he was just trying to help me with some takedowns and he was, the way he was exploding into him. And he, he was all fired up. He's like, you know, it's like when you do a clean and jerk. He goes, this right here is, is the beginning of it. And he's, you could see that he's developing so much explosiveness. The first time I ever trained with him, uh, Dean. Dean, I can never read Dean with, with, when he sets me to train with somebody. He doesn't give me a heads up. Like if I were going to tell you, if there was like, let's say there was a guy that was a really good wrestler. And I'd go, I'd go, hey, Echo, train with this guy over here. Hey, he's a really good wrestler.

• 12:58Jocko Willink?

  And if he's, I might even say, I mean, say, hey, man, he's a really good wrestler and he's got a sick guillotine. So you're like thinking about it, right? I'll give you a little heads up. Dean just, just goes, hey, you should train with him, right? That's what Dean does. And so anyways, he did tell me on this occasion, he goes, hey, Mo's coming down. You gotta train with him. He's a really sick wrestler. And I go, awesome. I'm thinking to myself, oh, cool. You know, I, I actually, for a guy that didn't wrestle in, in high school. I have decent takedown defense because I've been defending takedowns for a long time. And I utilize jujitsu to defend my takedowns. So I'm sprawling and guillotining and going for commuters. I'm doing active aggressive jujitsu moves to people when they're trying to take me down.

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  So I'm no, I'm, I'm not trying to say I have any major skills there, but I'm not a slouch to take down. So I figured, hey, I got a good wrestler. Cool. And he, and he wasn't that experienced in Jiu Jitsu, which tells you, okay, cool. You know, you're gonna guillotine this guy. This isn't, you know, or you at least have a good chance, whatever.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  What you're thinking, sure.

• 14:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm thinking that. So I meet Mo and good dude, you know, we're going over some moves and then it's like time to train. And Dean's like, okay, yeah, you, you trained with him, Jocko. And I go, okay, cool. So, you know, we slap hands and we're doing the, and Mo was getting ready for a fight, but we weren't fighting at all. We were just.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  And just to kind of put in context, I mean, you say Mo's a good wrestler. Mo also happens to be the Bellator 205 champ, or was he the champ?

• 14:28Jocko Willink?

  He wasn't at this time. This was, this was like as he was getting into MMA.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he was really actually probably sharper at wrestling at this time because he was coming out of, you know, trying to be on the Olympics.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:40Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, he wrestled, I want to say he wrestled at Oklahoma. But anyways, King Mo is, is what he's known as. King Mo. And so, anyway, so we slap hands, we're getting ready, you know, we kind of square off and I'm, I'm, you know, okay, doing my thing. Boom. He, he does this takedown to me. His, his face, his face hits me in the chest. And this is in the less than the blink of an eye. His face hits me in the chest and his hands, they didn't even grab my legs. They just tap my legs like a double leg.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Blast double.

• 15:17Jocko Willink?

  And it's a blast double and I'm in the air. I mean, I mean, he knocked me into the air with his face.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Bruh, that's saying a lot because you're huge.

• 15:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he knocked me into the air with, with his face. I, I, I fall down to the ground. And the funny thing was, it was, I, I got back up immediately. Like, he didn't even, he took me down so fast, he couldn't even chase me to the ground because I was already, I was back up really quickly. But that was the fastest takedown that, you know, that I'd felt. That is probably the fastest takedown. Now, we have one more guy. There's a guy coming up right now at the gym. Uh, another sick wrestler.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  But you know, he wrestled, he's a really good wrestler, a sick wrestler collegiate wrestler and all that. Taylor, Taylor Johnson. So Taylor is another guy who has mutant strength. He's, he has mutant strength. Un, norm, it's not normal.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Jocko Willink?

  I was on Taylor. And I was going for like a guillotine or I think I was actually going for a crucifix. So I was, but so for those of you that don't know what this is. Taylor, picture, take, picture a guy on all fours on the ground. And someone else is trying to rip their head off. Okay. So that's Taylor. He's on all fours on the ground. And I'm trying to guillotine him rip his head off. With one hand. He, he, he goes up to his knees and lifts me into the air and shot puts me through the air. Onto the ground. And is, and then gets a cross side.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  And I started laughing. I'm like, bro, you just shot put me and he didn't even do it from his, from his hips. Like he didn't get the, the strength from his hips. He got it from his upper torso. He didn't use his legs at all. There's no legs because he was on his knees. And so he just has this massive explosiveness. But then the thing that's really scary about Taylor. I- is that he's adapting. He, because, because just because you're a good wrestler. Doesn't mean you automatically adapt well to jujitsu. Some people never. Adapt really well to jujitsu and you can see, I mean, in MMA, in the UFC, there's plenty of wrestlers that you look at and you go. Yeah, that guy never really transitioned into become a comprehensive ground fighter.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  That was as comfortable on his back as he is on cross side, as he is going for submissions. There's some guys that would have been extremely successful, but never made that transition, but they stay on top, ground and pound. Taylor, if you watch him roll, you you might not even know he was a wrestler until you roll with him and then you're gonna feel that you can't move him. But if you just watch him roll, you're like, oh, wow, he's going for, you know, advanced jujitsu moves. By the way, been training for less than a year.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, very surprising with um him in regards to that. Like, you look at him. If you look at him, you're like, okay, I'm about to roll with this guy. And then you roll with him, you're gonna be like, okay, I'm not surprised at this guy's like, this guy's strong, his balance is just like, like magical balance kind of thing. Um, so when you look at him, you know, on on the on the surface, but if you know that he's such an accomplished wrestler, you would think, given his experience, you'd think, okay, his his jujitsu or even his like, when he's training his jujitsu, you know, you wouldn't expect it to be that fluid. Like, when I rolled with him, I was like, I thought, when you were like, yeah, Taylor's, he's got this new guy, you know, you you you haven't rolled with him, or he should roll with him,

• 18:49Speaker 01

  because, you know, he he gives good training. He's really good. So what I'm thinking is good, but I'm thinking this is gonna be real wrestling intensive.

• 18:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Training scenario.

• 18:59Jocko Willink?

  Then he pulled guard on you.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  No, he didn't pull guard, but his whole thing, yeah, he was in the guard, you know, he, yeah, he was like, I'm here to train. I'm here to, you know, get good or whatever, man. And he's and that kind of attitude gets you so good. And he's, yeah, man, it wasn't, he wasn't trying to like, okay, another big guy, let me like wrestle this guy. He was, we were doing straight up jujitsu and and he was, he was, it was clean, it was good.

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but anyways, he's got that super explosiveness too. That's that's mutant level and also his striking.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  Is ridiculous. And he hasn't been, he's just a natural athlete because he's been just, anyways, so that's him. And we got a bunch of other pipe hitters too. I mean, you got, Big Andy, who's awesome, uh, Justin, don't forget about Justin, Jordan just showed up. So we got some, got some good training in it.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:46Jocko Willink?

  But back to this deal. So I was talking to Taylor about, and I go, bro, did you ever, like, Olympic lift? And he goes, yeah, yeah, I got in a CrossFit for like a month. And uh, and that was right before I got into MMA and I was doing pretty good and I was like, oh, what does that mean? He's like, oh, I was, I could snatch, I was snatching like 300. He, I was like, what?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  And they invited me to the CrossFit games.

• 20:11Jocko Willink?

  He did CrossFit for a month and never snatched before and all of a sudden he's snatching almost 300 pounds? That's, that's insane.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  So, but that, and that's what it feels like when you roll with somebody that has that kind of explosive strength. It's a very, very, it's, it's a very good tool to have. Now there's other, we could go through the entire list of body types, strengths and weaknesses. Because you know, you get, you get the lanky people that are strong and wiry like Higgs. You rolled with Higgs before, right?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Higgs is lanky, wiry, skinny. When he puts a triangle on you, it starts to cut into your body. Cause he's all, you know, uh, Campridos like that, Campridos like, like you, how can you sweep him? When his arm is, is basing like four, like eight feet over there is where he's basing. So you get that kind of body, then you get the real, like the stocky, uh, people with no limbs sticking out.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:06Jocko Willink?

  You know? Yeah, you can't, it's hard to choke them. So anyways, we could go through every body style, but in each one of them has a, has an advantage. But the thing that's cool about explosiveness is something you can somewhat train, right? You can somewhat train. Now you can't, you're not going to be able to naturally get as explosive as Mo Lawal or as Taylor Johnson. But you can get stronger.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:30Jocko Willink?

  Right? You can get stronger. So, but, but the other thing is where can you defeat them? Where can you, where can you be better than them? Maybe you can be more flexible than them. Maybe you can be faster on a scramble. Maybe you can be heavier and tighter. So there's some athletic things that you could try and do, try and improve to overcome and negate some of their advantages. Hard to do. You get some people that are mutants.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  Dean's big and flexible, right? Dean is big and strong and so shockingly flexible. Glover is so flexible that, you know, you have to negate that. And Glover, you know, he loves training with big muscle bound guys. That's his, that's like an easy day for him. That's what he likes to, you know, that's what, that's he, that's the, that's the, the easiest matchup body style for him. It's someone that's just super, super strong and muscle bound.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the, you get mutants like, and I'd say that's kind, that's kind of a good way of putting it mutant like Taylor where. He has a wrestling background, so he's no stranger to like functioning while he's tired. You know, so I'd say if you're big, explosive, strong, or whatever, typically, your endurance is not that good, typically. So if you get all those factors and they're flexible and stuff, and they have endurance, there's your bad day right there, if this guy has that. Other than that, if you take one or two different attributes, you can always find, it's like rock, paper, scissors. You can always find one that can, if you just employ this strategy, it'll give you more of an advantage.

• 23:00Jocko Willink?

  And, and cuz I always like to tie this together to leadership. So it's the same thing with leadership and what, cuz people ask me all the time, are leaders born or made? You know, can you, can you develop a leader? Everybody is born with certain leadership characteristics. It's just like a video game where they rank your strength and your intelligence and your agility and all this stuff that we just talked about. People have that for their leadership capability as well, right? Are they articulate? You know, because that's, some people are articulate and that is a good advantage to have. Can you read people well? Well, that's another thing that some people are naturally good at. Can you simplify things? That's a talent that some people have. Now, you could go on this list.

• 23:43Jocko Willink?

  But what you find is that people, some people are, are gifted and they have really strong leadership, uh, characteristics, leadership traits. And that's great. And then you get some people that don't have those. And so what do you gotta do to the same thing that I have to do in my jujitsu game? How do you develop those things? How do you become more articulate? How do you simplify things? How do you recognize that you are a person that makes things more complex? And how do you focus on making things simplified? So you just go right down the list. So, yes, you can be born with some natural leadership characteristics, but if you're not born with them, how do you develop them? It's, it's, usually these things aren't that hard to develop either. You know?

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  So, when you have weaknesses, identify them. Be humble enough to identify them and then see how you can improve upon them. And although they may never become your staple of your game.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  Either as a leader or a jujitsu player or anything else, they can become, it's not something you have to protect. It's not something you have to worry about.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can kind of function in those little regards now.

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you can become functional.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  And for instance, if you're not the most articulate person, well, number one, you can, you can study, you can listen to people speak, you can record yourself speaking, you can video yourself, so you can be, practice and become more and more articulate and you can, that means, oh, guess what, I'm not very articulate, so guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna plan more before I go and brief people.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:20Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna go through exactly what I'm gonna say, I might even rehearse it two times. Then I'm gonna sound articulate, so you're gonna make up for those, those problems. And that's all you have to do is figure out how you can, how you can make up, or how you can get rid of, or how you can mitigate some of those weaknesses that you have. The other thing you could do is you surround yourself with somebody that's super articulate. Echo, you're more articulate than me? Cool, I want you to put out the word to the troops. Boom, done. Even though I might be in charge, I'll say, alright, hey, Echo's gonna brief this operation, or Echo's gonna brief this strategy, and then boom, Mr. Articulate Echo gets up there and does it.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:53Jocko Willink?

  Maybe not the best example, but, but that's what you do. That's how you want to, that's how you, you fill in the holes in your leadership game.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:02Jocko Willink?

  And the, by the way, you'll never have the ability to do that if you're not humble enough to admit where you have weaknesses and that they're there.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally true. And, and I know you, you, back to the jujitsu real quick, I know you were saying all these things, kind of with it, with the given, that really the main thing to train is how much you know jujitsu. That's really kind of the main thing.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  That is the main thing.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, the number one thing. So that's all, it's like I said, a given, because the question is supplemental stuff, for sure. So, yeah, so let's say, these, all these little comparisons, like, you know, the, to me, aside from knowing jujitsu, that's the, the main strength or whatever, if everyone's even, to me, the taller guy has the advantage. That, to me, that's the most effective advantage that I've seen and experienced.

• 26:49Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting that you think that. I, I don't think I necessarily agree with you. What a very tall... Very lanky guy will have is a body type that that you come across the least. So since you are coming across this body type, the least you have the least training against it. And since you have less training against it, you don't have to react to it. And by the way, they constantly work on their strange body style because you are correct in the fact that the lanky body style

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  is is gives you more moves, more unique moves than any other body style. So there's unique, there's more more unique moves that only are utilized or can be utilized by a tall, lanky person than there are than any other body style.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Right. And also you can pretty, I mean, I'm not saying he's seven feet tall. I'm saying like the whole six, one up to, yeah, like

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  Six, one doesn't do it to me. Well, six, one can do it if the person's like the beginning of it. But how tall, like we have stilts appropriately named at the gym. And he has, he's tall and I can't think he's six, five, but he has really developed the lanky guy style that people aren't used to. And it's a challenge for anybody.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So still it's a good example where, um, in this case where he's a little bit different because stilts has a lanky body style, but he, he went pretty, he's, he's going pretty hard in that direction. Where he's actually practicing moves that only he can do kind of thing. So

• 28:26Jocko Willink?

