75: Guidelines for Leadership are Honesty, Dependability, Discipline and Fairness. "Conversations w/ Dick Winters"

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:19 - "Conversations With Dick Winters", by Dick Winters. http://amzn.to/2qqvGTJ 0:06:26 - Dick Winters's take on detaching the situation for a beneficial and accurate overview. 0:13:12 - Leadership: Discipline. 0:23:16 - Leadership: Honesty, Dependability, Fairness, and Presence. 1:443:49 - Understanding Others. 1:52:05 - Take-aways from Dick Winters. 2:00:47 - Closing: Life can be hard and beautiful. 2:19:16 - Support, Cool Onnit http://www.onnit.com/jocko, Amazon https://www.amazon.com/?&tag=jocko20-20&camp=216797&creative=498533&linkCode=ur1&adid=1DKYGWXQBV0KNEZ3MZZX&, JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, with Jocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid http://amzn.to/2n9k6I9, and The Muster 003 http://www.extremeownership.com. 2:56:55 - Closing Gratitude. 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 75 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  We have shared the incommunicable experience of war.

• 0:20Jocko Willink?

  We have felt, we still feel the passion of life to its top.

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  In our youth,

• 0:30Jocko Willink?

  our hearts were touched by fire.

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  That's a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court Judge.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  Lots of people know that, but they may not know, Civil War soldier, served with the 20th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  Saw action all over the place. Peninsula Campaign, the wilderness. He was wounded at the Battle of Balls Bluff, also wounded at Antietam,

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  and also wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

• 1:17Jocko Willink?

  So I think it's safe to say that he knew and understood war, and that quote right there is from the beginning of another book about another man that knew war.

• 1:33Jocko Willink?

  Major Dick Winters. Now, we've covered Dick Winters before, his book on this podcast, number 17, Beyond Band of Brothers. Great book, lots of lessons learned, but there's another book which is called Conversations with Major Dick Winters, Life Lessons From The Commander Of The Band Of Brothers. And it's written by a guy named Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, who was a friend of Dick Winters, and who actually was the co-author behind that book, Beyond Band Of Brothers. So what's cool about this book is it really parses out some lessons about leadership

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  in a conversational manner with Dick Winters, the things that he thought, and the lessons that he learned, which I mean, when you get an opportunity to learn from someone like this, you know what I do? I just be quiet. I listen and I learn, or in this case, I read and I learn.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  So this is also the guy, if you haven't seen the series on HBO, Band of Brothers, just go stop and just go watch it. It's, I don't know what it is, like 12, 12 episodes. They're all awesome. Everybody asks me all the time, what's a realistic war movies? That one Band of Brothers and then the Pacific, all both HBO series, they're both phenomenal. And I recommend you watch it. You'll learn a lot about Dick Winters on that. And the, and the guy that plays Dick Winters does a great job. And the way they tell the story and the realism and all that, it's just an awesome series.

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  But here we can learn, not interpreted through a movie, but actually from the man as he spoke it. So here we go, taking it back to the book right now.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  From Dick Winters. D-Day was my first time in combat. So right there, let's just talk about that for a second. Your first time in combat, what's your mission? D-Day.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  One of the largest military operations of all time. That's your first day in combat. Get some. Back to the book. I was mentally prepared and felt that I had done everything necessary to prepare myself for this precise moment. And you never know if you will measure up as a leader until the minute arrives when you face the enemy for the first time. Baptism by fire is a soldier's sacrament. There is always doubt. Hopefully in combat, you perform as you train.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  So I can't imagine that baptism by fire. D-Day. Again, get, get some sense of another good movie, Saving Private Ryan. The opening scene of that is the same thing and

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  that's, that's one of the most intense parts of a movie ever is the D-Day. When they're hitting the beaches, it's crazy to watch. But watch it because it'll give you a feeling for what Dick Winters is talking about. And just imagine all these preparation that you do. You're getting ready. And guess what? Here it comes. Little mission called D-Day.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  Now, they all, they, that was their initial operation was during D-Day, but then they fought all over the place. And again, we cover this in, in Beyond Band of Brothers. But one of the most intense parts of their campaign was at Bastogne. So even though D-Day was hard, things didn't get easier once D-Day was complete. As much as I'm saying, oh yeah, D-Day was crazy. Guess what? It wasn't even the hardest part for them. Things got worse. Back to the book. Most of the soldiers in Easy Company also felt that Bastogne was the most challenging month of the war. Staff Sergeant Bill Guarnier later claimed that he had been scared before, but he was absolutely petrified of Bastogne. From my perspective,

• 5:32Jocko Willink?

  Bastogne was the most miserable place I've been in my life. I was wet through and through. And naturally, being a paratrooper, I didn't have a change of clothes, no blanket, nothing. And it was a cold son of a gun. Things were all snafu, walking around in the black of night, not knowing where we were exactly, where everybody else was, houses burning, civilians crying, wringing your hands, and behind every bush, a perspective enemy. We took our greatest number of casualties during that campaign. Easy Company was never the same. After Bastogne, we lost so many, because we lost so many veterans who had

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  fought in Normandy and Holland. Joe Toy, Bill Guarnier, Buck Compton, Don Hubler, and many others. So this is, this is where I, I started thinking, okay, leadership lesson learned right here. I operated the battalion command post that was situated approximately 75 yards from the main line of resistance. You might not think 75 yards is consequential, but it gave me the opportunity to think things through and divorce myself from the chaos surrounding the front line and to make calm, rational decisions under pressure. That is the toughest challenge for any leader. So obviously, we're talking about detachment here. And I've talked

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  about the fact that

• 7:04Jocko Willink?

  In order to detach, you can move off the line like six inches. I'm not kidding. In a smaller group, you know, in a SEAL platoon, he's talking about a battalion. So they got hundreds of guys. So 75 yards is more appropriate. But if you're running a smaller unit, like one company or maybe a platoon, you got 30, 40 guys. If you move back off that firing line, six inches, a foot, maybe, you know, maybe three feet or six feet. You just step back and you get yourself out of that firefight where you can look around. That's what you're going to be able to do. You're going to be able to detach yourself from the chaos and the mayhem and make calm, rational decisions under pressure.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's such a big deal, like where, when you do that, when you detach and then you can, you know, you have a clearer vision. And a lot of times, the answer or solution to some big problem is just so simple. Remember that story you were telling at the muster where, you know, you're, one of your guys had an injured neck. So he couldn't participate, but he wanted to come along. So he was watching from the outside. And he's like, why don't they just, what do you, step back and peel left?

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, why don't they, why don't they get online and peel left?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  Whatever the call was. So the story is, there was a guy that actually, he was the Delta Platoon commander in TU Bruiser. He took over my position. He took over as the TU Bruiser commander. And then I was running the training. So once I was running the training, you know, now I was overall making things happen. And he was going through the training, a different block of training and he broke his neck. Broke his neck. And thank God, he didn't hurt his spinal cord, but he broke a vertebrae in his neck. So he had to wear one of those big, crazy neck braces. And he couldn't actually do the physical training. He wasn't allowed to bear any weight for a certain amount of time.

• 8:50Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, luckily he was able to keep his, his job because he was very experienced. And so we were going through the land warfare portion of training. And I said, hey, man, you know, I know you can't participate, but come out with me, you know, come out and check it out. And, you know, you can see your guys and you can watch how they perform and you can, you know, teach them some stuff and learn from, from what happens. So cool. He comes out and he was actually one of my, you know, one of my best friends. So of course we just wanted to hang out anyways. Which is what the teams is all about. So, you know, of course we, he has a chance to come out and hang out with me in the desert for a few weeks. He's going to do it. So we, we get out there and, and you know, you've heard the stories about the training that I ran. It was really hard and.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  Evil and crazy and psychotic and we're doing that, you know, we got we in that case we had these really high speed laser laser tag system and you got guys pinned down, you got explosions going off, you got just total mayhem going on and his guys kind of froze up. And they're all pinned down in this little sort of ravine valley type thing and I got guys, I got my guys, my opposing force. So the SEALs that are pretending to be bad guys, pretending to be moose, they're all up in the mountains, shooting down on them and killing everyone. And his guys, his leadership is just kind of frozen and they're sitting there and not doing anything and you know, he says to me, hey, can I help them? And I I kind of thought about it for a minute. I go, yeah, go ahead. I go give them, you know, tell them what to do, give them a prompt.

• 10:11Jocko Willink?

  And he and he just, you know, goes down to the leader, one of the leaders and says, hey, get online and peel left. And so the guy looks at him and What does get online mean? Just it's an organizational movement where all your troops are pointed in all different directions. Gotcha, yeah. Boom, you'd say contact right online. And that means everyone's going to basically face in that direction. You'll get a couple of guys that are doing rear security, a couple of guys that are doing flank security, but everyone is now oriented in the same direction. And then the next call that comes is peel left, boom, and they're all going to start moving. You know, in a direction that's going to get them out of this immediate threat. So he tells, he kind of says to the guy, hey, get online, peel left.

• 10:52Jocko Willink?

  So the guy looks at him and he just yells out, get online, peel left. And then everyone repeats that command. And then everyone does it. And within a minute, they're they're home free. It literally took like one minute once I made the decision. So and then so so they get out of there and he looks at me and he goes, he goes, man, it's so easy. When you're way up here. Now, way up here, to put it in perspective, was four feet behind these guys. That's all it was. It wasn't like we were up on some mountain top with some incredible view. No, we were, we were there. We were standing next to the guys. And we were a little bit elevated because they were laying down and we were standing up, but it's it was not inconceivable that you wouldn't have the same perspective if you just stepped back and maybe, you know, shuffled over a little bit.

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  And he says, it's so easy when when you're up here. And I said, "Bro, you remember when we went through training?" And he says, "Yeah." And I said, "It was always like this for me." And it was. I was, I would always just pull myself back just enough to be able to see what the solution is. So, yes, this detachment that he's talking about, and again, in a battalion situation where you're going 75 yards, and in a business situation, you know, I actually see people do this. You're in a, you're in a meeting. And there's everyone around the, around the table, and there's some problem that can't be solved. Literally step up and get, step away from the table. And just step back, get away from the group. Because they're all mobbed up and group think. Everyone's going down the same trail. They're thinking about the same stuff, and there's no new ideas because they're all right there in this vortex.

• 12:22Jocko Willink?

  Step away from the table. It's the same thing like step, step away from your computer. You know, you get to some point where you're just, you don't know where to go with some, you're looking for some kind of a solution to a problem. Step back, step back, see more.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, in writing, a lot of times, they'll suggest, "Just skip to the end." "Don't worry about like this in the middle. Just go to the end. How do you want it to end?" And then it'll kind of open your mind up. It'll, it'll make you sort of forget about this problem right in front of you, you know? And give you kind of an overall view.

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  Move you towards the solution that you know can be found.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Even in an argument with your wife or something like that.

• 12:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, well, for sure.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  That's a big one.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Cause when you, yeah, you definitely needed to do it there.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  You're entrenched.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  You don't need to get entrenched. Don't do that.

• 13:05Jocko Willink?

  All right. And this part's been covered before on multiple occasions. You know what we're gonna do? Covered again.

• 13:13Jocko Willink?

  Little piece about discipline. I did have a routine, a routine that was instilled into me by Colonel Sink. At COA, Colonel Sink insisted that officers always shave in the morning regardless of the situation. He would say, "You shave every morning for the troops, and if you want to shave every evening for the women, that's up to you." I followed his orders because I realized that I had to set the proper example for the men. I needed to get their attention, let them all know that I intended to be around for a while, and that the situation was not as bad as they might think.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  I remember before second battalion attacked Foy, I had awakened early and shaved before I ate breakfast. I later discovered that I had cut my face in multiple places. When Colonel Sink came up to check on the battalion's readiness before the attack commenced, he took one look at me and smiled. I realized that he was laughing at me for shaving on that bitterly cold morning. In hindsight, shaving at zero dark thirty in freezing temperatures was pretty ridiculous.

• 14:15Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, we talk about this all the time, gotta shave, gotta maintain unmitigated daily discipline in all things. But what's cool that what I, the reason I wanted to go over this again is because look at what he's doing psychologically to the troops. He's saying, I know I had to set an example. I needed to get their attention. And make them realize like, hey, we're gonna be here for a while. And you know what? I'm just gonna go daily. This is no big deal. Oh, you're worried about this stuff? I'm still shaving over here. I'm still waking up at zero four hundred shaving. And, and you're worried about this stuff? Nothing to worry about. We're good to go. And you need to maintain the same discipline. So that leading by example clearly is a big deal right there. And maintaining that routine, maintaining that discipline.

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  Now, speaking of discipline, back to the book, regardless of how disciplined an outfit is, too much time on your hands, too little activity and too much alcohol make a volatile combination. So this book skips around a little bit, but I, I put this in here because this is, this is actually talking about when they were done fighting. And now everyone was kind of idle. He has some idle people on their hands, but it related to discipline. So I wanted to lock it in a little bit. Back to the book, the battalion was no longer a combat unit, but a garrison outfit. It was more important to keep the troops gainfully employed to prevent boredom and monotony. That would lead to a breakdown in discipline. And when that occurs, soldiers get careless. Consequently, the first thing we organized were calisthenics and athletic programs.

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  You know, I always joke about, you know, when people say they have some kind of problem. And I'm, oh, do burpees. Right. Hey, you know what a good solution to all problems are? Calisthenics. Just start doing calisthenics. I like that. I like that attitude.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  I vividly recall, this is, this is another reason why I put this in. I vividly recall watching the men stripped to their waist or only wearing their shorts as they played baseball. The sight of all those scars made me conscious of the fact that only a handful of men in the battalion had been lucky enough to make it through all four campaigns without at least one scar. Some men had two, three, or even four scars on their chest, back, arms, or legs. Keep in mind that this was after the war, so I was looking only at men who were not seriously wounded. Next, we set up rifle ranges and sharpened our marksmanship. Close order drill and troop reviews were once again back on the training schedule.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  I also established a schedule where each of our four platoons could rotate every 72 hours to a ski lodge in the Alps for rest and relaxation. The purpose of using this retreat was to let the men get away from the routine of a military schedule.

• 16:53Jocko Willink?

  So first of all, when, when I got to SEAL Team One, and actually it wasn't when I, when I first got there, but there was a, a Master Chief at SEAL Team One that had showed up in 1971 or 1972 to SEAL Team One. And SEAL Team One, you know, you had 150 guys roughly on the team at that time. And they had had 34 killed in action in Vietnam at SEAL Team One. And wounded was, I, I don't know how many wounded, but it was a lot. But this, this guy who was a Master Chief when I met him, and he was telling me that when he, you know, at the SEAL Team, you would, you know, you PT in the morning, just like a sports team, you get, you get to work and you work out. And here's, he's a new guy, right? And he's, they, they PT and then they go in the shower, you know, to, to, to wash off and it's the same thing.

• 17:38Jocko Willink?

  He's like looking at every single guy's scarred up, wounded, you know, slashes on their chest, bullet holes in them. And he kind of was saying to himself, damn, you know, this is, uh, this has been trial by fire for these guys.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  But beyond that, what he's talking about here clearly is if you, and I'll tell you this, especially with, you know, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 20-year-old males that have joined the military. If you don't find something for them to do productive, they're gonna find something to do that's not gonna be productive. It'll be fun for them. It'll be fun for them. They're gonna have a good time, but it's not, there's a chance they could be doing something better than what you're letting them do. Now, of course, he talks about the fact that he's giving them, still giving them time to go out to the ski lodge and, and break away from it a little bit, but you just gotta be careful in how you do that. You gotta be careful in how you do that. It's,

• 18:37Jocko Willink?

  it can backfire if you're not careful. And the first time I was ever kinda detached from a SEAL platoon on a, it was when I went to training, the training department at SEAL Team One, what we used to call Training Cell, which sounds legit. And it was legit. So at Training Cell, the first trip I went on with a platoon, because I was always in the platoon. So the first trip I went on with the platoon, and I was outside of the platoon, and I was, you, you could say I was an instructor even though we weren't running around calling ourselves instructor, instructors. We would call ourselves actually the cadre. I don't know why. It was just like, oh yeah, cadre.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Sounds dope.

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Wait, that's an official term though, right?

• 19:21Jocko Willink?

  It is an official term. Yeah, cadre. The training cadre. So when we were at Training Cell, because the instructors are kinda considered the buds instructors, the guys who are at the basic training, and, and we didn't really wanna be buds instructors, we were the cadre.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 19:36Jocko Willink?

  So, and I never, I didn't, man, this is just, this is just my own assessment. I didn't make up cadre. I didn't call ourselves cadre. I didn't make up Training Cell. I wish I would've made up all those things, but I just flowed into them as a lucky, young, new guy. Or, and actually at this point, I wasn't a new guy anymore.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Wait, but it's true though, right? It's not like you just gave yourself a title that wasn't.

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no. We were the cadre. Yeah. Oh, Training Cadre. Yeah. Oh, hey, I need to talk to the guys in the cadre over here. Yeah, that's what, that's what we called ourselves.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, yeah. So it's like, you know, like, let's say you open a jujitsu gym, and then, you know, you're teaching people, and then you're like, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm the instructor. And then you say, you know what? I like professor. That's better.

• 20:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, it wasn't that.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  It's not that.

• 20:12Jocko Willink?

  I didn't make that. No, no, no. They called, you know, for years. And actually, I think Roger Hayden talked about it when, when he was on the podcast. He was talking about when he was cadre.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:21Jocko Willink?

  It's been around forever.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Right. That's why I just like professor. It's like, it's true.

• 20:24Jocko Willink?

  It's an actual thing.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  You are the professor, but it's like, it just sounds, it's just better. You know, it sounds better. So I'm gonna go ahead and go with that one.

• 20:30Jocko Willink?

  Just go with cadre.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  Not even know what I was talking about. Oh, so I was, I was in the cadre for the first time. And we went on a trip and went to a trip where they have good times to be had where we were. It was, it was a place where there's some good training, but there's also good times. And you know, I picked this up from Harley Flanagan, this term, which I hadn't really heard, wilding. Did you hear him say that? He's like, oh, we were just wilding.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:56Jocko Willink?

  Which I think is a better term than the term that we discussed, which was partying, right? Oh, there's good, yeah, we were partying.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Jocko Willink?

  I like wilding better because that entails all kinds of other things.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  A little bit more wild, yeah.

• 21:06Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more wild.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, wilding out or what's it say, wilding out.

• 21:09Jocko Willink?

  I never really heard it. I never really heard it before. He's, but when Harley said, I mean, clearly you know what it is.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:14Jocko Willink?

  And it's in his book too. He talks about wilding. So we went to this place with a SEAL platoon where there was good training and good wilding to be had. And I remember the first time that these guys, you know, we get there, we work a little bit and then they're gonna go out in, into the town. And I remember thinking to myself, they'd been in the field for a few days and they were all fired up, young frogmen. And I was thinking to myself, how is this even gonna work? Like, there's no, there's no possibility of this going well. And it did, you know, everyone was fine, but you just see all these guys, they're ready to, you know, they're ready to explode. And you're gonna, they've been in the field, they've dehydrated, they've been in the field for four days or five days. They're all dehydrated and they completed their operation. They feel good about it. Now you're gonna let them out in town and it's,

• 21:59Jocko Willink?

  yeah, you gotta be careful in those scenarios. You gotta put something, yeah, we, we would, you know, sometimes you just say, hey, look, yeah, do whatever you want tonight, but we're PTing tomorrow at 0700. So then everyone knows they can, they can wild to a point, but they can't, they gotta put some kind of a governor, some kind of a governor on the scenario. Here's a cool piece where Dick Winters, you know, he talks, Ben, I've talked about this before, but.