  That's what, that's exactly the point I'm making.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Right, right. So my

• 28:29Jocko Willink?

  Whereas most normal body styles, everybody that's, you know, five, three to, you know, six, oh, they all have pretty much the same moves, right? You know?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about them. I think, I think there's that, but those are the kind of outliers that I think overall. I mean, everyone plays their strengths in one way or another, but I'm saying just all things being equal. So like, let's say all three Gracie brothers, Hodger, Gracie, and these guys who are, who are tall, these are like six, three, six, four, six, you know, five type guys. We'll take Haja, for example. He doesn't really do any kind of crazy, I am tall, so I'm, I can only do this.

• 29:07Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  You know, he doesn't do that. He does like, you know, but his like, just mount, for example.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Or his arm bar setup from the bottom or try from the bottom stuff is just way harder to deal with because he developed such a good base on top of the fact that physically he's made for such a good base, you know?

• 29:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And he, and okay, and here's the thing about tall guys in general, they're not limited to the moves they can do. They can do more or less.

• 29:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  All the moves. So like a guy who's five, three, two fifty, or not five, we'll say five, three, two twenty.

• 29:37Jocko Willink?

  But even just say five, eight.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Sure. Two, two thirty, whatever. We'll just say that's a stocky buff guy. He's gonna have hard time doing triangle chokes on guys his own size in his weight division. He probably.

• 29:49Jocko Willink?

  Probably can't do it.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's a triangle, a.

• 29:52Jocko Willink?

  It's a major part of the game.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Move. Yes.

• 29:54Jocko Willink?

  You can't do it.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Tall guys don't have that problem. They can do all the moves. They can do chokes, arm bars, whatever, and they can do it pretty easy, you know? So like I said, that's why I think, and I, and of course, the, the flexible, tall, lanky guys, they do have that. But I think we all do. I think.

• 30:10Jocko Willink?

  All do what?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  I'm have like our body style.

• 30:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Give us special moves only we can do.

• 30:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Even if you're short and stock.

• 30:16Jocko Willink?

  The list of moves, the best list of special moves that I can do with my body style is like two.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  And the list that stilts can do with his body style is infinite.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Stilt says two things, though. He is tall and lanky and he has flexible.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  And flexible.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Okay. So yeah, so that's like, he has the double thing, but I think the tall has the most in their bucket, I think.

• 30:36Jocko Willink?

  They definitely have the most options of moves that other humans can't do.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  You know, but again, the, the main thing is to know.

• 30:44Jocko Willink?

  The main thing is to know jujitsu, for sure.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  For sure. That is the, that is the amazing thing.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  The number.

• 30:51Jocko Willink?

  And then the other part of this question is what was the hardest stage of your jujitsu journey?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Me, I would say the whole thing, just in completely different ways. Like the, the, the first part is like dang, you get tired way too quick. And guys who, you know, are way smaller than you, way, you know, whatever than you are, are, are beating you up. You know, and that kind of thing.

• 31:17Jocko Willink?

  Beating you up with no factor whatsoever.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're like teaching you, hey, this is what you did wrong. And you're sitting there all, but I mean, in my case, I was like two twenty-five when I started. And I'm like sitting there and this little guy, um, I don't know if you remember George, but he, um, he's a little purple belt that was, I was rolling with a lot. He taught me butterfly guard.

• 31:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Um, he's teaching me stuff. I'm sitting there with my big muscles and he's like teaching me stuff. So that can be hard, I guess, um, and getting tired, but I think, and then, yeah, you go up, blue belt. In my particular experience, blue belt was the easiest, I think, because nothing really was expected of me.

• 31:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Blue belt's a good place to hide.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  At the same time, in a way, some people, it's the most frustrating.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  But i- if you're like-

• 32:03Jocko Willink?

  Blue belt, you're good, you're, you're a blue belt. So people know that you know jujitsu a little bit.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:09Jocko Willink?

  But you're not expected to tap anybody.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  No, yeah.

• 32:11Jocko Willink?

  And if you get tapped out by another blue belt or a purple belt or a brown belt or a black belt, it's no big deal.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're a blue belt.

• 32:16Jocko Willink?

  And even a white belt taps you and you're like, yeah, you know, that shouldn't happen, but-

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have so much to learn.

• 32:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. And, and yeah, that, and you know how, you know, when you learn something from the point of not knowing anything and then you start to learn? You learn the most quantity wise at the bottom when you start.

• 32:32Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  You know, so, um, and that's a philosophical way of putting, it's a specific way of putting it philosophically.

• 32:38Jocko Willink?

  I think there's some stages in the mid levels where you, where your mind starts to fill up and you start to be able to really absorb-

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:47Jocko Willink?

  Stuff, to be a giant.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Right, but in as far as Jiu Jitsu, totally true. And that's what I mean by like, that's a, that's a way of putting it maybe philosophically, maybe. But i- it's because when you're, I mean, quantity wise, meaning learning the moves in Jiu Jitsu. You know, at, at like black belt, unless there's these weird special moves that are coming out or wherever, you know, all the moves, you know, all this stuff. It's now it's about other stuff. You gotta learn other stuff, timing, you know, approaches and all this more like interstitial stuff. But from a blue belt, you still like, there's moves you just don't know as a blue belt. So, so you learn away quicker if you're interested, you know? So you're like, oh, I have no answer to this guard pass. I have no answer. I'm a blue belt, literally no answer to this guard pass.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Someone can show you, oh, this is how you do it. You just, just block the wrist area and you're like, oh, I automatically know. So you just learn more. So in my experience, so I didn't think blue belt was very frustrating at all. And I, I didn't spend much time in blue belt. And then when you hit purple belt, that's when the learning frustration hits. Because you're good enough and you kind of have this weird confidence that's developed. And then you, and you're, you're doing so well against all these guys and they just, you just hit that one level up where you can't do nothing against nobody. And you're just there for a long time. Cause it's almost like you gotta switch over to learning different types of things now.

• 34:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta open your brain up, open your mind up and open your game up and you gotta be vulnerable. You're not gonna learn without making yourself vulnerable from time to time.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:12Jocko Willink?

  And you know, and again, there's a good parallel here with learning about leadership. I think it's the same thing, you know, you come into a leadership position for the first time. And it doesn't take long before you're like, okay, I kind of got this. And that's like your blue belt phase where you, you start feeling like, and then the more people you get to command or the senior leadership positions you get put into, or the harder situations you get put into. You realize that all you gotta continue to exercise your mind, you gotta continue to grow, you gotta continue to try and absorb new information and try new strategies and tactics and still stick with the fundamentals. Cause that's, that's one thing that, you know, the, the fundamentals of Jiu Jitsu, they're fundamentally the same from white belt to black belt.

• 34:55Jocko Willink?

  And yet there's they change and there's times you break those rules and they're nuanced and it's the same thing with being in a leadership position. The fundamentals don't change, but then how are those, how are those fundamental principles nuanced to handle these different situations?

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  Very challenging.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, it's true. And, and brown belt to me is more the same as purple belt, but just more like refined, you know? So it's, it's like less of the frustration, but the frustration becomes like more concentrated.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  You know what's crazy for me? And I don't know if this is just, you know, when you remember back in the past, like you forget the bad stuff of the past.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 35:39Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? Does, doesn't everyone do that?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Depends how bad, but yeah, yeah. I mean, I know that.

• 35:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. When we were in high school, everything was great, right? Or hey, when we went to college, everything was great. Or, you know, in the SEAL teams, you go, oh yeah, that deployment was great. We forget about all the hard stuff on a deployment or anyone that was bad or whatever, didn't work out the way we wanted to. I don't know if it's that, but when I talk about the hardest stage of my jujitsu jury journey, it's one big blur of fun. There's nothing where I think back, wow, I was frustrated this time. No, man, I never had that feeling. I, I go home from the gym every time, kind of like, good, good day of training, but that was fun. That was cool that I learned this or man, I can't believe I got caught by that guy. He's getting good or whatever, you know? You just kind of, I don't have like these, these hard stages to me.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I'm just a person that really enjoys it a lot, I guess.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, and I, I would say that that's most people. I'd, I'd say.

• 36:32Jocko Willink?

  I think so too.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  I think, I'm the same boat and you know.

• 36:35Jocko Willink?

  You use the term frustration a lot. And I've actually, you know, I don't, I don't want to bring this out in the public audience, but I factually have seen you get frustrated from time to time.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Well, those are like.

• 36:45Jocko Willink?

  You have a funny way of getting frustrated.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Whatever. I then I seen the same thing with you.

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  When?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Oh, you're missing. Okay. One time you were rolling with Dean and. Dean had you, you know how like Dean will get ahead of you psychologically? And he'll be like, oh yeah, and he'll like be baiting you and laughing and stuff. And then the more he laughs, the less you laugh. So you're getting really mad. And I remember he was doing this thing where you guys stood up and you were like, you like, like you were just tired of what's going on. You're tired of it and you're turning up the heat and Dean was just like, okay. And then he like, okay, this is what he did. He leaned against the wall, kind of like, oh, you can't take me out of against the wall. And you engaged or whatever, you guys went down and he got you. I think he got you with arm bar. And I remember it was arm bar because I remember thinking, I don't think I've ever seen Jocko A get tapped out. B with an arm bar. I can see like a foot lock, someone like jumped in. But he got you with armor and you were like, ah, you were frustrated.

• 37:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, that was like a, what we could call a micro frustration. Overall, they're, these are more like little challenges.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  So, so that frustration though, is it possible for it to be called frustration? If it brings me joy? Is it possible? Because I, even in the depths of like frustration, man, I feel good even getting tapped out.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially when you can reflect on it. And that's why I think you said, or when you said, um, uh, you forget about the bad things. You forget about the bad things in a certain kind of discourse. If you regard that overall discourse as being a good thing, then you'll start to forget the bad thing.

• 38:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  And vice versa.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  But I never go home and say, like, oh, man, I can't believe that I couldn't get out of there. I just couldn't do anything. At least it's, I don't remember.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:29Jocko Willink?

  Man, I gotta, I gotta have that feeling in there somewhere.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it has to be. And really what they are, are just the, the challenges that are specific to certain stages. And these are just, these are real general things that probably apply to, you know, to everybody in one way or another on the, in the stages.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's the same thing with leadership. Like most of the time, even though I've been in some situations where I was like, man, I didn't do a good job there. I could have done better. Normally I'm not frustrated or I was working for somebody that wasn't letting me do what I wanted to do. And I had more maneuvering to do to get where I needed to be.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  Didn't get frustrated, enjoy that game. I enjoy that game.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Micro frustrations.

• 39:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  They're like micro tears in your muscle. You feel them, but they're all for like benefit for overall muscle growth. Yeah, they're not injuries. Exactly.

• 39:20Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  Next question.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Jocko, you've talked about how getting into adversarial relationships is pointless, but people always get into adversarial relationships with me. I've been told I'm scary before, but never understood why. My question is, how do I maneuver on this without acting like a little weakling? Bitch, for lack of a better term.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  To appear less threatening. Do I just accept that I rub people the wrong way?

• 39:55Jocko Willink?

  So, this is a question that I'll do my best to answer, because it's time for, definitely time for some self-awareness here, for the individual asking this question. It sounds like you are, you know, a big abrasive person that is aggressive and intimidates people. And I know what it's like to be that person. Because I could be, I could come across as intimidating, I know that. Um, I can definitely come across as aggressive. I can be aggressive. I am aggressive in many ways. Abrasive, I don't know that necessarily, um,

• 40:31Jocko Willink?

  categorizes me, because I'm very cautious about not being abrasive. Because if I'm being abrasive with people, am I building a relationship and are I making any progress? The answer is obviously no. So something, the thing is, when I hear this type of question,

• 40:48Jocko Willink?

  I, I think that there's some little bit of insecurity going on here. Right? Some little bit of, hey, that's not an insult. That's what I sense. Because everyone's got insecurities. I do. Everybody does. And, but, but the fact that you asked this question, I'm hoping that that means you want to make some kind of improvement. Right? You want to get better. And...

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm a little worried that you might just be looking for like reinforcement because people think Jocko's big and aggressive. So if I say I'm big and aggressive, you know, Jocko's just gonna say, hey, those people are just scared of you and they don't deserve your mercy. Or, you know what you do? You use your intimidation factor to overrun those people, right? That might be what you're looking for. But you're not gonna get that here. And the reason you're not gonna get that here is because that's not gonna help you. It's not gonna help you achieve your goals. And you talk about people being scared of you, but the fact likely is, is that you're the one that's scared. And you actually said

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  it yourself, that you don't want to appear to be weak. You don't want to appear to be a bitch, right? That is, that feeling, that's fear. That's fear. It's fear of looking weak. It's fear of looking wrong. It's fear of failure and it's fear of vulnerability. And those are, those are real. Those are real. And if you're, you know, everybody should be feeling those fears at some level, but you have to overcome those fears. If you don't, then how are you ever gonna step up? If you're, if you're too afraid to be wrong,

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  how are you ever gonna answer a question? If you're too afraid to

• 42:46Jocko Willink?

  look weak, how are you ever gonna expose your, any weaknesses? If you don't expose any weaknesses, well, just build a bunker around yourself and sit in there by yourself. So, as a leader, we know that up and down the chain of command, you need to develop relationships, right? That's what, that's what you're supposed to do. That means you need to communicate with people. That means you need to talk and you need to listen and you need to develop trust. And one of the best ways to develop trust with other people is by exposing some vulnerability.

• 43:21Jocko Willink?

  By saying, hey Echo, I'm not quite sure how to do this. Or, hey Echo, hey, can you, can you help me with this issue I have going on here? I don't know how to solve it.

• 43:31Jocko Willink?

  That's ways that you build trust and thereby build relationships. And it's hard to do that because you don't want to look stupid, you don't want to look weak, you don't want to admit you don't know something because you want to be Mr. Strong and know everything.

• 43:52Jocko Willink?

  And so you're probably putting up a front. An aggressive front, an abrasive front. It's a wall to keep people intimidated and then in your mind, you think it's not my fault, it's their fault. Cause they're scared of me, it's their fault because I'm so intimidating.

• 44:16Jocko Willink?

  So that is not good. And then you get the, your kind of closing statement, should you just accept that I rub people the wrong way? You can. You can accept that you rub people the wrong way, but then you might as well accept right then and there that you're never going to be a true leader. That you're never going to build any relationships, that you're never going to inspire anybody and you're never going to be the leader of a badass unified, high performing team.

• 44:44Jocko Willink?

  Probably not worth it.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  And

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  the, the better thing to do

• 44:54Jocko Willink?

  is to humble yourself. Is to open yourself up to the pain and the discomfort of displaying weakness and error and failure.

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  And open yourself up to try and be nice to other people.

• 45:20Jocko Willink?

  Instead of being scared of what's going to happen if you expose yourself, go ahead and throw it out there.

• 45:26Jocko Willink?

  Act pleasant to them so they talk to you without fear. And in doing those things, you can overcome whatever these insecurities are. And I don't know what insecurities you have, it could be any number of things. Maybe you don't think you're as smart as they are, maybe you don't think you're as well educated as they are, maybe you don't think that they have, you have the strategic vision that they have, whatever those insecurities are, it's all good. We all got them. No big deal. But if you stop hiding them and you own them.

• 45:56Jocko Willink?

  You will become not only a better leader.

• 46:04Jocko Willink?

  But you become a better man.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  So. Take a breath.

• 46:14Jocko Willink?

  And get humble.

• 46:17Jocko Willink?

  And take another crack at this gig.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  You know. I think losing your temper is a huge red flag, like I've always said and always will say. Huge red flag. If you ever lose your temper, and I'm not saying scream and yell, I'm just saying you're getting mad and displaying that anger.

• 46:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, what's really, what's really, um, what's really bad is when people utilize their temper as a tool to scare and intimidate people. So they go, oh, man, I don't want to say anything to Jocko on this because he's gonna go lose his, lose his temper, lose his mind, go crazy. Like that, that's, that's me using it as a tool. Which is not good, because you're not building any relationships, you're not getting any input from people. You're, you're not respected, by the way. People might fear you if you have a bad temper, but they don't respect you. They're not calling you up and asking you for advice. They're not wanting you to run their, their project.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:13Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  And they're not motivated to do good by you when you're not around.

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  They are definitely not motivated to do good by you when you're not around. In fact, the only reason they do anything is out of fear.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:25Jocko Willink?

  Whereas if you have a relationship with them, you could leave for six months. And the people that know you and respect you and care about you and have a relationship, they're still busting their ass to do the best they can for you.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yep. Glad when you come back too.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and a lot of times like.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  So the adversarial relationship thing.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  A way to look at it is it kind of takes both you to, to kind of cultivate an adversarial relationship. Goes, goes for any kind of relationship, I'd say.

• 47:54Jocko Willink?

  Well, yes and no.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Well, okay, so here, um. You you keep being a dick to me.

• 48:01Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  We'll say, and if I just keep being nice to you, even though you're being a dick to me, even though we have a job to do with it, yes, all that and we're maintaining the integrity of that. But I'm keep being nice to you. You keep being a dick to me. I keep being nice to you. After a while, the way that shakes itself out is I'm be nice.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  I just become the dominator. Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  No, well, here's the thing. We're still getting the job done or whatever, but my my response to you, if you be a dick to me, is not be a dick back. Or defend, you know, it's it's just be nice. Oh, you know.

• 48:32Jocko Willink?

  So where are you gonna say it shakes out?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  As it shakes out, the one guy who's a dick stands out.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  So everyone's being cool. And when all is said and done, we're just dealing with one guy who's a dick. So if you if if you cultivate the adversarial relationship, it's like, OK, you have this competitive situation. Now two people, you know, are dick.

• 48:55Jocko Willink?

  Two guys that are jerks.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:56Jocko Willink?

  Is what you end up with.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And let's say you were a nice guy to begin with.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Don't become a jerk now, you know?

• 49:03Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. It's true.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  So and I'm saying that because a lot of times if you're like, hey, people are creating adversary relationships with me.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  You're gonna play a part in that relationship, you know?

• 49:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And and the thing with this question, and you know, I mean, even the terminology used, which which is, you know, how do I maneuver on this without acting like a little bitch?

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:29Jocko Willink?

  Literally, so you got to figure not not, you know, not the most mature person. So I'm guessing, hey, man, you're probably 22. You know, 24, something like that, or you're haven't matured a lot and you're 27, but you're still caught in that in that game. And I think a lot of times, you know, people, when they when they meet me, or they they learn about me, or I show up at their business, they think I'm gonna be that guy. That's like, we're gonna just come in here. And and it's it's always really cool when people go, man, yeah, I didn't think of that. It's, oh, you have this approach that we didn't expect. And I'm like, yeah, you know, and by now,

• 50:11Jocko Willink?

  most people kind of, you know, at this stage in echelon front, and when I show up somewhere, people have listened to podcasts, they know where I'm coming from now. But, you know, two years ago, you know, they expected this big sergeant slaughter type thing to go down. Whip these folks in the shape. Whip these people in the shape. And and my guess is that the individual that asked this question was kind of thinking he would get some moral support from me. And I'm trying to give him moral support because I want him to be successful because I want him to go out and dominate in the world. But to go out and dominate in the world, you have to be a chess player, not a checkers player. You gotta, you gotta think, you gotta use the relationships, you gotta use indirect warfare to go out there and be blunt force trauma

• 50:53Jocko Willink?

  on everybody. It'll get you, it'll get you, you know, it'll get you a quarter of the way there, if you're lucky. And then it'll, it won't get you the rest of the way. So just, just, it's no big deal, man. You're you're young, you've got some learning to do. That's awesome. I wish I would have been smart enough to ask this question when I was a young, stupid 23 year old. You got some, you're thinking, you recognize that you're in a situation. So all you gotta do is just, just start taking a different approach, a little bit more of an indirect approach, a little bit more of an open mind, a little bit more humility. Don't worry about looking weak. When you, the people that are scared to look weak are the people that are weak. The people that are okay being exposed are the people that

• 51:35Jocko Willink?

  are strong. They like, I'm totally comfortable with my leadership capabilities. So when I have an issue, I'm like, hey, I don't feel comfortable about this. I'm not worried that somebody's not going to say like, oh, we don't think you can handle this. No, no, no, I actually, I know I can. I've been in worse situations. So what do you got? So if you're paranoid about looking weak, it means you probably are weak. If you don't care about being looking weak, it probably means that you're coming along. You're doing pretty good.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  So you don't need a hard shell if you have a hard core.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  But you need a hard shell if you have a soft core.

• 52:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that is true.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Kind of thing.

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Did you just make that up?

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, but I mean, I'm not looking at it like dang, that was deep. I'm not, I'm not thinking that.

• 52:22Jocko Willink?

  But that is a true statement. If you're, if you're fundamentally sound on the internal and the meaningful structure of your, of your being, then you can withstand attacks. So you don't need to put up a big wall.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 52:38Jocko Willink?

  You know, but if you're fundamentally weak internally and the fundamentals of your, of your being are weak, then you need to put up a big wall of protection. You need to go around and bow up to people and.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you may even need some weapons out there to really keep them away, you know? Some guns, some heavies or something.

• 52:59Jocko Willink?

  Nice. All right. Good.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Would love to hear tips for moving to wake up earlier. Alarms and not disturbing your spouse, keeping alert throughout the day. You know, when you wake up early, these are, these are things. So tips for managing the implications around making that change to get up earlier while keeping the space or keeping the speed or keeping the peace at home and work. And worky. Did you put that?

• 53:28Jocko Willink?

  I did not put that. He had some, uh, he either made a typo or he's, he's on the inside with the.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  What that is, is that's an homage to the Portuguese accent.

• 53:38Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Well, no, it's, it's a homage to the fake Portuguese accent.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  No, it's the real one.

• 53:44Jocko Willink?

  Worky?

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, anything adding like E at the end, like it'll come out. Oh, yeah.

• 53:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It can be exaggerated though by certain people.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 53:55Jocko Willink?

  Myself included. Okay. So, so how to wake up in the morning? Number one, let's, let's talk about one important piece of this. How do you do it without disturbing the spouse? Cause we don't wanna, we don't wanna make the spouse angry.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  No adversarial relationship with the spouse at 4:30.

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  No, not at 4:30. So one of the things, real, real easy one out of the gate, get an escalating alarm. So what that means is it starts off quiet.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 54:19Jocko Willink?

  And it gets louder. It gets progressively louder. I am a much lighter sleeper than my wife. So this is not that big of a deal to me. And I can't answer.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  I've I've I've slept with roommates that wanted to sleep, you know, like in the military, you know, you got you got bunked together or whatever.

• 54:40Jocko Willink?

  So I've dealt with this a little bit, but it's really no factor. Get an escalating alarm. And then when that thing goes off. You you wake up before it gets too loud to wake your spouse. It should be on your side of the bed so you can make it happen. Or you can pick a song that starts off nice and mellow and that kind of builds. And for a long time, for this particular reason, I used to have, um, there's a band called The Sword.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 55:07Jocko Willink?

  And and they have a song called Iron Swan and it starts off nice and mellow. If you don't get up in time, it's coming. So you gotta.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  So it's like a kind of like a game within the game right there. Where you gotta beat the clock too.

• 55:23Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes, you gotta beat the clock. You've got to get up and turn that thing because otherwise it's and and and and then you're too late.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  What is it? Black Swan?

• 55:31Jocko Willink?

  No, Iron Swan.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Iron Swan.

• 55:33Jocko Willink?

  It's The Sword.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  By The Sword, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because there's there's times in my life where I will put like the ultimate shocker of a tune in my

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  in my playlist that if I need to get up and I need to get up and get on it, like there's a song called Repeat Process by 100 Demons. That song will get you out of bed. It will get you out of bed. When it kicks in, it just comes, it comes, it's like, it's like getting, it's it's like an explosion happens in your room. And it's a great song by a great band. But anyways, so if, but in this case, you don't want to go with 100 demons.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to go with Repeat Process. You want to go with The Sword, Iron Swan, or an escalating alarm. Now. Once you do that, you gotta have the gear pre-staged. The gear has, the morning gear has to be pre-staged. So, so we're not in the dressing, we're not pulling open drawers, we're not flipping on lights, we're not searching for stuff. No, we get up, we walk out of the room.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:36Jocko Willink?

  Quietly, stealth mode. Then you get to either the bathroom. Now, if you have the bathroom en suite, maybe you have some stuff staged in the other bathroom in the house. So you just walk right out of the room, shut the door and you're good. You made your escape.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:51Jocko Willink?

  You know, oh, and I'll tell you another thing, little heads up. Make sure that you set off your secondary, I mean that you turn off your secondary and your tertiary alarms. So if you're like me and you sleep with multiple alarm clocks, if you leave, cause they, they go off sequentially, right? You know, you got your first one, iPhone, then you got your second one, battery powered, then you got your third one, wind up. The wind up is the gnarly last one with the

• 57:17Jocko Willink?

  right?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:18Jocko Willink?

  If you leave that thing, if you forget to shut that thing off before you walk out, you can hear about it. You hear about, cause now when it goes off, it's a startler, cause it doesn't go off. I mean, most, you know, 50% of the time I'm up before the alarms. But, but if you leave that one on there, it's a startler and then, then your, your spouse is waking up in a panic mode. Cause now they don't know where it is, then there's effort, they're being attacked. It's, it's, it's a gnarly situation. So shut off the secondary and tertiary alarms and then get out of the room. And then, you know, maybe you even have your toothbrush and your toothpaste staged in another, in another bathroom or in the kitchen or whatever. Got your workout gears not in a drawer by the bed where you're pulling that open, making that racket.

• 58:03Jocko Willink?

  No, you just get up and you, you leave. So then, um, that's, that's how you do it. That's how I do it. And again, I have an advantage because my wife is a pretty heavy sleeper.

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  She gets mad that when I come home from a trip at late at night, I do some unpacking in the night. That can be a little frustrating for her. But anyways, that's what you do. Now, the next piece of this question was for alertness throughout the day. What do you do to stay alert throughout the day? I think one of the things you gotta do is check your diet, right? Check the diet, make sure, in my opinion, make sure you're not ingesting a ton of carbohydrates.

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  Because those are gonna make you tired. They're gonna make you excited or make you fired up for about twenty minutes? I don't know. Haven't had them in a long time.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Twenty minutes before you eat them, like right when you, actually, that's really what they're for.

• 59:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, instant energy, yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and they put you to sleep. So when, when you, when you eat it, it's ba- basically the really basic sequence is I'm gonna do some output.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  You know, in the wild, I'm gonna go hunting, whatever, you know, I'm gonna gather, whatever, do some output. That expended some energy, I'm gonna need some energy and I'm gonna need some rest. When you get the, the, the energy, carbohydrates, food, anyway, serotonin, all these other chemicals that induce you to go rest. That's the sequence. That's the process.

• 59:35Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about insulin.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:37Jocko Willink?

  Cause the insulin also makes you, the insulin's gonna make you tired too. So, check your diet. Check your diet. I just had a guy on Twitter, ah, man, he, he's, he's like, hey, man, I'm tired during the day, I'm dragging. I was like, well, check your diet. And he's like, well, I think it's okay. I'm drinking a lot of energy drinks.

• 59:56Jocko Willink?

  No, not good. The energy drinks are addictive.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Jocko Willink?