• 22:28Jocko Willink?

  Just, just a piece about his view of what America was doing at the time. Back to the book, the United States went to war not to conquer territory or to subject their fellow man, but merely to liberate a conquered people from the chains of tyranny. There is a certain nobility in all that. Today, we are bombarded in the news media about how everyone hates America and how this country is deployed around the world. World War II wasn't like that, and I am proud to be a part of it. So again, I've said this a bunch of times, you know, we went there and, and lost hundreds of thousands of people in Europe and, and, and in the Pacific theater.

• 23:13Jocko Willink?

  And we took nothing. We only gave.

• 23:19Jocko Willink?

  Some thoughts on leadership from Dick Winters. Leadership, leadership's defining quality is honesty. To honesty, add fairness and consistency. I was able to develop a sixth sense during the war that allowed me to size up a situation rapidly. I could look at terrain and be able to see opportunities instead of challenges. By leading from the front, I believe I achieved a high degree of success. So I thought this was a very, very interesting combination. Honesty, fairness and consistency. You don't hear those a lot about being a great leader. I mean, I always talk about the number one attribute of a leader is humility.

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  And I, I definitely believe that humility is important, but honesty, that's clearly a, a thought and a concept of leadership that I think that misses a lot of people. I think, and we've talked about plenty of cases on the podcast here where we say, oh, what if this is going on? And I say, look, you want to be honest with them, you know? So I've definitely said that before, but I'm going to start saying it more because I'm learning a little something from Dick Winters today. But you know, I remember we had a case where someone was saying, hey, I'm going to leave this job or I'm going to take another job. And what should I do? Should I tell them? Should I not? And we kind of went around and I was like, look, just tell them the truth. Just say, look, hey, this is what's going on. I'm going to be, I've got a better opportunity. I'm going to take it because, and in the long run.

• 24:49Jocko Willink?

  You're in the long run, it's gonna be, you're gonna be better off if you're honest with people. And so obviously to think about this quality, it's something I've, I've thought about, but not as clearly as this, as, as Dick Winters saying that's the defining quality. That's obviously important, something that I will talk about more now. Definitely believed it, but we'll talk about it more.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  Now, if you've seen the movie Band of Brothers or the series Band of Brothers, they, they do a good job of showing the beginning when they form up. And there's a guy and there's a guy in leadership position called Captain Sobel. And he's not a good leader. And they do a good job of portraying why he wasn't a good leader in the series. But here's what Dick Winters had to say about it, back to the book. Captain Sobel commanded through fear and intimidation. That is not how a leader should conduct himself. Sobel was not just unfair, he was mean spirited. His attitude created a special bond within Easy Company that allowed the men to identify with their platoons, more so within with the company,

• 25:58Jocko Willink?

  which is more normal in most unit, military units. Second lieutenants by their nature are a clanish group. So you've got a company commander and then he's got three, usually three platoons underneath him. And each one of those is run by a second lieutenant. So the second lieutenants are the platoon commanders. Second lieutenants by their nature are a clanish group. Some are more serious than others, but for the most part, they wander around a military post, as General Heisenauer once said, in a rather aimless search for excitement.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  Easy Company's platoon leaders, of which I was one, did our best to take care of our soldiers to soften Sobel's dictatorial behavior. I lost all respect for our commander the day he announced to the officers, in Easy Company, we will lead through fear, not by example. That's just the opposite of, of any leadership principle that I could ever conceive is to lead through fear instead of example.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Kind of like when, when your dad, well, I don't know about your dad, but if your dad says, or if you say to your kids, do what I say, not what I do. You know that?

• 27:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure, for sure. That's, and when, if you want to put the fear onto that, it's do what I say, not what I do, or

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Or else.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  Or else, yeah, I'm gonna get out the belt. Or the kids down south, they say, yeah, then I'm gonna get out the switch.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Switch, yeah.

• 27:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, get out the switch.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  My dad would say that, not all the time, but you know, he said that.

• 27:25Jocko Willink?

  He said, switch? Where was he from?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Dad's from Brooklyn, New York.

• 27:30Jocko Willink?

  They ain't got no switches in Brooklyn, New York, I'm here to tell you.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  On Kauai, they do.

• 27:33Jocko Willink?

  On Kauai, they found some, huh?

• 27:35Speaker 01

  He made me go get my switch. He said, go get a switch. I don't know what that means, by the way, at this point.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cause you're a little kid.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  Go get one.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And I'm from Kauai, they don't say switch, you know, apparently. Other people say switch, I didn't know, which made him kinda more mad.

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  So then he had to brief you on what a switch was?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:53Jocko Willink?

  This is the thing I'm gonna beat you with?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  It's kinda like digging your own grave in a way, you know?

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  Very similar, very similar.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  Very similar.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. It made such an impression on me that I recorded his words in my diary. Under ordinary circumstances, a junior company officer attempts to reflect his company commander's leadership style. But Easy Company's lieutenants found that they simply could not emulate the image of Sobel and still live with themselves. Sobel had no friends within the company and few within the regiment. At the end of each day, he went one way and we lieutenants went another, hoping not to run into him at the officers' club.

• 28:38Jocko Willink?

  He lacked confidence in his own ability as an infantry commander. He was, he was completely honest, but he couldn't read a map to save his neck. His knowledge of tactics and fire maneuver was extremely poor. So horrible situation. And you know, this is, this is one of those things where he's talking about how everyone, no one wanted to hang around with him, right? And, and I've heard leaders say, a good leader's not gonna be liked, not gonna be loved by everyone. And that, that, there's some truth to that, right? Of course, not, not everyone's gonna love you, but there's also a difference when no one likes you.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  That you're not doing a good job. You're not doing a good job at all. And you know, I, I hung out with all my guys all the time, through the chain of command. Everyone wanted to hang out. Let's, let's go, let's, let's hang out. Wasn't grunting away from me at the end of work to escape.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:30Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's not a good sign.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like one guy say, I'm not here to make friends.

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's another classic, right? I'm not here to make friends, no. But I actually, you know, there's, I heard, I've heard officers say that in the military, SEAL officers, I've heard say, look, you're, And they'll they'll say like, it's not a popularity contest, which is not clearly you're going to make decisions that are going to be hard for people to swallow. But to have people running away from you because they don't like you as a human being, that's not a good position to be in. You're you're not doing a good job as a leader. You need to reassess what you're what you're. What you're doing and how you're doing it.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  And this is kind of reflective of what Dick Winters attitude was.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Easy Company didn't belong to me. It belonged to the soldiers. I was privileged to be a small part of its history. Officers and commanders in particular are merely caretakers. That the paratroopers respected me is more than enough reward.

• 30:35Jocko Willink?

  So there's just totally, totally different. Attitude, right? And there's something weird that happens with with the military, you'll hear a guy, it's a it's a contradictory state, there's a dichotomy. You'll hear a guy say, my soldiers. Or my Marines. And there's two ways that that can be taken. One of them is very positive. My soldiers, I am going to take care of my soldiers. Hey, don't come down here and talk to my soldiers like that. Or, hey, you know, I need to make sure my soldiers have the gear that they need. I need to make sure my Marines have. And that's a they mean that in the best possible way. There's another side to that, which is completely negative, which is. These are my Marines.

• 31:21Jocko Willink?

  Meaning you own them, meaning I'll do what I want with them.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:23Jocko Willink?

  And so I've seen guys on both sides of that edge and you can hear a good, you can hear a good leader say, my Marines, you can hear a good leader. Say, my soldiers, you hear a good leader say, my SEALs. And and think of it in a positive way, and you can have a crappy leader say, my soldiers, my Marines, my SEALs. And you just think, dude, no. Stop. And so for and especially when you get Dick Winters, who is, you know, universally respected in his. In in the military and definitely in his battalion and in his in his company. And he's a guy that's saying, look, it was theirs. That just tells you. That's where your leadership perspective should come from.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always felt that a better way that instead of saying my.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  One of the few things as far as feelings go, cause I I I experienced that a lot when people be like my this and that, you know? And I see what you're doing. It's like you're just the boss and the owner of all this kind of thing, you know, kind of thing. But with it felt like and feels like with people like my soldiers, you know, there is a lot of room for like, cause cause man, these are my brothers, my, you know, my guys. But let's say they're talking about like something else, like a big one. Um, like the bartenders I used to work with every once in a while, you'd have one and say, well, I got this and you know, my bar and when they talk to the customers, you know, they'll be like, hey, what kind of vodka do you have? He goes, well, my best vodka is, you know, this and that. Then they'd say my, you know, kind of like, I'm the master of this whole domain here. Everything here is mine.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  And that I can bestow upon you kind of feeling. Yeah, that always kind of.

• 32:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, they do do it definitely in the military with inanimate objects, not just soldiers and Marines and sailors. They do it with inanimate objects and you learn that in boot camp where they'll, you know, they say, why are you on my parade deck?

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Right. Yes.

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  And it gives you this feeling of like, dang, this guy's really into this parade deck, meaning, you know, where you do marching. And they say, get off my parade deck.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  And it instills that kind of personal pride about something. So again, even that one can go both ways.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess.

• 33:28Jocko Willink?

  I guess it really, you really have to understand what your intent is behind what you're saying and you have to be careful. I, I always, I, I feel subconscious about that and I'll give you an example. My gym.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  Right? My gym. When I, when I talk about victory MMA, which you know, we have partners and it's not solely my gym.

• 33:49Jocko Willink?

  But it's my gym where I train, right? But sometimes someone will say something and I'll feel like, oh, where do you train? You know, and, and I could say, I train at my gym. You know what I mean? I feel like a real. Turd when I do that. I got all victory MMA and fitness, you know, yeah. Oh, Dean Mister Jeff Glover. Yeah, that's where I train. And oh, wait, do you own that place? Yeah, yeah, I'm one of the owners, you know, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, you don't like that. My.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  All you get to say.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  Be careful. Be careful with it. Be careful with that.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  I always thought if you said our, you know, especially even in a bartender situation, what we have, it's kind of like us as a, as an establishment. Right. You know, kind of thing. I'm part of that. When you say our, you're part of it, you know, so it kind of still puts that forward. Like I'm kind of giving this to you or offering whatever. I'm taking some ownership, but it's like, I'm not the boss of this thing. It kind of feels that way. That's what I always thought. So even if you like in your situation, if you're like, you know, someone say, hey, Doc, where do you train? We say, well, at our gym, you know?

• 34:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And it's kind of ambiguous as well, which kindness seems more humble, you know, where it's like, oh yeah, you could be just a member, but at least you're part of that community, you know, kind of thing. So yeah, use our.

• 34:58Jocko Willink?

  You gotta be careful. That's all I'm saying. You gotta be careful.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 35:02Jocko Willink?

  Careful with my Marines, my soldiers. And again, sometimes that's the most positive thing you could possibly say. These are my seals. Hey, don't come down here and think you're going to put my seals out in the field in a bad situation. It's not happening. You know what I mean? You're protective. They're your brothers. You, you know, you have ownership of them, but it's, it's in the positive way.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:23Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to, look, I'll deploy my seals wherever I see fit. Like, oh, put a, put a red flag on that dude's face.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:35Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. I think of Easy Company every day. We sustained 150% casualties between the night that we jumped into Normandy and VE Day.

• 35:49Jocko Willink?

  150% casualties. For those of you that are wondering how you do that, how you do that is you have people getting wounded multiple times and coming back to the front. And when your replacements show up, they get wounded too. So you, you know, you've got whatever, 150 people in your, in your company. And over the course of time, people get wounded and leave and new people come in to take their place and they get wounded as well. And that's how you get up over 100% of your people being wounded.

• 36:19Jocko Willink?

  The result of sharing all the stress throughout training and combat has created a bond between the men of Easy Company that will last forever. In a sense, I don't think I ever left Company E. I may never again see the type of men in this outfit, but to me, Easy Company will always be my company.

• 36:42Jocko Willink?

  In the sense that I will always remain a part of it.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  To this day, they remain my second family. I still look at these men with great respect, respect I can't describe in words.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  So, there, he makes it same thing, like he feels uncomfortable saying "mine", he has to put a quantifier on it and explain, "Hey, not in that sense, but I'll always be a part of it, that's why it's mine."

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  More about leadership, back to the book. Leadership is difficult to define. They talk about leadership at West Point every day. Leadership starts with honesty, dedication, and having a man who is dependable and fair.

• 37:31Jocko Willink?

  If you never deviate from the standards that you established, men have faith in you, and you'll be out front to set the example. Sergeant Talbert once told me, "Sir, I'd follow you into hell."

• 37:46Jocko Willink?

  I take a great deal of pride in his remark. So again, we're getting this, "Leadership starts with honesty, dedication, dependable, and fair." So important, so important, being fair. And you know, you see that a lot when it comes to doling out punishment, when people make mistakes. Are you fair enough? You know, does that person really deserve to lose their pay for 90 days, or go on bread and water, or whatever kind of punishment you're gonna bestow on someone?

• 38:15Jocko Willink?

  Is that fair? And people know if things are fair or not.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  People know what's reasonable.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Hey, do you think that, you know, when people say, I'm, I'm gonna make an example out of, out of somebody? You know, for, uh, sometimes it'd be, it's for different reasons. Maybe like, oh, I've been letting people slack, so I gotta, I gotta make an example out of somebody to kind of reestablish the discipline kind of thing. Or maybe, you know, as a boss or whatever, you really don't like this specific violation. Like you just, it's just one of your things, you know, so you can make an example for that reason. Do you think that that's fair?

• 38:49Jocko Willink?

  It can be, but it's also a, a touchy subject. You tell me, I personally think, let's say I'd been given some slack and people been showing up a little bit late, showing up a little bit late. And I'm kind of like, hey, man, you know, we need to be a little more on time. And then finally on a Thursday, guy shows up late for the meeting and I say, hey, you're suspended, you're grounded, you're, you know, you're gonna have to work this weekend. I punish him hard, super hard.

• 39:18Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't make sense, right? It doesn't make sense. And people say, oh, you know, I'm not, it's not being consistent because people have been being late. However, if I was to say, hey, guys, check it out, Bill's just walking in right now and I've been letting it slide. And I'll tell you what, this is where it's getting us. We've been later and later, we start slacking here, we're gonna start slacking in other places. We can't afford to slack right now, our mission's too important. From now on, if we're late, if you're late showing up to this meeting, or you're late to an evolution that we're about to do, I'm gonna drop the hammer. So don't be late. Is that fair?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:52Jocko Willink?

  Fair warning, explanation as to why, that's fair, in my opinion. Just going off the handle and, and smashing someone because you want to make an example of them, that doesn't make sense to me.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  I don't like it. I don't do it.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 40:07Jocko Willink?

  Can it be useful? Yes. If someone, if there's a clearly delineated expectation that's been set and it gets violated for whatever reason, and you are gonna crush and destroy to set an example, and actually, we get to a point where he talks about that in here, there is an example set. And that has to send a message to everyone? Yeah, that can do that. I've done that with my family. You know, hey, here's the line, if you cross it. You will remember for a very long time that you made a bad decision.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  And my other kids, when I've done that to some of them, you know, one of my kids that has made a bad decision. They all remember, all of them.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:42Jocko Willink?

  They don't want to make that mistake.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like you.

• 40:45Jocko Willink?

  Don't want to cross the line.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  No, not at all. Like it, how you said, if you give them kind of ample warning, where you kind of give them the tools to make their own decision kind of thing. Even if you are changing a policy or whatever, you know, harsher punishments, all this stuff. As long as, yeah, you warn them, like how you're saying, that seems like fair. And a huge one, which I always kind of thought was if it applies to everyone, you know, like if, if this violation, this punishment for this violation applies to everyone, sure, it just happens to be this guy because he just happened, he's be the one, he happens to be the one that that committed the violation or whatever. But this rule, this policy applies to everybody.

• 41:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And also, when you, when you explain these things, you don't blame them. If you notice, even when I just said, you know, hey, guys, I've been letting slack here. You don't say, look, you guys have been slack. No, so look, I didn't make it clear why this is important. And therefore you guys have been, you know, I've been letting you slack. You guys have been showing up late. That's a problem. We can't have that problem anymore. So you just don't start pointing the fingers at everyone.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:49Jocko Willink?

  And then hammering of harsh punishments. No, not a good idea.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of leadership, back to the book. I believe that some men and women are born with the inherent qualities that make them good leaders. Writing to his son, John, who is a cadet at West Point in 1943, General Eisenhower once said, "The one quality that can be developed by studious reflection and practice is the leadership of men." I agree with Ike. Leaders are not born. Leaders are made and they are made by solid effort and hard work. So it's a little contradictory in there because he says, look, some people are born with qualities that make them a good leader, but you can learn to be a good leader. I totally agree with that. I've always said that. Some people have the qualities that make them a good leader naturally, or they allow of some of them, right?

• 42:41Jocko Willink?

  Some of them will be really articulate, some of them will be very charismatic, very dynamic, loud, have a lot of presence. Those are all characteristics that will differentiate in different people. And if you have a lot of those, you're gonna have a naturally easier time being a good leader. Now occasionally you get people that have some of those qualities, but they're idiots. And those are the worst because they can get people to follow them even though they don't know where they're going. Those are bad situations, but it's interesting, hard work, studying, right? Studying leadership, I, you know, today, I already learned something. Need to increase my focus on honesty as a leadership quality. But yeah, I'm always studying, always learning, and we all need to be. That's how we're gonna become a better leader. And a lot of the studying that I did when I was growing up in the teams

• 43:26Jocko Willink?

  was just, I was watching and thinking about why these leaders were doing what they're doing. What is making them do that? Good leader, why is, why, why is that? Why do we respond to that? Well, bad leader, why don't we respond well to what he's doing? I wasn't sitting there consciously thinking about it.

• 43:43Jocko Willink?

  Actually, no, in some, in some cases, I was actually consciously thinking about it. You know, consciously thinking, wait, why is no one want to follow this guy? How is he acting that we all want to

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  walk away from him? Why is that happening? And then when you get a good leader, I'd say, yeah, this, why is this guy such a good leader? So yeah, I guess I did consciously do that and study not from books, but from life to try and learn. And that's how you can become better. Here's a little note too.

• 44:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and you want to talk about holding the line. If you aren't in good physical shape, forget it. You are not going to be a good leader. Well, certainly in a military environment, that is true. Are there some civilian leaders that aren't in the best shape? Yeah, there are. Would those leaders be doing a better job if they were in better physical condition? Yes, they would. It's like that, that thing that Starting Strength, Coach Ripeto says. I, I post, I've never talked about it, but I posted, you know, he's talking about how physical strength is good. And people that say that physical strength aren't good. He says, you know, you, I forget the exact quote, but he's basically saying, I, I know, physical strength is good.

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  And if you take someone that says the physical strength isn't good.

• 45:03Jocko Willink?

  And isn't important. And then you add 120 pounds to their squat. And then ask them how they're doing now. They're gonna be doing better.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna be doing better. The more you can deadlift, the better you're gonna feel. You don't feel worse when you can deadlift more. You don't feel worse when you can squat more. You feel better.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:23Jocko Willink?