  They're tasty, they're addictive. And they're, they're filled with sugar most of the time. So you're gonna get a, a major sugar rush and then you're gonna crash. So you gotta be careful of that. Also, you don't wanna be on, on the crazy amount of caffeine all day and that's gonna mess up your system as well.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Does the same thing as the, the sugar, the, the caffeine rush and then the crash. That's, that's the, that's what, oh yeah. Even more than sugar.

• 1:00:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and, well, I'll tell you right now. People ask me all the time and they're surprised that I work out without caffeine in the morning. But I, I'm telling you, give it a try.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Jocko Willink?

  Because it'll be harder, maybe it's harder for you to get out of bed. Maybe it's harder for you to, to get ready. Maybe it's harder for you to get into the gym with no caffeine. And maybe it's harder for you to start your workout with no caffeine. But once you start the workout, yeah, I don't think it's gonna be that big of a deal.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Jocko Willink?

  And if it is, good. Make your workout harder. You know, I don't think it's that big of a deal. So don't become addicted to the caffeine and that's gonna be, because that can get problematic. And then

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  Power nap, talked about this before. If you need to, you take a little power nap. You take six to eight minutes, you set your alarm clock, you elevate your feet above your heart, you lay down and you blackout. If you're really tired, you six to eight minutes, you feel like, you feel like a rock star after one of those.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yep, agree.

• 1:01:29Jocko Willink?

  And another thing you can do if you're tired during the day, no big deal.

• 1:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Just find a little corner somewhere, go bang some pushups out, go bang out 10 burpees.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, get the blood flowing back.

• 1:01:41Jocko Willink?

  Get the blood flowing. There's no way, it's, it's, it's physiologically impossible to do burpees and, and remain tired.

• 1:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Whatever burpees, you can tell you, you, you, since you turned into a physiology major over here tonight, if you want to tell me what that does physiologically, I don't know, but I do know this, if you knock out 10 burpees, this small, small prescription, you will not be tired for at least a half an hour. You're not going to be 10 burpees and then feel tired. You can't do it.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  I can tell you why physiologically.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Endorphins get released?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Other stuff, adrenaline, like when you know you're gonna do physical activity, when you know it, you have a, I'm not saying a huge adrenaline rush, but you get an adrenaline rush, yeah? A little bit. It's still going, it's part of it.

• 1:02:27Jocko Willink?

  So that's, those are some tips, I guess, for alertness throughout the day, uh, that I use.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Jocko Willink?

  And for getting out of bed early in the morning. Hey, and by the way, go to bed earlier at night.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Jocko Willink?

  Go to bed earlier at night. I go to bed like usually around 11. Um, I don't recommend that. I don't recommend going to bed at 11 and getting up at 4:30. No, I don't recommend that. I recommend going to bed when you get tired, shut your computer off, stop looking at the interwebs.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  And go to sleep. You know what? Go read an actual book, cause that make you tired.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Jocko Willink?

  That will make you tired. That's like the opposite of burpees. Go read, go read a book, you know, and just sit there and you will get more tired.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, unless like a real exciting or interesting book.

• 1:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, of course, of course. Don't read Blood Meridian before you go to bed.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, but and you're, cause you're a fast sleeper, fast sleeper, you know, that thing where you don't need that much sleep, but yeah.

• 1:03:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, the no sleep thing that'll get you so quick. It'll promptly put you into a crash the next day.

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know, bro. You can power through. Well, I don't know. I, if I can go the next, man, I've, even when you had the, the latest little baby.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Jocko Willink?

  You came in here on a couple hours sleep.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Jocko Willink?

  You're like rolled in here, ready to record. You sat here, you got after it.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. And there's all these different little things you can do.

• 1:03:48Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't that make you realize?

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Jocko Willink?

  It makes you realize how much more you can do. I think a lot of people, it's like this, and I don't want to go into this full subject right now, but the other day I did a seventy two hour fast. Right? No food for seventy two hours. And there's a bunch of reasons we could talk about it. Maybe we'll do it on a later podcast. I will say this though, one, one small thing.

• 1:04:08Jocko Willink?

  If you go seventy two hours without eating, it recalibrates your hunger meter. Because we, we just think, oh, I haven't had a, a donut in two hours. I'm starving. Like, no, you're not starving. You, you're not even hungry, not even close to hungry. So recalibrate that thing, do a fast. Even if you just don't eat for twenty four hours. You realize that most of your hunger signals that are coming to your brain are lies.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not saying they're lies like, oh, don't eat, but I'm saying you don't need to eat. And how liberating is it? That I was, I was having so much fun. I was, I was on this fast and, and I'm just like, don't even need food. I don't need food. I don't need to eat. That, that's the ultimate control, right? What? I don't need food. Food is, food is for, food is if you're weak. You know what I mean? It's that type of, you get that mentality going. And then guess what? Now you go on a travel day. And you go, oh, man, I'm going to be in the airport all day today and I don't know what I'm going to eat. Don't eat anything.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Yep, you're capable.

• 1:05:08Jocko Willink?

  You're totally capable. You can go seventy two hours. As a matter of fact, you can go like thirty days without food. So going three days is not that big of a deal. It's not even that big of a deal.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Jocko Willink?

  I did, when I just did this seventy two hour fast. It was just not like I did everything normal. I went to jujitsu. I did worked out. I did squats. I did pull ups. Everything was normal. Everything was normal. It's not that big crazy deal. Just we just get so accustomed to to just feeding the machine all the time. And you gotta have a, you know, you gotta have a meal every six hours and it's so at our fingertips.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Jocko Willink?

  It's so, but it's also you. This is what I realized. It's so inconvenient to have to eat all the time.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  I know, man.

• 1:05:45Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's whack. You're right.

• 1:05:47Jocko Willink?

  So it's kind of nice to just eat, you know, once a day. Guess I'll put a big old steak on and get after it.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:05:54Jocko Willink?

  And again, I hate, there's all kinds of people. There's people that know. This is, this is one of the reasons I don't like talking about this particular topic. Um, it's because there's a lot of people that like study this and know much about this and know all these facts. So if I go and do the research. Well, I know the facts too, but I don't, I can't, I'm not considering quote them, right? I don't have the in-depth knowledge that Peter Attia has on fasting. You know what I mean? Or Dom D'Agostino, those guys, they're PH, they're doctors. I'm not a doctor.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27Jocko Willink?

  I'm a knucklehead. That was, and in other things, people, you know, what did you do to prepare for your fast? I was like, I didn't eat. Yeah, I was, I was with Leif and we were on a trip and we had like a lunch. And then we did a gig that night and I like to eat before I do a gig. And then after that, we stayed up a little bit and did some work and then woke up in the morning, had an early flight. And then I came home and I wanted to train. So I worked out and I got done with that and I went and did something else. And the next thing I knew was 24 hours. Like, ah, you know what? The next day I didn't feel too hungry. So I just held on. So it wasn't no preparation. Just got after it. Again, people, don't do this.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  This is anecdotal.

• 1:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Check with a physician or whatever you gotta do. Don't listen to me.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, as far as like a recommendation you should do, because you know, you are different and 72 hour fast. Okay, I dig it, man. But I think really kind of the point that you're making, or one of them anyway, I think is absolutely true. So you're, you know, a lot of it is like habitual hunger, but it goes beyond just like psychological habitual. It's like physiological. It's like, okay, I'm used to getting food every four hours. So when the four hour mark comes around, physiologically, your, your stomach's gonna be like, where's my food? Your mouth is gonna be, where are my food? And then after a while, if you're like, hey. You don't get food this time. Your stomach's going, okay, sometimes we don't get food.

• 1:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  So let's kind of act right, you know, and then when the food comes, okay, we'll do that when that happens.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  Recalibration is real though, because then after I started eating again, and then the next day I go, oh, I'm, I'm feeling hungry. I'm gonna eat something. I'm actually not hungry. So why am I eating? Why am I eating if I'm not hungry?

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah.

• 1:07:59Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's my mind is controlling me when I should be controlling my mind.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  So, and that's another thing where um, you're, you're, uh, it's nothing new, right? Your mind is so strong or whatever. So you can trick yourself and this goes for sleep too. So if you think that you got nine hours of sleep, you'll be way less tired than, okay, let's say two people, exact people, they're identical twins.

• 1:08:20Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Identical life experience, whatever. One guy believes the next morning, okay, they both got eight hours sleep. One guy believes he only got four hours sleep and one guy believes he got 10 hours sleep.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Typical placebo scenario.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's how your mind, it knows, like basically it's your mind accommodating what it thinks the stimulus is. So you, so the other twin, the four hour sleep believer, he's gonna be way more tired and he's gonna be like, dang, where's that nap I was looking for and I need or whatever. The other guy.

• 1:08:46Jocko Willink?

  Imagine if you woke up every day and you were like, I only got four hours of sleep and I'm gonna crush today.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 1:08:51Jocko Willink?

  I, I actually believe I work better on less sleep. How you like them apples?

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And that's real, that's what was gonna be my point there where you're like, you say.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  Told you, I've told you that before.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Jocko Willink?

  I've, I've, so, so I've told Echo before that when we're getting ready to record the podcast, the day before I record the podcast, that night, I like to sleep less, like four hours, because I feel like it sharpens. I'll tell you what, to, to be quite honest, what I, what I think it does, it, it brings it,

• 1:09:29Jocko Willink?

  it brings my emotions a little closer to the surface.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  So like you feel like we're, I'm kind of under attack. So I better, like, I better like harden up right now. I better like get my troops ready.

• 1:09:43Jocko Willink?

  That it's like, no, this is what it is. I can get more, like when I'm reading something, I'm more focused on it. I'm more into it.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Like actively?

• 1:09:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because I think when I'm well rested, I'm like, like a, like rock solid, right? I'm just like, oh yeah. When I, the, when I'm a little, when I sleep less, I'm a little bit more exposed. I'm a little bit more vulnerable, right? Mentally.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:07Jocko Willink?

  And I need that.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:10:09Jocko Willink?

  Because otherwise I just become very um um detached. I become very detached and it's it's, you know, so I want it when I come in here. I want to be on the, I want to be on the fringe a little bit.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:10:23Jocko Willink?

  You know what I mean? I want to be exposed. I want to be walking in here being like, man, this is gonna be, this is an intense.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  This is not a walk in the park today.

• 1:10:30Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  This is gonna be hard to let me get ready.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I want to be stressed a little bit when I come in here.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, man, I can dig it.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  And I feel, I always feel that way, like, like, it's the same thing in jujitsu. I feel better when I'm stressed and when I'm a little bit more, yeah, a little bit more stressed, a little bit more tension, a little bit more pressure on myself. I want to be there.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to be there all the time, and I'll tell you what, just so everybody knows, there's some days where I'm tired. When I'm just tired and I just, sometimes I just need a power nap so bad, I'm like, God, I'm gonna, I'm literally falling asleep, you know, and I hate that. That's a horrible feeling, but you, you know what, elevate your feet, set it along for eight minutes, boom, you're gonna wake up feeling like Superman.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  It's kind of like when people hit themselves before they go lift. Because it wages.

• 1:11:16Jocko Willink?

  You mean they like slap themselves? Yeah, for sure.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  So it, on the surface, it looks like, oh, he's getting fired up, but yeah, why is he getting fired up for the exact same reason that you're talking about? Because if it's like, boom, ah, like, I'm getting these things where I gotta kind of bounce back from, right? I'm under attack.

• 1:11:30Jocko Willink?

  You're getting a legitimate adrenaline rush too.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Right, so physiologically, it's the same exact sequence right there, but you're just doing it consciously. And instead of slaps, it's lack of sleep.

• 1:11:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Or what have you.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  There you go. That's um.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  The answer.

• 1:11:50Jocko Willink?

  And everyone's gonna attack me on social media for not sleeping, not eating, and all that.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, sorry.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  That's all you.

• 1:12:02Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what to tell you.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Do it. Hey, Chaco.

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  I appreciate your advice. I know I should. I do know I should sleep more. I do know I should eat, you know, better. I'm sorry.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  What does that even mean?

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Should. Should. The word should. What does that even mean? You should. It's, yeah, anyway, that's the whole thing. Hey, Chaco, don't be you anymore.

• 1:12:18Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's true.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Be different than you. That's what that, well, I actually, actually the point I was, what I was gonna say earlier is just like what you're saying, the like, you're not citing all this science and making claims about like how this is gonna benefit you or nothing like that. That's not what you're doing. It's, it is anecdotal, and I think the point is that if you push yourself through certain situations and you prove it to yourself that you can function just fine with, I don't know, five hours sleep rather than eight, one or two times or, or whatever, or however many, you know that you can do that. Like, you know, we talked about this before where you get kind of dependent on certain things and then to the point where you believe that you can't function without it, whether it be sleep, whether it be

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  um, coffee in the morning, you know, whatever, or, or eating every four hours. Like, when I was really into like weightlifting and, and bodybuilding type stuff, I remember thinking, man, I gotta, I gotta hurry up and eat. It's four hours or whatever. And then kind of later on in life, man, I've got, like, I haven't eaten yet today, and it's late in the day.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  I'm fine.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  You're not.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  I'm not losing my games.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, whatever games, but. Games, game, whatever.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so once you prove it to yourself, it's like if you stay up all night when you have work the next day, and you do your work, when you go to bed, you can be like, hey, if I had to, I could do that again.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  That is another thing that I enjoy about pushing those envelopes is, it feels really good to go to bed when you've been awake for a long time. It feels really good to eat a meal once you haven't eaten for, for a while. You, you appreciate it more.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, I mean, that's true, but that's kind of a psycho way of, of invoking appreciation.

• 1:13:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  In my opinion.

• 1:13:55Jocko Willink?

  Understood.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Next question.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Oh, back to the Iron Swan. That's it. That's the song.

• 1:14:02Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Just a reminder.

• 1:14:03Jocko Willink?

  Give it a try.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:05Jocko Willink?

  The sword.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  The sword. Next question. What's the best way to handle awful, random people? Say, a bunch of intimidating thugs on a bus or a violent, scary drunk person?

• 1:14:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, and there's even more awful random people out there that you might need to look out for. I think this is a, you know, obviously you've got people that are pointed criminals that are coming after you. You've got terrorists that might be coming after you or just trying to do random acts of mass violence. So those are, those are a particular type. I think that this is a question directed for more of, of something that could easily happen to people, right? Yeah. Random people that are being jerks or thugs or people that are drunk or high or whatever else. Okay. So obviously, what do we want to do? We want to be prepared. So to start with, you want to be in really good physical condition. So that means you want

• 1:15:05Jocko Willink?

  to work out. You want to be ready to handle yourself physically. Um, you want to know how to fight. That means you need to train jujitsu, boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling. You, if you're in a high crime area, you're in a high threat area and you think this stuff is really going to happen out there, then guess what? You need to get a firearm. You need to learn how to shoot a firearm. You need to train with the firearm. You need to understand the ramifications of utilizing a firearm and then you need to carry it so you can protect yourself. And those same things go if you decide you're going to carry

• 1:15:41Jocko Willink?

  any kind of weapon, whether it's pepper spray or a mace or an ass or a knife, anything that you're going to carry, you better know what you're doing. You need to prepare with it. So that's what you need to do to be prepared. Okay. That's, that's what, and you know, I've said this before, I said it on the Sam Harris podcast, if you, you, if you do these things, if you work on your physical condition, if you work on your fighting, if you work on your shooting, if you work on your, your weapon skills and you never have to use them, great.

• 1:16:20Jocko Willink?

  I will still say it has not been wasted time. It has been time that has made you a better person. It's imposed discipline on you. It's gotten you better physical conditioning. It's just good for you. So regardless, you should be training in these type of situations. Now, once you get to this type of situation, first of all, how did you get there? Cause we need to have situational awareness, right? How are you not paying attention to what's going on around you? You need to pay attention to what's going on around you. And then you watch for these scenarios that could unfold and you avoid them, period. So, so how are you getting stuck on a bus with a bunch of maniacs, right? There's something, when they got on, you got off. That's real simple, right?

• 1:17:04Jocko Willink?

  Or you go to get on and you see these knuckleheads, you walk right back off. I mean, that's, that's pretty easy to handle. Oh, there's a bunch of knuckleheads walking down the street towards you? Cool, cross the street, walk down the other side. Situational awareness. Oh, you hear them coming up behind you? Cool, step off, cross the street, avoid. We want to be, have situational awareness. That's gonna solve, that should solve 99% of your problems.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  Is being aware of your surroundings, understanding your situation, planning. What about just simple planning? Like where are you going? When are you gonna come home? You know, if you took a subway into the city at night and you know you're gonna come home late at night and you're alone and you are suspect of what's happening? Maybe you get an Uber instead of riding the subway. It's just planning that comes into play as well to avoid these situations. Now, if you do get caught in these situations, here's a couple recommendations. Okay, my number one is to kind of do your best to detach from.

• 1:18:15Jocko Willink?

  From the scenario, right? So you got, let's say you're on a bus and there's a bunch of people acting crazy and they jumped on right after you got on and you couldn't get off in time. So now you're on the bus with them. I want you to detach from them. So that means you're not looking at them. You're not staring at them. You're not being all intimidated. You want to just detach. Just do what you would normally do. You know, everyone carries a phone these days. Break out your phone, start looking at your phone, pull out your paper, start looking at your paper. Study if you don't have either one of those two, you know, look outside, look at the passing, just, just don't enter their world. Don't become a part of their thing that they have going on. Cause what they want you to do is they want you to make eye contact. What they want you to do is glance over at them. What they want you to do is enter their world.

• 1:18:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause a lot of times these knuckleheads, they, they're in their own world and you actually have to penetrate their world. If you want to get in there. So what you want, so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to remain, I'm not going to, I'm not going to cower though. There's a difference. Okay. Cause if you give the impression of you're just like cowering and scared, well then there, that's, that's entering their world. And they're going to, they're going to recognize that. But if you're just, hey, sitting here just doing what you'd normally do and it's not a big deal. You do this all the time. You don't care about them. Don't care about me. Leave me alone. That's, that's where I'm going. Now, if for whatever reason I make some kind of eye contact, right? Now I made the eye contact. I've entered their world. I'm going to go ahead and give them just a little head nod, you know, just a little, just a little regular head nod.

• 1:19:40Jocko Willink?

  Like I would do with you if I saw you on the street. Hey, you know, just a little respectful, little head nod. And then I'm going to go right back to what I was doing. Go right back out of their world. I acknowledge their world. I'm not going to give a bunch of, I'm not going to look scared, but I'm not going to look aggressive. I'm just going to be respectful. A little head nod, you know, hope you're having a good night. That's good. Um, and then go, go back to your business. Again, I just want to detach from them. That's my attitude is I want to detach from them. And this avoids them saying, you know, like if they're looking at you and you don't look back or, or they're just like bearing down on you. Hey, what do you, you, hey, why aren't you, why are you ignoring me or whatever? You too cool for me or something like that. So sometimes you go, you know, look, little head nod. It's all good. Um.

• 1:20:26Jocko Willink?

  If if now if they do start now see I'm escalating this so they're escalating this so now if they do start to escalate this thing in like like you know what are you looking at or one of those things? It's just again what you're trying to do is you're trying to de-escalate without being appearing vulnerable. You know, so maybe it's just, you know, hey, no issue here. You know, just something simple like that. No, I'm good.

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  Um, like, wha- what are you doing? Uh, just riding the bus home. You know what I mean? Just real matter of fact, just didn't go try and get back, you know? You might want to just even try and and and connect a little connection instead of I'm trying to go home because that might piss some people off because they don't have a home. Or their home is a bad place. So what might be better than saying that is, you know, I just got done with work. Now you're just a working man, right? Of course, you might be dealing with someone that doesn't have a job or lost their job. So I'm saying you're you're not going to come up with a great, but my point here is just you're just gonna try and make simple, non-confrontational statements that don't give them anything to grab on to because that's what they want. They want something. They just want something to grab on to, you know?

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  Uh, that's what they're looking for. So you don't want to let that happen.

• 1:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Now, things can still continue to escalate. You know, you get someone that's determined to be a a jerk or determined to be hostile or determined to be aggressive. Now, I'll tell you that if you train and you work out and you do jiu-jitsu and you have skills, people know it. People, people that are belligerents generally can tell. Even in a drunken state, when you square off with someone or you look at someone and they have an attitude of like, look, I I do this all the time. Um, I'm good. You want to fight? I'm here. Not saying that, but just a look and people can tell.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:28Jocko Willink?

  If they're real troublemakers, they can tell. Now, sometimes that's not a good thing because that means they're going to do the challenge, you know? So you got to watch out for that. So.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  I think that that's right, even though on the internet, it might tell it, it might seem like it's telling a different story, you know, it's like, oh, guy confronts the wrong guy, you know, guy, street thug confronts jujitsu master or something, and then it shows that they actually fought. So it kinda seems like, oh, no, they don't know, obviously, out there.

• 1:22:57Jocko Willink?

  No, they

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  But that's rare, man, and that's why it makes the internet.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  So it's rare, typically, yeah.

• 1:23:02Jocko Willink?

  And this is no guarantee, but I'm just saying, I could tell, even before I started doing jujitsu,

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:07Jocko Willink?

  I could tell if somebody was ready to rumble.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  I have acted like I was ready to rumble, no fight training, to a guy who was belligerent to me directly.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Um, Terry was there, we were working, and all I did was act like I knew.

• 1:23:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  I didn't know, by the way, act like I knew, and in front of everybody, I was like, oh, hey, I'm sorry, man, it's my bad. There it is. Guy belligerent, a little bit bigger than me too, and he, he just said, but I was ready to, I was ready to do the best fighting I could, cause it was, it was kinda go time at that point.

• 1:23:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  He was like, you know, the kind of guy where he's talking, he's like, yeah, man, I'm from Chicago, and he's like rubbing against me in my face, kinda, not like, I wanna fight you, but just like, like, like, almost like a dog would, you know, just, and rubbing against me. And then, whatever, you know, I, I made like, okay, we're about to fight, took off my jacket like real quick or whatever, and, um, and was like, alright, like, just go, just like how you're saying though, just real matter of fact.

• 1:24:00Jocko Willink?

  Real calm, real matter of fact, like you do this all the time.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Yep, and, and the thing, I understand that it is on right now, understand, and then the guy, and he, surprisingly,

• 1:24:09Jocko Willink?

  It's not surprising.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Hey, hey, my bad, my bad, bro, my bad, my bad, in front of everybody though.

• 1:24:13Jocko Willink?

  It's not surprising because people that act like that are, are weak, and they're insecure, and they're acting on that, and so when somebody stands up to them, and they look at him and think, this guy might actually know how to fight.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:27Jocko Willink?

  And then that's what happens, and by the way, when you do train all the time, you do know how to fight, and then it is matter of fact. You're like, yeah, I'll, I'll fight you, yeah, hold on.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  That's the best feeling in the world.

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's a good feeling to know that you can handle yourself. Now, okay, so now this, this continues to escalate, and

• 1:24:44Jocko Willink?

  You know, you just try and keep your distance from people. You don't wanna let them get close. You don't know they got a knife. You don't know what kinda disease they. You just wanna keep away from them.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Jocko Willink?

  But eventually, you might not be able to back up anymore. You might not be able to keep any distance. Um, watch their hands. Keep as much distance you can. Eventually, you gotta put your hands up in kind of a non-confrontational way to protect your face, to protect the sucker punch that's coming. Um, you know, you put your hands up just in a non-confrontational way, up, up around your head. And continue to de-escalate. Hey, man, I'm not here. Don't, don't want to have any problems. You know, I'm, I'm not looking for an issue. I don't know what your issue is, but I don't have any issue with you. I'm just trying to head home from work. You know, one of those things. And finally, if you get to a point where you have no choice, well, then you utilize the skills that you have. You hit hard, hit fast. You don't stop hitting until

• 1:25:36Jocko Willink?

  the threat is neutralized, and then you get away. And that's, in order to be able to do that, you know, go to step one, prepare.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, um, you're a, the ninety-nine percent of situations will be avoided if you're just aware.

• 1:25:53Jocko Willink?

  Most important thing.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Man.

• 1:25:54Jocko Willink?

  Most important thing.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a huge deal. So true.

• 1:25:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we would much rather have you do that because any of these situations, I could go out, I'm pretty well-prepared for anything. I could go out tonight and have some guy square off with me, and as I'm getting ready to fight him, so his buddy cracks me in the head with a, with a bottle and kills me. That could happen tonight. You know, that could happen at a restaurant tonight. That could happen.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:19Jocko Willink?

  So what am I gonna try and do? I'm gonna try to avoid it. The minute you square off with somebody, you're now, you're now a, a target for all his friends. By the way, I've been in some bar fights where the idiot that is being belligerent doesn't have the common sense or doesn't have the sense that he's surrounded.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:40Jocko Willink?

  By, you know, by my friends.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Jocko Willink?

  And you're just thinking, you don't even, you're doomed.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Jocko Willink?

  So luckily, the guys that I hang out with are pretty honorable people that aren't just gonna, you know, crush somebody's skull, but you don't always, that's no guarantee. That's no guarantee. There's murders every day in America.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  And they're not planned, all of them. Seldom are they planned.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  This guy on Facebook, I wanna say, um, I think, I always get confused with the name because like, a lot of people will be like, hey, Echos, you know, and ask me questions in, in regards to this podcast, so.

• 1:27:16Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to the other podcast? Oh, this podcast.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  But I don't wanna be like, okay, he asked me, but no, it was, you know, anyway, so a guy, um, asked me, like, the scenario was he was at a, at a bar or party or something and, um, and guys were being disrespectful to him and his wife, or girlfriend or something. And then, he's like, I know the high road, I know the right thing to do, quote unquote, is to, to, to be done with it, you know, to leave the situation, but when you leave, you feel like a little, you know, like you've lost out. And that's a really powerful feeling that you don't want. So like, what do you do, man? How do you just, how do you reconcile it? Or should I fight? Or under certain circumstances, should I just fight for the honor kind of thing? Like, what's the thing?

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  And, so, I've always really looked at it this way, especially if you're kinda like, if you have mental kind, kinda control over the situation, where you can be like, okay, am I gonna fight, like, fight this guy or what? So when you choose to engage, when you wanna fight the guy, you're gonna say, you know what, you said the wrong thing to me and I'm gonna square off her to my wife or whatever, you know? So, I'm gonna choose to square off. Now, all you, what you did is you took on all the potential results of that, you took all that on. Uh, even if you win the fight, you get arrested, like, everything, as opposed to, taking on all the potential results, probably, you know, it, that come with not engaging,

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  which include going home safe, your wife's safe, everybody's safe, wake up tomorrow just like you would the other day, a- and then compare that to jail. I'm injured in some way, um, I, I can't, you know, I can function less tomorrow, if I even make it home tomorrow, you know, death, all this stuff. When you kinda consider the outcomes that you want. And the reason you're gonna make one decision over the other, it kinda, it comes real clear. Even though at the time it's so powerful because you're like, oh man, I don't wanna wuss out in front of everybody. Or my wife, you know, it's my honor in front of my wife. But your wife wants you to leave. Your wife doesn't want you to be like, hey, yeah, my husband got in a bar fight. Woo hoo, like I'm so proud of him, you know? No, your kids are like, I'm glad you're home dad.

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  I'm glad you're not in the hospital.

• 1:29:19Jocko Willink?