  Well, why is that? There's a million reasons why. Confidence, overcoming the challenge. You're actually physically stronger. Your mental clarity goes up. So yeah. Of course. Be in good shape. Be in good shape. If you're worried about your health, you're not gonna be able to focus on being a good leader. And in the military, or in any job where that demands physical exertion, you have to be in good shape. Otherwise, people are looking at you and you're falling apart. You can't be falling apart on a patrol. You can't be falling apart during a combat swimming operation. Where you, you know, you need to swim. You need to swim far. You're gonna swim for four straight hours on a combat swimmer operation. If you're weak and you can't do that, you think your men are gonna respect you?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:06Jocko Willink?

  They're not. I'll go ahead and answer that question for you.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that kinda like the hockey coach who doesn't even know how to ice skate?

• 46:15Jocko Willink?

  You know, there are coaches that have never participated in the sport that they coach and they're good. They're, I mean, you can look at Greg Jackson, who's a great mixed martial arts coach. He's never been a mixed martial arts fighter.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he knows how to fight though, you know?

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, certainly does. Yes. But he hasn't actually fought. So how can he be a good coach? What about Duke Rufus? He's never fought MMA, has he?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Oh, MMA?

• 46:39Jocko Willink?

  He's, yeah, we know he's a champion kickboxer, but how can he be such a great coach at MMA?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you can connect the dots and stuff like that. And of course, there's, you know, there's exceptions to every, but generally speaking, and plus, you're talking about a little bit more of a broad thing like a leader. Like, who are we gonna like follow?

• 46:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, plus, cuz we're talking about coaches. I mean, you, coaches are not participating anymore. That's why they're coaching.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Jocko Willink?

  So I guess those are really stupid examples.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, as far as coaches go.

• 47:06Jocko Willink?

  Because, because, you know, custom auto with Mike Tyson, obviously, he wasn't getting in the ring with Mike Tyson, right?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  But he's a great coach, a fantastic coach, one of the most, you know, one of the most respected coaches of all time.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the results are a little bit more like recognizable, like they're less ambiguous, like a leader's results quote unquote.

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and we're looking, we're looking at leaders in the field, like leaders in the job that are leading a group to accomplish a mission, right? That's different than a coach. A coach is outside the group.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:33Jocko Willink?

  So, we're talking about someone that's in the group. Yeah, you gotta be, you gotta be able to maintain, you gotta be able to stay with your team physically. And, you know, it's not like you need to be the best. I was never the fastest guy, was never the strongest guy, but I wasn't gonna be falling behind on a, on a patrol because I wasn't in good shape. That wasn't gonna happen.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:53Jocko Willink?

  And the only way, way that doesn't happen is you need to stay in shape. How do you stay in shape? Gotta have discipline.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yup.

• 47:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so these questions answer themselves at some point. Maybe some point this podcast will just come on here and sit here in silence.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yup.

• 48:07Jocko Willink?

  Now, speaking of, now, this is, this is good that you, you were talking about this. Here is a heavy punishment handed out. Talking about Colonel Bob Sink, who was the leader of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Here we go. Back to the book. Colonel Bob Sink certainly was one of the best. He set high standards and never compromised on those standards. After the paratroopers of the 506th Parachute, Parachute, Parachute Infantry Regiment earned their jump wings, Sink granted a 10-day furlough, but cautioned the men to conduct themselves appropriately. Several paratroopers reported late for duty after their furloughs expired.

• 48:52Jocko Willink?

  Sink called another regimental formation and publicly humiliated one paratrooper from each of his nine companies. They called out the name of the last soldier to report to duty, and that paratrooper was marched in front of the formation under escort. An officer stripped him of his unit patch, forced him to unblouse his boots, and then escorted him from the field. What Sink was saying was paratroopers may be elite, but they had to follow the Army's rules and regulations. I liked that. For some reason, Sink liked me, respected me.

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  He was always the man instrumental in getting me my next job. So, there's a heavy punishment. Now...

• 49:43Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's a clear message being sent, right? Clear message being sent. And I, I, I bet Colonel Sink at that time, Wade, I mean, he's got three, nine companies, so he's got hundreds and hundreds of guys. Hundreds and hundreds of guys, and he's gonna make an example out of nine of them. And he's gonna be a real clear example, and that's gonna leave an impression on a thousand guys, you know, close to a thousand guys. That might be worth it. And he probably judged that it was worth it.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:19Jocko Willink?

  So, interesting perspective.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess the question is, is that fair?

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  I would say, I would say to the guys that got booted from the regiment, I'd say their thoughts were that it was unfair. I would say for the guys that remained in the regiment, that realized that they had to maintain the standard, that realized there was gonna be no slack, and that worked hard to make sure they maintained that, and therefore were more prepared for combat, I'd say it was real fair.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Right, so bigger picture kinda thing. They were kinda the martyr, you know.

• 50:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that gets a real big picture thing. And who knows what kinda behind the scenes, we would have to get some details if we were really gonna cast judgment on that, like, you know, maybe some of those guys were kinda slackers anyways.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  And the company commander was like, hey dude, yeah, we don't want this guy. You know, let's get rid of this guy, or whatever, you know?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:13Jocko Willink?

  And he only took certain members of the people that missed their furlough. He said, that's not fair. He only took certain members, or certain people that, that missed their furlough. Didn't take all of them.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:24Jocko Willink?

  Just the last one to report. We don't, we don't take that around here. It's an interesting dynamic. It's an interesting dynamic, but it's definitely showing, I, I, I don't know that I necessarily would have done that. I can, my assum, my, my assessment, I probably wouldn't have.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  Not, not one guy from each company. Maybe like, the two guys that grossly violated it. I don't think I would need to do nine.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:51Jocko Willink?

  But guess what? Colonel Sink did. Don't mess with Colonel Sink. And that's a good thing, little, little, kind of image for you to have. Don't mess with Colonel Sink. Don't mess around in the battalion, in the regiment. We don't play.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  Another leader that he talks about here is McAuliffe. Back to the book, what we liked about McAuliffe was that he allowed us to do our jobs. You didn't have a lot of interference from McAuliffe. But with Taylor in command, this is another person, he told you what you needed to do here. He had to run everything. You can't do a good job if you don't have the chance to use your imagination and creativity. In my mind, Taylor was more interested in impressing his superiors than watching out for his men. Taylor was such a contrast with British General Montgomery. So he talks a little bit, oh, okay, so first of all, clearly decentralized command.

• 52:51Jocko Willink?

  Don't give people the clear specifics on how to do every little thing. Let them get creative, let them come up with a solution. Perfect, boom, we hear that over and over again. Why do we hear it over and over again? Cause it's right. Cause it's right, that's why we hear it over and over again. Now he talks about the famous British General Montgomery, Monty, who always gets portrayed a little bit stiff and a little bit British, right? And he says in here that the writers don't, didn't know him, didn't see him on the battlefield, didn't see what he was like. And here's what he says, here's what Dick Winter said about Montgomery. Back to the book, Montgomery was the real deal. I saw him on a number of occasions and he always impressed me as a commander who lived

• 53:34Jocko Willink?

  the lifestyle that was beyond reproach for his staff to follow. He set the example. He addressed every division that was scheduled to participate in the invasion. He called us together and had every soldier take off his helmet. So he could see the troops better. Yeah, props to Monty, right? Going around and talking to every, every single division. And then said, hey, boys, take off your helmets. I want to see your faces before you roll. It's legit, props.

• 54:11Jocko Willink?

  There's, you know, this book, a lot of this book is about self-discipline. Even this part right here, back to the book. Self-discipline keeps you doing your job. Without it, you lose your pride and forget the importance of self-respect in the eyes of your fellow men. Pride keeps you going on. This is what I feared I would lose, the loss of the will to measure up to my men. So, once you say, you know what, I don't care what my guys think anymore.

• 54:41Jocko Willink?

  You've lost it, right? If I say, look, I don't care what the guys think of me. Think of what a driving force it is to have your team looking at you and saying, I'm gonna make sure these guys respect me and I'm proud of what I'm doing. Compared to, I don't care what anyone thinks of me anymore. You can see, well, you can see what, when this happens to people, not just in the military or a business organization, but in life.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:02Jocko Willink?

  In life. At a certain point, you see a bum in the street. At a certain point, that bum said, you know what, I don't care what anyone thinks of me anymore.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  I don't care what my family thinks of me. I don't care what the society thinks of me.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  Of course, I'm not talking about every single bum, but a lot of them.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:19Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I don't care.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Generally, the thing.

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  And as soon as you see that, you can imagine that that's just like a life thing, right?

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:28Jocko Willink?

  If you go through life and you say, I don't care what anyone else thinks, which is a contradiction for me. Right? Cause I say all the time, like, I don't care what people think.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's to, just to a degree, like you, and it's obvious, and just put a little bit of thought into, you don't care about what people think, well, as it appears. You don't care what people think on a superficial level, you know, on a profound level, you do. That's why you're, you know, that's why part of your morality is like, you know, fairness, doing the right thing, all this discipline stuff. It's for you, but in regards to social cues and all these things like that, that's beneficial to your success, to function in a society.

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I've said this before, like about the SEAL teams and me being in the SEAL teams. And I had this, completely had this attitude. I don't care, like for instance, I don't care what happens. Like I don't care if I get fired. I'm gonna do the right thing. I don't care. I don't care what they think of me. And at the same thing, at the same time, there's nothing that was more important to me than my reputation in the SEAL Teams. I don't want, you know, if, if something was gonna give you a bad reputation, like what we just talked about. If you fall out of a patrol as a leader, or as anyone, like if you fall out of patrol, you're gonna, no one's ever gonna forget it in the SEAL Teams. If you're too weak to do something, you're gonna be remembered by that forever. And that, I didn't want that ever. To be like, oh, Jocko did this. Jocko couldn't finish patrol. Jocko was a bad leader. Jocko.

• 56:50Jocko Willink?

  I didn't want that to be the reality. And so therefore you work hard, you stay in shape, you do your best all the time. And that drives you. But at the same time, I, I wasn't saying, oh, I, I, I'm concerned what my boss thinks of me, so I'm gonna act a certain way. No, I was trying to do the right thing. For the teams, by the way.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? No, like these are, these are all, those are all fundamental things.

• 57:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird balance though to say, look, I don't care if I get promoted, but I care more than anything about my job. You know what I mean? And that definitely was my attitude. That definitely was my attitude my whole time I was in the military. Look, I'm, I'm gonna do the best job I can. I'm not doing it to get promoted. I'm not doing it for that reason. But I am part of it, absolutely doing it to have the respect of my peers and my bros in the teams.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  You're in a reputation, you hear that all the time, and reputation is everything in the SEAL Teams, because it's a small group of people. You know, you have an accidental discharge with your weapon, everybody knows about it and they're gonna know about it forever. If you, if you remain on the teams for whatever reason, after you have an accidental discharge, everyone's gonna know it from there on out. And it's not fun. That's why we got Matt, some jacked up nicknames in the SEAL Teams. Cause you're gonna get nicknamed after your lowest point in your life. Your biggest mistake is what you're gonna get nicknamed. Or your biggest, yeah. Like there was a guy, and I, his nickname was Bush, and he's a great dude.

• 58:24Jocko Willink?

  His nickname was Bush. It had nothing to do with his last name, but anyways, long story short, when he was a new guy, and I, I knew him, this is 15 years later, I found this out. He, so he'd been in the SEAL Teams for 15 years. I'd known him as Bush the whole time. And he was parachuting.

• 58:40Jocko Willink?

  Brand new guy showed up to the team. They're like, hey, you're going jumping today. Okay, gets in the aircraft, jumps and he lands through no fault. You can't even steer these round parachutes. You can't barely steer them. He lands in a bush with like thorns in it, right? And I guess it looked pretty funny and from there on, yeah, what's his name? Bush?

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you're going to get a name like that. But that's a, that's a really easy example because everybody knows, hey, that's just funny. It was more of a funny thing. If something funny happens to you, you might get that nickname too. Like if you get pepper sprayed by the cops, you might have the nickname Pepper.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  I like the, how direct it is.

• 59:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's no sense in playing around. What else are you going to call someone that gets pepper sprayed by the cops when they're a new guy? You're going to call him Pepper.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Call him wet eye or something.

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  Wet eye?

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, because your eyes get all watery.

• 59:29Jocko Willink?

  You're not going to be in charge of nicknames over there.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Remember your guy that you thought his name was, his name was Al, but it was Owl?

• 59:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Big Al 50 Cal, not even his name. Not even his name, Big Al 50 Cal. Yeah, morphs. Awesome. So that's why you have this weird dichotomy that's pulling at you. Is just to, you're looking at your, your friends, your peers in this, in leadership position. It's your men. You're looking at your men saying, hey, I don't want to let these guys down. I don't want them to view me as weak.

• 1:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Weak's a bad word, but I guess it's the word I'm looking for. Not that I, not that I want to maintain the image of strength because part of maintaining the image of strength is by showing weakness and being like, I say this all the time. Hey, I don't know how to do this. Hey, can you give me a suggestion? I'm not talking about that type of thing. I'm talking about

• 1:00:25Jocko Willink?

  weak, physical weakness, physical and mental toughness or physical and mental weakness, right? That's a lot different than, hey, I don't understand how to do something or, or it's a lot different than humility. You can, you can want to show, you can want to maintain strength, but still have humility for sure. Yeah. I know all kinds. I mean, I know tons of guys that are completely humble, but they're the toughest bastard you'd ever want to know mentally and physically. So I'm not talking about, I need to be strong, stronger than everyone. No, I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about you, physical and mental toughness you have to have. And if you don't have them as a leader, could be problematic. Watch out for it.

• 1:01:07Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "The big thing I derived from combat was the necessity of maintaining discipline. Discipline in our troops was discipline in our troops and getting the job done in combat." So clearly, discipline's a big part of what we're talking about here. Gee, I wonder why? Now, this is talking to another little aspect. You know, I don't talk about this a lot. I think it's inherent in a lot of things that I say, but it's not something that I don't use this word a lot. And again, I think I need to use it more. Back to the book. Character revolves around doing the right thing all the time. Character implies daily choices of right over wrong.

• 1:01:52Jocko Willink?

  The Cadet Prayer at West Point says, "Cadets strive to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be one." That gets to the heart of character. I would add that it is easier to do the right thing when everyone is looking. It is more difficult to do what you should do when you are alone. I like to think of character as every other virtue at the breaking point. So, character, doing the right thing. Doing the right thing at all times. Doing the right

• 1:02:34Jocko Willink?

  thing when you're alone. Back to the book, "War doesn't alter character. War merely brings out the best that an individual has to offer." Unfortunately, it also brings forth the worst in some men. If anything, war exposes the best and worst of those who are called to fight. I know of no man who lacked character in peace and then discovered character in combat.

• 1:03:12Jocko Willink?

  So I've said this same type of thing before, especially, I mean war, you know what we'd see on deployment is as pressure starts to build on people, you start seeing people go in two directions. And that's what we'd see. Their character would start to reveal itself. They either get very, they'd rise to the occasion, or they would not. And they'd go in the other direction and become worse. Their character would become worse, or their character would become better. That's what I've seen. And the same thing, you know, we talk about people that have

• 1:03:47Jocko Willink?

  maybe have a hard time dealing with war. A lot of times, there's some pre-existing issues that the war

• 1:03:55Jocko Willink?

  inflames, right? And then if you take someone that has, that doesn't have pre-existing issues, or maybe has a positive spin on things, that becomes more positive. So it's very, and then there's a bunch of people in the middle. But some of the guys that I knew that really had a hard time,

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  they, they had issues going in. You know, they had problems, some issues going in to the situation, going into war, and those problems get exacerbated by the pressure and the stress of combat. So we need to watch out for that one. Yeah, I think, I think war is more of an amplifier than a creator. I think it amplifies good character. I think it amplifies bad character. I think it amplifies issues and in either direction.

• 1:04:42Jocko Willink?

  So it's, it's a, it's a, it's a powerful element to add into people's lives. This, this big intense piece.

• 1:04:57Jocko Willink?

  Now, one of the things that this, this book captures is these letters. He kind of had a pen pal. A female pen pal when he was at war. Her name is Dieta Allman. And One of the things that he, so they capture these letters and some of the letters, parts of some of the letters are published in here. Here's one of them. Back to the book. First and most important, I've got my own conscience to answer to. Next, my parents, and then I am an officer in the US Army. I am damn proud of it and with the rank and position I hold, I wouldn't think of doing anything to bring discredit to my outfit,

• 1:05:38Jocko Willink?

  my paratrooper boots, wings, the airborne patch, or the US Army. Good morale within an outfit is usually reflected by good conduct away from it. That sounds like an idealistic high school kid, I know, but that's it. That's how I feel.

• 1:06:01Jocko Willink?

  So he took that stuff very, very seriously. And I remember,

• 1:06:09Jocko Willink?

  I remember pre-war, I was in my third platoon and the new guys, who are all my bros now, I mean, these are just mugs, but they were new guys and we were the senior, older guys, right? Because we'd been in the teams for like a couple of years. And something happened and we gave like a, like a, like, hey, guys, don't, don't ever make the platoon look bad. Like no matter what, you don't make the platoon look bad. That's not allowed. The platoon is, comes first above everything. And this one, I just remember saying, but then one guy

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  made the platoon look bad and he had to pay for it. But that's the attitude. The attitude is like, look, you don't make the platoons look bad. You don't make the teams look bad. We didn't really, we weren't too concerned with the Navy back then. We didn't really even feel like, when I was that young in the SEAL Teams, we weren't even thinking about the big Navy. We barely even recognized it. We were in the teams. It's more, it's because as, as the teams became bigger and more prevalent.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  We connected more with the big Navy when I was a new guy in the SEAL, when I was in the SEAL teams as a young guy in the nineties. We were pretty much on our own. So I wasn't, I basically, I wasn't like sitting there thinking, hey, I need to protect the reputation of the Navy. I didn't care. I would now as I got older, I did. But back in the day, it was like, hey, the platoon. And, and I was at team one at the time and team one. Don't make team one look bad. What are you doing? Don't make this platoon look bad. You just did that? Yeah. You, now you have to pay for that. Punishment will be delivered at this time. And it was. That's a, that's a unfortunate situation, you know, these things just happen from time to time.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  So are we not going into what the punishment was that day?

• 1:08:01Jocko Willink?

  The punishment.

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  The punishment was, I'll tell you what the punishment was.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Jocko punishment.

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  The punishment was, I am going to strike you two times in the face with an open hand. That's your punishment. Or we're gonna fight. Which one do you want? That was the punishment.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Jocko Willink?

  He, and, and this guy was like, I'll take the two.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, Roger that. And there was a little bit more tension than that, you know?

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. That's really.

• 1:08:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause he was kinda like bowed up a little bit.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, oh, if you want to get it on, we'll get it on.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Jocko Willink?

  And then, and you know, it's funny because these guys, this group of guys who was, they, they were, they were all guys just trying to get after it and be good team guys. But we were just crazy, you know, at this point. And the teams was literally everything in my life. So when I was like mad about disrespecting or making the platoon look bad, it, it like hurt me.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  I was that crazy that I just didn't want the platoon to look bad.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, and you did something that made the platoon look bad.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Jocko Willink?

  It bothered me. It really truly bothered me. You made something that made team one look, I mean, I'd been there, you know, since I was a kid.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Jocko Willink?