  That's another thing that comes with, I think with training all the time is we all know where we stand. Yeah. Like I, I mean, if the, if there's a person that's gonna beat me in a bar fight, I know him. Like it's a famous fighter, it's a famous jujitsu player. It's someone that is a known public figure that is known for fighting. That's like, who's gonna give, if it's a civilian that doesn't train, I mean, they, they don't, they're, they're not gonna stand a chance. Now if four of their friends jump in, of course, you're, you're gonna have some issues.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:29:47Jocko Willink?

  But yes, yes, the, uh, the best thing to do is avoid it. But does your wife, when your wife knows that you train every day, that you get after it every day? That you're physically fit, physically strong and knows that you could destroy that person? Does she look down on you when you walk out of there? No, she's like, well, I'm glad I married an actual man instead of an idiot.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:11Jocko Willink?

  And it's not that big of a deal like, hey, bro, if you wanna fight, here, come to this gym. I'll be there tomorrow at 10 o'clock.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:17Jocko Willink?

  We'll go, but I'm not gonna fight out here and get arrested by, you know, or sued by you after, after I put you to sleep. And then I make it so you can't use your arms anymore.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Forever.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even that, I mean, really, let's really admit it, even doing that, like, hey, you wanna fight? I do wanna fight you, right? But I, you know, I'm a smart fighter, so come to my gym. Even that, that's like, that's a little boy move.

• 1:30:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. As far as moves go. Although, hey, look, I'm not, if someone does that and posts it on the internet or something like that, or comes, come on, let's face it, we all wanna see that. A part of us wants to see that.

• 1:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're gonna see the bully get beat up.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty common.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  But really, at the end of the day. That's not the decision. The decision is in.

• 1:31:01Jocko Willink?

  You're right, because it goes back when I said that earlier question. If you're secure in your manhood.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:07Jocko Willink?

  Then it's not that big of a deal to go, dude, you're drunk, carry on. I'm out of here with my wife. We're gonna go back to our house and carry on with our lives like normal people. You can find another person to get in a drunk fight with and end up in jail.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this. You can be honest, even as a full grown, secure man. If you find yourself in that scenario. And you're like, no, me and my wife, we're gonna go home. There's still a small party.

• 1:31:35Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I wish I would've just.

• 1:31:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, especially when you enjoy fighting. You know what I mean? When fighting is fun. And actually, you know, um, one of the guys at the gym, who's a, um. Brown Belt Mike, he doesn't train much when you're there. Anyways, Mike, yeah, dude, he's.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  He usually goes in the morning.

• 1:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's usually there. But anyway, anyways, um, he had somebody like say something to. No, uh, somebody, somebody like smacked his girlfriend's ass. Like what? Like he brought his girlfriend into the bar.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  And he does Muay Thai, of course, and he's Jiu Jitsu player. He's a badass dude. Um, he walks in the bar and this guy just straight up, just bam, slaps his girlfriend's ass. And he like turned around, boom, one, two, to the head, dropped the guy, knee to the face, out. Was like, yep, boom, got arrested. He paid eight thousand dollars or something and did like seventy two hours in jail. I mean, it was, it was legit, like. And, and he, and he talks about it. I mean, just to show you like a different, and that's why, like his attitude, you know, I talked to him about it. He's like, yeah, you know, the guy crossed the line and I had to put him down. And I was like, yeah, okay.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and that's, that's an awesome story. By the way, it gives me like a, for real, like, fuck Mike. But but let's face it though, that wasn't the right move as far as before you do it.

• 1:33:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, you're right, because we don't know what could have happened.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:03Jocko Willink?

  We don't, we know what the actual outcome was and it was like eight thousand dollars.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:33:08Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  His wife, girlfriend?

• 1:33:10Jocko Willink?

  Girlfriend.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:11Jocko Willink?

  Just his girlfriend. Don't mess with Mike's girl, man.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just saying, if you have a wife and then on top of that, if you have like a kids, the eight thousand dollars scenario seems more detrimental.

• 1:33:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:33:22Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, so I'm saying, this is why you treat people with respect.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Jocko Willink?

  You know, because otherwise you never know who you're messing with and Mike doesn't look like he's a big intimidating guy by any chance. What does he weigh? One seventy?

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  I'm thinking of a different guy. I realize it, but um.

• 1:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, Mike's one seventy. He's tough. He's a tough bastard too. I mean, on the mat, he's tough. But he's, he's like one seventy and you know what? He's a brown belt in jiu jitsu, really good with the gi and he wrestled. Like he wrestled in high school. So yeah, and he's any train more time. So he's just a tough dude. And you don't know who you're messing with and boom. But the interesting thing is, and you know this, I know this. When you make eye contact with another person in a situation like that, you already know if they train or not. You're like, oh, this guy trains for sure. I'm in for it. You know, this is gonna be, it's gonna be on.

• 1:34:11Jocko Willink?

  That's awareness from the training.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  Yep. But still.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Awesome story. Don't do that.

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't do what Mike did.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. But Mike, keep it up though. Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding.

• 1:34:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, Mike, don't do it again. Yeah, don't mess with Mike's girl.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Jocko. Were you very disciplined as a kid?

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  And was there a set day or moment when you saw how important discipline was and decided to do it?

• 1:34:45Jocko Willink?

  Well. As a kid, I think I was, for the most part, a kid.

• 1:34:53Jocko Willink?

  I was not some extremely disciplined kid. I was, I was pretty stubborn when it came to certain things, which may be some kind of an early immature form of discipline, you know, of just being hard headed. But I think as I got older, I saw, the first thing I remember along these lines is seeing a lack of discipline around me. I didn't identify it as people having discipline. I saw like a lack of discipline. I saw weakness. I saw drugs. I saw alcohol. I saw laziness.

• 1:35:27Jocko Willink?

  And I, I started to get after it a little bit, right? A little bit, a little tiny bit. But there was no role models. There was no internet. There was no guidance. I, and I didn't have the sense to, to go to the library and, and find Bob Hoffman's book, How to Be Health, Happy, Healthy and Strong. Like, I didn't know to do, I didn't have that sense to do that. And so we did some basic things, you know what I mean? Some pushups, you know? And, and the, the pushup workouts that I did when I was 13 years old are laughable. Laughable. I mean, I think if I did, you know, a set of 50 pushups, I was corner, you know, boom, I'm the man, right?

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  No, you are the man, 13.

• 1:36:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and we did some silly little like kind of barbell, dumbbell, circuit training kind of thing. Now, I always liked the military. I recognized that as a, some kind of a trait of discipline in there. And I looked up two military veterans. I knew one Marine Corps drill instructor.

• 1:36:37Jocko Willink?

  And if you know anything about Marine Corps drill instructors, so now we're talking eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, there wasn't any wars going on, but you know, when you're a kid, you're just like, oh, he's a Marine Corps drill instructor. He fit the part. He was like just perfect Marine Corps drill instructor, which most Marine Corps drill instructors are pretty damn perfect. It's incredibly incredibly honed job. That's very well choreographed and very, and very structured and it's a, it's a very fine, um.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Real tight.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  It's real tight. It's a real tight situation if you're a Marine Corps drill instructor. And I knew one, right? When I was a kid and I just looked at him, he was like a god, right? This guy is a Marine Corps, and, and of course he had, I think he had like a sixty-eight Camaro. So he had a muscle car. So you know, he was just like just the man. And so now, so I got that going on. And then, then there was the hardcore bands that I started listening to, and they seemed to have some kind of, there was something there, right? I recognized something there. I recognized something with Black Flag. I recognized something with band called Slapshot. I recognized something with the Chrome Mags and I, I saw there was something in there and I,

• 1:37:55Jocko Willink?

  I, I couldn't, I can't, I didn't know what it was, but it was some kind of strength, right? Some kind of discipline was in there. I, I didn't put it all together though. And there was no sort of unified way to go down this path. It didn't, I didn't find that.

• 1:38:20Jocko Willink?

  And I don't know if I found it, if it, what it would look like to me. You know, maybe you could say that that path was the Boy Scouts, right? The Boy Scouts are a disciplined group of individuals that learn how to hike and hunt and I mean, so was that it? I don't know. I, maybe I didn't identify that or I didn't have the right personality because I was kind of non-conformist, right? A little bit, you know, a little bit of a rebel.

• 1:38:45Jocko Willink?

  So I didn't put it all together.

• 1:38:50Jocko Willink?

  And I had some little flashes of like being hardcore with some of the things I did that would be like, you know, kind of getting after it in some really minor way, some, some, some minimalistic level of discipline.

• 1:39:03Jocko Willink?

  But it wasn't until I started training in earnest to join the Navy that I started to, what we could recognize now as getting after it a little bit, you know, it's, and again, it's nothing compared to what people do now. What, definitely not, but you know, now we're talking 1989. I was running through marshes and being covered in mud and I was swimming in the ocean and I was doing pull ups and push ups and dips and sit ups. And again, it's nothing compared to what I do now, or even what everybody does now. But I was doing what I could with what I knew at the time.

• 1:39:42Jocko Willink?

  And I didn't really have any idea of what I, or really what people in general were capable of, like, I just didn't know, I didn't know, I never would have thought a good pull up workout is 500 to 1000 pull ups. I, I, I, I wouldn't have thought that, you know, for me, I did three sets of pull ups and I was kind of the man, you know? So I just, I just didn't, didn't know. And I guess, I guess you could say I didn't even have, I didn't know to even explore those, those outer limits of what I was capable of, you know, which is a bummer.

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  Now, also you gotta remember, I didn't even know another person that did pull ups. Like there wasn't like pull up bars around, there wasn't, you know, I'm out in the woods somewhere, in the woods in New England, there's no pull ups, people, people aren't like, hey, how many pulls can you do? I never heard that question. And I didn't know anybody that swam in the open ocean, I didn't know anybody that did push up workouts, right? I don't know, I was just in the sticks. And so when I joined the military, I was a blank slate, really, for all practical purposes. And it was really easy, they say, you do this, this is what you do and you get advanced, this is what you do to be ready, this is what you do. And I realized very quickly.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  That the harder you worked, that the more disciplined you were, the easier your life was, the easier your job was, the easier your day was, the easier your physical activities would get. And when I got into the teams, and really going through BUDs, when you're going through BUDs, and when I finally met guys that were going to BUDs, and we started doing 100 pull-ups, and we started doing 150 pull-ups, and we started doing 200 pull-ups a workout, and then it was like, oh wow, you can do a lot of stuff. That was getting ready to go to BUDs, and then you go to BUDs, and you know, you realize that people, it's not just this individual, like, spiritual awakening. Like, no, you just realize, hey, you can do a lot of pull-ups. People can. It's not that big of a deal. And everybody knows you can find that out on the, you don't need to go to BUDs to figure that out. You can figure that out. Just, I'm

• 1:41:54Jocko Willink?

  telling you right now. You know what I mean? And all you need is to have that knowledge. But I continued to realize that being disciplined, all these things, waking up earlier and working hard, and training hard, and keeping your gear squared away, and studying the material that we were supposed to know, I realized that that work, that discipline, made life easier, and it made us freer. Made me freer. And the more time I spent in the teams, the more this came embedded in my head, and not only as an individual did I realize this, but I realized this very quickly, well, not very quickly, but as soon as I started moving into leadership positions, I realized that the more disciplined a squad was, or the more

• 1:42:39Jocko Willink?

  disciplined a platoon was, the better that squad or that platoon was gonna be. And that's kind of where, the evolution, the evolution of it.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. It's that whole process that I'm finally, I don't wanna say finally, but right now, it's starting to become clear where the whole, you know, you're gonna pay the price, at some point, you're gonna pay the price for your actions. So. If you're gonna, like, let's say, I'm gonna get in shape, right? You committing to working out every day, that's you paying a certain price. Like, having the discipline to do it, you're gonna pay the price. Waking up early is not comfortable. Working out hard every day, it's not comfortable. You're gonna pay a little price right there.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  The next day, or the, you know, in regards to the results of that workout, you're not paying the price, you're reaping kind of rewards, right? Or, you cannot pay the price early with the workout and stuff. You still gotta, that tab is still outstanding. So when you-

• 1:43:52Jocko Willink?

  Balance due.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when it comes results time, there, that's, that's when you're gonna pay your little price there. Your body, your health, whatever. At some point, you're gonna have to pay a price.

• 1:44:03Jocko Willink?

  Pay now or pay later?

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, so-

• 1:44:05Jocko Willink?

  I vote pay now.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  Pay now, you get way more benefit. Cause like, no one remembers, well, we do, some of us do. We, I, I don't remember and take pleasure in remembering the time I skipped that workout because I wasn't feeling like doing it, you know? Like, that doesn't provide a sense of pleasure in my life to think back on those days, you know?

• 1:44:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's not good.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  And at the same time, when I think of like, the detriment of doing the workout when I didn't feel like it, that doesn't, that's not a bad memory to me, you know? When I do think back of like, and, or think even now of like, the result of being in better shape than the, you know, the average person, or, or going to Jiu Jitsu and not gassing, or, or whatever. Bringing in all the groceries at one time. Let's face it, that's something.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  That is a sense of pleasure, that I have the freedom to be able to do that when I, when I want, you know?

• 1:44:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you know what else is interesting about this, and sometimes I hear this, and you did this a couple times tonight, right? People go, "Well, yeah, but you're Jocko." Like like as if I'm as if I'm not a normal person, but

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  You're not, but

• 1:45:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I'm saying like, you know, I just kind of went through like the story. And and it paints a pretty clear picture that I'm a pretty normal person.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:25Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty normal, but I made decisions along the way that maybe weren't normal. And that maybe opened the doors to being a little bit not normal.

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39Jocko Willink?

  But there are choices that you can make. So so I'll have this with my kids too. Or you know who else sometimes I'll have?

• 1:45:48Jocko Willink?