  And it was everything to me. And so when you didn't, when you made us look bad. I wasn't happy and not just I wasn't happy because I was a jerk or I wasn't that because I was being a jerk at the time. But talking to these guys, you know, years later, we talked to these guys, they're like, yeah. That guy in particular is like, I hated going to work. I hated you guys. And I was like, yeah, I, yeah, I'm sorry, you know? And, and then they'll be like, but I'm glad it was like that. Cause everybody has that feeling. It was the old school. It was like with the old breed, you know? Hey, that's the way it is. This is, we hold the line. We don't make the platoon look bad. We make the platoon look good. We work hard. That's what we do. It was like a little gang.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Jocko Willink?

  That's all it was.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's crazy. Those two choices, because they're like, they're just different. Cause some people would rather go do the fight because, you know, at least they, they kind of go down swinging kind of attitude. But the, the potential for damage is way more in a fight. You know what I'm saying? But and then.

• 1:10:08Jocko Willink?

  I, I agree with you and you could see where you could make a case for both of those selections. But there's also something cool. It's like, I'll take two hits to the face. Open hand, cool. I'm a man. I screwed up. I think that's the, the reason I respected it was because it was, it was like, yeah, I did screw up.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Right. So I'll just.

• 1:10:25Jocko Willink?

  And I'll take it. I deserve punishment. Give it to me.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  And that was that.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, then we move on. No factor.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, technically the two to the face are, is way easier because it's way quicker. You, you know, you know what to expect, kind of thing. I mean, unless you're scared of like, oh, hitting your head and dying or some, you know, some off.

• 1:10:44Jocko Willink?

  They were open hand though. They were open hand.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, so.

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  So you're not going to knock anybody out with open hand.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well.

• 1:10:50Jocko Willink?

  Usually you're not.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Maybe I could. I'm just kidding. But, um, yeah, so a lot of that is like that, how you say you were kind of building some tension with it. It's like, that's a big part of the punishment as well. That psychological like torture.

• 1:11:02Jocko Willink?

  And, and this also reveals my own personal immaturity, right? These are, this is like, seriously, this is, when I'm thinking about it, this is just an immature, you know, I was probably 22 years old. Maybe 23 years old, but you know, young and immature and not getting the best guidance, not understanding things, not understanding that I wasn't helping build a cohesive unit, not understanding that this guy's probably thinking, oh, I don't want to help him. You know what I mean? It wasn't smart. I'm not, I'm not trying to say that this stuff was smart. I'm telling you the reality of the way it was. And the way it was in my head was, hey, this is my life. Yeah. This SEAL platoon, I know it's, it's, it sounds crazy. This SEAL platoon that we're in is my whole life and I actually don't care about anything

• 1:11:47Jocko Willink?

  else. Mind you, this is in the 90s. There's no war going on. Yeah. I'm just a young, crazy kid and the only thing I know and the only thing I care about is the SEAL teams. And you know, you make the platoon look bad. This platoon is my life and you just made us look bad. And I, I can't stand that. And I don't want it to be that way. So, young, immature, me, what do I do? Hey, this, there's gotta be punishment. You know? And that's kind of the attitude we had. And

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  there, there are some benefits to it, but the, you know, it's how, if I would love to go back and be a better mentor and be like, hey, man, this is the mistake you made. You know, we need to make, you know, I would love to do that, but you can't. You're dumb. I was a young, dumb kid that was raised that way, by the way, as well. That's how we were raised. Yeah. And there are some benefits to it. And like I said, even those guys that did platoons with me when I was quote unquote, an old guy, even though we were nothing, we'd never been to combat, we were meaningless, but we had a couple more years in the SEAL teams. So therefore you're an old guy and the new guys are anyone with, with no deployments, which is actually pathetic in its own right because the term in the SEAL teams being,

• 1:13:01Jocko Willink?

  oh, you're a new guy, that was from guys that were in Vietnam, that you hadn't been in combat yet. So you're a new boy, you're a cherry boy. So guess what? I was a cherry boy for 13 years because I never shot my weapon at the enemy. I hadn't been in combat until I went to my first deployment to Iraq. So it was actually, from that perspective, it's embarrassing because here I was big, you know, I'm an old guy. I wasn't an old guy. I'd never been in combat before. What am I talking about? Yeah. But you, you, you take what you had at the time, which was this organization, the SEAL teams, my platoon, and again, you can't, I can't describe really how important the SEAL platoon was to me. It was, well, let me put it this way. It was my whole life.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:13:43Jocko Willink?

  What I do when I woke up in the morning, went in, went into work, worked out with my SEAL platoon mates. What do we do then? We worked all day. What do we do for lunch? We ate together. What do we do at night? We went and got dinner. What do we do after that? We went and had drinks. What do we do after that? We hung out all night. What do we do after that? We went to sleep, woke up and did the same thing day after day. That was my family. And you just have this, this passion for your family and you, it just meant it was the most important thing in the world to me for my whole adult life. But when you take that and you put that on a, you know, young kid. And you know, everyone's like, oh yeah, Jocko's, he, he's a big reader. I wasn't reading anything back then. I was reading the, the platoon handbook, right? I wasn't reading, I wasn't reading Shakespeare.

• 1:14:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What was I doing in high school? I wasn't paying attention during high school. I was wanting to be a commando. I was running through the woods pretending I had a machine gun. So you take that kid and you put him in a situation where the thing that he cares about the most has been

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  scorn.

• 1:14:48Jocko Willink?

  Violated or scorned. He's gonna try and handle it to the best of his abilities.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Start slapping people. I get it.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Not proud of it, but occasionally some people got slapped around.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how though, you know, you know, when you're a basic, young, basic guy, you're gonna handle things in a young, basic kinda way.

• 1:15:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 1:15:06Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's caveman. It's caveman scenario.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:15:09Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and the other thing is, and you know, those guys that were in those early platoons when I was, like I said, a quote unquote, years later, they're like, yeah, that was awesome. So glad I got raised that way. They're proud of it.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21Jocko Willink?

  You know, but at the same time, you, uh, you,

• 1:15:29Jocko Willink?

  when I look back on it, I know I was not a good leader, right? By any stretch.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kinda like when I look at my old videos, you know, at the time I'm like, yeah, they were dope, you know, but you're like, meh. You just know better ways now, you know, you're just, you're just better now, you know? Hindsight 2020.

• 1:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then the other thing you gotta be careful of is setting the, like, let's say I was in a SEAL platoon right now. And now I'm gonna set the bar so high that I've lose track of the, lose vision of the fact that like, hey, the guy that I'm trying to convince right now is a 23 year old thing. And the most important thing in his world is, this is funny. Like I was talking to someone the other day and I couldn't remember what SEAL platoon, what the phonetic letter of a certain SEAL platoon I was in at a certain time. I was like, yeah, I forget what platoon that was.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:13Jocko Willink?

  And to me, at the time, when we were in those SEAL platoons, that letter of that phonetic alphabet, we were in an Alpha Platoon. That was it. And now I look back and it's like, oh yeah, what platoon was that? Because as I matured and as I saw the rest of the world, I realized that even though a SEAL platoon is very important, and certainly it's the most important thing when you're in it, when you're in a task unit or you're overseas and there's multiple people running around and there's huge missions going, you, you, your mind gets opened up.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Jocko Willink?

  And you see more. And the little thing that you used to be so engulfed in your head becomes, becomes less. That's all there is to it.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:55Jocko Willink?

  Now, I'm telling you, guys in the SEAL platoons, there's no better job. Like it's the best thing in the world. And I'm sure, you know, I never served in a, in a Marine Corps infantry platoon or in a, in a army, US Army infantry platoon, but I saw them. I saw what they were like and they have that same, you know, bond that, that you get from being in those tough units. So there's something very cool about that, about being a grunt.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Jocko Willink?

  Which is what you are. In the SEAL teams, you might think, oh, I'm a special operations or whatever. You're a grunt. You're, you carry a machine gun.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  And you do hard things. That's what being a grunt is. You're doing hard things. You're carrying a bunch of weight around.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:39Jocko Willink?

  Love those days. Love those days.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 1:17:46Jocko Willink?

  So I just want to be back in the SEAL team. So bad.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Jocko Willink?

  It's so fun. So, so awesome.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:54Jocko Willink?

  So awesome. So meaningful.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  I would have fought you.

• 1:17:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Straight up.

• 1:17:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  It would have been on.

• 1:17:59Jocko Willink?

  What happened?

• 1:18:01Jocko Willink?

  You know what would have happened?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  On an, on an Oprah week.

• 1:18:06Jocko Willink?

  That was one of the good things about knowing a little tiny bit of jujitsu, which I actually knew a little bit, and that was enough.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can offer to fight guys with, you know, with company. What if you offer to fight them and they kick your ass, you're like, dang, that backfired.

• 1:18:19Jocko Willink?

  And here's the thing, they didn't know any better. All they thought was, they didn't, I don't think I ever said like, I know jujitsu and you don't. But it was just, I was so confident, like, oh, I actually know this and I know that I can choke this dude, that they just said, oh, you know what, this guy's probably gonna kick my ass. And the weird thing is, there's probably guys along the way that could have kicked my ass. You know, some kid that wrestled in high school? All double leg, boom, and now I'm slammed on the ground and getting punched in the head. I don't, I can't, you know, it's.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  Lesson not learned.

• 1:18:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, lesson not learned. I'm lucky that never happened.

• 1:18:52Jocko Willink?

  So, check. All right.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  Here, we're talking about, so I just was talking about, this is interesting. So I was just talking about mental strength and physical strength. Well, here we go, back to the book. Moral courage is a far rarer commodity than physical courage. In that, I agree with Patton. I have known many officers who were physically brave, but who did not have the intestinal fortitude to organize the chaos around them.

• 1:19:22Jocko Willink?

  Those officers who were the most vocal about what they were going to do to the enemy, often were the first to fall apart when the chips were down. Fear is not only debilitating, but its existence also destroys the cohesion of a command. It is the responsibility of a commander to identify the limits of courage, break the paralysis of fear, and motivate his soldiers to continue with the mission. Courage conquers fear.

• 1:19:53Jocko Willink?

  I like just that, that part, and I don't think I did this in helmet for my pillow. There was a part in helmet for my pillow that I pulled out when I was talking to one of my SEAL buddies and I was, because he listened to it, he said, yeah, and I was telling him this one part that I didn't put in the podcast, and I sent him a picture of it. From the book, this little paragraph, but it's basically one of the instructors, one of the drone instructors was all yelling about, "We're gonna kill," and blah, blah, blah. And then he says, "Yeah, the next time I saw him, we were in, you know, on island in the fight, and he was getting taken away after breaking down." So this is what he's saying here. A lot of guys that are the loudest about what they're gonna do to the enemy.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay, you're talking a big game, you know, but what's really good, you know where else that happens? UFC.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  MMA, yeah.

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  MMA, it happens. Yeah. "I'm gonna crush that guy," and the other guy's sitting there going, "Okay, bring it."

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or he's in the locker room, like, explaining to all his teammates, "Yeah, I'll just, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that," and it's almost like, "Oh, yeah, it's weird."

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  They're trying to, they're trying to convince themselves.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  So that's what, that's what's going on here. Same thing, right? Somebody that's trying to convince themselves, they're not confident in themselves.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "I suspect every soldier at one time or another experiences a degree of fear. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to rise above fear and do the things you know need to be accomplished. All soldiers hope that they will measure up the first time they get into a fight. I certainly was no exception, but I believe I had prepared myself very well that once I came under fire, I knew instinctively what needed to be done. I think I was more apprehensive, particularly before D-Day, than I was afraid. Maybe apprehension is the first stage of fear. I'm not really sure.

• 1:21:43Jocko Willink?

  You have to remember that Easy Company was an elite unit, as were all paratroopers. We had trained for nearly two years before we jumped into Normandy. I think I saw far more excitement in the eyes of my men than I did fear. After Bray Court, we felt as if we were seasoned veterans, even though we knew worse days were ahead."

• 1:22:10Jocko Willink?

  That apprehension and definitely my first deployment to Iraq. When you had all these guys, bro, the guys were so fired up to get it to do real missions and get after it. That I think it was much more excitement than it was fear, especially in the beginning. And in the beginning, you know, there wasn't a lot of casualties going on, we were kind of dominating. Right, right. And, you know, even showing up to Ramadi, same thing. Guys were like, "Sign me up. What mission? I'm going." Yeah. And the more you spend time in that, the more you realize what the threat is and you start losing guys or having guys getting wounded, that's when you start saying, "Okay, wait a second. I'm not sure I want to die today."

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  And then guys got to overcome that on a daily basis. Yeah. Speaking of fear, Steve Ambrose, who's a military historian, wrote a bunch of books, including Band of Brothers. Steve Ambrose says that heavy artillery bombardment will make even the most seasoned veteran eventually break. I disagree. A leader has to overcome fear, convince himself that every enemy shell or bullet is not targeting him. The same is true in a company or a battalion. Leaders must ensure that strength and cohesion is a stronger force than fear. This is especially true in men who have been scarred by prolonged combat.

• 1:23:35Jocko Willink?

  Ambrose was correct when he titled the chapter in Band of Brothers, Breaking Point, as he describes the horrendous artillery barrage that inflicted so many casualties on Easy Company in the Bois Jacques. Company strength was below 50% and many of the non-commissioned officers were killed or wounded. Without direct supervision by leaders, Easy Company, as well as the remainder of the battalion, could have easily been debilitated by an increased sense of morality and fear. That is precisely why I made it a point to visit the front lines as often as possible. Soldiers need to sense, need a sense that their leaders and commanders are in the game

• 1:24:20Jocko Willink?

  with them. Leadership by example is even more important in these situations.

• 1:24:31Jocko Willink?

  I noticed that when men are at the edge of their physical endurance, you tend to develop that 1,000-yard stare that you always read about. Tired soldiers will often take off their helmet and run their fingers through their hair. I've talked about that before and I talk about that quite often now. At times, they literally drop their helmets on the ground. This soldier is already losing his self-respect. The battle is half-lost. That's a sign for the commander to take immediate action. I didn't wait for the trooper to reach that stage. I proactively looked for these signs. Every soldier wants to do the right thing. You always know the proper thing to do, but doing it is sometimes more difficult.

• 1:25:15Jocko Willink?

  I never wanted a man to lose his self-respect. That's what I was talking about earlier, this thing of self, this idea of self-respect. When you don't care, because you know, you're supposed to keep your gear on all the time. That's like just the code, right? You keep your gear with you all the time, you keep your gear on all the time. The minute you take that off is where you start, hey, I don't care what these guys think anymore. Something has happened that has made you say, you know what, I don't care what these guys think anymore. And that's not good. And again, this is such a contradiction, because you know, we can sit here and talk about like, hey, I don't care what people think, and I mean that. I mean that. You shouldn't care what people think. But at the same time, it should be extremely important to you what people think and what your comrades think. And that's such a weird dichotomy.

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I've fully wrapped my hands around how to describe that yet and what that means. I'll get there eventually, hopefully.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  But, but that is a very important thing. And I've always felt like I don't care what people think, but at the same time, I deeply care what my peers think and my, my men think. Weird dichotomy.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's a core values thing, though. It's like you have these core values and that's what you care about, you know, what you think about it, what everyone else thinks about, and then anything beyond that is just superficial fluff. Like, if you don't match your socks or something like this.

• 1:26:33Jocko Willink?

  I think what the key principle here, or the part that may help bring this together for me, is I want to be doing the right thing.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:41Jocko Willink?

  Right? And so if I'm doing the right thing and people say, oh, Jocko's, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's stupid what Jocko's doing, or he shouldn't be doing that, but I know in my heart I'm doing the right thing.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm going to continue doing it, I don't care what you think.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:26:56Jocko Willink?

  But at the same time... If I know I'm doing the right thing and other people are judging me, that's gonna keep me in line. If I, well, let me rephrase that. If I feel like I'm gonna do the wrong thing, I do care what people think.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:11Jocko Willink?

  And I don't want them to think, oh, Jocko's getting weak, getting soft, getting, you know, whatever.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  He's doing the wrong thing, he's making the wrong move.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Very strange.

• 1:27:21Jocko Willink?

  That's the dichotomy of leadership, right?

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:23Jocko Willink?

  Or one of them. Actually, it's not really the dichotomy of leadership. That's just a...

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  That's just the dichotomy in life.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, life, yeah.

• 1:27:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, there's a...

• 1:27:36Jocko Willink?

  A guy named Lieutenant Compton who kind of breaks a little bit. And they show it in the Band of Brothers movie. And they... Dick Winters talks about it here. Back to the book. Before you go on, I know you think I'm too hard on Lieutenant Compton for walking off the line at Bastogne. Let me explain myself. Buck, that's Lieutenant Compton, was nicknamed Buck, and he walked off the line. Buck was a great combat leader. He was a superb platoon leader in Normandy and Holland. In fact, I would say he was one of the best. At Bastogne, he broke after some of his friends were seriously wounded in the constant artillery barrages.

• 1:28:20Jocko Willink?

  There is a danger of getting too close to the men. And Buck crossed that line. When you see your friends getting maimed, it makes it more difficult to go on. That's why I always maintained a certain detachment from the paratroopers and Easy Company. Am I too harsh on Buck? Maybe, but a leader needs to rise above fear. The easiest thing to do is quit.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  And then the author asked, "Why didn't you crack?" And Dick Winner's response is, "I'm Pennsylvania Dutch. I don't quit. I made a commitment. Moral courage is based on physical fitness.

• 1:29:05Jocko Willink?

  Courage is a combination of willpower and determination.

• 1:29:11Jocko Willink?

  I was in excellent physical shape. I don't think there was a man in that outfit who was in better shape than I was. And it showed. I had trained hard. In England, after we finished training, I would run at night. Blackout conditions, but I would run. Then I'd come in and go to bed. I was in maximum shape. That was the physical side of things. But there is a mental aspect of stamina as well. I've always prided myself that I do my own thinking. I have my own philosophy. I have my own answers to the reasons things have turned out in my life. By taking full accountability for my life, I've been able to meet the standards that I set for myself. I don't know any other way of saying it.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Every commander must take full accountability for his actions. Stand up and be counted. As a commander, you are accountable for everything that your outfit does or fails to do. Don't worry about who receives credit when things go well. Don't play the blame game. In my case, the mantle of command provided me with the courage to succeed.

• 1:30:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:23Jocko Willink?

  Extreme ownership, that's what he's talking about. You know, personal accountability, that's what he's talking about. Being in great physical condition, that's what he's talking about. That's discipline.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, I guess as we read this, and I, you know, I didn't read this book until

• 1:30:41Jocko Willink?

  a week ago.

• 1:30:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a week ago, I read this book. So it's not like I read this book and said, "Hey, personal accountability is the most important thing about, you know, being a leader." No. This guy came to the same conclusion in World War II that I came to in conclusion in my experience in the military.

• 1:31:04Jocko Willink?

  Now he starts talking a little bit about combat fatigue. How much combat fatigue there was. In Normandy, I witnessed lots of stress, some in Holland, much more in Bastogne, due to the intense cold, lack of sleep, and inadequate clothing. In Belgium, combat fatigue reached astronomical proportions. We had spent 70 days in the front lines in Holland and didn't have time to recover before we boarded the trucks to take us to Bastogne. On reflection, I realized what happened by the time the command arrived at Bastogne. The men had been on the front line since Normandy. Men were exhausted. No hot food, little sleep, no rest, constant tension, and intense pressure from combat.

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  They were physically exhausted. Inclement weather and constant rain and snow made matters even worse. Physical exhaustion leads to mental exhaustion, which in turn causes men to lose discipline. The loss of self-discipline produces combat fatigue. Over and over again. Over and over again, we hear that. How important is discipline? It is the most important thing. And if discipline is what gets people through these situations, through combat stress, through tension, through bombs, through artillery, through freezing cold, lack of food, lack of sleep, imagine what discipline can do in a normal person's life.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:40Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. How can you possibly compare a man who's been under just one concentrated artillery bombardment for five minutes to a place like Bastogne, where he could be in the line for weeks or months? In one of Ambrose's books, he states that prolonged artillery bombardment will break any soldier.

• 1:32:59Jocko Willink?

  In civilian life, of course, we refer to combat fatigue as a mental breakdown. That is exactly the way it is in combat. It's a mental breakdown. The intensity, it becomes a problem for me to express my feelings here, but I'd like to share it with you. The intensity of a fire or a heavy concentration to be a leader, you have to be able to concentrate on that fire and move just as soon as it stops or the last rounds hit. Move, get up, start circulating among your men. Is everybody okay? Let's get up, let's move. Keep your eye open for an attack. Get their attention. Move among your men as quickly as possible. And moving among them, the fact that they see you and they're talking to you.

• 1:33:43Jocko Willink?

  They know that you are there and you are talking to them and it makes all the difference in the world to know that you are not in this thing by yourself.

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  That's what officers must do. Break the cycle of fear. If a soldier is concentrating on his own feelings and on his own fear and he sees you moving around, he realizes that you're sharing the burden with him. That's why he can then move. So that's very important and that's, you know, again, that can apply to combat, that can apply to business. People are going to start panicking. What are they going to do when they start panicking? You and the leader, as the leader, need to step up, get out there, talk to people, find out what's going on, tell them that we're going to move. Show them that you're not afraid and that you are afraid, but you're still functioning. Lead by example, plain and simple.

• 1:34:34Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, courage will be spent

• 1:34:38Jocko Willink?

  if you relax your standards. An undisciplined soldier feels isolated and alone. Maintain the standards. Don't compromise your integrity. Never get up, give up, don't ever give up. I love this right here. There is always one more thing that a leader can do to improve his situation and that of his command.

• 1:35:04Jocko Willink?

  I always felt that a leader's physical presence was indispensable to unit cohesion and morale. This is why Captain Sobel failed so miserably. Leadership by example always trumps leadership by fear.

• 1:35:21Jocko Willink?

  There's always one more thing that a leader can do to improve his situation and that of his command. There's always one more thing you can do.

• 1:35:30Jocko Willink?

  And an undisciplined soldier feels isolated and alone. They know they've given up that self-respect. How are you gonna give it back to them?

• 1:35:41Jocko Willink?

  When your men are dying and you do not, you feel ashamed.

• 1:35:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't know any other way of saying it.

• 1:35:51Jocko Willink?

  Soldiers in war, certainly in World War II, and I suspect in every war, are generally young men in their prime.

• 1:36:01Jocko Willink?

  They meet death daily and in every form.

• 1:36:06Jocko Willink?

  They fully realize the hazards of their profession. They take chances because no young man expects to die before middle age.

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  When the first soldier dies, that belief in immortality is shattered.

• 1:36:23Jocko Willink?

  As casualties mount and the corps of the unit grows fewer, the remaining soldiers grow even stronger, often shutting off replacement soldiers. They don't want to know the replacements because they are often the first to die.

• 1:36:41Jocko Willink?

  When I saw one of my men wounded, I was happy that he had a ticket home.

• 1:36:48Jocko Willink?

  A soldier killed in battle was at peace. He had lived his life among men whom he had loved.

• 1:36:58Jocko Willink?

  I took a degree of consolation in knowing that my men had lived rather than regretting

• 1:37:05Jocko Willink?

  that they had died. A soldier's real fear is not losing his life in combat, but placing his comrades in jeopardy.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  That's why ordinary men will perform in extraordinary ways to ensure that their buddies survive.

• 1:37:28Jocko Willink?

  So this is another level of, you know, war. When you're actually, and I never was at this point by any stretch, where you're looking at men that get wounded and saying, oh, lucky him, he's got a ticket home. We just weren't under that, beneath that kind of casualty level.

• 1:37:51Jocko Willink?

  At all.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  So when guys were getting wounded, it was, you know, it was hard. It was, you didn't feel like, oh, lucky him, he's got a ticket home. Cause there wasn't enough guys getting wounded to make you think that way. And not enough guys getting killed to make you think that way. Small percentage.

• 1:38:08Jocko Willink?

  That's reaching a whole new level.

• 1:38:12Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, if you have selected the right personnel, then a leader must instill discipline. I mean, perfect discipline. As Patton once said, "Discipline is the soul of the army." General Washington said the same thing when he described the Continental Army in 1776. Discipline is manifested in how well a soldier keeps his uniform, how frequently he cleans his weapon, and the pride he has in his unit.

• 1:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Joe Hogan of Easy Company speaks for all of us on the subject of pride in Company E. During an argument with a soldier from another company about whose company was better, Joe said, "My Company E will lick your company in 15 minutes. And if you wait until the guys who are AWOL come back, we'll do it in five minutes." And this is important. Unit pride leads to unit discipline.

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  So again, now we're going back to the feelings that I had when I was a young kid in the SEAL Teams. Total pride in my platoon. And this is funny because you say like, look, the guys that are gone right now, they're AWOL, they're absent without leave. If you wait for them to come back, we'll be getting this done in five minutes. But you know, I feel like this, this unit pride and unit discipline, how they go together. It's like a gang. I don't know why I think of it this way. And I talked about this at the muster. It's like a gang mentality when you start policing yourself up, right? When we, when I was in a SEAL platoon, we, it wasn't our bosses that were, were trying to keep us in line. We kept ourselves in line. You didn't want to get outside. You didn't want to do something wrong.

• 1:39:55Jocko Willink?

  Because we, you're going to get policed up by the boys. The E5 mafia is, is what we were. So the E5 mafia, that's a real thing, by the way. The E5 mafia in a SEAL platoon, you got the senior guys, there's like the, the platoon, the platoon chief, the, the leading petty officer. Those are, those are like E6, E7, and you got the assistant platoon commander. Those, those are like, they call them the top four. Those are the guys that kind of run, they're the actual leadership. And then you got the nugs. And then in the middle of the pack right there, you got the E5s. They're the guys that are actually running things and making things happen. And the E5 mafia is what we call them. And then in a SEAL team, there's an E5 mafia. That all works together to make things happen.

• 1:40:35Jocko Willink?

  But with the E5 mafia, if you've got a good unit, that E5 mafia, they're policing up everything. And you don't need to, as a leader, you just need to make sure that they don't take it too far. Is the only thing you need to make sure of. But they're gonna, they're gonna make sure guys are doing the right thing. They're gonna make sure that they're performing well. They're gonna make sure that they're in good shape. They're gonna make sure of all those things.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  And this was an interesting quote.

• 1:41:02Jocko Willink?

  What you tolerate, you condone. So again,

• 1:41:08Jocko Willink?

  extreme ownership, written by myself and Leif Babin. Well, Leif Babin wrote a line in there that says, it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. And he hadn't read this book, and here it is. What you tolerate, you condone. It's saying the exact same thing. If you let standards start to slide, you, that's what you're done. That's the new standard.

• 1:41:30Jocko Willink?

  Of course, there's a little bit more to leadership than what we've talked about so far. Back to the book, "Leading in Battle is the Art of Dealing with Human Nature and the Human Condition." I can't speak of higher command, but I know a few things about leadership at the small unit level. Leadership at all levels wins wars, but soldiers at the platoon, company, and battalion levels win battles. I think this is particularly true in the National Army where soldiers need to understand the reasons behind the officers' orders. We have to know why we're doing what we're doing. Would I have succeeded had I been promoted beyond battalion? I don't know.

• 1:42:14Jocko Willink?

  I do know that I felt comfortable at the small unit level. This is one reason why Easy Company holds such a tender place in my heart. I knew the strengths and weaknesses of every paratrooper. I could rapidly ascertain what I wanted to do and felt confident that I could convince the men to do it. After commanding Easy Company in Normandy and Holland, I know that the men felt comfortable entrusting their lives to my care. I'm not bragging because it's not my nature to do so, I'm stating fact. Knowing that I would never ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself led to Easy Company's confidence in me as a leader.

• 1:42:57Jocko Willink?

  They knew that I would never quit and that I would do everything within my power to bring them home after the war.

• 1:43:06Jocko Willink?

  I'm proud when I hear a paratrooper from Easy Company or Second Battalion remark about my courage under fire and my willingness to share their hardships.

• 1:43:15Jocko Willink?

  I told you once that wars do not make great men. But wars sometimes bring out the greatness in good men.

• 1:43:29Jocko Willink?

  Human nature. That's what it is. And you know, that's sort of how I describe this podcast now. An exploration of human nature. And if you want to see human nature reveal itself in its most clearest form, you have to go to war to look at that. Or other very strenuous situations, harsh situations.

• 1:43:57Jocko Willink?

  Upon returning from the war, here's what Major Winters had to say back to the book. "The war changed me. I returned to the States bitter. A different man than the young man who had enlisted in the army in 1941. I was hardened when I returned. First impressions were more important than they had previously been. I looked at things differently. When you return from a wartime environment, you have to adjust to society, the life that you are going to be sharing with others just to make a living. Though I was comfortable in a combat environment, I wondered if I would feel at home among civilized people

• 1:44:38Jocko Willink?

  who wouldn't be able to understand how a soldier thinks and feels. I came to understand that I would have to make changes to be accepted into life at home. This takes time and it's never easy. While on the front lines in prolonged combat, I often wondered about my friends back in the States, old friends I had grown up with, some of whom had avoided coming over either by becoming conscientious objectors or working in war-related factories that the federal government had declared essential. I understand everyone doesn't have to share my belief that military service is the only form of service in wartime,

• 1:45:22Jocko Willink?

  but I took immense pride in my contribution to the war effort."

• 1:45:27Jocko Willink?

  We who fought the war were part of something noble. Military service is an honor, a privilege.

• 1:45:36Jocko Willink?

  Funny thing is that when I finally returned home, I had no desire to pick up with those friends who managed to skip the whole thing. I completely shut them out. I wouldn't come downstairs when they knocked on the door. Even today, when I look at a man or woman, I can't help but judge them.

• 1:45:58Jocko Willink?

  Does he have leadership capabilities? Would she be good in combat? Does he or she have what it takes?

• 1:46:12Jocko Willink?

  And I think, you know, clearly,

• 1:46:17Jocko Willink?

  when you come home, those are things I think everybody goes through. Of you're looking at people, you're kind of judging people. It certainly will leave a mark. I, I'll tell you, I don't think there's enough veterans now. You know, you're not gonna be able to just hang around with veterans. It's not gonna happen. You gotta, you gotta understand and accept the fact that not everyone served the way you served. That's just the way it is. And I don't, I try to make sure that I don't outwardly hold people to a higher expectation.

• 1:46:50Jocko Willink?

  And the other thing is, I think you have to walk a fine line and you gotta make sure you're not looking down on people because they didn't choose the path that you chose. Now, World War II was different because, or at least appears to be different. Because it was so easy, so many people went on the path of, okay, you know, December 7th happened, I'm going to sign up tomorrow, today, whatever. And I think that the way these wars that we've been fighting have gone down, it hasn't been the same. It's been different. And I think we veterans right now have to use some caution before just shutting out everyone else that, that didn't serve the way we did.

• 1:47:33Jocko Willink?

  We'd be shutting out, basically, you'd probably be shutting out most of the people in your lives. Most, most of my friends outside the SEAL teams, they're, you know, jujitsu? Got a bunch of friends from jujitsu, none of them served. I can't just shut them all out. So I think we have to be careful about that. As, as veterans to make sure we.

• 1:47:56Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have those feelings, understood.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  Understand that there's more than that and you gotta, you gotta accept other things going on in the world besides what we did.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  Another letter that Dick Winters wrote to Dieta Allman. Going back to the book, "When you're an officer, you are responsible for the lives of soldiers in your command.

• 1:48:26Jocko Willink?

  You think about kids like this one paratrooper I knew well. And you soon become old beyond your years.

• 1:48:34Jocko Willink?

  In the three years since I had entered the army, I aged a great deal. It seems as if college days and days of civilian life, when I did as I pleased are long past. I must have been, it must have been a dream, a small and short but beautiful part of my life. Now all I do is work. Work to improve myself as an officer, work to improve them as fighters, as men, make them work to improve themselves.

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  The result is, I am old before my time, not physically old, but hardened to the point where I can make the rest of them look like undeveloped high school boys, old to the extent where I can keep going after my men fall over and sleep from exhaustion.

• 1:49:24Jocko Willink?

  I can keep going as a mother who works after her sick child and exhausted child has fallen asleep. Old to the extent where if it's a decision or advice needed, my decisions are taken as if the wisdom behind them was infallible.

• 1:49:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes, I feel old and tired from training these men to the point where they are efficient fighters.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  I hope it means that some will return to those girls back home."

• 1:49:55Jocko Willink?

  And again, the reason I put that in there is because there's, that's, that's pressure, right? That's the certain amount of pressure that a person that's been in the military has felt.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  And

• 1:50:11Jocko Willink?

  it's real, that pressure.

• 1:50:18Jocko Willink?

  And his wife said Dick fights the Battle of the Bulge virtually every night. He had recurring nightmares. So even Dick Winters, you know, a very thoughtful and squared away guy was still living those nightmares. Virtually every night, his wife said. Dick also said back to the book, "I know I did everything within my power to ensure as many soldiers made it home from the war as possible.

• 1:50:55Jocko Willink?

  But when you survive and your soldiers don't, you feel guilty. It haunts me to this day that I lived and so many of my paratroopers died. As the veterans of Easy Company pass on, I am reminded of those who never returned from the war. I see their faces. I can almost hear them calling me."

• 1:51:39Jocko Willink?

  And again, I think that everybody that served and survived, when your friends and your brothers didn't, you're always gonna have that. And it's not gonna go away. And Dick Winters, Major Dick Winters died January 2nd, 2011.

• 1:52:23Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, they had a memorial service. A big memorial service for him. Back to the book. Those who remained alive voiced their sympathy. Said former platoon sergeant William Grenier, who had lost a leg outside Bastogne.

• 1:52:43Jocko Willink?

  Dick always said, "Hang tough and follow me."

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  When he said, "Let's go," he was right in the front. He was never in the back, a leader personified. He was the best commander we ever had. We'd have followed him anywhere.

• 1:53:02Jocko Willink?

  Edward Babe Heffron, who served alongside Winters at Bastogne, and who helped liberate Hitler's eagle's nest, added, "He was one hell of a guy, one of the greatest soldiers I ever was under."

• 1:53:14Jocko Willink?

  He was a wonderful officer, a wonderful leader. He had what you needed. Guts and brains. He took care of his men. That's very important.

• 1:53:26Jocko Willink?

  Popeye Winn added, "It seemed as if he always made the right decision." He was a real soldier. He was one of the best. It started with him doing the right thing.

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  I don't know how he survived the war, but he did.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  Another Easy Company veteran concurred, noting, "Every one of us, we'd follow him to hell."

• 1:53:55Jocko Willink?

  That's the type of guy he was.

• 1:54:04Jocko Willink?

  And also speaking, at that ceremony was a guy by the name of Eric Genderson, who was the screenwriter, one of the screenwriters for Band of Brothers.

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  And he was trying to get the screenplay and the series to be as accurate as possible. And so he spent a lot of time with Dick Winters and he got to know him very well. And I found what he said about Dick Winters to be very important. Here we go back to the book. Dick Winters made it his personal quest to excel. Whether it was executing the perfect push-up or training himself to run three miles up and down Currie Mountain, this pursuit was his private tool, his solution. And it was that solo effort, that obsessive clarity and pure, determined, self-contained

• 1:55:03Jocko Willink?

  purpose that his men observed and that caused them to follow when he said simply, "Follow me." Not just through that hedgerow in Normandy and across that field in Holland under enemy fire, but follow my example, follow my commitment. And we'll get through this. And we will succeed.

• 1:55:39Jocko Willink?

  And Dick Winters was laid to rest in his family plot in the Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery in Nefrada, Pennsylvania, the Saturday following his death. And his gravestone reads simply, "Richard D. Winters, WWII, 101st Airborne, 1918 to 2011."

• 1:56:28Jocko Willink?

  And Dick Winters, before he died, said, "I am the man I am today because of Easy Company." "Easy Company made me." "As I reflect upon my life since the war, I can honestly say that it has been a lifetime search for men like those I knew in Easy Company."

• 1:56:50Jocko Willink?

  "I haven't found too many."

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  "I don't think I know braver soldiers than Joe Toy, Bill Guanier, or Floyd Talbert." "I live with these guys every day." "I mourn when they pass." "Carwood Lipton died in December 2001. His death struck me particularly hard."

• 1:57:14Jocko Willink?

  "So did Bull Randleman's."

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  "Lipton didn't live to see the acclaim Easy Company received when the mini-series was released."

• 1:57:25Jocko Willink?

  "I try not to think of the bad times anymore." "I think mostly of the good times."

• 1:57:33Jocko Willink?

  "The emotion will always be there."

• 1:57:54Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, Dick Winters said that war brings out greatness in men. And he also realized that war makes you appreciate your country.

• 1:58:19Jocko Willink?

  Dick Winters, before he died, said, "Well, it probably sounds strange to you, but when I brought Easy Company to Utah Beach so we could board the LST to return to England on July 11, 1944, I saw that beach for the first time with that vast armada of ships as far as the eye could see in every direction.

• 1:58:42Jocko Willink?

  Seeing the American flag fluttering over that beach, I felt weak in the knees and tears filled my eyes.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  Suddenly, that flag meant something different than it ever had before.

• 1:59:00Jocko Willink?

  I have never looked at our flag since without that memory in mind. Now I am an old man, but that feeling has never left me."

• 1:59:20Jocko Willink?

  And, finally...

• 1:59:27Jocko Willink?

  And I always say

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  that war is awful.

• 1:59:37Jocko Willink?

  And war is a nightmare.

• 1:59:44Jocko Willink?

  But war does certainly make you appreciate life.

• 1:59:57Jocko Willink?

  And Dick Winters certainly appreciated the rest of his life.

• 2:00:10Jocko Willink?

  And he said this. "I sit here in this house and I gaze out the window.

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  I see flowers and the birds.

• 2:00:23Jocko Willink?

  I behold the wonder of nature.

• 2:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Everything seems so beautiful."

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  And that wraps up that book.

• 2:00:56Jocko Willink?

  Everything seems so beautiful and you know, over the past couple of weeks, I've been traveling a bunch and meeting a lot of different people, business people,

• 2:01:12Jocko Willink?

  workers, police and firefighters and active duty military and veterans, just people.

• 2:01:25Jocko Willink?

  And we people, we get caught up in all kinds of chaos and mayhem.

• 2:01:35Jocko Willink?

  Mayhem from the past. We get caught up in that about what we should have done.

• 2:01:42Jocko Willink?

  Or what we should have left undone.

• 2:01:47Jocko Willink?

  And we feel this pressure about the future, about what we should do, or what we shouldn't do, or where we're going and how we should get there. And I get that.

• 2:01:59Jocko Willink?

  I get that. I understand it. I feel it too.

• 2:02:05Jocko Willink?

  Life is hard.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  Life is hard and if you aren't careful, it will grind you down.