  I would have friends, we'll say, that would say, you know, well, yeah, you're that's you. You know, like I'd say, no, if you want to win this fight, for instance, you want to win this fight, man, you gotta you gotta do this, you gotta get after this, you got. And he'd be like, well, you know, it's not that easy. And and that's that's what you would do, but you're you're you. And and that's, you know, it's almost like, yeah, it's unachievable.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't apply to me.

• 1:46:15Jocko Willink?

  And my kids will say that to me, you know, my kids, and I think it's actually a pretty big detriment that they think that I'm not that that, oh, I do it, but but that's because I'm me and I'm it's like not true. It's not true. And so you know, occasionally I I have I hear people say that and I go, man, this isn't like. I guess it's kind of like what we were talking about the other day with someone saying, oh, oh, that's a good picture you took. What kind of camera did you use? Well, it's kind of like that. I'm like, you know, oh, I I wake up early. It doesn't. It's not just because I just gifted that way.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  Or I I work out a lot. Oh, just because you're super motivated.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Right, like that was gifted to you at some point.

• 1:47:05Jocko Willink?

  And born motivated, right? No, actually, I'm a person and I grew up, you know, a person.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  And so it but it makes it very clear that these are just choices you can make and you can

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Totally true. And I would say that it does, when I say one, well, anytime I would say consciously and meaningfully say, well, that's you is if I would be talking about a way of achieving like the same thing. Like you would do it this way. I would try to do it this way kind of thing. If I was confident that I could get the results, you know, like whatever that is. But um, when did I say today about your sleeping? You can do the four hour sleeping thing. Or so more so than you can do the four hour sleep and still function. I meant you're into the four hours, five hours sleep thing.

• 1:47:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  Which is cool.

• 1:47:53Jocko Willink?

  But and I realized there are some genetic points in there, I believe, right? I believe that there are some genetic points in there. I believe there are some genetic points in everything, right? And I've told you this, I have one of my daughters who is most similar to me, both physically and mentally sleeps about the same as I do, if not less.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  One of my other daughters, who is most physically and mentally, well, physically more like my wife. She sleeps a lot.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:32Jocko Willink?

  And so there is a gen- and my wife sleeps more than I do. And so there is a genetic component to it. I believe and I've read articles and people send me Twitter articles all the time. Oh, you're one of these, you know, fast sleepers, the 2% of the population, all this stuff. And I'm just saying, okay, yeah, that's great. But then people say, oh, well, you just work out every day because you're super motivated. And that's just good. Or you just train jujitsu all the time because you're just super motivated. It's like, okay, yeah. Well, you know what? Great. Great.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct. And even with the sleeping thing, that is like, because, okay, ultimately, yeah, if you don't have to sleep as much as the next person, sure, that's an advantage. Just because you have more time, that's it. It's not like, you know, someone would would be like, hey, other than that reason, be like, hey, it's cooler or it's somehow more beneficial for me to sleep five hours rather than my normal eight. Like, so, I mean, that, put it this way, if someone wants to choose to sleep four hours just because you do it, that's kind of weird.

• 1:49:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Now, that being said.

• 1:49:40Jocko Willink?

  What's awesome is there are a bunch of people on on the interwebs, a bunch of badass troopers that have are are I retweet almost all of these because people go, hey, you know, I'm I lost thirty two pounds. Hey, I lost forty two pounds. Hey, I, you know, did my first squat today with three hundred pounds. So and and and there's no difference in what they were doing before and what they're doing now fundamentally in their in their genes or their or their physiology. What they did is they decided to make these decisions. They decided that they were going to go out. They decided they were going to step up their game. They're going to decide they're going to wake up early. They decide they're going

• 1:50:23Jocko Willink?

  to clean up their diet. They decided they were going to get after it. And when they do that, all of a sudden, boom.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Results.

• 1:50:29Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? You fast forward like six months and people go, well, you just do that because you're super motivated. And they'll be they'll be thinking, you know what? No, I'm not. I'm I'm a person.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:39Jocko Willink?

  And I choose to get after it.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:43Jocko Willink?

  I recommend you all choose to get after it.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  And I encourage that.

• 1:50:47Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? It's not easy. It's not easy. There's the nagging weakness that is pulling you down.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:50:58Jocko Willink?

  You gotta shut that thing down.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  You know, I think I was talking to my friend Anthony about this yesterday. And I always mention this. Okay, so decision making, right? We're wired this environment right now. We're wired to not get after it in our brain. We're wired for the short term payoff right now in times of scarcity, you know, I don't know if I mentioned that, but you're wired to you better get it while you can. Food, mate.

• 1:51:26Jocko Willink?

  Rest.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  Rest, everything. You better get it when you when you and your body starts to adapt to that environment because it's been going on for so long. So it's like, man, if you're tired, that's your body telling you something. You better get that rest. You see some food, some fat, a lot of calories, um, you know, fat, sugar, a lot of energy. What are you better get that? You better eat it now. Now physiologically, you're like that and mentally, you're like that. You're wired that way. So.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  My point, hyperbolic discounting. All that is, is choosing the short-term payoff over the long-term payoff. Oftentimes, when the long-term comes, you regret your short-term payoff decision.

• 1:52:05Jocko Willink?

  Most of the time.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. So, it's a spectrum, you know, there's some, some, some things are more or less detrimental. So, discounting is when you choose that short-term payoff. You can tra- trace back all your successes and failures to making that short-term payoff decision over the long-term payoff. But here's the thing, here's my point, it, the odds are ki- when you say it's, it's not easy, this is a fact, it's not easy, because you're not. Why, you have to learn, you have to be trained out of discounting, hyperbolic discount, you gotta be trained out of it, in one way or another. Whether it's from, from somebody, from your environment you're in, you know? Like, if everyone's, if, if everyone's eating healthy around you, it's very unlikely that you're gonna be like,

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  "Oh, this is how you do it? Okay, I'm gonna not do it," you know, it's, it's really unlikely. So, you can get trained by that way, by your environment, but the point is, you get, you have to be trained out of this way of thinking, because you're wired for it. And, all it is, is the short-term payoff versus the long-term payoff. Like I said, you gotta pay that price somewhere, you might as well pay the price short-term.

• 1:53:11Jocko Willink?

  Pay now.

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  And get the benefits for the long-term, you know, rather than discount. But we're wired against it, so that's why it's not easy. But it, train yourself out of it, man.

• 1:53:20Jocko Willink?

  You know how you train yourself out of it?

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Discipline.

• 1:53:23Jocko Willink?

  Get after it.

• 1:53:24Speaker 01

  Get after it, yeah.

• 1:53:25Jocko Willink?

  Alright.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  It's true, though. It's absolutely true. Speaking of instinct, is it possible to train instinct? And can we trust it wholly in fighting and in leadership?

• 1:53:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, first of all, instinct is, is, is, it's like a voice, and it's a voice that you can listen to, and it's a voice that you should listen to. And you have to get to know your instincts, right? You have to get to know them, you have to know how accurate they are, and which ones you should listen to, and which ones you shouldn't listen to, and it's real. Like with fighting, it's very obvious with fighting. You train to a point that your instinct knows what to do. So if someone gets in digging for an underhook on you, you, you, you swim to defend that underhook. If someone gets the underhook, boom, you put on the wizard, right? Those are just instincts and it's good and it's good to have those instincts.

• 1:54:24Jocko Willink?

  It's perfect. Now, sometimes even in fighting,

• 1:54:31Jocko Willink?

  your instincts are actually wrong. And I'll give you a very good example of this is rolling with a guy by the name of James Nielsen. Have you rolled with James before? Many, many, many. Okay, so James, black belt, been training forever. He's got a different jujitsu, a different jujitsu, weird jitsu. It's weird. It's different. And the thing that you have to remember when you're rolling with James is that your instincts are likely wrong. It's crazy, but your instincts are likely wrong. And I know that that's a blanket statement and it's actually true. For instance, he wants you to pass guard and get a cross side.

• 1:55:15Jocko Willink?

  He, he wants you a cross side, which is crazy in jujitsu. So your instinct to get past his guard and get across side and digging deep with your, with, with head control on him and having his arm. He, that's what he wants you to do because he has a whole series of moves that he does from there. Now, much like we were talking earlier about a long lanky guy that does moves that no one's used to, James does moves that people are not used to. And the moves that he does capitalize on your instinct. Yeah. So for instance, when you trap his head from a cross side and you want to put your arm there and you put it there and that's your instinct. He wants you to put his arm there because he's going to get a hold of it, trap it. He's got a sweep or an arm lock that he's going to set up from there.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  So that's the thing you have to recognize and you have, you can't just blanket obey your instincts all the time. Because sometimes your instincts are going to be wrong. That's the way it is. And it is definitely the same thing in leadership.

• 1:56:19Jocko Willink?

  And when using instincts in leadership, the first thing that you kind of have to do is you have to become aware of your instincts and you have to pay attention to them and pay attention to what you're thinking and paying attention to what your instinct is and note your instinct and then look at the after, the post-mortem and see if your instinct was correct or incorrect. And, and then you've got to see how often you were right with your instinct and how often your instincts were wrong or what your natural biases are. For instance, you've got some people that are, their, their instinct is too positive, right? Oh, you know, we'll be able to get this done.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:57Jocko Willink?

  And, and how often are you right about getting it done? And then you've got some people that are too negative. Their instinct is too negative, like, "We'll never be able to get this done. We shouldn't even go." No, maybe you're wrong there. There's some people instinctively, they trust people too much. So they go, "Oh, Echo, I know he's going to handle it. I'm just going to give him the project and he's going to run with it. He's got it." And there's some people that instinctively don't trust enough and they go, "Man, Echo's not going to be able to handle this. I gotta, I gotta micromanage him." And so those, those two, those are examples of learning what your personal instinctive biases are so that you can calibrate them correctly.

• 1:57:39Jocko Willink?

  And that way you can adjust your biases and you can mitigate their impact and you can utilize them and give credence to them and understand them and utilize them to the best of your ability. And both leadership and fighting, both of them, as the more you do and the more you pay attention to your instincts, the better they're both going to both become. Now, that being said, there's another kind of instinct that you need to be on the lookout for and this one is a liar.

• 1:58:22Jocko Willink?

  This one is a saboteur. This one is a backbiter.

• 1:58:30Jocko Willink?

  And like the devil himself, he's a shapeshifter. He's gonna disguise himself and make you think he's got your best interests in mind.

• 1:58:45Jocko Willink?

  But he doesn't. This is the instinct that says you've had enough.

• 1:58:53Jocko Willink?

  This is the instinct that says you've, you've, you've given it your best shot. You can, you can stand down. You can back off.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  You can take a knee.

• 1:59:07Jocko Willink?

  This is the instinct that says you can rest now.

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  Do not listen to that instinct. Do not listen. That instinct is a liar and wants to bring you down. That's the instinct that's a defense mechanism. It wants to give you an out, a place to run to. A little, little place of sympathy. An amnesty, a little place of amnesty where everything is forgiven. Where all these, these failures can gather together in comfort and drown their sorrows in lies and in deception.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  And they tell each other.

• 2:00:02Jocko Willink?

  And they'll tell you, you did the best you could.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  No, they'll say the deck, the deck, the deck was stacked against you.

• 2:00:13Jocko Willink?

  And they'll say it's not your fault.

• 2:00:19Jocko Willink?

  And they'll tell you it's okay to stop. It's okay to settle. It's okay to give up.

• 2:00:33Jocko Willink?

  And that is the instinct you need to fight, you need to push back to smash into the ground. Do not take the easy way out. Do not give up based on instinct. If you are forced to stand down, to retreat, so that you can rebuild and re-attack, so be it. But make that decision based on logic, not on the instinct of surrender and defeat.

• 2:01:15Jocko Willink?

  And you need to train that instinct, your instinct. Train it to say, "Get up. Go. Fight on." And if that is what you become, if that becomes your fundamental reaction to adversity, if that becomes your gut instinct, then you will overcome just about anything that stands

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  in your path. You know, I think that's about all I've got for tonight. So, thanks to all of you for listening to this podcast and for supporting the podcast. Then now Echo is gonna tell you how to do that in the most efficient way.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Yes, the most efficient way.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Well, we'll start with an efficient way, we'll say that.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  Amazon, click through. Anytime you shop at Amazon, try to remember, if you can, go through the website, click on the Amazon link, then do your shopping.

• 2:02:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and by the way, it may seem small, we get a little tiny percentage, but it is true. When you add all those little small percentages together, it, it provides us with something to help us out with the podcast.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, very supportive.

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  So it's very supportive. It may not seem like a big deal, but as a group, it's very supportive and it's very helpful. So,

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  and even-

• 2:03:14Jocko Willink?

  don't feel like you're not doing anything. You are absolutely supporting the podcast.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Yep, agree. And that is, yeah, factually true. A thing to help you with that, kind of make it even more, I guess, more official. It's a cool, it's a cool little way. Trooper Tool, Amazon, Chalk Podcast, Trooper Tool, Chrome extension for Amazon. Just go on the website, it'll say a little thing, Trooper Tool Chrome Extension. Click on that, kind of downloads this little extension, goes on your browser, it automatically supports the podcast when you shop through Amazon. So you don't even have to remember to click through the website. You don't have to go to the website anymore after that. It does automatically. And you got the tool too. It's pretty cool. It's official.

• 2:03:58Jocko Willink?

  And it helps.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Helps, yeah.

• 2:04:00Jocko Willink?

  Helps with what we're doing right here.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  Yep, very much. And then, of course, you gotta support yourself, I think. Some, some good supplements, which is saying a lot because there's, you know, there's a lot of not good supplements out there. Onnit Supplements, the best. It's like, it's not even really a debate anymore. Really?