• 2:02:19Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I talk about detachment a lot from a leadership perspective and we talked about it today and it's certainly important, but it's also a tool for your mind.

• 2:02:35Jocko Willink?

  And for your sanity, step back.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  Step back and look around.

• 2:02:47Jocko Willink?

  Not just to see what your next move is and where to head next and what to focus on, but step back to look around and

• 2:02:57Jocko Willink?

  and see life.

• 2:03:02Jocko Willink?

  This life, your life, not surrounded by the pressure and the war and the failures and the violence and the nightmares and the mistakes and the grind, not that life.

• 2:03:18Jocko Willink?

  But life as it is,

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  as it is without our intervention.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  A blessing.

• 2:03:37Jocko Willink?

  A journey, a short little bit of time on an incredibly fast-moving sphere of amazement.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Where if you can detach

• 2:03:55Jocko Willink?

  and step back and look for a moment,

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  you'll see

• 2:04:05Jocko Willink?

  that like Dick Winner said,

• 2:04:11Jocko Willink?

  everything seems

• 2:04:14Jocko Willink?

  so beautiful.

• 2:04:20Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's

• 2:04:24Jocko Willink?

  all I've got for tonight.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  So, Echo Charles. Yeah.

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  Some lessons learned. Yeah.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Very impactful

• 2:04:41Jocko Willink?

  for me and a big reminder for me. We, we worked heavily with the first of the 506 Band of Brothers in the Battle of Ramadi. We had the Delta Platoon Commander and a group of his guys spent the whole time over there. And what an incredible bunch of soldiers they were, just incredible. The, the impact that they had on the battlefield, the leadership I saw at every level. And whenever I think of the Band of Brothers, my, my first thoughts when I think of the Band of Brothers isn't about Dick Winters, it isn't about the series, it isn't about the books. My first thought of the Band of Brothers is the first of the 506 Battalion that we were honored

• 2:05:26Jocko Willink?

  to work with in the Battle of Ramadi and one of my platoons worked intently with the entire time. And so for their service and sacrifice, we, I am eternally thankful for what they did and what they taught us and for us being alongside them was a real humbling, real humbling.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:56Speaker 01

  You mentioned how, how like in all these books and all these lessons that discipline is like so important and there was time you mentioned like imagine, or imagine how important it is or how beneficial whatever it could be just in everyday life, remember that?

• 2:06:15Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's crazy and the more books like this that we go over, whatever, that message like becomes more and more clear because you know how like you get like creative guys, you know, but they don't have discipline kind of thing or you get super disciplined guys, but they don't have creativity or you know, kind of, but every once in a while you'll get, you'll find a person or you'll notice a person who does bring them together, you know, and you see the results, like you see what kind of productivity or you just, you just see the result in one way or another, you know, like these good like fighters or you know, I don't know, author, like anyone, anyone.

• 2:06:52Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  So, man, it's crazy how, because you know, if you're like naturally gifted or whatever at something, you, in a way.

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  Not really. Cool. I don't know what that's like.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, let's say you notice someone and you see it in in all these different fields as well where.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, someone that's got a lot of natural talent.

• 2:07:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:13Jocko Willink?

  But they don't.

• 2:07:14Speaker 01

  They don't have to, because essentially through upbringing or whatever, the just their environment, they don't need it really, you know, they don't need it like.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Just get away with it because it's just on their talent.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  They get away with it. Yes, exactly.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I I think we hear that a lot, this idea that, you know, talent, it doesn't mean anything if you don't have the discipline to make things happen. And and a person that's highly disciplined will outperform someone that might be more talented all day long, all day long.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:40Jocko Willink?

  I shouldn't say it was all day long too strong, because yeah, in the beginning.

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  In the beginning, I think, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I feel like eventually, um, the discipline is the thing that's just gonna carry you through. So. And I thought, I just thought that was super important, where you were like, imagine if this, if you apply this to everyday life. Because everyday life, essentially for us anyway, it's like a straight up luxury.

• 2:08:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is. And and here's what's important about what you're saying is is this fact. That the reason that these guys had to have discipline was because if they didn't have discipline, they would die.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:13Jocko Willink?

  If they didn't have discipline, they would be overrun. If they didn't have discipline, they would, they would starve. They would just die. They would die. So they have to have discipline. And your point is, in this world, in this life, in two thousand seventeen. Living in the first world, you don't have to have discipline at all.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:30Jocko Willink?

  And you'll still survive. And you might even do okay.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:08:34Jocko Willink?

  But just imagine.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Just imagine if you apply the discipline to your life, where you'll end up.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:41Jocko Willink?

  And how much better off you'll be. And how much more you can do with your life. The one life you have, by the way, how much more you can do with that life. If you just have the discipline and work hard and get after it.

• 2:08:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you see it in little pockets too. Like, remember when you're a kid and. Like, I'm gonna save, save my money for this, I don't know, comic book. I don't know. I'm gonna save my money. You don't even have an income, by the way, but somehow you save all your money, like that little quarter that you find. That's a, you know, you, I'm gonna save that. I'm gonna save that because you have this kind of, and in a way, like, the discipline kind of forms itself around that goal. So you know what it is. Like, you know what that means, you know?

• 2:09:26Speaker 01

  So it's real, like that's a real thing. You shouldn't, you shouldn't regard it as some ambiguous thing that other people do.

• 2:09:31Jocko Willink?

  It's not, it's not some fancy crazy thing at all.

• 2:09:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:35Jocko Willink?

  It's real straightforward.

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:37Jocko Willink?

  I think, I think that was one of the first podcasts we did where I said something along the lines of like, you know what you need to do.

• 2:09:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:43Jocko Willink?

  Like, we all know what we should be doing.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  I think that was the first.

• 2:09:45Jocko Willink?

  There's not too many people that are lost that are going, oh, I'm just not sure how to do this. No, they know exactly what to do. We know exactly what to do. I know exactly what I should be doing.

• 2:09:52Speaker 01

  Tell you what it is. Distractions. There's too many distractions and distractions are literally everything. There's industries of just distractions. That's the whole industry, like.

• 2:10:03Jocko Willink?

  TV.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  TV.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Industry of distraction.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Huge. And in the defense of TV, TV can be.

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  Can't defend TV with.

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can. You could, because there's educational stuff on TV.

• 2:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Defended.

• 2:10:15Speaker 01

  I'm just saying like.

• 2:10:16Jocko Willink?

  I can see your point.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  The entertainment industry, and I'm not saying these industries of distractions are bad things. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying distractions are what get in the way of, I don't know, for lack of a better term, like your, your goal.

• 2:10:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and

• 2:10:34Jocko Willink?

  well, we're talking about the very fact of some of your discipline can be used to create things that are actually distracting. I mean, if you, if your goal is to create some artistic piece, whether it's a movie, whether it's music, whether it's whatever,

• 2:10:48Jocko Willink?

  that, that's a distracting thing, but that's not, that doesn't mean that it's negative that you want to make that happen.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:53Jocko Willink?

  There's people that'll find something. I mean, the reason you want to create something is, I guess you create it for yourself, but then the reward is when other people say, yes, I get something out of that too.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  Recognition for me appears.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:05Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah. And when I say distractions, I, in regards to goal, it's a relative thing, meaning like you're distracted from your path of the goal.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  I agree with you. Yeah. But there's also just, just mentally, just, just weakness, just the easy path, I should say.

• 2:11:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:19Jocko Willink?

  The discipline path is hard. The, the, the easy path that anyone wants to jump on when your alarm clock goes off, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? I've talked about these things a million times. That's what the problem is. The problem isn't even a distraction. The problem is just the lack of will to do what you need to do.

• 2:11:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:31Jocko Willink?

  Distraction can add to that. That's a, that's a part of it. What we do is we take, we take our. The path of least is resistance and then we throw distraction on top of that. For instance, when you open up your computer because you've got to write a book and instead of opening the word processor, you go, I'm just going to check the interwebs real quick.

• 2:11:49Speaker 01

  Distracted.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're distracted. There goes 45 minutes. You have a notice, seriously, the internet is, the internet is a mind, a time warp. Oh, yeah. Time just disappears in the internet.

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  There's a lot of distractions on there.

• 2:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  For sure. And, and really, what I mean by distraction is you have this long-term goal, right? Your goal is your payoff, your long-term payoff. So, so the distractions really are these little short-term payoffs that drag you, that distract you. So that's what, that's what the distraction is.

• 2:12:15Jocko Willink?

  I like how you broke that out for me.

• 2:12:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:12:17Jocko Willink?

  Distract, right, get you off the track.

• 2:12:20Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So the weakness will let those distractions kind of take hold for sure. But, so yeah, they, they work hand in hand for sure. So, so if you can, because again, that saving money for comic books thing. So consider that as the goal. So the distractions are going to be the candy that you want to buy or the, you know, I don't know, you play dice with your friend, I don't know, whatever the distractions is in regards to that specific path.

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  I like Echo's world right now, like playing dice with your friends, saving for comic books. It's like 1956. I like it.

• 2:12:50Speaker 01

  You know, but either way, like the, the distractions, they're, they're relevant. So when I say, okay, the distractions are there. When I say there's industries of distractions, again, I'm not saying those are bad things. They are bad things if they're distracting you from your goal. So you can have all kinds of goals.

• 2:13:07Jocko Willink?

  Think about it, sometimes you just need to let your mind take a rest.

• 2:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:11Jocko Willink?

  And you need one of the, oh, I got, I got something to say.

• 2:13:13Speaker 01

  Football game.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  I just flew home from, like I've been on the road all over the world, did the muster, did a bunch of speeches, did some consulting, was all over the place, on the plane the whole time. And I flew home from the East Coast, when was that? A couple of days ago? And when I flew, I haven't done this in forever, I flew home, I watched a movie. I just did a total distraction because I said, you know what, I can't, I'm not, I, I, I'm not, I'm not in the game right now. Like I need, my brain just needs to shut off and do something. Which I don't like to do, which is you can either do two things. I, I look at it. You can either consume

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  or you can produce, right? I want to be producing. I want to be putting together. I want to be writing. I want to be thinking. I want to be writing, reading for the podcast, prepping. That's what I want to be doing. I want to be producing something. Consuming is I'm just absorbing what someone else made.

• 2:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Right? I'm just going to absorb this, absorb this, absorb this. A lot of times it is garbage. So, uh, but I flew home, had a long flight and I was like, you know what? I need to check out. I need to check out right now and just do nothing. So I watched two movies.

• 2:14:19Speaker 01

  Dig it.

• 2:14:20Jocko Willink?

  Two movies.

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  What'd you watch?

• 2:14:21Jocko Willink?

  We gotta know what you're gonna ask. The two movies I watched, the first one was

• 2:14:30Jocko Willink?

  not Heartbreak Ridge.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  It's the new movie that just came out.

• 2:14:37Speaker 01

  Who?

• 2:14:37Jocko Willink?

  About DOS that Mel Gibson directed. What's it called?

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:14:41Jocko Willink?

  It was a big, successful movie. Conchi has his objector, World War II. He wins the Medal of Honor, or he's awarded the Medal of Honor.

• 2:14:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:14:50Jocko Willink?

  So that was a good movie. You know, it's a World War II movie. I liked it. It's not, in my opinion, five star, but it was good. It was entertaining.

• 2:14:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:14:59Jocko Willink?

  It told the story. And then after that, I watched Zoolander.

• 2:15:08Jocko Willink?

  That was when I was going into full decompression mode.

• 2:15:10Speaker 01

  Good on you, bro.

• 2:15:10Jocko Willink?

  I watched Zoolander.

• 2:15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:12Jocko Willink?

  Because it's a hilarious movie. I have a buddy in the teams that we nicknamed Mugatu.

• 2:15:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:15:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause you know, he would go crazy. So we had to call him Mugatu.

• 2:15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:23Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, that was just a funny movie. I just decompressed and I don't do that very often.

• 2:15:27Speaker 01

  Hey, dig it.

• 2:15:28Jocko Willink?

  The grind is always happening, but I just had to take a little detachment. What was the name of that movie with? There's not, uh, famous actors. I guess there's one. Who's the really funny guy? Anyways, it was a good movie.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so techno, what the, so the question is, is that really a distraction? So, you know, like a, a football game or a movie or something that, that you're not doing to put you, you know, more forward on your path or whatever. But if you're taking, you're, if you're taking a break, is that a distraction? Like if I'm lifting, I do a workout and then I go recover from that workout. Is that a distraction?

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  No, it wasn't a distraction. I should have grinded though.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm just kidding.

• 2:16:08Speaker 01

  No, in your mind.

• 2:16:10Jocko Willink?

  I was done. I tapped out.

• 2:16:12Speaker 01

  So a distraction is more of an idea, more of the concept, you know?

• 2:16:15Jocko Willink?

  So like, there's definitely things that are distracting.

• 2:16:16Speaker 01

  Just like how you said, when you open your computer and the whole internet is there to distract you one way or another.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:22Speaker 01

  Um, that's a distraction, you know, where you can, like even if I have a book, if my goal is to, um, finish some video, but meanwhile I have this book that's real informative and, you know, something, and I'm like, you know, oh, that book seems real, I'm real in the mood to read that book, that's a distraction, even though it's a good thing, you know? So the distraction is like the idea. So, you know, what are the common goals? I want to get in shape. I want to, um, you know, be a better husband or wife, or I want to do better at work. I want to learn more, I want to read all this stuff.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Get better at jujitsu.

• 2:16:51Speaker 01

  Get better at jujitsu, all this stuff. You can get distracted by these other things, you know? Before I, I don't know, read, I'm going to surf Instagram or something like that. That's a distraction, you know? And now, which was my original point is

• 2:17:07Speaker 01

  the reason, or one of the reasons that we don't apply this extreme discipline as it's outlined in these books here is be, is, one of the reasons is because we have literally infinite amount of distractions right now.

• 2:17:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's also no consequence, or I shouldn't say that. The consequence isn't visible.

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:25Jocko Willink?

  The consequence, you don't say, you don't say, hey, if I would have had discipline, I would reach this ultimate potential. You're just okay with not reaching that ultimate potential and you're okay with just like turning, putting microwavable popcorn in and watching a movie.

• 2:17:39Speaker 01

  You've been doing it the whole time?

• 2:17:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause we're not, hey, I'm still here, I'm good. And, and you know what? That was a good movie and the popcorn tasted good. You know what I mean?

• 2:17:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:17:46Jocko Willink?

  That's the wrong answer.

• 2:17:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:48Jocko Willink?

  You don't recognize what your potential is and so you're just okay with this kind of half potential. You don't reach your potential. And since you don't know it. And the other thing, it's hard to see, it's hard to see how that long-term affects you. You're not like, oh, yes, just one bag of popcorn and it's just one movie.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:04Jocko Willink?

  But you did that three times this week.

• 2:18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:06Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's, that's not getting you.

• 2:18:08Speaker 01

  Thirty times, you know, in the, in the past ten weeks.

• 2:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you could write thirty thousand words. No, more than that.

• 2:18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  You can write about a thousand words an hour.

• 2:18:15Speaker 01

  Well, a good way to look at it, and I think I might have said this before, where

• 2:18:21Speaker 01

  it's not like a moment-to-moment, looking to the future kind of thing. You should look at it, um, in the way of, in the sense of looking at it in the past. So, let's say you, you consider the last one year or two years, right? And let's say I wanted to play better guitar, something.

• 2:18:37Jocko Willink?

  Good goal.

• 2:18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:39Jocko Willink?

  I have that goal. I always fail at it.

• 2:18:41Speaker 01

  There you go. So you look at it in this way, where you don't say, okay, if I spend an hour a day, um, you know, practicing guitar in, you know, in a year, I'll be better. You don't necessarily look like that. You can't, but a good way to look at it, or helpful way, is if you look at it last year, where dang, if I, if I would have played an hour a day, right now, I would, right now, as I'm sitting here with you right now, I'd be dope at guitar, you know? Kind of like that. So you kind of get the, well, in my experience, I've kind of got this feeling of like, wasted time, you know? You know that feeling where it's like, dang, I gotta, I gotta play catch-up now? That's a little bit more compelling. I think sometimes it can be.

• 2:19:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  So if you think about it that way too, I think that helps. Maybe, maybe not.

• 2:19:24Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of help.

• 2:19:25Speaker 01

  Speaking of help and potential.

• 2:19:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:19:29Speaker 01

  Both.

• 2:19:30Jocko Willink?

  Nicely done.

• 2:19:30Speaker 01

  Double gravitational.

• 2:19:34Speaker 01

  You need help by way of supplementation if you're working out. So, ah, man, how you said, you can't not work out, I think. Especially nowadays, like you could, because your life, probability-wise, is, is, is cruising. You're cruising physically, where, you know, you go to the office. Cause really, that's like.

• 2:19:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah, life is physically easy right now for most people.

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  And gets easier and easier. Even if it's not easy right now, next year, generally speaking, it's gonna be easier. You know, like even, like. So I'm brushing my teeth like I do every week or whatever.

• 2:20:11Jocko Willink?

  Once a week, whether you need it or not.

• 2:20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I have the regular toothbrush, you know? I'm sure there's all kinds of little micro technologies in the toothbrush, but I started to think, man, this there have, you know, this is an old school thing. There's automatic toothbrushes. Actually, my brother told me about this toothbrush, dude, this automatic, you know, electric toothbrush that was like super dope and highly recommended it. It was like eighty nine dollars, all this stuff. And I'm thinking, dang, something as basic as brushing your teeth is way easier now, way easier. You got a machine to do it. That's, that's really the whole narrative with everything. Point being, physically.

• 2:20:49Jocko Willink?

  You gotta push yourself because you're not gonna have to push it.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  You gotta recreate it.

• 2:20:52Jocko Willink?

  No one's gonna push you.

• 2:20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it, your environment is, is starting to work more and more against you in regards to physical activities. So my point being, you gotta work out.

• 2:21:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say that's a real straightforward thing. Workout.

• 2:21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I feel like it's, I mean, it's easy for you, you know, to, to be like, yeah, it seems obvious, you know? They call that the curse of knowledge. You know how when you're, you're like so advanced in this one thing that you forget how it is to not be advanced?

• 2:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true. I have forgotten what it's like to not be advanced in, in terms of trying to explain to people why they, I think it's pretty self evident to anybody why you'd work out.

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  No, you're wrong.

• 2:21:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Think about this, and I think about, and I thought about this one, like, okay, you know, when you go into a jujitsu gym? Okay, you're different, so you may, you could very well not even understand this. This might not compute with you, but if you walk into a jujitsu gym and this applies to even a regular twenty four hour fitness gym, if you've never been in there before, you've never worked out, that's a really intimidating thing. You come in, everyone's looking at me. I don't know how to use the machines. I don't know how to work out. Like, everyone's looking at me, judging me, I'm dumb, it is not my element, all this stuff, it's intimidating, you know?

• 2:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:22:00Speaker 01

  But it's real, is what I'm saying. You know how you say like, you probably don't know about that because you don't, you have the curse of knowledge in regards to like physical activity, working out, you know, all that stuff. And then the pain that comes with it, I, man, I dig it. I understand. But that's even more of a reason to work out.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  Physical condition. Anyway, you'd be glad you did. If you don't work out, just jump in there. Jump in.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Go to the gym.

• 2:22:24Speaker 01

  Last year, if you would have started working out, you know how dope you'd be right now? Way doper than you are if in the event you didn't start last, last year. See what I'm saying? Anyway, while you work out, your joints might be kind of sore. I know this from experience. Take krill oil. My father-in-law turned me on to it. Actually, technically didn't successfully turn me on to it, but he totally, he tried. He tried and you know, I didn't see the light until Jocko turned me on to it. So now I'm turning everyone else on to it. Hopefully successfully. Uh, krill oil is, I'm not going to go into a whole deep thing here, but it's for your joint. So if you get joint pain, just with degeneration over time, you get older, dig it.

• 2:23:08Speaker 01

  Krill oil will bring you back. They'll function. It's kind of like your joint, joints are like always warm now. Not like to the touch warm, but like warm, like ready for action. You see what I'm saying? Anyway, krill oil. I ain't even say by who, huh? If you don't know, on it. That's the whole company and they have, they don't have just krill oil. They have other stuff too.

• 2:23:26Jocko Willink?

  They also have Shroom Tech.

• 2:23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, performance stuff.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  I recommend Shroom Tech, by the way.

• 2:23:31Speaker 01

  Big time, especially if you're, if you're going for performance.

• 2:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If you're gonna go train jujitsu with Andy, Taylor, Dean, Craig Baker, Greg Train, Echo Charles, just take.

• 2:23:47Speaker 01

  Take the Shroom Tech Sport.

• 2:23:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Shroom Tech Sport. Take three of them.

• 2:23:51Speaker 01

  Oh, is that the?

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  No, that's the recommended. I didn't know that. And then I read it. I like, one day I just read the instructions for no reason. I was like, I wonder if I take 12 of these things, if I'll be even more tech. But I did say three, because I had been taking two.

• 2:24:04Speaker 01

  Oh, bro.

• 2:24:05Jocko Willink?

  So I took three. Felt a little bit more.

• 2:24:08Speaker 01

  Legit. Yeah, I always take three and never let down. And again, that's for the performance. So if I'm just cruising, if I'm just taking a walk around the block or, or two, I take the Shroom Tech, I'm not going to feel it as much as if I jump in jujitsu rounds, you know?

• 2:24:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, you need to, I, I take it when I have to perform.

• 2:24:28Jocko Willink?

  A situation.

• 2:24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, big time. Me too. You take Shroom Tech Immune, not to be confused with.

• 2:24:33Jocko Willink?

  And I've taken Shroom Tech Immune when I go massive travel. Yeah. Getting all these planes with all these people, everyone's sick, coughing, sneezing.

• 2:24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:40Jocko Willink?

  It's all nasty.

• 2:24:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:24:42Jocko Willink?

  And you know what I do? Just go ahead and take some Shroom Tech Immune. It's something different because it's yellowish.

• 2:24:48Speaker 01

  The label's green too, so.

• 2:24:50Jocko Willink?

  The, um, the, the, whatever you're eating is more yellow.

• 2:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the ingredients, we'll just say the ingredients are yellow.

• 2:24:57Jocko Willink?

  I take vitamin C, actually, when I'm on a big travel. Vitamin C, Shroom Tech Immune.

• 2:25:02Speaker 01

  I hear zinc is a good one too, that's what I hear.

• 2:25:04Jocko Willink?

  I've taken zinc before to try and overcome a cold, but I wasn't very, uh, you know, convinced.

• 2:25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I can power, I will power some vitamin C though, if I feel like some kind of a disease coming on.

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Power the vitamin C.

• 2:25:18Speaker 01

  See, and that's kind of the good thing where you take this, um, Shroom Tech Immune.

• 2:25:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  It, you, like, you know, you know that they were like, okay, does vitamin C help? Okay, check. It does zinc in, I don't know, I didn't read the ingredients like you did and thought we're about to, whatever, but.

• 2:25:33Jocko Willink?

  I read the effects.

• 2:25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, got you.

• 2:25:35Jocko Willink?

  Raise my immune system, gonna need that plane, a bunch of dirty people. Not all of you, but many of you.

• 2:25:41Speaker 01

  Many.

• 2:25:41Jocko Willink?

  Sneezing.

• 2:25:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:25:42Jocko Willink?

  Sneezing on everyone, coughing on everyone.

• 2:25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:45Jocko Willink?

  And, and by the way, because I'm gonna go talk to people, I can't be going, I'm Jocko. Or, yeah, I can't do that. I have to actually be able to talk.

• 2:25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, coughing, sneezing, excuse me the whole time.

• 2:25:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I can't be. It's awful if you, if you sneeze or cough when you're on a mic in front of a big group of people. Not cool.

• 2:26:04Speaker 01

  Or if you keep doing it.

• 2:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of.

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  Shroom Tech Immune.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  ShroomTech.com. You know the good stuff, see, okay, yes, on it.com. You want 10% off all this stuff, on it.com slash Jocko. And here's the thing, we just talked about, right now, we talked about krill oil, Shroom Tech Sport, Shroom Tech Immune.

• 2:26:21Jocko Willink?

  Alpha Brain.

• 2:26:22Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, Alpha Brain, bro, we could go all, all night with this. Because of all the good stuff, is what I'm saying. I did, you watched me actually while you were reading.

• 2:26:31Jocko Willink?

  I had Alpha Brain today, and I was thinking you took it, but then when you wanted that long story about something, and I was sort of wondering, maybe he didn't take his Alpha Brain today.

• 2:26:38Speaker 01

  No, then, then when I wrapped it up, you were like, dang, he was on that Alpha Brain the whole time.

• 2:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, he was on that Alpha Brain, I didn't see it.

• 2:26:44Speaker 01

  Alpha Brain.

• 2:26:44Jocko Willink?

  That statement made me think you were on Alpha Brain today. Just because you were able to complete your whole deal right there, I'm gonna give it to you.

• 2:26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, right back.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  Listen to Echo's story, and then when it comes to the closure, you go, bang, and get some of that.

• 2:26:56Speaker 01

  Exactly right. See, I could take lead, take my lead example. You understand what I'm saying? The, so Alpha Brain, if you don't know, because we haven't talked about it as much as

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:06Speaker 01

  I feel like as far as its role in our lives, my life, anyway, I'm speaking for myself. Where you take it, it's called nootropic. It's basically brain food, brain

• 2:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Food.

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  Supplements, you know, like to, to make your brain function better.

• 2:27:21Jocko Willink?

  Uh, too, because I've been taking mostly on it, uh, mostly Alpha Brain in the pack, in the powder. Cause it tastes good.

• 2:27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:28Jocko Willink?

  The peach and the spice. I've been taking it in that more than I, I'm gonna, and I actually ran out of the, uh, pills. The capsules.

• 2:27:36Speaker 01

  Wait, so you let, you'd prefer the capsules, you're saying?

• 2:27:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, sometimes capsules are a little bit more convenient, right?

• 2:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I like it, like.

• 2:27:44Jocko Willink?

  If I'm doing an event or I'm gonna go on a podcast and I didn't, I wanna just be able to bam. Get some Alpha Brainy in the, in the brainy.

• 2:27:52Speaker 01

  See, bro, you're always in a hurry, doing a bunch of stuff, bro, mix it up, a little ritual. You know, like when you brew tea, it's like, I don't know, it's all like spring. Anyway. Either way, they're both the same deal and they're called nootropics. Proven, by the way. I'm not just saying, oh, it feels good for me, so you should take it. I'm not just saying that.

• 2:28:12Jocko Willink?

  Now, when you, you, you say that.

• 2:28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:15Jocko Willink?

  But to me, that means more to me than, I don't know why, but like when you say, oh, it's a double, triple, blind placebo, blah, blah, blah, controlled.

• 2:28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:22Jocko Willink?

  I would rather have like someone that I know say, bro, I'm telling you, take this stuff. Like I did with kro oil to you.

• 2:28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:28:28Jocko Willink?

  That was more important than reading a bunch of facts about it.

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:28:32Jocko Willink?

  If you take someone that you know, and they're saying, look, man, give it a little crack.

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Trust me on this one.

• 2:28:38Speaker 01

  And I think most people have that in one way or another, not with everything, but yeah, like if you recommend a movie or something like that, and, and then meanwhile, look at the reviews, the reviews are like super good, but then you're like, eh, it was junk because of this, because of that. It's like, it's an authentic thing.

• 2:28:53Jocko Willink?

  So long. And I went right to the classic 90s, it's a 90s comedy. What kind of mood is Jocko in when I goes to 90s comedy?

• 2:29:01Speaker 01

  Oh, with Zoolander?

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, man. That's just ridiculous. That's just ridiculous. But I like Owen, is it Owen Wilson in that movie?

• 2:29:08Speaker 01

  No, the other one. Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. I'm, I'm picking Ben Silly.

• 2:29:12Jocko Willink?

  I like that guy, Owen Wilson. He's funny. I like him because he comes across as very, uh, truthful in the way he says things.

• 2:29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, like almost naive.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just like, seems like a good dude to hang out with. He's like, he'd be fun to hang out with.

• 2:29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:27Jocko Willink?

  But he's kinda got this air about him that's.

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  Kinda air heavy, yeah.

• 2:29:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. Nonetheless, back to the alpha brain. I think that when they prove it, I think certain people, certain types of like mindsets or whatever, kinda more gravitate towards that. Like, they're like, okay, that's cool that it worked for you, but that could have been placebo, that could have been this, that could have been your mood that day, whatever. If I'm gonna commit to this, I want some, I want some hard facts. Some people, that's how. So boom, you got the hard facts as well as a legitimate recommendation. Cause I was taking this even before, you know, the podcast and stuff.

• 2:30:01Speaker 01

  So I was into it. Nonetheless, alpha brain, that's a good one. A bunch of other cool stuff. If you're into protein powder, good, clean protein powder on there. All this, all workout stuff too, by the way. I got a bunch of kettlebells. They're primal bells, legend bell, the artistic one, they're dope. Look at my Instagram. There's some on there. Anyway.

• 2:30:23Speaker 01

  That is a good way to support yourself, help yourself, maintain the workouts, physical activity, all that stuff, uh, so you can be successful in that way. I don't think there's any excuse anymore. I, I for real don't.

• 2:30:38Speaker 01

  Also, good way to support, really good way to support, Amazon click through. When you go and get the book,

• 2:30:47Speaker 01

  Conversations with Major Dick Winters.

• 2:30:51Speaker 01

  Go to the website, it's listed there, with, you know, and click through there, boom. So basically it's an Amazon click through, you bite through Amazon, Amazon click through you. Before you do your shopping, click through the website, Amazon, boom, supports the podcast.

• 2:31:05Speaker 01

  Small action, big reaction, cause the click through only takes what?

• 2:31:10Jocko Willink?

  Three seconds, I think we've determined.

• 2:31:12Speaker 01

  Maximum, really? So, you know, give them some leeway, so we'll say three section, seconds, and then the reaction is massive support for this podcast. That's a good way. Amazon click through through the website, jocko podcast dot com, or I think it's on jocko store dot com as well, but just go to jocko podcast dot com. Click through before you do your Amazon shopping. Also, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes if you haven't already. Stitcher, Google Play, all these other podcasting providing platforms.

• 2:31:44Speaker 01

  Also on YouTube. If you don't mind the video version of this podcast, go to YouTube, watch it there. It's kind of cool and adds that other layer of experience.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, everyone seems to do that when there's a guest.

• 2:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:57Jocko Willink?

  Cause they don't know who that person is. They know what you look like. They know what I look like.

• 2:32:00Speaker 01

  Most, most, yeah, most people.

• 2:32:02Jocko Willink?

  Well, if they're listening to the podcast, eventually they know what you look like. They know what I look like.

• 2:32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:06Jocko Willink?

  And so there's no reason sometimes, although sometimes you can see like when certain subjects come up and there's maybe some intensity in the podcast, more people watch it.

• 2:32:17Speaker 01

  I've noticed.

• 2:32:17Jocko Willink?

  But if it's a pretty mellow podcast and we're just talking about whatever we're talking about, maybe not everyone feels the need to go to YouTube. But when a guest comes on, people want to see what that person looks like. And there's usually some more animated interactions.

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah, big time. Yeah, man. So if you're into that.

• 2:32:34Jocko Willink?

  You know what? It'd be cool if you made a little clip of when Tim Kennedy was on and I, I read a question from the audience. It was something along the lines of, I said, I said, you know, hey, you know, they took away bayonet training for bootcamp and Tim Kennedy just goes, god damn it. That's one of my favorite parts of any podcast ever. When you, in that, I would really appreciate it if you'd make that clip, even if it was like 12 seconds long.

• 2:33:03Speaker 01

  Just that part.

• 2:33:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just 12 seconds long. It would be worth having on there because everyone should know that that's a travesty that they stopped doing bayonet courses in army bootcamp.

• 2:33:13Speaker 01

  Alright, you got it. Some people, if they don't hear this exact part, they may be kind of confused, but hey, I think they'll appreciate it. I think so.

• 2:33:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they'll, they'll hear it.

• 2:33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll dig it fully.

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  But there's good animation.

• 2:33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:25Jocko Willink?

  You know, he's getting crazy.

• 2:33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:33:27Jocko Willink?

  Which is fun.

• 2:33:28Speaker 01

  And really in general, just the YouTube, that's an added, like I said, in that added visual layer. You know, if you're down for it, sometimes people, you know, you put it on your TV. Let's say in your garage, you know, you're working out or you're, you know, it's on the TV. It's kind of like you're in the conversation a little bit more. It feels like it.

• 2:33:42Jocko Willink?

  And also if people subscribe to the YouTube channel, then when they can sign up where if you make an excerpt.

• 2:33:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:33:51Jocko Willink?

  Then they can get that. Cause it's cool. And that's a good thing is it's much easier to share an excerpt from the podcast than it is to share an audio. I don't even know how to share an audio piece of a podcast. I don't even know how to do that. It probably can't be done.

• 2:34:05Speaker 01

  Probably that's why we have the YouTube. So yeah, go ahead, subscribe to that one. And speaking of, you mentioned the excerpts. Yeah, you put some excerpts. You can't, if you don't want to share, or you anticipate that this person is not going to listen to two and a half hours of a podcast when you share it. You just get the little lesson, you know, that you want to share. Be like, hey, how to, you know, approach college, you know, whatever. Yeah, that's a popular one.

• 2:34:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause everybody that went to college already wishes they had that when they went to college.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So when they, you know, when they encounter someone who's going to, you know, go to college, their kids or nephew, neighbor, whatever, boom, they have some advice directly from Jocko. Anyway, so yeah, you can share that, subscribe to YouTube. That's the point there. Subscribe to YouTube if you want, and if you want to support. And, you know, if you want, you can sign up for a little alert when I upload something on there.

• 2:34:52Jocko Willink?

  I get those alerts.

• 2:34:53Speaker 01

  You can get after it.

• 2:34:54Jocko Willink?

  Pretty stoked when I see something coming through.

• 2:34:57Speaker 01

  It's like a little present. Anyway, yeah, so YouTube, good one. Um, also Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. jockostore.com, you know, if you want t-shirts and whatnot, discipline equals freedom. The one that simply says get after it on the front. That seemed to have gone over pretty well, I'd say.

• 2:35:18Jocko Willink?

  Well, and also it seems worth noting that we now offer the victory MMA shirt.

• 2:35:29Speaker 01

  The Jocko uniform.

• 2:35:30Jocko Willink?

  That I wear all the time.

• 2:35:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:35:32Jocko Willink?

  I wear it when I record the podcast. I wear it all the time. We, you know, obviously because we have our gym.

• 2:35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:39Jocko Willink?

  We have a lot of t-shirts that say our gym's name on it. And so I wear that t-shirt a lot.

• 2:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:45Jocko Willink?

  And I always have.

• 2:35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:46Jocko Willink?

  And then I, I didn't intentionally do it on the podcast in the beginning. I just happened to be wearing it two or three times.

• 2:35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:53Jocko Willink?

  And then someone said, is that the only shirt Jocko wears?

• 2:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:35:56Jocko Willink?

  And at that point I said, why, yes, it is.

• 2:35:59Speaker 01

  No, man. You're like the guy on The Fly. Remember the movie The Fly?

• 2:36:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:03Speaker 01

  And the lady's like, what was her African name? She's like, hey, is that your only set of clothes? Or something like that? And she sees in his closet that they're all the same.

• 2:36:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, that is me.

• 2:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:13Jocko Willink?

  I like to have the things that are the same. But people would come and ask me, hey, where can I get the T-shirt? Where can I get the T-shirt? So now we put it on the Jocko store.

• 2:36:22Speaker 01

  Strangely, they didn't even have them at Victory. Cause people would come in and be like, hey, we want you.

• 2:36:26Jocko Willink?

  This is the thing. This is old school. This is an original, this is the original Victory MMA T-shirt. And we had to reproduce it.

• 2:36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:35Jocko Willink?

  So it's a reissue.

• 2:36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and all.

• 2:36:38Jocko Willink?

  Which is dope in its own respect, right?

• 2:36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. So I'm trying to think, like, is that, you know, it's not because it's the exact same design.

• 2:36:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  It's the exact design. It's literally the exact same, like, design.

• 2:36:49Jocko Willink?

  The same file, right?

• 2:36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Boom.

• 2:36:52Jocko Willink?

  So you can get that one if you want it.

• 2:36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:54Jocko Willink?

  You can represent.

• 2:36:55Speaker 01

  Represent big time. It's good. It's interesting because yours are like old school. So they kind of have like a fade to them, you know?

• 2:37:01Jocko Willink?

  The new ones look sharp.

• 2:37:02Speaker 01

  So you get the new one, they're like, ooh, gleaming.

• 2:37:04Jocko Willink?

  They look sharp.

• 2:37:04Speaker 01

  Beaming.

• 2:37:05Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna grab a couple of those too, by the way.

• 2:37:07Speaker 01

  Alright, well, just.

• 2:37:08Jocko Willink?

  Because I was running low when I would hate to have other things in my, what's that called when you have clothes?

• 2:37:14Speaker 01

  Wardrobe.

• 2:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:37:18Speaker 01

  Good thinking, Jocko. Anyway, jockostore.com, check those out. Some other new stuff, stuff, things, items on there. Let me talk about this mug. I'm not gonna take too much time because we've been, you know, we've been going at it. So this, this travel mug right here. So you know how, you know how at home, you know, you have your cup? You see what I'm saying?

• 2:37:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:38Speaker 01

  But you know what I'm talking about, the one that you use.

• 2:37:41Jocko Willink?

  You know what? I have actually, my wife once, she searched forever to get me a cup that I like. And she found it.

• 2:37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:48Jocko Willink?

  And then she went to Target and bought, you know, a dozen of them. They're big, giant, plastic, but feel like glass, whatever that is, acrylic or something.

• 2:37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:37:56Jocko Willink?

  Can't break, but you can, but they, they feel good in your hand. So I have a bunch of those. But apparently it's getting replaced.

• 2:38:01Speaker 01

  Yes, so strangely, I had the same thing. Well, I was on the same search. So I had this one, what I arrived at, my favorite cup was pink because they didn't have any other colors. It was pink, but it was big. It was like, maybe like 24 ounce, like big cup. That's what I used for everything. It was pink, whatever. That, that meant nothing to me compared to the.

• 2:38:21Jocko Willink?

  Your manhood.

• 2:38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Compared, compared to the functionality, the pink was nothing. Um, but here's the thing, it could barely fit in my cup holder, you know, the kind like you put it in, but it was like kind of stuck. You'd have to, oh, fine. But that was the cup. That was the best one. You use any other cup, you just, I don't know.