• 2:04:22Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't think it's a debate anymore.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Given like what we're trying to do, what all of us are trying to do here in the group.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  If you're in the game, there's, there's no real debate.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's not like, you're not gonna find a power gainer 5,000 chocolate protein tub of powder. It's not that. It's like legit supplements. Alpha Brain, Neutropics, Proven. They got all the literature on there too, by the way. Krill oil, the best quality, eco-friendly producer. Anyway, it's the best supplements by far. On it.com slash Jocko, you can get 10% off. So you support yourself as well.

• 2:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Shroom tech.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  Shroom tech, yes.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Recommended.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Highly recommended, highly recommended. I told a story last time about the, about the krill oil in joints, about my process. Bro, I'm telling you the krill oil, even if you don't even realize it, I didn't even realize it. But when, after a while, when you take it, you're like, man, it's, yeah, it's good.

• 2:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Feel good.

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  I feel, yeah, I feel real good. Shroom tech for, yeah, if you're getting after it, high intensity stuff for, you know, any kind of prolonged period, that's going to help you notably.

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  You feel it.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  You, yeah, you'll feel that one. Helps you utilize like oxygen better in your muscles, something like that. I'm not the scientist behind it, obviously. You can read about it if you want, but that one's a good one. Anyway, check out all the supplements, they're 10% off and they're all legit. And I don't know if a warrior bar is even a supplement, but it's a bar.

• 2:05:50Jocko Willink?

  It's a food.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like a food. It's good though. Check that one out. Check that one out. Rest assured you'll like how it tastes.

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  Do yourself that favor.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  That favor, yes, yes. Those are some ways. Also subscribe, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, of course. If you feel like leaving a review, don't like hesitate to leave the review. Just leave the review. Just do it. Like if you feel like doing it, you know, you're like, eh, like I could say this about this whatever thing where you're like, eh, I won't.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  And you might be thinking, well, those guys aren't going to read it. No, I won't read it.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:06:26Jocko Willink?

  And I'm going to take some input and be fired up. It, it's motivating when people are fired up and leaving reviews. It's a connection.

• 2:06:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:06:34Jocko Willink?

  And it makes me go, you know what? I'm going to get this thing a little bit harder.

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  Yep. When he's like, yeah, Jocko's very articulate. Makes Jocko want to be even more articulate, right?

• 2:06:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it does indeed.

• 2:06:47Speaker 01

  It's like, I meant, do that. And, you know, if you're.

• 2:06:49Jocko Willink?

  And it helps, dude, that actually helps the ratings or something with. With iTunes when there's more reviews. So, why do we want to have good readings, ratings? So then it gets bumped up. Why do we want it bumped up? Some more people listen to it. Why do we want more people to listen to it? Cause we want more people getting after it. We want more people to do better.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:08Jocko Willink?

  I want, I want more people in the game.

• 2:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  I want to get more feedback. I want to talk to more people.

• 2:07:14Speaker 01

  Yep. When I see Brady Lanter at his jujitsu class saying, I just got after it. Told me he lost thirty pounds. Takes jujitsu now.

• 2:07:26Speaker 01

  That's what we want more of. That's my, what I want more of. And I'm assuming you want to say that's why. So ultimately, it really comes down to that.

• 2:07:34Jocko Willink?

  Definitely. I hate to use the word motivated, but I guess there is no other word. I am definitely motivated by the people that are making their lives better. That are the people that are getting better physically, by the people that are getting better mentally, that write me an email or, or send me a note that says, "Oh, had to use some, had to use some flanking on my boss today. Got him."

• 2:07:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:07:56Jocko Willink?

  But that is good to go.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  Thousand percent.

• 2:07:59Jocko Willink?

  That's what I like to hear.

• 2:08:00Speaker 01

  When someone says, "Hey, Echo, can I use your and Jocko's likeness in a thing on my bulletin board for my students? To employ extreme ownership? Can I do that?" Just the fact that that's a question he wants to ask? Makes it.

• 2:08:15Jocko Willink?

  Just, just, you know, it's interesting. So I talked about today. I didn't know about getting after it when I was thirteen years old. Imagine somebody being in a classroom and being like, "Hey, you want to get after it? Here's what you gotta do. Here it is. Here's a couple of guys. They're getting after it." You know what? Why don't you get after it, thirteen year old boy? Thirteen year old girl? Why don't you make something happen? You know what? You know there's people that do five hundred pull-ups a workout? They don't do twenty-eight. Twenty-eight doesn't mean anything around here. Step up your game. So exposing the world. So that people can do better, do more, be more. That's good to go.

• 2:08:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you had more people being less abrasive, losing their temper left, or less, um, exercising extreme ownerships and disciplined in all things.

• 2:09:03Speaker 01

  Pursuing freedom through discipline. That is a better place across the board.

• 2:09:09Jocko Willink?

  You might even go so far as to say unmitigated daily discipline in all things.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:09:16Speaker 01

  So that's the ultimate goal.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  Also, subscribe to YouTube if you want. We'll add some more videos on there aside from just the podcast video. Add some more videos on there.

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  And we have been.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  And I think that we, not you Echo, but we, the rest of us.

• 2:09:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:37Jocko Willink?

  I think we can motivate you more to make more videos. Cause every time you make a video, like when you, when you, not just a clip of the podcast, but when you make a legit video, I'm always like, yeah. And I think a lot of people say the same thing. And there's actually a lot of troopers out there that are, that are making badass videos too.

• 2:09:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:09:56Jocko Willink?

  Who's that? Gene, Gene Roderick? Gene Roderick makes some killer videos. Can we put his videos on the Jocko Podcast page?

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  I think I did. Dang, I haven't put videos on there in a while, but um, yes, we can.

• 2:10:11Jocko Willink?

  We should do that.

• 2:10:11Speaker 01

  We will.

• 2:10:12Jocko Willink?

  We should do that so that everybody can see all the trooper work that goes out there.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  You know what it does too? I- in this small little way where, you know, okay, you'll say some words. You'll say, you'll say what you say. And I take it a certain way. I'm like, dang, that really hit me. It resonated with me.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Other people, other words might hit them harder or less harder or whatever. So if people have like video editing skills, you know, or they know how to video edit and stuff like that and put tracks and do that stuff. When they put it out, it's, it's kind of, it is a representation of how those words hit them.

• 2:10:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  You know, is it like, you make a decision to put a certain type of track behind what you're saying for a reason. So it's so interesting to see, dang, that's how that hit him, you know, in this feel, this feeling is how it hit him. And it's like, dang, you kind of get a different dimension of it.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  It's cool too, because uh, for me, I'm, I don't hear my words, right?

• 2:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:11:12Jocko Willink?

  My words.

• 2:11:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Then I, I hear my words with.

• 2:11:18Jocko Willink?

  With the same thing you're saying, like the way it's entering their brain. Because when you make a video, right? When you make a video, it's a reflection of the what's going on in your mind.

• 2:11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  And so like some of those videos that Gene made, I was like, oh, yeah, like, yeah. Like it's go, it's taking me inside his head and what it appears to be from inside his head, which is awesome to hear and awesome to see.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:43Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, we should get those. And he had a couple that went, didn't go through the copyrighted material. I don't know if he took the wrong songs or something, but it was a bummer because some of those were awesome.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, that's part of the battle right there, I think. But hey, you know, which whichever.

• 2:11:58Jocko Willink?

  But anyways, what I was gonna say is, I think the more people that are YouTube subscribers, I think the more motivated that you will personally get, that's my opinion, to make even more badass videos. That's my opinion.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  Well, like you think it might get like a competition, who can make the better one?

• 2:12:15Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, no, I, I, I don't think that. I think you're inspired by this video is the same way I am that other people make. But I'm saying, I think you will just be motivated more, the more people like, you know, when you say a video has just been uploaded by Jocko Podcast and you know that it's going to 50,000 people, you'll be like boom, click, boom, click, you'll start getting after a little bit more.

• 2:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:36Jocko Willink?

  And personally, I want you to get after it more.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  The direct approach, dig it. The pro there is one, it was like one of the original ones that someone else made. I hate that I can't remember like the names of the people did it, but it's the one, it was to, um, the Pacific soundtrack.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  It was one of the original ones.

• 2:12:56Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  Bro, I'll, I'll admit, bro, I was drinking one night. Just in front of them. Yeah. It was, yeah, it was a long time ago.

• 2:13:01Jocko Willink?

  And you made drinking, that made you drink even more.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  Bro, I was drinking some, I was playing, I was like, bro, I'm feeling this so deeply right now. I played like literally like eight to 12 times, just in a row. Dang, this is so like, just, cause you see, they're clips from movies. They're clips from this and it's, it's a, it's a mashup. And you know, the, the music, and here's the thing, it's not like hardcore music. It's not, it's just, it's like, man, it's, it's really good. Um, and I think, like I said, that's like such a good way to see, not only just your words, but how someone else heard them, interpreted them and put them back out there.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  It's awesome.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  You're like, dang, it's like a whole nother dimension. Anyway, um, yes, I'll get more on the YouTube for sure. I'm already more on the YouTube.

• 2:13:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you are.

• 2:13:46Speaker 01

  But I'll keep it up. I'll keep it up. I'll do even more. Do some more. We'll do some different types of stuff.

• 2:13:50Jocko Willink?

  I'll probably start making some videos soon.

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please, please.

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  No, I won't. I can't do it.

• 2:13:55Speaker 01

  Also, to support this podcast, in the event of you being in the mood to support this podcast,

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  you can get some cool stuff. I think it's cool, at JacoStore.com.

• 2:14:09Speaker 01

  T-shirts, they have multiple layers to them, not physically, psychologically, philosophically, they have multiple layers to them, all of them. Some Easter eggs, too.

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  Shirts, travel mugs, and bumper stickers. Now, new stuff that's available right now. Well, may or may not be available, it might be sold out, but they could be on backorder.

• 2:14:30Jocko Willink?

  You can order it.

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  You can order it, yes. Um, new stuff, rash guards. I thought it was for jiu-jitsu, but they're for everything, they're for lifting, like CrossFit especially, running is a, is a good one, like bike, biking, basically, everything that rash guards, you know, spandex type shirts are for surfing, I think primarily, really, but lifting, whatever. Um, and of course, jiu-jitsu. Rash guards are cool. Check them out. If you like them, boom, get one of those, or two, or whatever to support, and stickers. And then jiu-jitsu patches, and just patches, you know, you can sew them on. They're iron-on, but you sew them on as well for, you know, um, you know, put on your bag, what have you. Jiu-jitsu patches for your gi, that stuff.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  New things coming within the next, what, week or two. Women's tank tops.

• 2:15:17Jocko Willink?

  I think it actually live pretty soon.

• 2:15:20Speaker 01

  I think so, too. Um, but yeah, there it is. All good support that way.

• 2:15:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and that's all, uh, awesome. We appreciate that support. That is...

• 2:15:33Jocko Willink?

  A cool way, you know, to, to help us out with what we're doing. Also, another thing just came out is a little something, um, little Jocka White Tea, if you want to get some of that, it's pomegranate and it's some, I don't know where it came from. I don't know when I started utilizing it, but I've utilized it for quite some time now. It's live on Amazon. It is live. It's live on Amazon. So go ahead, get on there, order it and get your white tea on. That's what I'm, when you see me drinking it here, if I'm not drinking Alpha Brain, I'm drinking white tea and white tea is definitely what I'm drinking during the show.

• 2:16:13Jocko Willink?

  So give it a try. You might dig it. Um, it's available on Amazon. You could probably click through. Unless you have the trooper tool, then you can just hit it and get some of that Jocka White Tea, which, uh, we've been, you've heard me talk about for a long time now. Here it is. So. And also, oh yeah, by the way, wrote a book with my brother Leif Babbin, if you want to check that out. Actually y'all brought it back onto the bestseller list, which is awesome and we appreciate it.

• 2:16:47Jocko Willink?

  Go ahead, pick up a copy if you don't have one. If you've got people in your life that you want to help them get in the game. There you go. Just a little something for you. Costs you 20 bucks and, and you get your, you help somebody. Dig it. So that's good. And of course, a, if you haven't heard yet, October 20th and 21st in San Diego, California, we're having the Extreme Ownership Muster. Two days of get some.

• 2:17:22Jocko Willink?

  With Leif and me live going deep on combat leadership, on the battlefield, in business and in life. Come and get it. The amount of troopers that are signed up, it's going to be killer to have everybody together. All different industries.

• 2:17:45Jocko Willink?

  Companies, businesses, firefighters, police officers,

• 2:17:53Jocko Willink?

  a whole, the whole gamut of people that are in leadership positions that wanna learn, that wanna share, that wanna get better. So come on out to the muster, Extreme Ownership. Come and get it. And as always, if you wanna keep on kinda kicking it with Echo Charles and myself,

• 2:18:20Jocko Willink?

  we are all up on the interwebs. Twitter, boom. Instagram, yep. Facebooky, we're there.

• 2:18:32Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And finally, to you. First, those in uniform, military, police, fire, those of you holding the line.

• 2:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Train hard, be vigilant, be aggressive,

• 2:18:58Jocko Willink?

  and be balanced in your approach. And also, to those of you that are out there, working, and I, I travel the country and I spend time with you folks as well. You folks that are out there, working, that are building, that are making things. From construction workers, building roads and bridges and buildings, to those of you building or remanufacturing engines, or building cars or trucks. To those of you that are out there, building

• 2:19:39Jocko Willink?

  the next generation of technology, hardware and software,

• 2:19:47Jocko Willink?

  that's gonna make life better. I meet with you all the time. I see what you're doing.

• 2:19:56Jocko Willink?

  The builders, the makers, thank you

• 2:20:02Jocko Willink?

  for

• 2:20:04Jocko Willink?

  working your ass off to build the world and everything in it.

• 2:20:11Jocko Willink?

  And to all you troopers out there, living life,

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  driving and grinding and doing the work.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Give it everything you got.

• 2:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Put your head down, grit your teeth,

• 2:20:36Jocko Willink?

  and get after it.

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  So, until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.