• 2:38:36Jocko Willink?

  How you doing now?

• 2:38:38Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get to that. So, but you know what I mean though. So you know exactly what I mean, where you, you know, you have your cup. I don't, where's my, it could be dirty. There could be cups everywhere, all available. You're like, no, I'm gonna go ahead and wash this, you know, and I'm gonna use my cup. That's it. This one, okay, we'll talk about this, this mug. It's technically what a travel tumbler, right?

• 2:38:56Jocko Willink?

  Been heard it.

• 2:38:57Speaker 01

  Whatever, you know, comes with the top, all that stuff. But you take all the top, boom, that's a cup too. Ergonomically conducive to just using it as a cup. You know how if you have like threads in there to screw on a top? There's no threads, it's like, yeah, it's like a thing. Anyway, and that's not to mention the look, black on black. What they call it murdered out. You ever heard that expression murdered out?

• 2:39:19Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:39:20Speaker 01

  Try Google, if you have time, Google murdered out Cadillac car.

• 2:39:23Jocko Willink?

  Tell me what it is.

• 2:39:24Speaker 01

  It's a flat matte.

• 2:39:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:39:26Speaker 01

  Painting with black wheels. So it's basically all black tinted, when it's all black. So that's, this thing is murdered out technically. Flat, black, matte with like the logo, the four thirty-four and the discipline equals room is like shiny black.

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  Black on black.

• 2:39:43Speaker 01

  Very nice. Very nice. So, and that's just the design. So function wise, perfect, thirty ounces, not twenty-four, thirty, straight up.

• 2:39:53Speaker 01

  And it, what is it, BPA free, all this, so you don't get poisoned over time. Come on, bro, that's a big thing. And also, okay, and here's the impressive part, when I ultimately was like, dang, like impressed. I guess this is like a technology that's kind of been around, but I didn't know, because I had that plastic cup, you know, whatever. This, it'll keep, it'll separate the temperatures from inside and outside. So the inside temperature won't leak to the outside, meaning it keeps like, if you have ice and cold stuff in here, bro.

• 2:40:21Jocko Willink?

  Means it's insulated.

• 2:40:22Speaker 01

  It'll, yeah, but it's insulated in a special crazy way. If you, and this is with no top on, by the way, you fill it up with ice, your ice water, you know, this is what I did one time. I finished like, it was maybe three quarters of it, still some water in there. And I just, I kind of left it, went to bed. The next day, I looked at it and the ice was still in there.

• 2:40:46Speaker 01

  And yeah, sure, that doesn't mean that much, but as far as proving how it keeps the temperature, bro, that's a lot, straight up. Also, it doesn't like sweat, you know, when you have a cold drink on a, on a, yeah, if it's on your desk.

• 2:40:59Jocko Willink?

  If you're working, yeah.

• 2:41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41:00Jocko Willink?

  Screw some stuff up.

• 2:41:01Speaker 01

  Hot day, whatever, humid, it's like, yeah, it doesn't even do that, doesn't do that at all. One time, I was outside at the pool, whatever, cruising, ice water, actually, it was Jocko White Tea, boom.

• 2:41:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:41:14Speaker 01

  We'll get to that too, but so, you know, I leave it there and it's in the sun and I grab it and I'm like, oh, my, this is gonna be totally melted because I'm feeling it, the, the cup, physically feeling the outside of the cup. And it's straight up hot, the sun is beaming on it, it's hot. If I look inside, ice, still the full on ice, not even melted at all.

• 2:41:36Jocko Willink?

  Well.

• 2:41:37Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, when you replace your cup.

• 2:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Happy that you're happy with this cup.

• 2:41:40Speaker 01

  I'm telling you right now, when you replace this cup, you're gonna find all these benefits to it above and beyond just the dope look and size. And it fits in your cup holder, straight up. See how it's like the shape?

• 2:41:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cool. All right, next, next thing.

• 2:41:56Speaker 01

  I feel like we could talk about this a little bit more.

• 2:41:58Jocko Willink?

  I know you like it, I'm glad you like it. I like it too.

• 2:42:01Speaker 01

  All right, next time we'll talk more about it.

• 2:42:02Jocko Willink?

  Utilizing it actually, and I, I'm impressed. My tea, my iced tea is still icy.

• 2:42:07Speaker 01

  Bro, I've been getting down with this cup mug for a long time, man. Thoroughly impressed. Anyway. So, yeah, we got some, we got that on the Jocko Store, jockostore.com, we got it on there. Also,

• 2:42:20Speaker 01

  should we talk about the Warrior Kid shirts?

• 2:42:24Jocko Willink?

  You can talk about that.

• 2:42:25Speaker 01

  All right, they're on there too, Warrior Kid shirts, youth sizes for your kids. Boom, there it is.

• 2:42:32Jocko Willink?

  Very, very cool. Warrior Kids out there.

• 2:42:35Speaker 01

  There's some layers in that one too, that I just found out, by the way. Your contribution, the colors and whatnot. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Don't worry about that. Go ahead, check it out. Again, jockostore.com, there's some rash guards on there, new rash guards out.

• 2:42:50Speaker 01

  Maybe they're out. Hoodies, we're kind of getting into like a spring, I mean, maybe summer pretty soon, so hoodies might not be as applicable. Either way, they're on there.

• 2:42:59Jocko Willink?

  We need to start prepping the winter hoodies that I'm gonna be more in charge of this time, so that they're heavier and more powerful.

• 2:43:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz you're thinking New England winter.

• 2:43:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I am. I'm also thinking Chicago and Minnesota and Iowa. I'm not thinking Kawhi over here. If I was in Kawhi, I wouldn't even wear a shirt, much less a sweatshirt.

• 2:43:18Speaker 01

  Bruh, that was my whole point. You're like, hoodies, I was like, Bruh, what is that?

• 2:43:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you knew what it was.

• 2:43:23Speaker 01

  Actually, my wife knows what hoodies are, so I just consulted with her. Nonetheless, jockoestar.com, there's some cool stuff on there, travel mugs, shirts, cool shirts, support that way, and you know, you get a little item, represent in the wild. Boom. Also, support yourself with this one. Psychological Warfare. If you don't know what that is, which I know you already do, but if you don't, it's an album with tracks, no music, it's Jocko on there. And these tracks are useful, these are utility, what do you call them? Functional, tactical tracks to help you stay on the path. You know, we talked about getting distracted. Some people, they'll get distracted by comfort. You know, like, the path.

• 2:44:04Jocko Willink?

  The path isn't comfort.

• 2:44:06Speaker 01

  Is riddled with discomfort, riddled. And sometimes, after a while, that discomfort can get to certain people at certain times. So what this Psychological Warfare album does is, it keeps you on the path. So, for example, you wanna wake up every day early, that one day, you're distracted by the comfort of hitting the snooze button, getting 10 more, 20 more minutes of sleep. That's bad, that's a distraction, that's a deviation from the path. Listen to Psychological Warfare. Uh, what's the number? Number one, I think.

• 2:44:43Jocko Willink?

  Get up and get after it.

• 2:44:44Speaker 01

  Get up and get, listen to that. Put it as your alarm. I dare you to hit snooze, dare you. Jocko will just tell you practically in a practical pragmatic way why you should not hit this news boom um I would say with hundred percent certainty that you will not hit this news and you will stay on the path and that goes for all these other things deviating from diet deviating from pushing yourself in a workout deviating from

• 2:45:10Jocko Willink?

  Going to the gym in the first place?

• 2:45:12Speaker 01

  Going exactly right or if you have like this procrastination situation oh man that's that's the main one that you know like how you're always like hey I should I need to do this I should do this

• 2:45:23Jocko Willink?

  Just start doing it

• 2:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah procrastination is pretty much the thing that's gonna keep you from doing it nonetheless if you procrastinate this hey got a little solution for you too anyway psychological warfare Jocko Willink look for it on iTunes or Amazon Music by the way it's a good one

• 2:45:41Jocko Willink?

  That's pretty cool also while you're on Amazon you can get this book that we just covered today conversations with major dick winners Jocko White Tea is also available on Amazon if you don't want to drink sodas

• 2:45:59Speaker 01

  Yep

• 2:46:00Jocko Willink?

  Which no one should be drinking sodas at all you don't need them they're they're actually horrible for you

• 2:46:07Speaker 01

  Bro remember when we were eating sushi in New York and busted out the Coke?

• 2:46:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah I was I was gonna actually just I didn't I was surprised

• 2:46:15Speaker 01

  I thought that you weren't gonna be my friend anymore in like in real life

• 2:46:18Jocko Willink?

  I couldn't believe it so anyways Echo has this tradition which to me sounds like a a sugar coated lie

• 2:46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 2:46:26Jocko Willink?

  That when he eats sushi he has a glass bottle of Coke so he did that um I overcame my hatred for him the best I could it's kinda like when I was talking today about like hey if you're a vet you can't look at everyone like hey this person's just I had to be like okay Echo's not a bad person he's just mentally weak right now and we'll just deal with it don't drink that drink Jocko White Tea which actually tastes better than Coke There's no doubt that it tastes better than Coke.

• 2:46:54Speaker 01

  Subjective, but sure.

• 2:46:56Jocko Willink?

  Are you serious right now?

• 2:46:58Speaker 01

  I'm saying better is a subjective.

• 2:47:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that everyone agrees with in the world. Put it side by side, taste test.

• 2:47:05Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:47:05Jocko Willink?

  We'll go.

• 2:47:06Speaker 01

  Boom.

• 2:47:07Jocko Willink?

  Guarantee everybody says, give me that, give me the, give me the Jocka White Tea. They don't want that syrup and sugar.

• 2:47:14Speaker 01

  I think you might be 147% correct.

• 2:47:17Jocko Willink?

  I know, absolutely. We'll do a taste test. Only you can taste the Coke, because I'm not, I'm not touching my lips to that stuff. Nasty.

• 2:47:25Speaker 01

  Alright, you're the man.

• 2:47:26Jocko Willink?

  One time they had a, we, we have a PT situation, we call it a Monster Mash.

• 2:47:31Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:47:31Jocko Willink?

  And it's, you just do a bunch of crazy events, pull-ups and rope climbs and carry boats around and swim. And we were doing it when I was the, the, oh, the officer in charge of trade at. And so, yeah, the, oh, I see a trade at. So I brought my son with me. And they had did this Monster Mash, and one of the things you had to do in the Monster Mash, and this thing's being timed and so racing all that stuff. You had to drink a full Coca-Cola through a straw. So my son's doing the Monster Mash, and he's probably seven or something like that. And he'd never even had a Coke before.

• 2:48:02Speaker 01

  It burned his mouth, probably.

• 2:48:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and he, he just hated it. It was so nasty to him. That's how I looked at you the other day. I was like, dude, you're making me sick. So, Jocka White Tea, you know, go on there, read the reviews as well. You know, you'll see things like this, excellent tea, when I need to crush and power through the work, I brew me some Jocka White Tea. If I need a little extra kick to crush it.

• 2:48:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what I do. I've begun working fewer hours at the office as my productivity has risen 900%. That's pretty legit.

• 2:48:36Speaker 01

  Actual numbers, yeah.

• 2:48:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and obviously that's a 100% accurate, because it came from an Amazon review, so. And, and actually, there's a warning as well. Caution regarding this product, leaving your supply of Jocka White Tea out in the open will require overwatch. I now have non tea drinkers hitting my reserves almost as badly as dedicated tea drinkers. No double blind study required, right? That's, this is the thing, it doesn't taste like tea, right? It doesn't taste like tea, in my opinion. It tastes like, tastes like victory. But it doesn't taste like tea. So that's that, Jocka White Tea, you can get it on amazon.com. Way the Warrior Kid, the book is out, as you know, thank you for getting it.

• 2:49:23Jocko Willink?

  Kids have been crushing it. It's awesome. That's one of my favorite things that has happened to me in the past several years, is people started posting pictures of their kids reading Way the Warrior Kid.

• 2:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:37Jocko Willink?

  And that was awesome for me to see. And I'll tell you why it was awesome. Cause I know, I know those kids are reading that book. And they're thinking that they're gonna get a little bit better and a little bit stronger and a little bit faster and a little bit smarter. And they're gonna, and people are sending me pictures of kids doing pushups and kids doing, a guy sent me a video of his kid, you know how you have little night vision in your kid's room so you can monitor them?

• 2:50:07Speaker 01

  Oh, like on a little monitor?

• 2:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a little monitor thing. He sent me a picture, a video of the monitor, the kids in the room after nighttime, after bedtime. Guess what the kid's doing? Pushups. He's doing pushups. Why? He wants to get stronger, wants to get better. So, yeah, get that. If you've got kids, get it for them. If you're an adult, that's cool. Get it anyways. Adults have a lot to learn from Uncle Jake, myself included. So, run out, go to your local bookstore. And grab copies. If they don't have it in your local bookstore, tell them to get it.

• 2:50:43Jocko Willink?

  So that other kids can see it and get it.

• 2:50:47Jocko Willink?

  Let's make people better. Also, you can preorder Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Again, you can find it in the get after it section of any bookstore or online bookseller. It is the only book in that section. If your bookstore doesn't have that section, which it probably won't tell them to get after it and make one. And then put Discipline Equals Freedom there and get a copy of it for yourself.

• 2:51:12Jocko Willink?

  Extreme Ownership, yes, the fundamental principles of combat leadership. They will help you win in any capacity on the battlefield, on the beat, in business, in life. Extreme Ownership, written by myself and my brother Leif Babin. You can get that book as well.

• 2:51:31Jocko Willink?

  If you need more than the podcast and the book, that's fine. It's okay.

• 2:51:36Jocko Willink?

  Contact our leadership and management consulting company, Echelon Front. [email protected]. Now, the muster.

• 2:51:45Jocko Willink?

  The muster. We just got done with muster 002 in New York City. What's your assessment, Echo Charles?

• 2:51:51Speaker 01

  My assessment was that it was an upgrade. It is. It was an upgrade from the first one. And that's saying a lot because that first one was good. I was like, dang, that was really impactful. To the kind where, and I don't really say like, oh, this event was impactful. I don't use that word. Not because I'm above it or nothing like that, but I'm just saying to say it, it gotta be for real. So that first one was, I was like, dang, this, this is really good. From top to bottom, like even, okay, the material, boom, it's like all usable material, all of it. And then, like I always say, and I think people overlook this part a lot of time, like just the social element. It's so easy to make friends with everyone because they all kind of have the same kind of interesting goals. In one way or another, there's going to be some overlap there.

• 2:52:36Speaker 01

  The jujitsu part was fun too, you know, it's like, it's just this great event, you know? And then the second one, and I wasn't, I'm gonna be honest with you. I wasn't as fired up because it was in New York. It's like outside of the comfort zone. The first one here, San Diego, I was like, oh, sweet. Probably was like, it was even better. That's, that, this past one was better.

• 2:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was getting great feedback. Awesome. And like you said, I think the important, well, one of the most important things that you just said is it's very pragmatic. It's not like... It's not like, hey, you're gonna learn some stuff, but it's not gonna be really applicable. No, no, no. It's gonna be applicable. When you walk out, when you finish that section and we get done talking about it, boom, you can, you can implement that immediately.

• 2:53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. You guys have like a lot of military stories and examples, you know? And then, but when you go to the Q and A, like all the people with their, their questions, not one of them is military. It's all work, maybe relationship, maybe here and there, but it's like at work. You know, like, what do I do?

• 2:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and exactly in every one of those situations, we, we answer them. I'd say we answer them with both business examples that we've experienced and military examples. But yeah, you, you absolutely, we've seen, this is the thing. We've seen it happen before. Whatever that little issue is that you've, you're having, I've seen it before, you know, I've seen it before. I've seen something like it. We'll be able to find an answer, come to a conclusion and move forward with the techniques, the principles that we talk about in Extreme Ownership. But it's like this, Extreme Ownership, the book, is an awesome way to get the fundamental principles. But when you come to the event, now you can really personalize it. You know, you can really make sense of it. It's just like learning jujitsu. Like, it's cool. Yeah, watch the YouTube videos. Also go to class, also go to the seminar.

• 2:54:17Jocko Willink?

  Learn it from as many different angles as you can, because the more angles you learn it from, the better you, the more proficient you'll be at applying them to your world.

• 2:54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, yeah, and that's not, you know, you talk about jujitsu. Another cool part about it is, you know, when we teach the jujitsu on the last day, like you can come and actually like roll, try to choke Jocko.

• 2:54:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you come and bring it.

• 2:54:39Speaker 01

  You did, that's kind of, you know, because think about it, most times, like if you go to like a, you know, you can't go try to choke the guy at the end of it, you know?

• 2:54:49Jocko Willink?

  You can't say like, um, hey, I'm gonna go see this concert and then afterwards, I'm gonna pick up a guitar and play, you know, the solos with, you know, Eric Clapton.

• 2:54:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right.

• 2:54:59Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't happen. This you can't.

• 2:55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is like, like actually choking up the person, you know? So that's like an added element, you know? I mean, I got to roll with like plenty of the guys, man. It's, it's just so cool to be like, oh yeah, you know, we talk and we talk about this and then get it on afterwards, you know?

• 2:55:14Jocko Willink?

  And so anyways, if you didn't make it to New York City, which was awesome, Times Square, we had a great time. The next one we're having July 13th and 14th in Austin, Texas, the Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa. Now, this is one thing that it just is what it is. In New York, we, we were planning to do like 350 people. And then we sold that out. We opened it up for another 50. And we, and we, and we had to expand our room to get that. And then that sold out. And so then we, we rearranged the, or the, the situation in there to get more people in there. It looks like in Austin, we're capped. We can't get any bigger than the room that we've got.

• 2:55:55Jocko Willink?

  And so it's 350. So if you want to come, sign up quick, uh, before it gets sold out. Cause there's no way we can expand it into more people. So just be, be aware of that. If you can't make that for 13th and 14th, July 13th and 14th in Austin, Texas. San Diego, California, September 14th and 15th, we're back in San Diego for follow-on operations. So come and get it. While you're waiting for the muster, if you need to pass communications to myself or Echo Charles, we can be found on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram. Plus, we on that Facebooky.

• 2:56:39Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to everyone for listening to the podcast, for sharing the podcast, for supporting the podcast. We really do appreciate it. Thanks to military personnel out there that are protecting our freedoms overseas.

• 2:57:00Jocko Willink?

  And also the law enforcement, the firefighters, EMTs, first responders that keep us safe here at home. Thanks to you all.

• 2:57:12Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone, whatever your mission might be.

• 2:57:21Jocko Willink?

  Let's think about Dick Winner's personal quest. Very simple. To excel in everything he did.

• 2:57:31Jocko Willink?

  Excel in everything he did, we should do the same. Excel in everything we do.

• 2:57:41Jocko Willink?

  From working to working out.

• 2:57:46Jocko Willink?

  From the way we treat people

• 2:57:51Jocko Willink?

  to the way we treat ourselves.

• 2:57:55Jocko Willink?

  Excel.

• 2:57:59Jocko Willink?

  Put forth your greatest effort in everything you do. From the small, seemingly meaningless tasks to the big goals.

• 2:58:10Jocko Willink?

  As you attack those goals, or as those goals start to grind you down, remember the obsessive, pure, determined effort

• 2:58:24Jocko Willink?

  that Dick Winters taught us all.

• 2:58:28Jocko Willink?

  And go out there

• 2:58:31Jocko Willink?

  and get after it.

• 2:58:36Jocko Willink?

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